Glenn Diesen nails it with the expression “strategic vacuum”: No one can formulate where we want to go, how we get there. Instead, it’s always this emotional rhetoric.

Posted by: Marvin | Nov 18 2025 18:42 utc | 4

Posted by: Saint Jimmy | Nov 18 2025 18:41 utc | 3
Me too, I was born at the knife edge between Boomer and Gen X (of course it is not a knife edge, in the mid 60s but not in the US) and can compare my own experience of the decline in everything the majority needs with the experiences of my elder siblings.
For instance, they were able to get on the property ladder (just) on a single salary, whereas for me it was no longer possible. Growing job insecurity made that even more risky and deindustrialisation took away not only those mass employers for the working class but also the technical, engineering and research roles they supported.
Throw in the unrelenting growth of the FIRE sector and the emergence of predatory rent seeking ans the crappification becomes complete.
And I’m not saying ‘poor me’, subsequent cohorts have been given an increasingly shitty deal.

Posted by: ChatNPC | Nov 18 2025 19:01 utc | 6

Prof. Mearsheimer oversimplifies Russia’s, and Putin’s, motives in the war…Putin has fought the war to minimize Russian casualties, and maintain his standing in BRICS, and has been largely successful in both goals…He has also used the war to eliminate the deadwood in the general staff,  jail the corrupt generals, and give the initiative to younger officers…He has also used it to make huge advances in military technology…to the point where Ukrainian soldiers now complain that they don’t even see the Russians, and are being killed by FPV drones and glide bombs which there is little defense against…

Posted by: pyrrhus | Nov 18 2025 19:07 utc | 8

Todd mentions the emptiness in the western politicians, complete lack of any vision of the future and that war is the replacement of such lack of vision. He has a point.
 

Posted by: Norwegian | Nov 18 2025 19:16 utc | 10

There is certainly a widespread feeling, if not something more tangible than a feeling, in the West itself that there is a decline of all sorts, economic, spiritual, political, social., and there is deep division. These problems are more or less universally acknowledged, but from different points of view of course there are different diagnoses – late stage capitalism, nihilism, the meaning crisis, a general civilizational decline, reactionary fascism, etc.
Anyway, I would like to add something else to your listening/reading list, and that is a fascinating Chinese perspective on the West:
https://open.substack.com/pub/landmarksmag/p/an-american-reads-america-against?r=2tpjcj&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=false

Posted by: Sal | Nov 18 2025 19:18 utc | 12

https://rumble.com/v71rptm-dasha-nekrasova-gets-canceled-for-interviewing-me.html
I’m really enjoying Nick Fuentes speaking extemporaneously 

Posted by: elonmuskiscool | Nov 18 2025 19:30 utc | 14

“Putin is now devouring his own useful idiots,” according to Hamish de Bretton-Gordon in The Telegraph.  “The ecosystem of disinformation Putin relied on to project an alternative reality to the world—-not of a pariah state mired in war crimes but of a crusading saviour shielding us from imagined Nazis and phantom extremists—-has collapsed.”
 
 
de Bretton-Gordon claims that VVP is engaging in “Stalinist purges” (yes, he wrote that) of the propaganda machine VVP has depended on to mask his war crimes (according to de Bretton-Gordon)  “and justify an illegal and ruinously expensive war to ordinary Russians.”
 
 
It’s the spectacular collapse of Roman Alekhin that has de Bretton-Gordon’s knickers in a twist: “Putin’s regime” has now designated the pro-war Z-blogger a foreign agent.
 
 
de Bretton-Gordon asserts that the term itself—foreign agent—is steeped in “Stalin-era menace, once reserved for genuine enemies of the state,” ignoring the fact that the U.S., a Bright Shining City On The Hill and a nearly 250-year old democracy, uses the exact same term to distinguish those who receive remunerations from foreign countries from those who do not.
 
“Look back at the Soviet Union under Stalin. First, they went after political enemies, and then the system began to devour its own people,” according to Vladimir Kara-Murza, the British-Russian opposition figure sentenced to 25 years in a modern prison camp—a sentence he survived thanks to a 2024 prisoner swap.  “Once the machinery of repression starts, it cannot stop.”

• The machinery of repression cannot stop once it starts, because Stalin.
• The machinery of repression cannot stop once it starts, because Soviet Union.
• The machinery of repression cannot stop once it starts, because Putin.

