The Senior Home Showdown: Delusional Biden vs. Demented Trump

If you watched the presidential debate last week, I’m sure you’re really, really excited for the election this year! Since so many of you wanted me to talk about this fever dream we’re living in, I figured we’d do it on Independence Day.

For those that didn’t catch the debate, you can just head to your local retirement home and get the same experience from a couple of relics living there. The gist is that neither of these candidates are fit for office and a vote for either of them is a threat to national stability. Great Grandpa Biden – I mean President Biden – revealed how much his cognitive abilities have declined, slipping deeper into his deluded state. Trump was off in his demented-fairyland-state where lies are currency and angry tantrums are the status-quo.

At the end of the day, not much has changed since my first prediction.

Winner of the 2024 presidential election is...

The “true” independents will play a critical role in deciding the outcome of this election. Biden still has the upper hand, but Trump isn’t going down without a fight – and his cult followers will be sure of that. There is an opportunity for Biden to step down and have a more qualified candidate step up at an open convention, as long as its not someone like Elizabeth Warren or Bernie Sanders. And let’s be realistic, no other Republican candidates can challenge Trump’s grip on the party.

So, in all likelihood we’re looking at a 2020 rematch, with candidates who are four years older, less capable, and more embarrassing than before. Would someone be able to pinch me?

Prefer to read the transcript? Click here

Here at Zeihan On Geopolitics we select a single charity to sponsor. We have two criteria:

First, we look across the world and use our skill sets to identify where the needs are most acute. Second, we look for an institution with preexisting networks for both materials gathering and aid distribution. That way we know every cent of our donation is not simply going directly to where help is needed most, but our donations serve as a force multiplier for a system already in existence. Then we give what we can.

Today, our chosen charity is a group called Medshare, which provides emergency medical services to communities in need, with a very heavy emphasis on locations facing acute crises. Medshare operates right in the thick of it. Until future notice, every cent we earn from every book we sell in every format through every retailer is going to Medshare’s Ukraine fund.

And then there’s you.

Our newsletters and videologues are not only free, they will always be free. We also will never share your contact information with anyone. All we ask is that if you find one of our releases in any way useful, that you make a donation to Medshare. Over one third of Ukraine’s pre-war population has either been forced from their homes, kidnapped and shipped to Russia, or is trying to survive in occupied lands. This is our way to help who we can. Please, join us.

Support medshare's ukraine fund
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Transcript

Hey, everybody. Peter Zeihan here. Coming to you from the lost wilderness in Colorado. I’m just outside of Devil’s Playground. 

I was backpacking in New Mexico last week when the presidential debate happened on purpose. Because I didn’t want to watch it live. Because I still have a hangover from one four years ago. anyway, I’ve since watched it, and I have. 

How should I put this? Received a river of requests, for an update. And what this means to my forecast for the election. Some of you have been really, really rude about it, and you guys can stuff it. But for everybody else, Joe Biden obviously did not have a good day. he appeared confused, a little lost. 

It wasn’t clear that he knew exactly where he was. And a lot of his responses, especially in the early half of the, debate, were just almost nonsensical. The term for what is happening to Joe Biden is that his mind is diluting. He’s losing control of the contact between the context of his memories and his life and the reality about him. 

And this makes him slow and confused. And for anyone who has been watching him for the last year, you’ll notice that this is not a new thing. This has been happened with greater rapidity. 

it’s been happening in press conferences and the Oval Office and briefings. it’s it’s getting bad. 

now, I’m sure there are a lot of us out there who have parents or grandparents who are diluting, and it’s painful and it’s awkward, and eventually you get forgot. And it’s there are good days and there are bad days, but that’s not what you need for a president, because as you get older and Joe Biden is already 81, the number of bad days eventually tends to overwhelm the number of good days. 

And he is no longer fit for office. He shouldn’t be running for president. He shouldn’t be president. And a vote for him is a vote against national stability in the United States. Let’s talk about the other guy now in the debate. I’d argue that 75 to 80% of everything that came out of Donald Trump’s mouth was boldfaced lies. 

Most of those lies have been proven wrong in court on multiple occasions. he did have a few new ones that he brought out. Most of those were from Vidic River. if you remember, back to the Republican primaries earlier this year. Romsami, he was clearly the candidate who was most detached from reality. 

