Why deterrence doesn't work anymore

For most of recorded civilized human history; mankind has been living in A System - but these Systems, like the organisms of biology, were overall orientated towards survival, growth, spread. This is why there is a degree of cyclical nature to history - despite that time is linear, and history never repeats because human nature/ human consciousness is changing and developing. 

But for the past few generations The System has become - for the first time ever - a self-consuming, self-destroying thing. Not, therefore, like a biological organism; but like a host that has been purposively and motivationally hijacked by a parasite without foresight: a parasite that will seek its own thriving until the host is killed.  

The partially-cyclical nature of history is broken in a world of Systemic value-inversion; and thus a world where self-hatred and suicide are baked-in. A world where the "bourgeois" and the "rebels" are two sides of the same coin - and where the "rebels" have indeed been created, shaped, controlled, and promoted to rulership by those who control The System.

All of this means that common sense is no longer operative; including such common sense motivations as deterrence* - or even expedience. Even the idea of "enlightened self-interest" - of medium- long-term selfishness as a prime motivator, is no longer operative - either at the individual or at the national level. 

This applies almost totally in The West; where leaders and the masses alike operate under a combination of extreme short-termism that - in practice - reflects primarily socially-manipulated and malleable attitudes; with a pseudo-long-termism that consists of Total Lies.  

Because the effectiveness of deterrence requires both sides to operate under the same motivational-system; then when the West is orientated against Systemic self-preservation; then the "common sense2 and historical power of deterrence is gone.  

As may be seen in the actuality and trends of geopolitics over the past couple of years. 

There is a still-escalating global conflict between the domination of various old-style self-preserving and traditional organism-like societies; versus the parasite-controlled and self/other destruction-orientated Western civilization. 

And, at present, it is unclear who will win this conflict - although it is much easier and quicker to destroy than it is to preserve and sustain.   

It is biologically difficult and rare to reproduce and raise a healthy organism to maturity, then to maintain it alive - and only a narrow range of options for achieving this; but it is simple and easy to organisms, and by innumerable effective methods.

*By deterrence I mean not only the military doctrine between nations or power blocs; but also the ordinary inter-personal deterrence that (in both types) tends to prevent initiation and escalation of hostilities, aggression and violence. As a relevant aside; deterrence is more-or-less effective - at least in the short-term - among almost all normal humans of the past - except for the genuinely psychotic. Which confirms that mainstream modern Man is literally insane.