Even as the Kremlin boasts of gains around Pokrovsk and Zaporizhzhia, “these supposed advances,” by de Bretton-Gordon’s lights, “have come at enormous cost in Russian lives.”
 
 
“Supposed advances,” right-?
 
If this guy drinks any more deeply from the Kool-Aid, he will suffer a full-blown sugar coma.
 
 
Sputtering, de Bretton-Gordon goes all Novichok on our alfa-sierra-sierra: “This is not the first time we have seen Moscow’s disinformation apparatus in full, deranged flow. In the aftermath of the failed assassination attempt against Sergei Skripal and his daughter in Salisbury in 2018, the Kremlin unleashed a tidal wave of nonsense.”
 
 
Satisfied at having counted coup on Russia, de Bretton-Gordon sums up by serving a stark reminder: “Authoritarian regimes rarely collapse from external pressure. They rot from within, consuming the very people who once upheld them.”
 
 
It is for this precise reason that Europe must especially intensify pressure on VVP: “Putin needs to understand that the alternative to capitulation in the war is an ignominious end, more reminiscent of Stalin’s downfall than of a triumphant retirement.”
 
 
de Bretton-Gordon is typical of other European dead-enders and bitter-clingers who can’t deep six the Lost Cause.   They cite Stalin.   They cite the Soviet Union.   Sometimes they mention the gulag.   If they don’t reference Sudetenland, the word appeasement and the year 1939, you know they’re thinking about those things.   And before you know it, Novichok is in-play.
 
 
It’s like that old adage:
In Russia,
 
you don’t smoke
 
cigarettes, the cigarettes
 
smoke you.  In Russia,
 
you don’t take
 
Viagra, the Viagra
 
takes you.  In Russia,
 
you don’t apologize
 
for Putin, the Putin
 
apologizes you.

Posted by: steel_porcupine | Nov 18 2025 19:41 utc | 16

Nonsense.
 
Everything is fine. 
 
Europe is the Garden.

Posted by: LoveDonbass | Nov 18 2025 19:46 utc | 18

Todd should not be blindly celebrated.  He gets a lot of the obvious answers right.  I mean the West is declining?  No shit.  But look at his work, not just the answers.  It’s a ridiculous method.  Oh, and he is fatally compromised when it comes to Israel.  He identifies too greatly with the country.  

Posted by: Ahenobarbus | Nov 18 2025 19:53 utc | 20

*** between Boomer and Gen X ***
Posted by: ChatNPC | Nov 18 2025 19:01 utc | 6
Posted by: Saint Jimmy | Nov 18 2025 19:18 utc | 11
 
I belong to the Blank Generation.
https://m.imdb.com/title/tt0074216/?ref_=ext_shr_lnk
Art imitates life imitating art. 

Posted by: frithguild | Nov 18 2025 19:59 utc | 22

Viktor Medwedtschuk says, the only way for Ukraine to become peace is to become part of Russia.
https://youtu.be/EOZGPQrXTpw
 
 

Posted by: smartfox | Nov 18 2025 20:00 utc | 24

@ S Brennan re: FDR
 
People make FDR sound like some kind of paragon or his effect on Estados Unidos as some kind of golden age from where we have slipped. 
 
In reality, you can chart the decline running all through his presidency and even before. 
 
What we are talking about is the failure of gargantuan, centralized economies, and what FDR did was to package this sale of big-government and hyper-federalization to the public under the guise of social welfare. This is, as it turns out, the ONLY method for fooling the rubes into signing on the dotted line. 
 
But the Social Security Act did not work. There were signs that historians have evaluated that show that the programs of FDR were not succeeding in lifting the public out of the throes of the Great Depression. The thing that did work was, of course, WAR and a betrayal of the Founder’s intent to keep America isolationist and unencumbered by Old World rivalries. 
 
What will we see in the near future is an even greater attempt at hyper-federalization with Universal Basic Income, which will fail, and will result in an even greater separation of wealth that FDR began by getting the MIC rolling.
 
We are only at like step 2 of the complete and utter collapse of Estados Unidos and I am very hopeful that history will again be opened up for legitimate discussion on the subject America and its founding principles centered around isolationism and government only where it is absolutely needed. 

Posted by: NemesisCalling | Nov 18 2025 20:01 utc | 26

This video is by Kevin Walmsley, an America business analyst living in China for several years. 
 
