Pope Francis last week told editors of the European cultural magazines of the Society of Jesus that, in his opinion, World War III had been declared, it was reported Tuesday by La Civilta Cattolica.
Perhaps Russia’s invasion of Ukraine “was provoked or not prevented,” the Argentine-born pontiff was also quoted as saying.
“A few years ago it occurred to me to say that we were living a Third World War in pieces. Now, for me, the Third World War has been declared. And this is an aspect that should make us reflect. What is happening to humanity that has had three world wars in a century?” Francis wondered.
“We have to move away from the normal pattern that Little Red Riding Hood was good and the wolf was bad. Something global is emerging, with very intertwined elements,” he added.
The Pope also said a head of state he had met before the start of the war had told him that someone was “barking at Russia’s doorstep,” someone who did not understand that “Russians are imperial and they don’t allow any foreign power to come near them.”
“That head of state knew how to read the signs of what was happening,” Francis explained.
For Francis, it is not wise to focus solely on “the brutality and ferocity with which this war is being waged by troops, usually mercenaries sent by the Russians, which is ”something monstrous,“ when the world does not see ”the drama that unfolds behind this war, which perhaps in some way was provoked or not prevented.“
The Catholic chief also condemned the fact that at some point the conflict seemed merely a question of ”testing and selling weapons,“ because ”basically this is what is at stake.“
Regarding criticism that he was somehow siding with Russian President Vladimir Putin, Francis said it was ”simplistic and wrong to say such a thing; but I am simply against reducing complexity to the distinction between good and evil, without thinking about the roots and interests, which are very complex.“
”What we have before our eyes is a situation of world war, of global interests, of arms sales and geopolitical appropriation, which is martyring a heroic people,“ the Pope said about Ukrainians.
”It is also true that the Russians thought it would all be over in a week. But they miscalculated. They encountered a courageous people, a people who are struggling to survive and who have a history of struggle,“ he added.
The Pope also underlined things were getting cold and that the world needed to focus beyond the concrete action of the moment, and see ”how we are going to support [the Ukrainian women] so that they do not fall into trafficking, so that they are not exploited, because the vultures are already circling“ around them.
The Pope also lamented that there were some Christians ”attached to money“ who end up ”getting bogged down“ in bad management of patrimony and goods and ”chained to an ephemeral and failed vision of life.“
Francis insisted that ”the problem is not money itself,“ but rather people ”dazzled by the idol of wealth.“ When ”the only law is that of the calculation of profits“ at the end of the day, then ”there is no longer any stop“ to move on to the ”logic of exploitation” of people, he added.
Dire Warning to Americans From Gonzalo Lira in Kharkiv, Ukraine; Biden Admin. escalating Ukraine Situation to Nuclear War with Russia
In brief: Ukrainians losing 1000 soldiers a day, with over 70 000 killed and over 130 000 wounded. The mainstream media is starting to realise the extent of such losses. The US proxy war with Russia will escalate since NATO countries, Lithuania and Poland will deny rail access of Russia to Kalingrad, reneging on previous historic treaties. Russia will have no choice but to fight to regain access to Kalingrad. The US Biden administration decision-makers are eager to engage with Russia in direct conflict since it appears that Ukraine is losing the war and the US is heavily invested in blocking Russia’s geopolitical objectives. The US also needs a distraction from current economic and social disasters. However, the Ukranian forces have been highly trained in NATO tactics and procedures for years and yet continue to be pushed back by Russia. If NATO or Russia believe that an existential threat to their sovereignty is possible, then nuclear war will take place.
Link to video below: Warning! Some coarse language is used by Mr Lira.
The video below explores how the Leftist ideology embraces the notion of self-worship and how objective reality is ignored in the quest to subject reality to the sinful, human will.
Jeremiah 17:9-10
” The heart is deceitful above all things, And desperately wicked; Who can know it? I, the LORD, search the heart, I test the mind, Even to give every man according to his ways, According to the fruit of his doings.”
Uh Oh! Medvedev: “The Horsemen of the Apocalypse are galloping ahead”
In a TV interview with Al Jazeera Television, Dimitry Medvedev, deputy chairman of the Security Council of Russia, said “This is not a forecast, but what’s already in play. The Horsemen of the Apocalypse are galloping ahead, and we can only look towards God.”