The term for what’s going on with Donald Trump is that his mind is demented. he’s very sure of where he is because he just made it up. he lives in a bubble of his own mental creation. And when you’re like that and somebody pokes into your bubble, you get very, very, very angry. this is something we’ve seen out of Donald Trump for some time, but it’s really accelerated since he lost the presidential reelection me, three years ago.And he definitely doubled and tripled down on that in the debate. We all know someone who’s going through this either themselves or caring for them. caring for somebody with dementia is awful because you get yelled at a lot and it’s difficult to reconcile, you know, a loved one’s broken view of the world with who they used to be. 

There are good days and there are bad days. But I think we all agree that as you get older and Donald Trump is now 79, significantly older than Hillary Clinton was when he said that she was too old to run for president. As you get older, eventually the bad days outnumber the good days, and Donald Trump is no longer fit to be president. 

And a vote for him is a vote against national stability in the United States. And these are our choices. And so in the next part, I’m going to tell you how this is going to go. But we’ll do that from a different vista. 

So where does this take us? I see two paths forward. The first is the path I identified a year and a half ago now. And we will include a link to that original video, in this one and in the written supporting materials. all of the things that I pointed out at that point still remain true. 

I will pull out one that is even more relevant now, and that’s independents. Now, when I say independents, I’m not talking about the roughly 30 to 40% of Americans who are not registered as a Republican or a Democrat. No, no, no. of that 30 to 40%, almost all of them, vote with one party or the other 90% of the time. 

They’re not independents. I’m talking about the true vote splitters, the 10% in the middle that have decided every American election in modern history. they don’t like either candidate. I’m one of those independents. Makes me a little sick to my stomach myself. Biden may have gotten a decent start, but he’s clearly not there anymore. He may have an okay team, but that’s not enough. 

you need the person at the top. Top to be capable and conscious and cognizant. That’s not Biden anymore. however, on the other side, we have Donald Trump, who, part of his dementia is that his insistence that he the election was stolen from him, despite the fact that members of his own administration who were in charge of election integrity, say that it was the cleanest election ever. 

his particular dementia threatens independence because he’s telling people that the general election doesn’t matter and everything should be decided in primaries where he does well. And of course, he does well in primaries, because the MAGA crowd will do whatever he says and they will show up in force to the primaries even when he’s not campaigning for them. 

His ability to sweep the primaries without lifting a finger this time around, that was actually really impressive. But if you’re an independent, it means that your vote goes away. so it’s a choice between someone who’s deluded or someone who’s 

Dementia will destroy your ability to vote from the future. And, you know, that’s a no contest. also, never forget that there are more Democrats than Republicans. 

So Joe Biden does not need to capture the independent vote to win if the independents just don’t show up because they’re disgusted with both, that’s a victory for Biden. And so my general assessment that this is Biden’s election, no matter what happens, as long as he remains alive, stands a little sick to my stomach. This is an ugly choice, but it’s not a particularly difficult one. 

There is one other way that this could go. friends and families and colleagues of Joe Biden are now advising that he consider stepping down and let a more capable candidate, run, which I think would be a great idea. Now, there’ve been people on both sides, maintain the Democrats and old school Republicans, people who are Republicans. 

Before Trump took over the party, who insist that if either side were able to float a better candidate, that they would just sweep because these two candidates are so broken and I understand where they’re coming from. The problem is the process of getting to that. the primaries are functionally over. and on the Democratic side, it’s very weird for you get to get a meaningful challenger, for the nomination. 

when you have somebody who’s already in office and that this is no exception. the difference this time around is that Biden might willingly step down. And if he does that, we will have what’s called an open convention. But that is not a slam dunk. and for this, I blame Barack Obama. one of the reasons why I think Barack Obama will go down in history is one of the bottom 10% of presidents we’ve ever had. 

One of the many reasons is he functionally destroyed the Democratic Party’s ability to generate talent. when he ran for president, he formed his own organization and ran in parallel. And then when he got enough momentum, he basically co-opted the Democratic Party institution for his own purposes, something similar to what, Donald Trump did. in doing so, he made it all about him. 