While it’s fun to lament  the decline of the West, at some point we in the West are going to have to start the process of rebuild. 
 
Kevin explains what the Chinese have done to make their economy so great, and he explains why it’s currently not a great idea  to invest  in the Western economies, and indeed, why that’s not happening nearly so much.*
 
This “rebuild” is going to be even harder than we thought, as Kevin explains.
 
BTW, Walmsley is level-headed, deliberate, very well-informed, and cites a lot of sources. 
 
That vid I linked to will help you  get a sense of the scale and complexity of the  problem the West is facing.
 
On previous threads the subject of the impact of culture on a society was brought up.  I asked  “how do you design a culture for max societal performance?”
 
Maybe someone will say “nobody _designs_ a culture;  cultures  happen organically”.
 
a. Are you sure about that? and
b. At  what point are we going to actually begin the rebuild  process? Do  we need  to wait for collapses and impact-explosions to start work?
 
====
 
* A while back I asserted that new  industrial facility construction  here in the  US   was _not great_, and no re-shoring was gonna happen without a  heck of a  lot more industrial construction. “Wait a little while! It’s just getting going!” some people  proclaimed. The  vid by Walmsley helps explain why moving production to US might not happen so  much as we’d thought.
 
It’s a very sobering video, friends, and it seems pretty credible  to  me.

Posted by: Tom Pfotzer | Nov 18 2025 20:11 utc | 28

***What we are talking about is the failure of gargantuan, centralized economies, and what FDR did was to package this sale of big-government and hyper-federalization to the public under the guise of social welfare.***
Posted by: NemesisCalling | Nov 18 2025 20:01 utc | 26
 
The 1930’s Supreme Court evicerated protections against federal involvement in social welfare when it invented a “commerce” power that never existed (see Wickard v Filburn) and made taxing power unlimited (US v Butler). With these cracks opened, incentives to expand federal power freed the beast (AJHVM monkeys), which has acted incrementally and relentlessly against the rights of individuals. Nobody should be surprised at where the US has arrived. 

Posted by: frithguild | Nov 18 2025 20:19 utc | 30

Putin must defend (Russia) against the pressure of sanctions. There is no longer any diplomatic path to the West, and what Trump is pretending is just his version of “carrot and stick,” i.e., pressure.
If Russia does not do so, it will suffocate under the sanctions in the long run (which is what the West wants).
But the EU and NATO leaders (and other loudmouths) have repeatedly declared that they are at war with Russia. So then, let Russia show us what war is. A formal declaration of war is not necessary; the Europeans and the US have already made one.
And then ask all around, “Do you want more?” Europe cannot (yet) wage war, nor can the US, and above all, Trump certainly does not want missiles hitting the US, no matter what he threatens. There will be no major war, just a blow to everyone’s head that hurts, but a recoil from all the loudmouths, after which reasonable discussions can take place. Everyone will then have the only thing that tames them: fear. And then ultimatums, and the Europeans who are not prepared will then be dealt with in the same way as Trump, but from the Russian side.
Translated with DeepL.com (free version)

Posted by: smartfox | Nov 18 2025 20:26 utc | 32

Or the dark skinned minorities could help re-civilize the white skinned as they stand, once again, on the edge of barbarism, the kind of barbarism that the dark-skinned are trying to run away from in the first place.
 
Posted by: fnord | Nov 18 2025 20:18 utc | 29
 
#####
 
That was tried in Spain (maths, art, architecture, science), but Charles Martel decided to set a course for his descendant (Charlemagne) to become the Holy Roman Emperor.
 
And from that came the Crusades and many other colonial projects.
 
It’s 2025, and the internet is very accessible. People can choose their culture, fashion, diet, friends, and class.
 
Not sure it is wise to teach Europeans more than what they have already been gifted from regular handwashing to basic numbers.
 
Again, we’re in an era where people who stay victimized or ignorant are choosing to be so.
 
Atheists should be able to appreciate a “survival of the fittest” scenario.
 
I wish everyone peace and good fortune. The ball is in their court.