Here is the video:
“This isn’t a forecast, but what’s already in play. The horsemen of the apocalypse are galloping ahead and we can only look towards God.”— Dmitry “Full Metal” Medvedev to Al’Jazeera today. [not a joke, that’s what he said. He even posted this on his own tg. Wat mean? Dunno] pic.twitter.com/SQFjUjJyqP
Medvedev was elected president of Russia in the 2008 election. He was regarded as more liberal than his predecessor, Vladimir Putin, who was also appointed prime minister during Medvedev’s presidency.
Medvedev’s top agenda as president was a wide-ranging modernization program, aiming at modernizing Russia’s economy and society, and lessening the country’s reliance on oil and gas.
During Medvedev’s tenure, the New START nuclear arms reduction treaty was signed by Russia and the United States, Russia emerged victorious in the Russo-Georgian War, and recovered from the Great Recession. Medvedev also launched an anti-corruption campaign, despite later being accused of corruption himself.
He served a single term in office and was succeeded by Putin following the 2012 presidential election. Medvedev was then appointed by Putin as prime minister. He resigned along with the rest of the government on 15 January 2020 to allow Putin to make sweeping constitutional changes; he was succeeded by Mikhail Mishustin on 16 January 2020. On the same day, Putin appointed Medvedev to the new office of deputy chairman of the Security Council.
The fact that Medvedev made direct reference to the “Horsemen of the Apocalypse” is utterly stunning to may observers because it signals how the leadership of Russia sees actual developments in the world. Medvedev made clear “This is not a forecast, but what’s already in play.”
Revelation 6 tells of a book or scroll in God‘s right hand that is sealed with seven seals. The Lamb of God/Lion of Judah opens the first four of the seven seals, which summons four beings that ride out on white, red, black, and pale horses. Zechariah describes them as “the ones whom the Lord has sent to patrol the earth,” causing it to rest quietly. Ezekiel lists them as “sword, famine, wild beasts, and plague”.
In John’s revelation, the first horseman rides on a white horse, carries a bow, and is given a crown – he rides forward as a figure of Conquest,[1][2] perhaps invoking Pestilence, Christ, or the Antichrist. The second horseman carries a sword and rides a red horse and is the creator of (civil) War.[3] The third horseman, a food-merchant riding upon a black horse, symbolizes Famine. He carries The Scales.[4] The fourth and final horse is pale, and upon it rides Death.[5] “They were given authority over a quarter of the earth, to kill with sword, famine, and plague, and by means of the beasts of the earth.”[6]
Given the “wars and rumors of war from the east” as well as the ongoing pestilence of COVID and now, Monkeypox, as well as “signs in the Heavens and upon the earth” in the form of earthquakes, entire bodies of water turning blood red without explanation, and similar strange events, it is not hard to see why Medvedev said what he said.
While the U.S. and its NATO vasal partners view things as mere “strategy” and “political positioning,” the leaders of Russia are viewing things from the perspective of the literal end of the world. This variance in the approach of national leadership may explain why the sides aren’t stopping the craziness going on over the special military operation to de-Nazify and de-militarize Ukraine. Instead of de-escalating, pausing, or even taking a step back to reconsider, mankind is moving ahead toward the frightening reality of Armageddon.
Circumstances seem to keep pushing the United States and Russia closer and closer to a horrifying showdown. If I was in the White House, I would be doing all that I could to try to find a way out of this mess. Unfortunately, the guy currently leading our nation is a hothead in an advanced state of mental decline, and he is surrounded by the worst foreign policy team in U.S. history. That is a recipe for disaster, but most Americans seem to be entirely convinced that a full-blown war with Russia is extremely unlikely. Most of us seem to think that we can keep escalating the conflict in Ukraine without ever suffering any serious consequences. Unfortunately, the Russians see things very differently.
On Russian television, there is constant discussion about how the conflict in Ukraine is really a proxy war between the United States and Russia.
On the state TV show 60 Minutes, host Olga Skabeeva announced: “I have some unpleasant news… Even though we are methodically destroying the weapons that are being delivered [to Ukraine], but the quantities in which the United States are sending them force us to come up with some global conclusions. Perhaps it’s time to acknowledge that maybe Russia’s special operation in Ukraine has come to an end, in a sense that a real war had started: WWIII. We’re forced to conduct the demilitarization not only of Ukraine, but of the entire NATO alliance.”
Sadly, she is quite correct that World War III has now begun.