And then for the next eight years, he sucked all the oxygen out of the room and prevented a new generation of political leaders from rising up within the party. And so that’s why we have folks like Schumer and Pelosi who are almost as old as Biden, who are the powerbrokers in Congress. And a new generation is really having a hard time getting going now. 

they’ve started, but it’s probably too late, certainly too late for the cycle. And that means that the only people who are willing to run for president in the primary system are those ideological idiots like, Elizabeth Warren or Bernie Sanders, who can draw national support and kind of like Trump with MAGA, get people to show up in numbers to the primaries, even if people would normally not consider themselves Democrats. 

if you have an open convention, those ideological idiots will be there. But the advantage of an open convention is you might get normal politicians, God forbid, there. So I have always been a fan in the American political system of the governors, because they have to deal with day in, day out issues and actually make the trains run on time and they have to govern across the aisle. 

And we haven’t had a meaningful governor run on the Democratic side for a bit. And on the Republican side, it’s just been overwhelmed, by Donald Trump 

So for an open convention, we might actually because it’s just going to be for like a few weeks instead of this endless campaigning system that we seem to have normally, a governor could throw his or her hat in the ring, not have to deal with all the shit of all the ideological wars, and actually get a good candidate. 

And that is a way that the Democrats could have a complete blowout of the system of the election. It is possible, but it’s also possible you could get Elizabeth Warren, who was like one of three people on this planet that Donald Trump could beat. This can’t happen on the Republican side. Donald Trump has destroyed the Republican Party. He’s purged of anyone who was against him. 

And the real, breakpoint was back in March when he took over the Republican National Committee. And the first thing he did was purge anyone who had anything to do with polling or candidate selection or basically fact gathering. Anyone who had any experience in politics, and basically replaced them all with his flunkies. So Trump, even if he dies tomorrow, will probably still be the Republican nominee this round. 

His grip on what’s left of the Republican Party is that firm. 

Okay. That’s it for me today. I hope you enjoyed today’s episode of delusion versus Dementia and its After Effects. as always, with all of my domestic political, videos, I invite you to send outraged messages to the collection email spot, which is [email protected] that’s [email protected]. And I promise I will put personally review and respond to each and every None of them. Until next time. 

Joe Biden: Gage Skidmore from Peoria, AZ, United States of America (source: Joe Biden); User:TDKR Chicago 101 (clipping)Donald Trump: Shealah Craighead (source: White House)Сombination: krassotkin, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Why We Can’t Quit Russian Oil: The 10% That Holds the West Hostage

Despite most countries in the West wanting to rid themselves of any involvement with the Russians, the oil revenues continue to flow into Russian pockets. So why haven’t Western countries dropped the hammer on Russian oil exports?

Russian oil accounts for roughly 10% of the global energy supply. If you take that away, everyone in the world is going to feel the heat (or lack thereof). No leader, especially a US President, is willing to bite that inflation causing bullet.

This boils down to one thing, is the fallout worth it? If the US severs ties to global energy markets, that could cause a global crisis or depression, and even fracture the Western alliance. Not ideal. Enforcing a Russian oil ban could lead to escalation and military involvement…also, not ideal.

In a perfect world, ties to Russian oil would have been cut long ago. But we’re not learning our ABCs here, these are major decisions that could drastically change the trajectory of the world as we know it.

Prefer to read the transcript? Click here

Here at Zeihan On Geopolitics we select a single charity to sponsor. We have two criteria:

First, we look across the world and use our skill sets to identify where the needs are most acute. Second, we look for an institution with preexisting networks for both materials gathering and aid distribution. That way we know every cent of our donation is not simply going directly to where help is needed most, but our donations serve as a force multiplier for a system already in existence. Then we give what we can.

Today, our chosen charity is a group called Medshare, which provides emergency medical services to communities in need, with a very heavy emphasis on locations facing acute crises. Medshare operates right in the thick of it. Until future notice, every cent we earn from every book we sell in every format through every retailer is going to Medshare’s Ukraine fund.

And then there’s you.

Our newsletters and videologues are not only free, they will always be free. We also will never share your contact information with anyone. All we ask is that if you find one of our releases in any way useful, that you make a donation to Medshare. Over one third of Ukraine’s pre-war population has either been forced from their homes, kidnapped and shipped to Russia, or is trying to survive in occupied lands. This is our way to help who we can. Please, join us.