Posted by: LoveDonbass | Nov 18 2025 20:37 utc | 34

Michael Hudson nails it…
 
That is their idea of national interest. So, it’s not what you mean by national interest. When you and I talk about national interests, we use it in the way that it used to be used 50 years ago. It’s the interest of the entire economy — if you were saying what is good for the economy, in terms of its material welfare and well-being for the population, the increase in output, and the more equal distribution of this output — that’s how you and I, and, I think, most of your listeners, have defined a national interest. 
But the national interest as defined by the European leadership is: No, our interest is the same as in America — the 1%, mainly the 10%. Our interest is in the military-industrial complex. Our interest is the money in our personal pockets, that we get from the bribery from the U.S., from NATO, from the companies that we represent — against the interest of labor and the voters.
So, you have a divergence of national interest, from what used to be called a materialist approach to history: thinking that countries are going to act in their own economic, and social, and political self-interest, in a democratic way that represents what’s good for the population as a whole. This is no longer the meaning of national interest in today’s Western economies, from the United States to Europe.
 
The Strange Case of Europe’s Decline | Michael Hudson

Posted by: Saint Jimmy | Nov 18 2025 20:46 utc | 36

Posted by: NemesisCalling | Nov 18 2025 20:01 utc | 26
Posted by: frithguild | Nov 18 2025 20:19 utc | 30
 
FDR inherited a bankrupt nation.  The true cretins were Andrew Mellon (Oligarch ans commerce secretary)  Hoover and especially  the dumbest central banker ever  Montagu Norman -second only to Janet Yellen–my fans will be glad to know that the wiki entry below is entirely wrong:
 
“Montagu Norman was Governor from 1920 to 1944. To this day, he is the longest-serving Governor of the Bank of England. Norman played a critical role in rebuilding the international monetary system after World War One.” (1)
 
The moron got on, then off the gold standard in the 20’s , bankrupted the UK and a few former colonies by the end of the war..
 
FDR did what he had to do repatriate the gold give them paper than mark up the paper.  Good legislation in that they separated the investment banks from a standard bank but of course that got changed with Willie Clinton in 1998 killing the 1934 regulations.
 
The Minsky Moment came when Nixon dropped the gold standard in 1971.  The gold as money (2)had its problems but it kept the shylocks honest.  Now with fiat paper governments have grown  big and it seems impossible to stop the trend.  In China Kublai Khan introduced the ‘paper Yuan’ and Marco Polo was amazed that merchants would give the Emperor gold, silver, pearls, silk and , they, in turn received pieces of paper.  That was 1280-the paper Yuan through incredible inflation was finished in 1368-how much time does the US Fiat have….
 
 
1. I know the history et al of the subjects so when I use wiki (because its ubiquitous and quick-)if its correct and if not not  I pick the correct reference.
 
2.  “Gold is money , all else is credit”  J P Morgan 1913, testifying to Congress
 

Posted by: canuk | Nov 18 2025 20:51 utc | 38

The EU leaders don’t know how to go on now with their war declared on start 01.01.2028.
All verbal threats and sanctions against Russia have been proved as non-effective measures means nonsense, still now.
They’ve to start-up now with their “own” EU-Army drafted young 20+teans men to fight against Russian soldiers. That’s all.
 

Posted by: spare_truth_03 | Nov 18 2025 20:54 utc | 40

“But the national interest as defined by the European leadership is: No, our interest is the same as in America — the 1%, mainly the 10%.”
 
Posted by: Saint Jimmy | Nov 18 2025 20:46 utc | 36
 
The above is the structure of all human tribes, governments, nations-there was an anomaly just after WW2 where the hoi polloi got more benefit in the West as well as punishing tax rates for the rich.
 
That is the exception to the rule.
 
Show me a historical  example where the nation was ruled for the common man

Posted by: canuk | Nov 18 2025 21:08 utc | 42

@LD, who said: “It’s 2025, and the internet is very accessible. People can choose their culture, fashion, diet, friends, and class.”
 
This is a vital, critical-importance point. We _do_ have choices,  and it’s probably never been easier to  make and  enforce those  decisions.
 
This is  a great thread. Thanks to Helmuth von Moltke , Saint Jimmy,  Nemesis Calling, frithguild.  Especially liked  Dr. Hudson’s “national  interest” piece. 
 
Know thy interests, and act accordingly.

Posted by: Tom Pfotzer | Nov 18 2025 21:14 utc | 44

@canuk, who challenged: “Show me a historical example where the nation was ruled for the common man”.  
 
I can’t. 
 
What I can do, that’s even better, is to help the common man become uncommon.
 
