Geopolitics, Strategy, Realpolitik, AI, Nukes, Tech Cold War | History (Rome → Cold War) | Nixon/Kissinger Realist | Conservative | Order First | Views My Own
Joined November 2008
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I have read two of the books in the below 🧵:
Sea Power & The Tragedy of Great Power Politics.
But I would suggest a # of Robert D. Kaplan books instead of the others on this list, starting with the Revenge of Geography & The Return of Marco Polo's World.
Then Asia's Cauldron & Monsoon.
#Geopolitics #Realism
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A thoughtful piece that seeks to inject nuance into considerations of #Thucydides in @TXNatSecReview
#Realism
tnsr.org/2026/09/trapped-by-…
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In the wake of the blue tsunami in #Election2026, there is a lot of soul searching going on for the GOP & #conservatism overall.
Let us be clear, Trump was a consequence of deeper structural problems in America that the conservative movement was not adequately addressing long before he descended the escalator in 2015.
He rode a wave because he saw it, or at least intuited it, when no one else major did or was willing to say so.
To me the great tragedy is how bad things were that a man with the flaws of Trump became seen as the main tribune of the "left behind." Under no normal set of circumstances would someone like him come anywhere near the White House once much less twice. He is a severely flawed vessel, but he contained an important message.
The lessons of 2026 are not that everything Trump did should be discarded, nor that the old GOP & conservative movement leadership should be restored.
There are elements of Trumpism that are magnficently correct.
1) We should focus on #China. He was right to change the old status quo on China that had built up over a gemeration even if he seems weaker on China now in the second term;
2) We should embrace a more #Nixon/#Kissinger style foreign policy of #realism
Global power is diffusing & we can no longer violate the strategic wisdom of Frederick the Great when he said, "he who defends everything defends nothing."
3) Strategic, focused tariffs can be used to achieve strategic ends, though indiscriminate & broad-based ones are a mistake as a matter of policy & politics;
4) Strategic industrial policy is needed to break Chinese dominance of critical supply chains, especially rare earths;
5) We do need to secure the border & deport those breaking crimes. The pre-Trump business aligned GOP did NOT support that the way they should have, many did so hardly at all;
6) We cannot cede the ground on social issues while woke ideology runs rampant & hijacks our institutions all the way down to public education.
To be blunt, the pre-Trump GOP was fairly weak, if present at all, on these issues & dismissed any concern over them by invoking the ghost of Reagan & recycling old talking points from the end of the 20th Century.
Again, I come back to the tragedy of our time. Trump was flawed, but who was out there to deal with the very real issues he exploited?
Very few.
Instead, most Republican leaders wanted to keep running an antiquated playbook even as the cultural & strategic ground beneath their feet shifted.
It probably never should have been Trump. But there was no one else at the time. THAT is the deeper problem of #history & remains such as we move forward.
Who can retain the necessary corrections of Trump, but do so with more discipline, focus, & not ongoing smell of corruption?
Is there a new #Fusionism that can be crafted that meets today's needs?
If not, then Socialism, & possibly worse, beckons.
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Given the #StarWar trend, I decided to have @grok create an image of what real stories young men should pay attention to more than a reimagined fictional tale of #Anakin...
Order from chaos.
#Augustus #Napoleon #History
Interesting these #StarWars memes are emerging with #Anakin as the "tragic hero."
The story @romanhelmetguy outlines would have been far more interesting for sure. I would certainly prefer it. However, as he correctly notes that is not what Lucas does.
Instead Lucas not only goes conventional, worse, he turns Anakin in to a whiny moron who is easily manipulated by a puppet master genius in Palpatine. Once he learns Padme is dead, he never really intends to do anything else but get revenge & help Palpatine until he learns that Luke is his son decades later.
Even then, he really only intends to collaborate with Luke to overthrow Palpatine & rule the Empire themselves not necessarily do so from the right perspective.
Frankly, a better narrative for young frustrated men is not a reimagined Anakin myth, but the very real story of young Octavian who rises after his uncle is murdered by corrupt senators in the final days of the Roman Republic & then reimposes order on a destroyed system after the chaos of decades of civil wars & proscriptions eventually becoming #Augustus.
That has the benefit of being a true story that does not require the invention of a reimagined fictional narrative.
The narrative of the short, Corsican outcast who rises after the French Revolution to become one of the greatest generals & titans of his era as Emperor of the French, #Napoleon, also is better for our moment, if we are looking for someone for frustrated youth to emulate.
#History #Rome
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My worldview in four images...
#Rome #Civilization #Geopolitics #Realism #Russia #China #AI #TechColdWar
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This is not great. Our strategic petroleum reserves are at near-historic lows due to the #Iran war. From @EIAgov #Oil #Energy
eia.gov/dnav/pet/hist/LeafHa…
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These are are great books, though obviously there are a any others that influenced me including many that are very useful for understanding specific things like specific technologies or specific historical contexts.
But the below more than most influenced how I think.
#Realism
"It is relatively easy to learn from failure. But the nemesis of success is the refusal to believe that there is anything to learn. The temptation is overwhelming to seek to repeat earlier achievements. But while the rhythm of history may echo itself, concrete conditions can rarely be replicated. The wise statesman will avoid acting by rote; he will analyze carefully the actual circumstances as well as the distinguishing and unique characteristics that had made for past success."
#Kissinger #Statesmanship
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I notice a trend where folks ask @Grok to draw a picture of America if they were in charge based on their X posts.
So here is mine.
Actually, not too bad.
"It is almost impossible for historians to understand how in advance of some of history’s great revolutions it was often not even realized that a change was about to take place. Lulled by the illusion of permanence, the soon-to-be victims treated as fleeting aberrations warnings that posterity now sees as self-evident. And therefore dikes that could have been strengthened to hold back the flood were left unattended until they suddenly burst and the torrents engulfed those who had never suspected danger."
#Kissinger #Revolutions #History
A fascinating effort even if ultimately successful. The movie is awesome.
youtu.be/yPPycZo8H7c?is=LO2w…
#WWII #History
Good morning all & OTD in 1944, Operation Market Garden began: a daring plan for airborne landings behind German lines to secure the River Rhine crossings, which would be secured by an Allied armoured thrust to liberate Holland & secure bridges which, sadly, would be 'too far'
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A reminder that poor American economic & strategic choices led to #China's dominance of #RareEarths. It will take a lot to break that #chokepoint.
A good pathway forward in @CIMSEC
cimsec.org/elemental-leverag…
Excerpt,
"Over the last two decades, the United States and its allies treated the materials that underpin modern life, rare-earths such as lithium and cobalt as the anonymous plumbing of globalization. China treated them as strategy. Today it controls most of the world’s processing and virtually all of the stages that matter: refining, separation, and magnet manufacturing. In total, Beijing controls roughly 70 % of global mining, about 90 % of separation/processing, and more than 90 % of high-performance magnet manufacturing.2 The result is an asymmetry more dangerous than most weapons systems because it operates quietly, through dependency rather than force.
This is not simply a rehearsal for war over Taiwan and the global semiconductor market, though that flashpoint looms over everything. It is part of a broader campaign to reorder the global balance of power, to remind every nation that in the 21st century, the flow of materials can be as decisive as the movement of troops. Rare-earths have become Beijing’s favorite pressure point because they embody the new reality of competition: the next crisis may begin not in the Taiwan Strait, but in a factory that can no longer get the magnets it needs."