Support medshare's ukraine fund
Support medshare's global efforts

Transcript

Hey everyone. Peter Zeihan here coming to you from the French-Italian border on the Mediterranean. And today we’re going to take an entry from the Ask Peter forum, specifically, if the goal of the West in Ukraine is to ultimately, break the Russian military, then wouldn’t it make sense to simply go after the what are currently the legal oil revenues, put them under full sanction, actually interrupt the flows? 

right now, the official policy of the Western nations is to keep the oil flowing from Russia, but do so in a way that prevents the Russians from overly profiting from it. there are two ways that the Russians get their crude to market. Number one is in compliance with the sanctions, where other people provide insurance, other fraud shipping on the second is via something called the shadow fleet, which may be as many as 20% of the tankers that are out there now that are no longer registered to anyone. 

they simply shovel crude back and forth doing CTC transfers, taking them from Russian ports direct to third parties who don’t care about the sanctions very much, and allowing the Russians to circumvent things like price caps. it’s a reasonable question. And if, if, if this war is ever going to end in a way that actually breaks Russian power, Russian income has to be destroyed as part of that process. 

But to make that happen, there’s going to be a lot of collateral damage along the way. So a couple things to keep in mind. first of all, if you’re going to take this stuff offline, there’s a lot of it to go. Russia exports roughly 5.3 million barrels of crude per day and about 2.6 million barrels per day of refined product. 

Of that, only about 1 million barrels of crude is exported by pipe to China Direct, and maybe 300 to 400,000 barrels a day of refined product. Israel. That’s China. The rest of it has to hit a port somewhere and then be part of this shadow fleet or the sanctions regime system. So you’re talking about a disruption of at least 6 million barrels per day of oil and oil products. 

That’s huge. that is well over 10% of globally traded, energy product by volume. And for those of you guys who’ve forgotten your basic economics, oil demand and fuel oil demand is inelastic. So if you only have a disruption of, say, 5 to 10% in terms of output and production, you can get a price increase of 50 to 100% or more. 

Because if you don’t have the crude, if you don’t have the gasoline, you just can’t carry out normal economic activity. So your pay whatever you have to. That’s one of the reasons why the recessions in the 70s and the 80s were so severe, because everyone was dependent on this stuff, and when some of it not even very much went away, well, shit hit the fan. 

So if, if, if, if this were to happen, you would deal with a major price shock in the case of a populist government like Joe Biden’s here in the United States, that means inflation. And that means that his perception is that the political floor would fall out from under him. In any chance he had a reelection would go away. 

so this is something that has not been seriously considered in most Western capitals, most notably in the United States. there is one way you can get around that, and that is to use existing power that Congress has already granted the president to sever the United States from global energy markets. right now, actually for nine years now, ever since, I think it was the 2015 omnibus bill, Congress has granted the president the authority to end oil exports. 

And if you did that, since the U.S. is a net exporter now, you’d have a supersaturated oil market in North America, angle America specifically, while you would also have a removal of another 3 to 5 million barrels a day of crude and refined product from the rest of the world. So basically, you double down on the elasticity problem for the rest of the world and cause a massive global depression. 

At the same time, North America has a few problems with crude quality. This lady does on its own way. if if if that were to happen, you could probably kiss the Western Alliance largely goodbye, because the white House would have consciously chosen to favor its own domestic political issues and some economic issues, to be perfectly honest, against the security and economic needs in the long term, basically the entire alliance structure. 

Then there’s also the issue of enforcement. You can’t just, like, wave your hand and say, no, this stuff isn’t allowed. You have to do something about it. And your options are to go in and bomb Russian ports, which would trigger, let’s just say, other issues, or to go after the shadow Fleet itself to take those ships out of circulation. 

I mean, they’re all basically owned by the Russians at this point, but they’re shipping crude primarily to China and India. So if you basically declare or have an undeclared economic war against those two countries, that complicates a lot of things very, very quickly. Now, will we get there in the end? Yeah, probably. but that requires pulling out all the stops and a lot of strategic questions that, would occupy a great deal of political bandwidth for any government. 

In the end, if the United States really if the goal really is to break Russia, then there needs to be changes to military policy to make sure that the Ukrainians can strike logistical hubs within Russia. And it means an end to Russian energy exports at a large enough scale to break the income flows that are necessary to keep the Russian military machine running. 

We are not there yet. I’m not saying we’re not going to get there. In fact, I would argue we are. But that requires a significant change in the political and economic calculus of all the Western capitals, first and foremost, the United States. So good question. I’m not yet. 