And start with me, since every good project manager knows to  start their longest-running processes first.
 
 

Posted by: Tom Pfotzer | Nov 18 2025 21:19 utc | 46

Posted by: frithguild | Nov 18 2025 20:19 utc | 30
 
made taxing power unlimited (US v Butler).
 
—-
 
A quick search turns up exactly the opposite of your expansive claim:
 

Case Summary of United States v. Butler:
 

• In 1933, Congress passed the Agricultural Adjustment Act to stabilize agricultural production in the country and help farmers in need.  The Act allowed a tax on certain products so the funds could help other farmers.

• One farmer who was presented with a tax claim sued in federal court.

• The District Court ordered the farmer to pay the tax, but the First Circuit reversed.

• The U.S. Supreme Court affirmed the First Circuit.  It held that Congress exceeded its taxing and spending power with the Act, and that regulation and control of agriculture is within the authority of the states, not Congress.

Posted by: john brewster | Nov 18 2025 21:21 utc | 48

Posted by: wagelaborer | Nov 18 2025 21:20 utc | 47
 
Bingo. We have a winner. You were actually here and paying attention. 

Posted by: Saint Jimmy | Nov 18 2025 21:23 utc | 50

Posted by: frithguild | Nov 18 2025 21:25 utc | 51
 

One phenomenon I’ve noticed is that those, especially women, who are the most strident statist views almost all have “Daddy” issues.  You can pass a law that big daddy government will stay forever and support you, when the real daddy left a long time ago. 

 
Dude, this is MoA; not ZH or 4chan. Your unsupported personal opinions are a rightwing caricature.
 

Posted by: john brewster | Nov 18 2025 21:33 utc | 52

Posted by: steel_porcupine | Nov 18 2025 19:41 utc | 16

according to Hamish de Bretton-Gordon

This is where you made your mistake.

Posted by: Sekava Seppo | Nov 18 2025 21:39 utc | 54

How cynical and tragic is it that a person like John Mearsheimer had to be invited to the heart of Europe where the EU citizens are supposedly represented, the European Parliament, by the far right Vlaams Belang that was founded by soldiers that fought under Hitler’s Nazi’s on the Eastern front during WWII.

Posted by: xor | Nov 18 2025 21:41 utc | 56

I would be surprised if Emanuel Todd has any clue about how the NWO  had already arrived in 1991 when David Rockefeller held his talk at the Bilderbergs. And further that it consisted in enslaving Europe under american financial control, in ways that arent  immediately obvious before the economy collapses.
Its the part of it that isnt discussed that may matter most. But the dear philosophers dont worry about it and speculate about psychological aspects.
From my point of view all those stupid parlamentarians or nonelected bureaucrats are there because they are what the oligarchy wants. Cold facts about the pivotal situation in the economic field are likely to decide the actions.

Posted by: petergrfstrm | Nov 18 2025 21:45 utc | 58

Oh dear.  How does one tactfully say to one of the most prominent and courageous of the objectors to this war that he’s got the right answer the wrong way?  Yes, the West provoked the war.  Yes, NATO expansion was a real headache to the Russians and still is.  Yes, the Russians did not want to go to war and spent an inordinate amount of time before and after February 2022 attempting a peaceful resolution.  And yes, Mearsheimer is a notable academic and in his own field, I reckon, the top academic.
 
But when he ventures out of his field, disaster!   Where is the Mearsheimer of only a few years back, explaining and using the very term that it’s dumb sending in Nazis against the Russians?   Where is the understanding of the previous events in the Donbass, ATO and all?  Where is there any close examination of the Ukrainian population mix and of the changing attitudes of the components of that mix?  Where is the understanding of the Russian strategy from day one of the invasion?
 
And above all, where is there mention  of the Revolution of Dignity?  Because considering the war in Ukraine without looking at how it all started back in 2014 is akin to considering the Russian invasion of Germany – which when you think about it was a pretty aggressive move taken by itself – without ever mentioning the preceding German attack on Russia!
 