Let us hope that a way to stop it can be found before it goes nuclear.
Nuclear war is not a topic that is brought up much on American news channels, but in Russia it is regularly proposed as a potential option…
Vladimir Avatkov, from the Diplomatic Academy of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said: “You mentioned WWIII and the way Americans and Poles are acting on the territory of Ukraine—indeed, we need to remember the words of Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin, who said that anyone who tries to interfere in the special military operation will pay a heavy price.” Skabeeva interrupted: “We never forget about these words of Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin, but a great number of people are already standing in line, trying to interfere in Russia’s special operation on the territory of Ukraine. Turns out, we have to act—but we’re yet to figure out how we can act without conducting a nuclear strike.”
Reading something like that should chill you to the core.
When Russian journalists and politicians say stuff like this, why won’t we take them seriously?
Just the other day, one prominent Russian politician openly talked about destroying both coasts of the United States with Sarmat intercontinental ballistic missiles…
The politician, Alexie Zhuravlev, was joined on the talk show by fellow MP and Russian-state mouthpiece Yevgeny Popov, the host of the Rossiya 1 channel show.
The lawmaker claimed that two of Russia’s Sarmat missiles would destroy the entirety of America’s east coast – before adding it would take just “two missiles for the west coast” as well.
“Four missiles and there’ll be nothing left.”
Russia’s Sarmat intercontinental ballistic missiles are far superior to anything that we have, and we have no defense against them.
If push comes to shove, I believe that the Russians will not hesitate to use their nuclear weapons.
Our leaders should be trying to find a peaceful way out of this crisis, but instead both sides just continue to escalate matters.
In fact, for the very first time Joe Biden has just promised to give long-range rocket systems that are capable of hitting targets inside Russia to Ukraine…
U.S. President Joe Biden has agreed to provide Ukraine with advanced rocket systems that can strike with precision at long-range Russian targets as part of a $700 million weapons package expected to be unveiled on Wednesday.
The United States is providing Ukraine with high mobility artillery rocket systems that can accurately hit targets as far away as 80 km (50 miles) after Ukraine gave “assurances” they will not use the missiles to strike inside Russia, senior administration officials said.
What an incredibly foolish move.
Has Biden gone completely insane?
In response, the Russians are holding missile drills…
The nuclear forces of Russia are holding drills in a region just northeast of Moscow.
The decision to begin these drills comes just one day after President Joe Biden announced his decision to send advanced missile system to Ukraine, the New York Post reported.
According to an independent news agency in Russia, around 1,000 Russian soldiers are taking part in intense maneuvers using more than 100 military vehicles, including Yars intercontinental missile launchers.
Yikes!
At this point, the U.S. is providing most of the new military equipment for the war in Ukraine, most of the intelligence for the war in Ukraine, and U.S. Secretary of State Lloyd Austin has publicly admitted that we are actually bringing Ukrainians into the United States to train them to go back and fight in the war.
And now we have learned that the U.S. has actually been conducting “offensive hacking operations” against Russia…
General Nakasone confirmed for the first time that the US was conducting offensive hacking operations in support of Ukraine in response to the Russian invasion.
He told Sky News: “We’ve conducted a series of operations across the full spectrum; offensive, defensive, [and] information operations.”
What are we thinking?
Have our leaders really become this reckless?
Once a full-blown war with Russia starts, there will be no going back.
But right now many Americans are so self-obsessed that they don’t even realize that our leaders in Washington have brought us to the brink of the unthinkable.
We have become a country full of self-destructive degenerates that are so out of it that we don’t even realize what we are doing to ourselves.
There is a small minority of the population that is awake, but most Americans are in a deep state of sleep. I am doing my best to try to wake them up, but most of the population simply does not want to listen.
The corporate media is telling them to hate Russia, and so most of them are going to keep cheering for more escalation until it is far too late to reverse course.
If we keep escalating the conflict in Ukraine, the Russians could eventually be put into a position where they feel like they are forced to make a very difficult decision.
And when that day finally arrives, you better hope that they don’t decide to pull the trigger.
This is a repost of a dream from 2017. It also features the visions of Romanian preacher, Dumitru Duduman, who envisioned a successful, pre- emeptive strike on the USA. We are now at the beginning of this reality.
In the dream and visions, Russia is aided by other countries to cripple the weapons of the USA, before striking major cities on the east and west coasts.
