Time for a stream of consciousness post. Grab a drink & settle in if reading this. Long post unfolding.
A close friend of many years dropped by & we spent several hours talking. One topic that dominated the conversation was Europe & the war in Ukraine. My friend is formerly very left of center & was pro Trump even before me in 2016. His wife is a refugee from Cambodia. Her parents & siblings (whole family) fled the Vietnam war & the red purges. Just some background on where he’s coming from & the lens he sees through. Very empathetic guy, & very rational & level headed.
You all know my background & most of you have followed me for years. He & met in ‘06 when i started working at the same contract team on a US Army post & have been close friends ever since. Fellow Christians, but its been super interesting watching his politics evolve. He was a two time obama voter & former Cali resident. Very #maga & #maha today, & is an OG #maga. Along the way we went from him very leftwing pro obama pro gun control etc, & myself being typical normie Republican GW voter. I first was able to vote in ‘96 btw- & i viewed politics from the Clintons & scandals & democrats bad, the hate America crowd bad, etc. Very Naive to the uniparty, & very ‘our side good, their side bad’. Black & white. My friendship with this coworker extends well beyond work. We worked at three different places together & share a ton of common interests. Along the way our free form discussions have dramatically evolved both of our thinking across the spectrum on all topics.
Tonight’s talk about Europe, the war in Ukraine, economics, & history— WWI & WWII & its parallels was fascinating.
A few things that really started to come into focus for me during this discussion w/ my friend who I’ll give the pseudonym mcdonnell douglas for lack of a better/more creative name was just how incredibly relevant history is & how its in many ways trying to repeat. I feel in some ways as though we’ve all been pulled into an alternate universe through some bizarre timeslip/glitch. Operation Barbarossa happened 85 years ago. The Germans lost an estimated 8 million men on the Eartern Front. The USSR (Russia + baltics) lost an estimated 33-35 million dead.
We talked about the invasion of Russia. About how Russia has been invaded repeatedly & at great cost each time through history & what that was like & this resonated with my friend b/c of his wife’s experiences as a child.
We also talked about the profound foolishness of the European armies that rushed to war in 1914 as if it was some short lived sporting event that would be a short, decisive, cheaply won affair. Both sides did so. We know how that went.
We know how Ghenghis Khan, the Ottoman Empire, Napoleon, & Nazi Germany’s invasion of Russia all went. The Chinese have tried on several occasions to militarily annex parts of southern Russia w/o a great deal of success. This has all led to a deeply ingrained paranoia on the part of all Russians; from every man who sat on the Soviet Politburo over the years, to Boris Yeltsin after the fall of the USSR, to Vladimir Putin today, and every Russian since May 1945. The wall came down. NATO won.
After that, what was NATOs mission? GHWB & later Clinton talked Russia into accepting the Re-unification of Germany. Russia sought the explicit guarantee that if they accepted re-unification, NATO would not expand ‘one more inch east’. And the deal was made. Since then, NATO has steadily expanded east, right up to Russia’s border in the west. Historically every time a great power encroached on that border, invasion has followed. Yeltsin & later Putin have drawn the line at Ukraine joining NATO. That was the trigger. Russia clearly believed that was the signal that Russia was going to again face a costly invasion.
During WWII, Russia like America & a lot of Europe was more rural population. Family sizes were larger & population was larger. Today the Russian population is far smaller. If…..
A close friend of many years dropped by & we spent several hours talking. One topic that dominated the conversation was Europe & the war in Ukraine. My friend is formerly very left of center & was pro Trump even before me in 2016. His wife is a refugee from Cambodia. Her parents & siblings (whole family) fled the Vietnam war & the red purges. Just some background on where he’s coming from & the lens he sees through. Very empathetic guy, & very rational & level headed.
You all know my background & most of you have followed me for years. He & met in ‘06 when i started working at the same contract team on a US Army post & have been close friends ever since. Fellow Christians, but its been super interesting watching his politics evolve. He was a two time obama voter & former Cali resident. Very #maga & #maha today, & is an OG #maga. Along the way we went from him very leftwing pro obama pro gun control etc, & myself being typical normie Republican GW voter. I first was able to vote in ‘96 btw- & i viewed politics from the Clintons & scandals & democrats bad, the hate America crowd bad, etc. Very Naive to the uniparty, & very ‘our side good, their side bad’. Black & white. My friendship with this coworker extends well beyond work. We worked at three different places together & share a ton of common interests. Along the way our free form discussions have dramatically evolved both of our thinking across the spectrum on all topics.
Tonight’s talk about Europe, the war in Ukraine, economics, & history— WWI & WWII & its parallels was fascinating.