No More Military Exemption for Israeli Ultra-Orthodox

The demographic pyramids below reflect the Israeli government’s best (public) understanding of the changing profile of its population. The two fastest-growing segments are Palestinian-identifying Muslim Arabs in Gaza and the West Bank, and the ultra-Orthodox Jewish Israelis. Not only do these two groups have starkly different ideas about what the future of disputed territories look like, they have increasingly little common ground with what one might call the more secular, moderate core of Israeli society at large.

The Israeli Supreme Court just ruled that the ultra-Orthodox community will no longer get exemption from military service. This addresses a number of long-standing issues, but it could spell trouble for Netanyahu’s political career.

The ultra-Orthodox community makes up 10-20% of the population, pays less taxes relative to their share of the population than secular Israelis, receives subsidies, has low labor participation…so until now, the rest of the population has been picking up the slack. By eliminating military exemption for the ultra-Orthodox community, that extra weight can be lifted from the remaining population.

As you would expect, the ultra-Orthodox aren’t thrilled with this decision and they’ll likely be making that known politically. Since the ultra-Orthodox parties are key supporters of Netanyahu’s coalition, don’t be surprised if we see some changes soon. This will only be amplified by criticisms of Netanyahu’s handling of the Hamas conflict and strategic incompetence.

Prefer to read the transcript? Click here

Here at Zeihan On Geopolitics we select a single charity to sponsor. We have two criteria:

First, we look across the world and use our skill sets to identify where the needs are most acute. Second, we look for an institution with preexisting networks for both materials gathering and aid distribution. That way we know every cent of our donation is not simply going directly to where help is needed most, but our donations serve as a force multiplier for a system already in existence. Then we give what we can.

Today, our chosen charity is a group called Medshare, which provides emergency medical services to communities in need, with a very heavy emphasis on locations facing acute crises. Medshare operates right in the thick of it. Until future notice, every cent we earn from every book we sell in every format through every retailer is going to Medshare’s Ukraine fund.

And then there’s you.

Our newsletters and videologues are not only free, they will always be free. We also will never share your contact information with anyone. All we ask is that if you find one of our releases in any way useful, that you make a donation to Medshare. Over one third of Ukraine’s pre-war population has either been forced from their homes, kidnapped and shipped to Russia, or is trying to survive in occupied lands. This is our way to help who we can. Please, join us.

Support medshare's ukraine fund
Support medshare's global efforts

Transcript

Hey, everybody. Peter Zeihan here. Coming to you from square top mountain and back behind me is Argentine Peak. Edwards. And I think Kelso. It’s the 25th of June. And today we’re to talk about what’s going down in Israel. the Supreme Court just ruled that the country’s ultra-Orthodox, who have been granted exemptions from serving in the military for decades, can no longer give exemptions because it’s a discriminatory long term issue, is that, the ultra-Orthodox are somewhere between 10 and 20% of, Israel’s population, based on where you draw the number. 

And since they pay very low taxes and qualify for all kinds of subsidies and don’t serve, most of them don’t work. And so they have high, very, very, very, very high birth rates, very, very low labor participation rates. And they don’t serve in the military. so there is an issue that has to become a larger and larger percentage of the population, just the the sheer weight of what, is then dropped on the shoulders of everybody else becomes almost insurmountable. 

Keep in mind that there is an Arab minority in Israel that, secular, not like they’re protesting or throwing bombs or anything, but it’s a very real issue from a national identity and a social management point of view. there’s also a short term issue that has to do with the Netanyahu government. most of the parties that subscribe to ultra-Orthodox are part of Netanyahu, Prime Minister Netanyahu’s governing coalition, and have been for quite some time. 

Israel’s had a lot of government the last 20 years when since Netanyahu kind of came into the burst on the field, he’s definitely their longest running prime minister overall. Anyway, what’s the best way I can put this into American terms? Think of Matt Gates. You know, the guy from Florida with really good hair, talks a lot of shit about the military, but thinks that the military is a solution to everything. 

We should bomb this country and invade that country. But he’s never served. so take blowhards who don’t really contribute to the system, thinking that they know best about how to use military power. strip away the good hair and, the child sex trafficking charges and the drug charges or allegations. Excuse me. And basically, from a political point of view, you just described most of the ultra-Orthodox parties, in Netanyahu’s coalition. 