Covert intelligence and other sources indicate that the current Russian and Ukraine war will escalate. Diplomacy has failed because NATO and the US did not listen to the nationalistic concerns of Russia; instead they pushed their own radical brand of humanistic globalism. The mainstream media has also failed to report all aspects of the issue and the result is a war between the evil power brokers on both sides.
Compare these brief analyses regarding this war (unfortunately, the first video has some poor language and the second shows the lack of detail being given to the mainstream):
Further information regarding escalation is as follows:
Soldiers stationed in Eastern Russia have recently been issued with the directive “to start training to enforce order on civilians, establish medical tents, supply rations and iodine to the local population, in the event that the Russian Federation engages in a nuclear conflict with NATO and the United States.” Iodine potassium is used to reduce the potential of radiation sickness as the body will absorb radioactive iodine if there is an iodine deficiency after a nuclear explosion.
On the fifth of March, Israeli Prime Minister Neftali Bennet traveled secretly to Moscow for a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin. The meeting lasted for three hours and Bennet issued a notice for all Israelis to leave Russia immediately. An hour later, the US State department reissued a notice for all US citizens to also leave Russia.
In the prepping community within the US and Canada, the Red Cross, FEMA and the military have been sourcing long life food, medical supplies and shelters. One supplier had an order for ten thousand hazard protection clothing and gas masks with filters.
Another source was informed by a globalist elitist that on the 16th or 17th March there would be a catastrophe that would climax in April. A further disaster would occur in August or September, 2022.
Unfortunately, this too is now being confirmed in the occult world. Vedic astrology confirms that March and April, 2022, will be a time of massive destruction. Spirits (demons?) have communicated prior to Covid-19 that World War Three will soon start. More recently they have said that a purge of the population will soon commence. As Christians, heed the warnings of the Bible and do not seek these messages as they may be lies or half-truths.
Deuteronomy 18:10–12 (NKJV): 10 There shall not be found among you anyone who makes his son or his daughter pass through the fire, or one who practices witchcraft, or a soothsayer, or one who interprets omens, or a sorcerer, 11 or one who conjures spells, or a medium, or a spiritist, or one who calls up the dead. 12 For all who do these things are an abomination to the Lord, and because of these abominations the Lord your God drives them out from before you.
1 Timothy 4:1 (NKJV): Now the Spirit expressly says that in latter times some will depart from the faith, giving heed to deceiving spirits and doctrines of demons…
China, emboldened by the weakness and conflict in the west, may use this as an opportunity to invade Taiwan. See below a recent video from a spokesman that directly threatens the US and Taiwan:
MODERN Christian prophets from different denominations have indicated that they have had visions regarding:
a) A Russian invasion that sweeps across European nations;
b) China and Russia employing nuclear weapons from submarines to cripple the USA;
c) Another battle front will open up in the Middle East whereby Israel will be attacked by Iran and its allies;
d) Earth has nine years before the end times – that is in 2030.
e) The possibility of major earthquakes and tsunamis during these times.
I have attached resources to help you prepare for the emerging war. Take heed and make the necessary physical and spiritual preparations. May God bless you and keep you and your family safe from the physical and spiritual evils of this world.
John 3:16 (NKJV): For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.
The leftists are authoritarian fascists and simpletons who care only to deny facts, regulate thoughts, control words and restrict actions that do not meet with their dystopian cultist thinking.
There is no dialogue or empathy in the left; they only wish to impose a brand of socialism or communism that will never work, as can be seen by the over 100 million deaths through socialism in the 20th century. However, the actions of these leftists clearly and unequivocally demonstrate that the cultist leftist have no idea about history, they do not care about history, in fact they are blind to what even history means.
The facts of history speak for themselves. The socialist/communists, or communist/socialists (it makes no difference), have killed more than anyone else: The crusades killed 1 to 3 million people and the inquisition is believed to have killed between 30 000 to 300 000 people – 96 million people short of the communist death count.
The cultist socialists never mention the fact that currently 340 million Christians are being persecuted by other nations and ethnicities.
Clearly, and unambiguously the writer of this article is ignorant. Is the writer so blind that he/she/they/them (or whatever other nonsense they/he/she/them want to be known by now) is actually so stupid that the writer actually wants to have his/her/him/they (or whatever) rights removed, or does he/she/they/them want to join ethnic minorities in looting, taking and murdering people on the street?