A few things that really started to come into focus for me during this discussion w/ my friend who I’ll give the pseudonym mcdonnell douglas for lack of a better/more creative name was just how incredibly relevant history is & how its in many ways trying to repeat. I feel in some ways as though we’ve all been pulled into an alternate universe through some bizarre timeslip/glitch. Operation Barbarossa happened 85 years ago. The Germans lost an estimated 8 million men on the Eartern Front. The USSR (Russia + baltics) lost an estimated 33-35 million dead.
We talked about the invasion of Russia. About how Russia has been invaded repeatedly & at great cost each time through history & what that was like & this resonated with my friend b/c of his wife’s experiences as a child.
We also talked about the profound foolishness of the European armies that rushed to war in 1914 as if it was some short lived sporting event that would be a short, decisive, cheaply won affair. Both sides did so. We know how that went.
We know how Ghenghis Khan, the Ottoman Empire, Napoleon, & Nazi Germany’s invasion of Russia all went. The Chinese have tried on several occasions to militarily annex parts of southern Russia w/o a great deal of success. This has all led to a deeply ingrained paranoia on the part of all Russians; from every man who sat on the Soviet Politburo over the years, to Boris Yeltsin after the fall of the USSR, to Vladimir Putin today, and every Russian since May 1945. The wall came down. NATO won.
After that, what was NATOs mission? GHWB & later Clinton talked Russia into accepting the Re-unification of Germany. Russia sought the explicit guarantee that if they accepted re-unification, NATO would not expand ‘one more inch east’. And the deal was made. Since then, NATO has steadily expanded east, right up to Russia’s border in the west. Historically every time a great power encroached on that border, invasion has followed. Yeltsin & later Putin have drawn the line at Ukraine joining NATO. That was the trigger. Russia clearly believed that was the signal that Russia was going to again face a costly invasion.
During WWII, Russia like America & a lot of Europe was more rural population. Family sizes were larger & population was larger. Today the Russian population is far smaller. If…..
….if Europe again came from the west try to drive on moscow & annex the west & south of Russia, could Russia absorb 33,000,000 losses? I dont think so. That heightens the paranoia. Then 2020 happens, the election is stolen from @realDonaldTrump & Biden is installed. Biden, the dementia puppet who’s White House & admin was run by its own Politburo of sorts, entirely composed of Globalists WEF personalities.
GHWB was part of that crowd. Remember his ‘new world order’ speech? Then the Clintons.. both WEF/Globalists/ ‘Free trade/NAFTA’ people. Then GW. Same. Then Obama. Same. From the cold war, to the dissolution of the USSR, through all those presidents & people i named, likewise European leaders. Globalists. All in control of NATO, which continued on after ‘91, & expanded steadily up to Russia’s border.
Throughout my 20’s & 30’s i regarded NATO as a relic that just continued to exist & swallow sums of money out of Bureaucratic inertia & tradition, but, did it? Or was it something else? A ‘new world order’? Think about it. This has been rattling around & percolating in my mind for months & my conversation with ‘mcdonnell douglas’ tonight allowed me to voice it & better organize my thoughts, but its still pretty raw. Why did NATO spend the past 34 years marching east? Why did NATO inspite of clear & valid Russian concerns trot out the puppet weeks into his term in 2021 & declare NATO & the US want Ukraine to join NATO?
Was NATO **intentionally provoking** a Russian invasion? All the money, the weapons, the death, on a needless war. This wasnt just random. All of it. The encroachment. The provocation. The endless draining of blood, money & supplies. The next step was what? NATO forces in Ukraine. A war with Russia.
Was this a thirty + year globalist plan to use the US & NATO to systematically weaken Russia economically & militarily post cold war to facilitate a NATO invasion & usurpation of Russia’s eastern & southern territory? A united Europe with America succeeding in the same annexation goal of the choice parts of Russia, & its mineral & energy wealth? To try to succeed where Nazi Germany failed?
Think about this. The crooks kid- connections to a shooting range where three letter agencies train. The Routhe assassin- Ukraine connected & three letter agency connected. They fail, Trump is elected, & the NATO money & march to war from America stops, forcing Europe into calamity to fund & re-arm…..TO CONTINUE THE WAR AGAINST RUSSIA THAT EUROPE & NATO (intentionally?) TRIGGERED. Were the assassination attempts to protect ‘The Plan’? Was the lawfare? How many of the people involved in 2020 election theft, & the Executive Branch & Judicial Branch targeting of Trump are WEF/Globalists?
I know how saying that out loud sounds. But look at the history. What is NATO really about? What was/is the Ukraine war really about? Trump retook office, made the point America is $36 Trillion w/ a T dollars in debt, brings in @elonmusk & creates @DOGE & tells NATO ‘we cant afford the bill anymore you have to pay your own bills’ & militarily & politically all Hell breaks loose in Europe— to protect the war in Ukraine NATO started.
GHWB was part of that crowd. Remember his ‘new world order’ speech? Then the Clintons.. both WEF/Globalists/ ‘Free trade/NAFTA’ people. Then GW. Same. Then Obama. Same. From the cold war, to the dissolution of the USSR, through all those presidents & people i named, likewise European leaders. Globalists. All in control of NATO, which continued on after ‘91, & expanded steadily up to Russia’s border.