So they talk a big game, but they don’t really contribute to the solution financially or in terms of, people with boots. there’s another issue, of course, and the whirlwind export havoc. And there’s also a very short term issue. After the Hamas assault on Israel back in October, Netanyahu was able to convince most of the parties in parliament, to form a unity government, because the feeling was the attack had been on everyone. 

So everyone should have a say in how things unfold. since then, Netanyahu has not shared power with unity government all that much. And so party after party has left, accusing Netanyahu of not having a plan for the war, accusing Netanyahu of prolonging the war for his own political purposes in order to solidify his position as prime minister. 

and, accusing him and the ultra-Orthodox overall of just general strategic incompetence because this attack shouldn’t have happened. Hamas is like the one thing that the Israelis are watching every single day. It’s there shouldn’t have been no surprise attack. And here we are eight months later, and there’s no sign that the war is going to conclude. 

And in a number of places where Israel has supposedly already cleansed the area of Hamas fighters, they’ve popped up again. So, the international condemnation from the point of view of people who have left the Israeli government is now for nothing, because the Israelis have basically paid the price of launching a major war and, being at least indirectly complicit, a lot of unpleasantness. 

But there’s still no sign that the war’s end is in sight. that means that, that Yahoo really, really needs the Orthodox to hold onto power while other parties in Parliament are actively agitating for fresh elections. We only take one significant coalition partner in, in India, whose coalition to force new elections in which, I would probably not do very well. 

And you had throw the Supreme Court today into that mix, and you’re undoubtedly going to have at least some or ultra-Orthodox who think they might get a better deal with a different government, as opposed to having to serve in the military or actually be actively involved in changing the law so that their own people have to serve in the military, since they’re sitting in the government right now, when the case has been made. 

Anyway, so significant decision changes things on the domestic and the international fronts. And that’s all I’ve got. All right. I got to cross this. 

How France, Germany and Poland Can Strengthen the Weimar Triangle

In the post-Cold War world, France, Germany and Poland concocted the Weimar Triangle as a way to foster cooperation amongst the three countries. The trio has weakened over the years – due to differing national priorities – but Russia’s invasion of Ukraine might necessitate getting the gang back together.

Thanks to their renewed military collaboration, the Weimar Triangle will be working to develop long-range weapons to enhance their defensive capabilities; the aim is to prevent Russia from falling back into its old ways. While these three countries have a good thing going, Henry Kissinger argued that a Weimar Quartet might be even better – if not necessary.

Ukraine would strengthen the triangles’ ability to ensure regional stability and effectively counter Russian threats. The bottom line is that when (or if since we’re feeling optimistic) the Russians come knocking, these countries sure as hell want all the tools and partners necessary to stop them in their tracks…

Prefer to read the transcript? Click here

Here at Zeihan On Geopolitics we select a single charity to sponsor. We have two criteria:

First, we look across the world and use our skill sets to identify where the needs are most acute. Second, we look for an institution with preexisting networks for both materials gathering and aid distribution. That way we know every cent of our donation is not simply going directly to where help is needed most, but our donations serve as a force multiplier for a system already in existence. Then we give what we can.

Today, our chosen charity is a group called Medshare, which provides emergency medical services to communities in need, with a very heavy emphasis on locations facing acute crises. Medshare operates right in the thick of it. Until future notice, every cent we earn from every book we sell in every format through every retailer is going to Medshare’s Ukraine fund.

And then there’s you.

Our newsletters and videologues are not only free, they will always be free. We also will never share your contact information with anyone. All we ask is that if you find one of our releases in any way useful, that you make a donation to Medshare. Over one third of Ukraine’s pre-war population has either been forced from their homes, kidnapped and shipped to Russia, or is trying to survive in occupied lands. This is our way to help who we can. Please, join us.

Support medshare's ukraine fund
Support medshare's global efforts

Transcript

Hey everybody, Peter Zeihan here. Coming to you from the base of the serious part of West Spanish Peak in New Mexico, adjacent to southern Colorado. I’m waiting for a storm to pass before I get out on the ridge line. Being 6.5 feet tall and a Thunder Boomer isn’t really the best call. Anyway, on the topic of things that have been mehhhh, but very soon may be incredible.