Just like Biden, the writer of this simplistic article will be one of the useful idiots cancelled once the US embraces fully rigged elections by allowing anyone to vote, regardless of nationality or the number times they voted – either living or dead.
And speaking about voting, it has now been discovered that the oh so self-righteous Hillary Clinton has been found to have actually interfered in the previous elections, by engaging in what can only be referred to as treason in collusion with the tech giants. And guess what? Not one word from any of the leftist media.
This writer and the left are not only hypocrites, they are liars, and that word liar does not in any way describe how devious these leftists actually are. They are a disgrace to the entire human race.
Changing words from the article actually evokes a clearer truth:
Biden’s USA has been embraced globally by woke and radical figureheads (anyone perverted enough to work at CNN) because it’s a contemporary model for how that might work), and Democrats in the U.S. can use Biden’s denials — that his purges of white conservatives aren’t racist, that his victories in rigged elections are actually authentic and democratic and that his mode of hypocrisy is about freedom of the elite, even as he persecutes anyone who doesn’t practice a narrow reactionary and woke version of it.
No other nation in the world is destroying election integrity and endorsing systematic racism against whites like the US. The utter hypocrisy and blindness to the truth is astounding. The woke leftists have called evil good and traditional good evil. Astonishing national disaster and fatal collapse is bound to occur if they continue down this racist, narcissistic, truth hating path. There is no utopia for the left, just degradation, corruption and hopelessness.
This article also reminds me of a piece written by USSR Journalist Yuri Bezmeno. In my lead in to this insightful article by Bezmeno, I will note and begin with the following:
The mainstream media of the West, but especially in the US, has become a relativist censoring media, it now presents self-righteous censorship of objective news, and its reporting presents what can now be described as sycophantic silences to actual objective events that need objective reporting. Or it presents, like this article by Elizabeth Spiers, an orchestration of words that can only be described as having less substance than dried vomit.
The fact of the matter, as I have already noted, history has informed us for many millennia, civilisations have died as a result of their own self-deluded self-righteousness, superior minded hypocrisy and self-inflicted lies.
History also points out that when a civilisation is succumbing to its own death throes (which in this case self-evidently is America); what we see now is that the external enemies (and supporting internal enemies) of America have already planned and are gleefully anticipating, with much elated enthusiasm, as they secretly sneer, snigger, chuckle, chortle and laugh, as they excitedly wait for the order, from their leader, to march in and crush this now deluded woke cult called America.
As such, to understand the fate of the former United States of America, which is now also being referred to as the Dis-United Appalling-States of America, the writer of this article should take note – which of course the writer self-evidently won’t – of the profound sociopolitical insights of a former USSR Journalist Yuri Bezmenov, who presents what will happen to the writer and what was once the united states (note the use of lowercase letters) of america?
What will happen (and to some significant degree it is already happening with all of the lawlessness that is taking place) is that and writer of this absurd little self-righteous article, and all of the other mainstream delusional leftists will be the following, as noted by USSR Journalist Yuri Bezmenov:
[T]he useful idiots, the leftists who are idealistically believing in the beauty of the Soviet socialist or Communist or whatever system, when they get disillusioned, they become the worst enemies. That’s why my KGB instructors specifically made the point: never bother with leftists. Forget about these political prostitutes. Aim higher. They serve a purpose only at the stage of destabilization of a nation. For example, your leftists in the United States: all these professors and all these beautiful civil rights defenders. They are instrumental in the process of the subversion only to destabilize a nation. When their job is completed, they are not needed any more. They know too much. Some of them, when they get disillusioned, when they see that Marxist-Leninists come to power – obviously they get offended – they think that they will come to power. That will never happen, of course. They will be lined up against the wall and shot.
The Lord forbid that this should ever happen. And yet the radical left cannot see the consequences of their choices, and our choices shape our destiny.
By the end of January 2022, the Navy had received 3,740 religious exemption requests — none of which had been granted,” reports the Daily Mail. Not even military chaplains can get exemptions. “It’s a kick in the gut for sure,” a long-serving anonymous chaplain told Fox News. “If I lose retirement benefits that way, that would be a pretty significant burden to me and my family. At the same time, this is a fight worth fighting. I do not think this is a lawful order.”