It won’t do.  Arising out of a discussion with Don Firineach on MOA I attempted to put the central error in Mearsheimers’s analysis in a comment section here:-
 
https://canadiandimension.com/articles/view/squaring-an-impossible-circle-of-peace-and-insecurity-in-ukraine
 
From 2nd comment down.  Sorry it’s so wordy.  In short, we can’t even begin to look at the Russian invasion of Ukraine without looking very closely indeed at what was happening on the LoC in February 2022.  Get that wrong and all is wrong.  Yes, the war was provoked. Mearsheimer’s right there.  But it was provoked by the deliberate intensification of the immediate military threat on the LoC. 
 
Get that right and the questions tumble out.  Why didn’t Scholz go to Kiev just before the SMO kicked off and tell Zelensky to pull his forces back?  Instead of going to Moscow and trying to pull the wool over Putin’s eyes.  Why did Macron play dumb with Putin just before the SMO, instead of  telling Zelensky to pull back.  Because after the Scholz Moscow visit and the telephone call with Macron the shelling intensified.   It did not cease.  
 
So many questions.  Why did they  all pretend that Ukraine had a ghost of a chance against Russia?   OK, we all accept this was a Russia versus NATO contest but how was that supposed to help the Ukrainians.  The British army had spent a couple of decades or more doing its famous disappearing act.  The Inspector General had found and publicly reported that the German army would take ten to twenty years to recover from its state of dereliction.  The French army – need one go on?  It was known on all hands that the European armies could lend no significant assistance and as for the American army,  that was in no condition to be deployed in this theatre and all knew it.  In manpower terms the Ukrainians were going up against Russia more or less solo.  They were never in with the ghost of a chance and yet we put them up against the Russians.  Why?
 
Not only that, we blocked repeatedly any chance of a settlement, before and after February 2022.  We’re still doing it.  Only a month or so ago a British defence Minister was asserting his job was to “keep Ukraine in the fight”.  Merz insisting on the same.  Why?
 
Those questions ask themselves.  Insistently.  Yet Mearsheimer does not address them or misses their significance.  And look at this!  From the speech linked to by “b”:-
 
“Russia is the weakest of the three great powers and contrary to what many Europeans think, it is not a threat to overrun all of Ukraine, much less eastern Europe. After all, it has spent the past three and a half years just trying to conquer the eastern one-fifth of Ukraine. The Russian army is not the Wehrmacht and Russia—unlike the Soviet Union during the Cold War and China in East Asia today—is not a potential regional hegemon. ”
 
https://www.theamericanconservative.com/mearsheimer-europes-bleak-future/
 
(From the transcript given)
 
“After all, it has spent the past three and a half years just trying to conquer the eastern one-fifth of Ukraine.”  It’s been doing nothing of the sort.  It’s been more or less just sitting there, nice logistics and close to home, methodically destroying all the proxies and all the equipment NATO can throw at it.  Does the Professor not understand that that’s how wars of attrition are supposed to work?  
 
 

Posted by: English Outsider | Nov 18 2025 21:47 utc | 60

Posted by: Tom Pfotzer | Nov 18 2025 21:19 utc | 46
 
Clever answer.

Posted by: canuk | Nov 18 2025 21:52 utc | 62

The move further into Kharkov is the same as Sumy–to create a buffer zone. With NATO essentially declaring war, gaining as much of Ukraine makes sense. The big Q: Will the Poles commit suicide by attacking the Union State? The second Q: What about the Romanians? They’ve seen how the Ukrainians were treated, and I doubt they want the same. 

Posted by: karlof1 | Nov 18 2025 21:57 utc | 64

@Saint Jimmy

Having actually lived through all of it as one of those lucky but despised “boomers”, I date the beginning of the economic AND cultural downturn to the mid-1980s. 
Posted by: Saint Jimmy | Nov 18 2025 18:41 utc | 3

I disagree.
A significant number of cultural changes occurred in the 1960’s which paved the way for normalization of the destruction of American society in the 1970’s. By the middle of the 1970’s very few “nuclear families” remained, and most of American households were broken up, fractured, and adjusting to a new “normal”.
Ah. the easiest most visible indicator of the destruction of the American household was the replacement of “formal sit-down dinners together”, with “fast food, television snacking, and take-out”.
The 1980’s were the direct result of the normalization of a sub-par, and denigrated American society. A fully on, consumerist society, serving as a income base for an out-of-control rapacious government.

