Thread by @JPLindsley

1/ Nixon warned in 1992:

Russia without communism would become MORE dangerous. And he was right.

He also gave another prediction: a way to stop it 🧵⤵️

2/ In March 1992—just months after the USSR's collapse—former President Richard Nixon issued a chilling memo to President George H.W. Bush:

“A new Russian despotism, unburdened by the dying faith in communism… will be even more dangerous than Soviet totalitarianism." ⤵️

3/ Nixon urged Americans to remember Russia’s history:

“Before communism, Russia already had a seven-hundred-year-old expansionist tradition.”

Communism at least carried an ideology. Without it, Russia faced a choice: either discover freedom—or let raw power run unchecked. ⤵️

4/ Yes, communism collapsed. But the Cold War was not over. Nixon said freedom itself was now “on trial”:

“If [freedom] cannot deliver a better life in Russia… a new and even more dangerous despotism will come to power.”

📸Russia⤵️

5/ Freedom did prove itself in the former USSR—

Ukraine, a post-Soviet nation with millions of Russian speakers, proved the good life is possible.

For Putin, this was the greatest threat. If freedom works, what's the point of the Kremlin?

📸Kyiv 2025⤵️

6/ So Putin—the Russian despot Nixon foresaw—struck.

Constrained by no ideology beyond raw power, he knew Russia had to crush Ukraine.

Because if Kyiv succeeded, Moscow’s centuries-old project of violent expansionist despotism, its only purpose, would collapse.

📸Bakhmut ⤵️

7/ “The new Russian regime," Nixon said, "will threaten... in global hotspots. It will sell... ballistic missiles, & nuclear technology to any buyer.”

I'm not sure even Nixon foresaw that Russia ITSELF would USE such weapons against free people.

📸 Kyiv subway, air-raid⤵️

8/ Nixon’s conclusion was stark:

“If freedom collapses in Russia… the wave of the future will be dictatorship, not democracy.”

Then-Governor Bill Clinton agreed with Nixon, saying George H.W. Bush was too timid in supporting freedom in the former USSR.⤵️

9/ Of course Clinton later helped disarm one of the freest nationalities in the former USSR, by orchestrating the Budapest Memorandum that deprived Ukraine of its best weapons.

Ignoring Nixon's warning, the West thought Russia was maybe a drunk mess but no longer a threat! ⤵️

10/ Now the mess is revealed:

Tyrannical Russia, China, India, & North Korea are aligning.

Europe, a lost soul ripe for invasion, is forgetting domestic freedom.

While the world's freest people—the Ukrainians—are bleeding out holding the line in courageous resistance. ⤵️

11/ This is the “final battle” of our time, Nixon said.

The only way to stop despotism, he warned, is to make freedom win.

Ukraine is the place of choosing: Does anyone on this planet believe in freedom enough to resist ballistic missiles & nuclear threats? 🧵🎬