The Biden administration claims that this violation of religious freedom is essential to “military readiness.” That takes some gall, given the myriad threats to military readiness Biden has already countenanced. He can accommodate transgendered troops but not unvaccinated ones. For the sake of advancing woke social policy, his politicized generals normally treat miliary readiness as a secondary concern. It is a little late for them to pretend that readiness exclusively determines military standards.
Their mission is to make the acceptance of secularism a condition for employment in the federal government and military.
Far from caring about America’s ability to fight and win wars, Biden is perfectly willing to drive good soldiers out of the military in his pursuit of wokeness and mandates. The Navy SEALs who sued his administration say that the military has sidelined and punished them in response to the suit. “The Navy continues to deny our clients training and deployment opportunities and is assigning these soldiers menial tasks instead of allowing them to defend our country,” according to Mike Berry, general counsel for First Liberty Institute who represents them.
Meanwhile, the U.S. Army and other branches of the military have begun discharging soldiers who refuse the vaccine.
As if the Biden administration’s record on religious freedom isn’t dreadful enough, it is moving to create an Orwellian-sounding database that tracks federal employees who seek religious exemptions from the vaccine mandate, according to the Daily Signal. “A little digging at the Federal Register revealed that there are at least 19 total federal agencies — including five cabinet level agencies — that have created or proposed to create these tracking lists for religious-exemption requests from their employees,” it reports.
Republican lawmakers are demanding answers about this emerging database, but they won’t get any. Imagine the corrupt uses to which Biden’s secularists could put it. Their mission is to make the acceptance of secularism and all of its decrees a condition for employment in the federal government and military. They see devout Christians in particular as bad citizens, unworthy of participation in public life. It is hardly a stretch to think those whose names appear in the database could suffer long-term damage to their careers. (READ MORE: HHS, the Tip on Biden’s Spear Against Christians)
The media has, of course, yawned at this story. Threats to religious freedom don’t interest most reporters. Biden is even more brazen than Obama, but the media coverage never reflects that. In the midst of all of his assaults on religious freedom, Biden turned up at the National Prayer Breakfast last week and received fawning coverage. He concluded his speech by saying, “Every time I’d walk out of my Grandpa Finnegan’s house up in Scranton — some of you heard me say this before — he’d yell, ‘Joey, keep the faith.’ My grandmother would yell, ‘No, Joey, spread it.’ Let’s go spread the faith.”
Never mind that he is crushing the faith. His Department of Health and Human Services continues to push a proposed mandate that would force religious health insurers to cover transgender surgeries. Mutilation, according to the Biden administration, is “essential” health care, which speaks to the utterly corrupt philosophy of medicine that underpins all of its mandates. It sees vast “risks” in the unvaccinated while seeing no risks in destroying bodies or aborting children. It is bad enough that the Biden administration expects non-religious insurers to cover these violations of the Hippocratic Oath, but now it can’t even resist imposing these affronts to God on religious insurers.
It can’t even resist imposing these affronts to God on religious insurers.
Biden’s secularists, wanting to monopolize all of public life, have a fundamental antipathy to “exemptions.” On their animal farm, no one is free to leave. Their progressive schemes hinge on universal participation, which in the end means universal coercion. To the extent that they will even consider exemptions, they do so only for those who promise to avoid or leave public life. Only the most narrowly sectarian groups received an exemption from Obama’s infamous contraceptive mandate. But the Little Sisters of the Poor, because they show charity to non-Catholics, got hit with it.
But even the exceedingly narrow exemptions of the Obama years won’t last given the totalitarian bent of modern secularism. Its architects can’t rest until everything is secularized. If somebody, somewhere is foiling their vision, they move into action, faking up some “public health” or “nondiscrimination” rationale for their intolerance and intrusiveness. If anything, the smallness of the threat — a handful of unvaccinated soldiers, a lone holdout chaplain, some religious hospitals, and so forth — seems to inflame the secularists. Like Soviet commissars obsessing over the rare dissident, the secularists must punish in particular the few exceptions to their rule.
This chapter will not end well for President Biden or Washington’s political class.
By Douglas MacGregor
It’s an indisputable fact: Washington leads the world in self-delusion.
Washington’s political class is poised to march into a hurricane of its own making in Ukraine, a perfect storm of foreign- and defense-policy blunders likely to plunge the American people into future crises and conflicts. Having refused to acknowledge Russia’s vital strategic interest in Ukraine, Washington now wants to subject Ukraine and the NATO alliance to a dangerous and unnecessary test by confronting Russian conventional military power. In turn, Washington and its allies now face a test—one that they could have avoided but are now likely to fail. First, the facts.