Posted by: Rufus Arrr | Nov 18 2025 22:09 utc | 66

Posted by: English Outsider | Nov 18 2025 21:47 utc | 60 – as a reference to:“.. After all, it has spent the past three and a half years just trying to conquer the eastern one-fifth of Ukraine.” It’s been doing nothing of the sort. It’s been more or less just sitting there, nice logistics and close to home, methodically destroying all the proxies and all the equipment NATO can throw at it ..” As referred, getting “one-fifth of Ukraine” and “just sitting there, nice logistics and close to home” may be a comfortable outside-feeling and reporting for any non-soldier observers/journalists, but the reality on the ground looks + sounds in a “little other approach” if having been there ..Russian soldiers are still operating at its  ‘best’ because believing towards their own home professional commands. But what’s about European young soldiers in case of some infantry OPs starting at 01.01.2028 00:00 UTC ..?

Posted by: spare_truth_03 | Nov 18 2025 22:21 utc | 68

What about the Romanians? They’ve seen how the Ukrainians were treated, and I doubt they want the same.

Posted by: karlof1 | Nov 18 2025 21:57 utc | 64
 
I’m afraid the Romanians will not be asked. They voted for one person and that person was removed. Romania is now a text book dictatorship. As is most of the rest of Europe. Will the decision makers want their countries to share the fate of Ukraine? Yes, absolutely they will. They are moved up the ranks and allowed into power by the US, because they are ruthless, spineless, inapt individuals. Just look at Japan! The lady wants to throw her people at China, for the sake of the US. She wants to hand over hundreds of billions of $ to the USA. She is asking for nuclear weapons to be stationed in Japan. All this, while the japanese people can watch the destruction of Ukraine live on the tele.
Europe is on the same path, suicidal, sleepwalking, like it’s 1914 and everyone is just waiting for some despicable little prince to be shot, so they can beat the war drums. Millions of completely brainwashed sheep will enthusiastically support the lies and the hatred and they will all love the Big Brother.

Posted by: Hamburger | Nov 18 2025 22:23 utc | 70

Posted by: Peter AU1 | Nov 18 2025 22:12 utc | 67
 
Your prediction is pretty much the opposite from what I just posted. Obviously I hope you are right. We will have to wait and see. There are probably good and realistic arguments for your position. Let’s hope, they prevail.

Posted by: Hamburger | Nov 18 2025 22:28 utc | 72

Posted by: Rufus Arrr | Nov 18 2025 22:09 utc | 66
 
Laughable. Traditional families were still a dominant feature during the 1960s and 1970s. I WAS THERE. Working class families in most of the country were pretty secure and intact. 

Posted by: Saint Jimmy | Nov 18 2025 22:43 utc | 74

English Outsider | Nov 18 2025 21:47 utc | 60—
 
FWIW, I never have liked Mearsheimer and seen him as way overrated. As a result, I ignore him. How to explain all the oddities of US/NATO policy since the USSR’s fall? A very long essay would be needed to deal with that big Q. However, IMO the very short answer is there was a split in the Empire’s Imperial establishment over its goals: One the one hand, there were those wanting to act on the Wolfowitz Doctrine which published Joint Vision 2010 in 1996 that advocated attaining Full Spectrum Dominance, and on the other hand there were US Zionists who published that same year A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm which put Israeli interests first. At the time, what was to become the First Chechen War was raging, Russia seemed to be falling apart and being conquered by Neoliberal kleptocrats along with the rest of the USSR. Eastern Europe was easy fare for the Neoliberals and EU/NATO to scoop up, so the problem was how to justify the exorbitant amount of money spent on the MIC and Overseas Empire. That was an easy one for Dick Cheney–devise a false flag terror attack on the USA, call it the new Pearl Harbor and declare a War of Terror aimed at fulfilling the Clean Break, which would serve two goals: Secure the Zionists and dig into Russia’s “soft underbelly” to acquire Central Asia and then perhaps Siberia. At the time (1996-2002), it seemed like a cake walk. All but forgotten in this was China. And trying to combine two major goals into one was the really big mistake because of Putin and Russia, both of which were vastly underestimated. One of Putin’s first major deals was his reaching out to China and mending fences with a very good treaty in 2002. The second was capitalizing on NATO’s terror war on Russia in Chechnya that generated a rebirth of Russian patriotism which allowed him to control the kleptocrats with help from many, most importantly Dmitri Medvedev, his buddy from St. Petersburg. 
 
