To say that the World can be "run" means there are structures that can exercise control based on pyramid-type chains of command.
Those structures are: the military, corporations, global religions and royal families.
The military, today, is mainly from the United States (I'll come back to it).
Corporations mingle a lit bit more.
Here's a study that fingers the top 50 (they control 40% of the
worldwide economy). The top 10 are:
1 BARCLAYS PLC (Great Britain)
2 CAPITAL GROUP COMPANIES INC, THE (US)
3 FMR CORP (US)
4 AXA (France)
5 STATE STREET CORPORATION (US)
6 JPMORGAN CHASE & CO. (US)
7 LEGAL & GENERAL GROUP PLC (Great Britain)
8 VANGUARD GROUP, INC., THE (US)
9 UBS AG (Switzerland)
10 MERRILL LYNCH & CO., INC. (US)
I'd say the financial sector is the operator of the world. It deals directly with sovereign debt and money supply. They can wield this power to
stabilize, but also to destabilize when the opportunity appears. They have the top minds in the world thinking strategically down the line, making up
scenarios for the future. That is why they deal so well with crisis, while the population suffers.
Then we have the military. The United States military is the largest, most well funded and most technologically advanced military, maybe in human
history. The military reaches out to a lot of places in search of the best and brightest. They pick "America's best" to serve on the most sensitive
missions they can think of. I would argue that Military Special Operations are truly creating super-humans. But they don't rule; they operate. When
they leave the front lines and move upwards in rank, they start the type of strategic planning that is the core of US military power. When they
retire, they go into the financial or contractor business, and keep doing that job. The military and the corporations, I would say, are the managers
of the world. They might try to steer the world, but that is harder to do by themselves. They don't have access to all of the power channels.
Combined, however, they can operate completely in the shadows. The logistics potential from the combination of the biggest financial institutions and
the US military is truly astounding if you think about it. So they're great "tools" for anyone ambitious enough to use them.
The Vatican, I would say, is the one of the last centralized religious institutions in the world. They wield immense power because they can really get
into the people's minds. A religious rule set is, for some people, the sole path to happiness and fulfillment. The Vatican still has deep secrets
(their bank, for starters) and it certainly deals with a very long timeframe. Its strategy, what it does, has roots going back thousands of years, and
they might be looking into thousands of years in the future.
Then comes the royal families. The royal families of the Netherlands and Britain still hold power over crucial parts of the world -
mainly tax
havens. So the money is really still under their control. They also deal with large timeframes, going back centuries, probably going forward
centuries as well.
The population in general can't think about these problems. These long-term, strategic, global problems. They think about their families,
about their work, maybe they have some life philosophy that dictates how to live their life. If they go to the military, or do some charitable work in
Africa, they feel good about their "role in the world affairs". If they join Neighborhood Watch, they feel like they're contributing to their
community. But if a crisis comes, they will be hit. They will destabilize. They don't think a lot about politics. They choose a party and stick to
the line, and feel like they belong. Or they simply don't care at all about politics. They have a faint idea of what the environment issues are. They
have the faintest idea of what the geopolitical worldwide issues are. They lump together the Middle East, they can probably find countries on a world
map but can't say 20 words about any one of them. National history is just dates.
The population turns to "leaders", for guidance. Leaders can be great people, but they can also be a product of propaganda. In fact propaganda
utilizes these "leaders" to steer large amounts of people towards some goal. Where do these leaders come from? Well, I'd say the military,
corporations, organized religion and royal families. So they rule us and turn to us for support! That is why a lot of people get really puzzled on
what's going on.
I don't rule out an extraterrestrial presence, by the way, but I think that we can gain a lot by just looking at some basic facts before trying to
speculate... I'm sorry if this is a bit confusing... This is a great exercise though.