The Biden administration is spending $768.2 billion for national defense. Russia spends only $42.1 billion, less than the $48 billion spent by the Republic of Korea. Yet Russian ground forces are superior in capability and striking power to the U.S. Army and Marines, even if both countries’ ground forces were able to deploy to Ukraine.
Russia’s conventional-ground-force superiority stems, in part, from the strategic advantage of fighting close to Russia. Its potency is also a reflection of President Vladimir Putin’s insistence on fundamental defense reform and reorganization. The reform process involved years of struggle to expel old generals who resisted change and install new, resolute fighting forces, composed of young, single men with a profound sense of Russian patriotism and toughness. The policy has resulted in an operationally flexible grouping of smaller capability-based Russian fighting formations, designed to ruthlessly exploit the striking power of Russia’s rocket artillery, tactical ballistic missiles, and loitering munitions.
Far to the west and behind the Polish border sits an awkward collection of U.S. Army and NATO Ground Forces that, despite decades of cooperation, are still challenged to fight effectively as one force. In the last 20 years of operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, most of America’s allies seldom had anything to contribute to our efforts, save a flag and inexperienced troops who were forced to operate under political restrictions. Thus, like the U.S. Army that leads them, the allied ground forces cling to the illusion that NATO can fight future conflicts on land the way Anglo-American allies did during World War II—with large, densely packed divisions, corps, and armies. These are lucrative targets for Russian strike formations.
Additionally, institutional policies to impose diversity and inclusion on the U.S. Armed Forces at the expense of demonstrated character, competence, and intelligence, demoralize our troops. As a result, the dedication, cohesion, and pride of achievement required to sustain America’s professional fighting force have been seriously damaged.
The implications are clear: A U.S.-Russian confrontation in Eastern Ukraine could easily resemble the 1940 Anglo-French experience, with the Wehrmacht provoking a serious backlash at home. Supply-chain bottlenecks, consumer-goods inflation, and soaring energy costs could all worsen if events in Ukraine spiral out of control. As more and more Americans wake up to falling standards of living, how will they react to yet another war for suspicious aims that have absolutely nothing to do with their own vital strategic interests, and make their daily lives even harder?
Reality is sitting on Ukraine’s eastern border, not in the South China Sea or in the strait of Taiwan, and there is ostensibly nothing Washington can do about it. The questions that should concern Washington’s political class are: Will NATO survive its ignominious retreat in the face of superior Russian military power? And, why is Washington conducting policy not from strength, but from weakness—a weakness thus far disguised by the outward show of military power against weak opponents without armies, air defenses, or air forces?
Nietzsche said, “War makes the victor stupid.” After 1991, America’s senior military and political leaders found many reasons to spend enormous sums on defense, but no reason to change the way U.S. forces fight, or to devise a national military strategy tied to tangible, concrete interests and the preservation of American national power.
As John Kenneth Galbraith warned, “People of privilege will always risk their complete destruction rather than surrender any material part of their advantage. Intellectual myopia, often called stupidity, is no doubt a reason. But the privileged also feel that their privileges, however egregious they may seem to others, are a solemn, basic, God-given right.”
Washington’s corrupt and morally bankrupt leaders are walking into a minefield. If they embroil U.S. and allied forces in Ukraine, extraordinary discontent at home and abroad awaits them. However, like so many privileged classes before them, the Biden administration may prefer “complete destruction” rather than acknowledge that its most cherished beliefs are utter delusions. It’s safe to say that whatever happens in Ukraine, this chapter will not end well for President Biden or Washington’s political class.
Douglas Macgregor, Col. (ret.) is a senior fellow with The American Conservative, the former advisor to the Secretary of Defense in the Trump administration, a decorated combat veteran, and the author of five books.
December has arrived and it’s time to forecast 2022. I’ll start the ball rolling by framing the most gloomy scenario: 2022 could mark the end of the world, via global war and nuclear exchanges.
Most Americans will find that forecast surprising and offensive. We tend to be optimistic Bayesians: If the sun rose today, certainly it will rise the same way tomorrow. But unfortunately, there are “Black Swan” events — unexpected shocks to the system that totally change the future.