Today, 27th of June, there was a summit with a group called the Weimar Triangle, which includes the leadership of France, Poland, and Germany, the three critical countries of the Northern European Plain. The Weimar Triangle was envisioned in the aftermath of the Cold War when Poland was no longer a Soviet satellite country and was on the way to joining the European Union and NATO organizations that Poland has since joined. The idea was that in the long swath of bloody European history, France, Germany, and Poland tended to find themselves on different sides of most major issues, leading to many of the major wars.

Anyway, the idea was that if you get them all on the same side, then the Northern European Plain, instead of being the most blood-soaked part of the planet, can become something better—a path of trade and cooperation.

And you could argue that the idea of the Weimar Triangle has been realized, but it’s not because of the triangle. This is how it all started in the 1990s, but by the time we got to the 2010s, the three countries drifted apart. France tried to be an independent pole in international affairs, which is always a mixed bag. Germany tried to forego the politics and security talks and simply focused on trade by exploiting labor and infrastructure in Central Europe, taking a completely amoral position on everything that mattered. And Poland was in and out, in and out, with every possible interpretation of what it means to be Polish. Remember that Poland had its first democratic elections in the early 1990s.

So here we are, really only one generation later. There are a lot of deep divisions within Polish society about the role of government and where Poland fits within Europe and the wider world, and it’s not going to reach equilibrium anytime soon. By the time we got to about 2002, especially with the Iraq war in 2003, the Weimar Triangle had basically fallen apart until Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022.

Now, the three states are starting to talk a lot. Instead of collaborating on economic issues, they have decided to start working on joint military acquisitions and development, specifically for long-range cruise missiles with a range in excess of 2000 km. The reason is simple: as the Germans will tell you, if you go to war with the Russians and take a defensive position, the entire wealth and resources of the Russian Federation, Soviet Union, or Tsarist Imperial Russia, whatever it happens to be, can be collected into a single fist and punch at you wherever it wants. If you are left playing defense against that, you are going to lose. You have to have a deep strike capacity that shatters the infrastructure and logistical capability of the Russians far from the front. Throughout the Cold War, this is basically what NATO did by practicing things like the North Cape exercises, which weren’t necessarily designed to plug the Fulda Gap but instead to prevent the Russians from reaching the gap in the first place.

Now, where to go with this? It’s a realization, especially in Germany, where the defense minister is heading up this effort, that we are in a fundamentally different world. The foreign policies of the French and the Germans in recent years simply don’t work anymore. Getting that sort of weapons capacity in Europe gives the Europeans the ability to forestall a Russian invasion if Ukraine falls. The Poles know they’re next, and the Germans are fearful they’re after the Poles. So it makes sense to do this as soon as possible.

The question, of course, is whether it’s going to work as well as my hike. The answer is probably not, because even if the triangle can come up with the perfect weapon system, launching from the eastern half of Poland, you’re still a long way from huge parts of the Russian industrial base. Remember, during World War II, with the German invasion of the Soviet Union, Stalin built a lot of industrial plants on the other side of the Urals. We’re talking about a big place here, which is why that greenie peacenik Henry Kissinger always said in the post-Cold War era that no matter what your goal is vis-à-vis Moscow, it can’t be achieved by the Weimar Triangle alone—it has to be a Weimar Quartet. Ukraine has to be involved. If Russia is hostile, then you get a civil war among the Slavs, and you can launch an assault from 1500 miles further east, throwing a huge amount of Russian territory open.

Remember, from the Ukrainian border to Moscow is only about 350 miles. That’s not that far. More importantly, Ukraine is not technically part of the Northern European Plain; it’s actually in the Eurasian heartlands itself. So you split that territory between Russia and Ukraine, and instead of Russia being able to focus all of its attention on the Polish Gap, it suddenly has this massive frontier to worry about.

That’s in part why Putin launched the war in the first place. But second, the better option, as Kissinger put forward, is to assume that Russia gives up its genocidal irredentist ways and decides to join the family of nations. Splitting the territory ensures that you can never have a retrenchment that would be sustainable. If there is a way forward where Moscow is a decent place and Russia becomes a normal country, it will do so with Ukraine on its side. The only way to ensure that works is to have the Weimar Quartet fortify Ukraine, not just economically but also militarily, so there can’t be any backsliding.

Of course, the question then is: will that work? Well, that’s why we call it making history. All right, see you on the next mountain.

Photo in header by Občanská demokratická strana | Civic Democratic Party in the Czech Republic | Wikimedia Commons