To the Republicans complaining about the billions the US is sending to Ukraine
I’m going to share with a private opinion from a knowledgeable European official I know
Basically, he starts off smiling and saying the US are “absolutely ruthless” with regard to the Ukraine war
1
I reponded that America is footing most of the bill for this
He laughed, hard
He said: win, lose or draw, the Americans win
Main points
-“Money” being sent to Ukraine is mostly in form of arms/weapons
-They’re sent via “lend-lease” meaning Ukraine will have to pay it back
2
-It wasn’t until after Ukraine showed that it would not be occupied by Russia, that the US committed big budgets and armaments
-After the war, the EU will be on the hook for rebuilding Ukraine, integrating them into the union and thus helping pay back the US lend-lease arms
3
-The US is passing off older, strategically obsolete weapons which would eventually be replaced (HIMARS)
-The US didn’t part with any of their most effective and technologically advanced systems (helicopers, planes)
-NATO is strengthened under US leadership
4
-America will achieve all its strategic objectives on the cheap
-Europe will need to invest in their military which will mean big business for the US
-Russian armaments have been exposed as inferior so Russia will lose global marketshare to the US military industry
5
-Europe is essentially decoupled from the Russian energy tit, creating a huge opportunity for US LNG
-Europe falls completely out of Russian influence
-The Russian military is grounded down by Ukraine with no American soldiers dying
-Russia finished as a threat to US influence
6
-The US can now focus all military attention towards containing China
-This is also a wakeup call for EU to take China seriously as a military adversary
-EU-China relations have been set back decades in terms of cooperation
7
-The days of the US having to twist the EU’s arm to not let Huawei build their 5G system are over
-China’s slow moving influence campaign into Europe is essentially done
-China now needs to think much harder about invading Taiwan…both militarily and strategically (sanctions)
8
The conclusion was that whatever the actual costs to the US, it’s peanuts compared to the accomplishment of these strategic objectives which will be reaping dividends for years to come
Ultimately the EU will shoulder most of the suffering while the US reaps the benefits
9
Some people are asking me for proof…it’s an analysis…and it’s by someone else
You can fact check the lend-lease aspect but even if it’s not repaid it doesn’t change the main point
I did a deepdive on this in May but didn’t touch much on geopolitics
Not actually intelligent so much as consensus generating tools that sound really smart
“Training” them helps, but defeats the purpose as it’ll just reinforce your biases
Beware the consensus of experts…that’s AI in a nutshell
I don’t hate AI
It’s brilliant insofar as it can automate monotonous intellectual activity we have to constantly reinvent like writing letters, proposals, contracts or doing basic problem solving
But it’s not intelligent
It mimics intelligence as thinking is trial and error
And this trial and error, given enough computing power can generate incredible content/generational insight
But that’s not intelligence
I think it would be more accurate to call it AW: Artificial Wisdom
If you read anything today it should be this developing story as what I'm about to share with you is real and should scare the bleep out of you...please bear with me
On Sunday, Romania was stunned by the results of the first round of it Presidential elections (whereby the top two candidates will move on to a runoff in a second round)
The winner with 23% of the vote is a largely unknown independent candidate named Calin Georgescu
Who is he? That's a question everybody in Romania is asking themselves at the moment...and are quite shocked at what they're finding out
Afterall, Georgescu's campaign had no budget and in late October was polling under 3%. How did he accomplish this? More on this in a second...
I had never heard of him so I listened to one of this interviews online. I can best describe what I saw as an intelligent, charismatic, well-spoken, christian-nationalist with a populist message about returning dignity and prosperity to Romania
So my first impression was: okay, I understand how that can be appealing to voters. This is in line with trends in many western democracies
That is until I dug a little deeper and looked into Georgescu's history...I was shocked
Georgescu is essentially an adept of Aleksandr Dugin (Dughin)'s philosophy which champions a Eurasian-led (Russian) resistance against Western liberalism/democracy, promoting traditional values and global multipolarity...which is a fancy way of describing a Russian-specific form of neofascism developed by Russia's hard right (even right of Putin)...but again, none of this was communicated during the campaign as he went largely under the radar and reporters ignored him
Here are some of Georgescu's views:
- Ukraine is an invented state
- Vladimir Putin is a man who loves his country
- Romania's anti-missile shield is a "diplomatic shame"
- The Legionnaires (WW2 era fascists that participated in the holocaust) are heroes of Romania
So why should you be concerned, beyond the obvious fact that this guy promotes an far-right anti-western ideology?
This should not have been possible in Romania
First, Romanian suffered for 45 years under the most oppressive communist regime in Eastern Europe which required a bloody revolution to topple. Romanians are no fans of Russia and have been overwhelmingly pro-EU, pro-NATO and pro-western. These results are shocking for Romanians
Second is how Georgescu managed this meteoric rise in only one month: social media, but specifically TikTok
Exit polls complete the picture of this phenomenon by showing the demographic that voted for him:
-31% of young people aged 18-24 voted for Calin Georgescu, in contrast to only 8% of voters over 65 who chose him
-Younger voters up to 44 years old were more mobilized to vote for Călin Georgescu than those over 45
-Men and women did not differ in voting intention;
-20% of people with primary education or no education, and 23% with just secondary education voted for Călin Georgescu
-His electorate consists of many low-propensity voters
In other words, it's largely a young and uneducated segment of the population that gets it information from social media and is too young to remember the communist history of living under Soviet oppression during the cold war
This is the clearest case yet of the dangers of social media, as the growing authoritarian threats of China, Russia and Iran are broadcasting their influence directly into the living rooms of western audiences...especially less informed youth
This is an extreme case study for what has been taking place in the west for the past 15 years
First it was radical progressive neomarxism that started taking root online in the early-2010s and we now have an entire generation of millennials that were indoctrinated into an extremist leftist ideology. Now we're just starting to see the reverse taking place as a small but very loud far right movement starts to take hold online
It's just far easier to see this phenom in Romania as it is country that is highly religious, does not have migrant problems or issues with muslim minorities. In other words, this isn't a backlash or rejecting of the type of woke progressive policies that have come to dominate and polarize the US and Western Europe. Romania is also a very pro-western country overall
And this isn't an issue about the left or right as we traditionally understand it. It is one of a coordinated attack on western liberal democracies aimed at promoting chaos and polarization. This is free speech and open societies being weaponized against freedom in the west
This story is so bizarre that western media does not even know how to report on it yet
I hope you take note of this story and think of it as you consider the crazy polarization that has taken hold in the West.
Social media is a uniquely powerful tool of propaganda and is hacking our brains with effects (not just on politics) that will have devastating consequences for future generations
And the fact that there are authoritarian states like Russia and China that are weaponizing it against our societies, particularly our youth, should scare the bleep out of you
For example, Romania media today:
"Why we didn't see Călin Georgescu. The hypothesis of Russian interference is valid, but not sufficient."
These kinds of posts use the same simplistic logic as the progressive left
I said nothing about free speech here…I believe in free speech
There’s no nuance, no acknowledgement my actual point
Makes you wonder why people on the right have suddenly abandoned critical thinking