And today we confront two Black Swans — Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping. Both are brilliant, experienced leaders. Putin has written extensively on his vision for Russia — for example, his Millennium Papers and his “PhD” dissertation on energy economics. Xi is similar. Both have consolidated power within brutal systems. Both are committed nationalists who see themselves as major historical figures. Both are men of action, willing to take large, calculated risks. And both likely understand that 2022 is the year they must act.
Putin is dedicated to the defense and rise of Russia. He seeks strategic territorial expansion, the destruction of NATO, and eventual political hegemony over Europe. The coming year could be the key stepping stone for his dreams. A first step would be invading Ukraine, giving Russia an economic boost and consolidating Black Sea strategic access. Russian troops are already massing on the border.
Xi envisions political hegemony over East Asia (and beyond). The next step would be the invasion and conquest of Taiwan, where he is upping military pressure. At the same time, Iran and its leaders dream of destroying Israel and gaining Middle East hegemony.
All of them recently have engaged in joint war games and all may be coming to believe that 2022 is their once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. The reason: President Biden.
New U.S. presidential administrations are always tested by global adversaries in the first year. The Biden administration failed miserably with the Chinese in Anchorage, with the Russians in Geneva, with Hamas after bribing them to cease their rocket attacks on Israel, with the world in Glasgow, and with Xi Jinping on a recent video-call.
The U.S. military displayed an astounding lack of leadership and judgment in the withdrawal from Afghanistan. Everyone has seen Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and national security adviser Jake Sullivan in action.
Biden has destroyed American energy independence and endangered national security by making America dependent on foreign oil. He has failed miserably to deal with COVID and has been afraid to aggressively pursue the political dynamite of its origin, or whether it or its variants were released intentionally. The American media have ignored or excused these failures.
U.S. defense, intelligence and justice systems have been politicized. Congressional Intelligence and Armed Services committees have been corrupted, manufacturing now-exposed fictions such as the Trump-Russia hoax. Politics has been polarized by woke-ism, racial tension, climate change and Donald Trump.
America is at its weakest politically in decades. Our enemies have seen all they need to see. They will act before the American political equation changes next November. Winter is coming and that often is the time to attack.
Americans are always shocked when our enemies act. But Russia’s Putin and China’s Xi know that, to become true historical figures, they must act when the time is right. The problem for America is that our enemies may well act together.
Russia may launch an attack and invasion of Ukraine simultaneous with a coup attempt. To keep NATO off balance, Russia would reduce winter gas and oil shipments to Europe, which gets 30 percent of its oil and 40 percent of its gas from Russia. The U.S. cannot help Europe through emergency liquified natural gas or oil shipments, thanks to Biden.
China could simultaneously launch an invasion of Taiwan. Iran, through its Hezbollah and Hamas proxies, could launch an all-out assault on Israel and slow oil flowing through the Straits of Hormuz. Saudi Arabia could reduce or fully cut oil supplies to the U.S. and Europe — the Saudis made it clear during the start of the COVID pandemic, and more recently during America’s oil price spike, that they are not a true ally.
When the dust clears, Russia would control Ukraine, China would control Taiwan, Israel would be weakened, NATO would be staggered, and America’s military and world leadership status would be permanently diminished.
Except for the wild cards.
First among the wild cards is Biden. After globally advertising their advanced nuclear strategic delivery capability over the past year, our enemies may miscalculate that Biden would hesitate to respond. But, caught off guard and strategically weakened, Biden and his defense team might overreact to “prove” themselves. That would involve some direct action against China or Russia, or both. That is potentially a straight line to nuclear exchange.
From the Cold War to a hard freeze Sunday shows preview: Officials, experts respond to omicron; Biden… North Korea might decide, with America distracted, to launch a conventional, chemical or nuclear attack on South Korea. Israel, under an existential threat, might launch an all-out attack on Iran. Pakistan and India might decide that a distracted world is the time to settle their differences. An attack on Taiwan might bring in Japan. Boom.
The one thing that could stand in the way of these catastrophes is a brilliant, strong, capable and decisive White House — which, in 2022, will not be the case. Holiday greetings: DEFCON 2.
Grady Means is a writer (GradyMeans.com) and former corporate strategy consultant. He served in the White House as a policy assistant to Vice President Nelson Rockefeller. Follow him on Twitter @gradymeans1.
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