Throughout my 20’s & 30’s i regarded NATO as a relic that just continued to exist & swallow sums of money out of Bureaucratic inertia & tradition, but, did it? Or was it something else? A ‘new world order’? Think about it. This has been rattling around & percolating in my mind for months & my conversation with ‘mcdonnell douglas’ tonight allowed me to voice it & better organize my thoughts, but its still pretty raw. Why did NATO spend the past 34 years marching east? Why did NATO inspite of clear & valid Russian concerns trot out the puppet weeks into his term in 2021 & declare NATO & the US want Ukraine to join NATO?
Was NATO **intentionally provoking** a Russian invasion? All the money, the weapons, the death, on a needless war. This wasnt just random. All of it. The encroachment. The provocation. The endless draining of blood, money & supplies. The next step was what? NATO forces in Ukraine. A war with Russia.
Was this a thirty + year globalist plan to use the US & NATO to systematically weaken Russia economically & militarily post cold war to facilitate a NATO invasion & usurpation of Russia’s eastern & southern territory? A united Europe with America succeeding in the same annexation goal of the choice parts of Russia, & its mineral & energy wealth? To try to succeed where Nazi Germany failed?
Think about this. The crooks kid- connections to a shooting range where three letter agencies train. The Routhe assassin- Ukraine connected & three letter agency connected. They fail, Trump is elected, & the NATO money & march to war from America stops, forcing Europe into calamity to fund & re-arm…..TO CONTINUE THE WAR AGAINST RUSSIA THAT EUROPE & NATO (intentionally?) TRIGGERED. Were the assassination attempts to protect ‘The Plan’? Was the lawfare? How many of the people involved in 2020 election theft, & the Executive Branch & Judicial Branch targeting of Trump are WEF/Globalists?
I know how saying that out loud sounds. But look at the history. What is NATO really about? What was/is the Ukraine war really about? Trump retook office, made the point America is $36 Trillion w/ a T dollars in debt, brings in @elonmusk & creates @DOGE & tells NATO ‘we cant afford the bill anymore you have to pay your own bills’ & militarily & politically all Hell breaks loose in Europe— to protect the war in Ukraine NATO started.
But all this was inevitable from OUR perspective— @realDonaldTrump & @elonmusk have repeatedly pointed out $36 trillion in debt, $800 billion a yr for NATO on top of US Defense Budget while US Military falls apart & industrial base vanishes, & economic trade imbalance were unsustainable.
But Europe had to know this; still pushed NATO expansion, still provoked Ukraine war, still pushing for Europe to take over the war & deny any peace deal.
America has to choose between funding & dying for Europe, or addressing her existential problems that @realDonaldTrump & @elonmusk are actually tackling, and the existential threat that is China. I believe my friend SubBrief is right— we will be successful in addressing the things i mentioned above & America will weather the storm & come out ok.
But i was really struck by the thought that everything we’ve witnessed since 91 was likely the Globalists trying to use the US & NATO to conquer Russia as part of decades long plan leading to invasion & attempted conquering of Russia. I also am very much struck by the island chain strategy china is employing in the pacific, the Belt & Road initiative, the military build up w/ open statements they intend to fight a war with the US to unseat us as #1 world power economically & militarily.
I mean, this is what it must have been like watching Imperial Japan circa 1935 & seeing it try to implement its ‘Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere’.
I think SubBrief is right; the right people are in charge here, the world will ultimately balance itself, America will be fine. The WER guys lost.
But holy cow putting all that together & really pondering it is kind of mind melting. 🫠
But Europe had to know this; still pushed NATO expansion, still provoked Ukraine war, still pushing for Europe to take over the war & deny any peace deal.
America has to choose between funding & dying for Europe, or addressing her existential problems that @realDonaldTrump & @elonmusk are actually tackling, and the existential threat that is China. I believe my friend SubBrief is right— we will be successful in addressing the things i mentioned above & America will weather the storm & come out ok.
But i was really struck by the thought that everything we’ve witnessed since 91 was likely the Globalists trying to use the US & NATO to conquer Russia as part of decades long plan leading to invasion & attempted conquering of Russia. I also am very much struck by the island chain strategy china is employing in the pacific, the Belt & Road initiative, the military build up w/ open statements they intend to fight a war with the US to unseat us as #1 world power economically & militarily.
I mean, this is what it must have been like watching Imperial Japan circa 1935 & seeing it try to implement its ‘Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere’.
I think SubBrief is right; the right people are in charge here, the world will ultimately balance itself, America will be fine. The WER guys lost.
But holy cow putting all that together & really pondering it is kind of mind melting. 🫠
@realDonaldTrump @elonmusk @threadreaderapp unroll please
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