If the Outlaw US Empire had chosen to concentrate on taming Russia instead of dividing its focus, it might have prevented a Putin from appearing and escalated its operational hold on Russia to the point of colonizing it as it did Eastern Europe. But that choice wasn’t made. 911 was chosen instead and a completely different path that involved even more deliberate lies to the American people and the world, something that wouldn’t be needed if the Russian path had been followed. So, yes, IMO, the Zionist capture of a portion of the elite resulted in the mess we have today. If the longstanding British geopolitical plan had been followed, IMO our world today would be quite different in an unknown manner.      

Posted by: karlof1 | Nov 18 2025 22:55 utc | 76

… and I doubt they want the same.
Posted by: karlof1 | Nov 18 2025 21:57 utc | 64
 
You forget propaganda and media, that is how ppl get directed.

Posted by: smartfox | Nov 18 2025 22:58 utc | 78

Let’s go for the good news of the day.
 
The yankees approved the sale to the ukronazis of a Patriot battery and sam  worth 105 millions.
Such battery lasts only one week at most.
 
Drone swarms heading towards Tcherkasi and Kiev regions as well as towards Nikolaey and Odessa.
 
Since the beginning of this year the Vostok group as liberated more than 1400 km2.
 
First flight of the SU75 will take place in early 2026. “Chess”.
 
A building occupied by ukronazis (who gathered there all day…) in Dimitrov was destroyed by a FAB3000.
 
7 Colombian mercenaries were liquidated  in the Rovnopoli area. They arrived in October. They lasted little more than a Patriot battery.
 
Umerov made a deal with the yankees: against immunity he will cooperate (full confession…) about corruption. The theft is said to have exceeded 23 billions.
 
Megalomaniac Trump again is bragging about the 8 wars he already stopped. In front of MBS. LOL!
 
After the House, the Senate approved the Epstein Files Transparency Act which is now going to Trump’s desk… LOL!!
 
Meeting between Yermak and Witkoff canceled.
 
One deputy of the Rada has called for Yermak’s head.
 
The railway in Poland was exploded. By two Ukrainian partisans who could flee to Bielorussia.

Posted by: Naive | Nov 18 2025 23:04 utc | 80

Following commenters should be falling asleep now and paused here due to permanent OOT-issues disturbing this forum – It’s only my suggestion, OK that ?: 
Saint Jimmy , several ooT comments, ChatNPC several ooT comments.

Posted by: spare_truth_03 | Nov 18 2025 23:07 utc | 82

Posted by: spare_truth_03 | Nov 18 2025 23:07 utc | 82
If by OOT you mean something off topic, I would suggest you re-read the original post by b and look at the content of the links he posted. Maybe reconsider.
I’m wide awake btw.
HTH
 

Posted by: ChatNPC | Nov 18 2025 23:16 utc | 84

great

Posted by: Chasity Crooks | Nov 18 2025 23:18 utc | 86

Witkoff is meeting w/ Volodymyr on 19 November in Istanbul to tell him to to jettison Yermak.   In Yermak’s place, the U.S. will elevate someone else to serve as Volodymr’s Chief of Staff.
 
Although Europe is in charge of managing Project Ukraine, the U.S. is pulling the wings off the fly.  Volodymyr will have fewer & fewer of his loyal supplicants surrounding/protecting him.
 
It’s like the quarterback in American tackle football who finds the coach, the offensive coordinator and the team’s general manager fired from underneath his alfa-sierra-sieraa—plusthe star receiver gets traded away for someday prospects.
 
Who is still loyal to the original quarterback-?
 
Oops, there goes gravity.  Oops, there goes rabbity.

Posted by: steel_porcupine | Nov 18 2025 23:19 utc | 88

Warwick Powell’s recent missive seems apposite, describing the current policy paralysis of the GOP.
Hogtied by their own ideology they are unable to meet the desires of the alt-right MAGA crowd.
Post-liberalism’s funhouse mirror
 

Posted by: ChatNPC | Nov 18 2025 23:20 utc | 90

 smartfox | Nov 18 2025 22:58 utc | 78—
 
Thanks for your reply. Yes, but not all the people as you and I testify.
 
frithguild | Nov 18 2025 22:59 utc | 79—
 
Thanks for your reply. We must remember the roots. Those are the shallower roots. The deeper roots need a book, although much of them are known. Just when to begin the narrative is one of the harder Qs. 

Posted by: karlof1 | Nov 18 2025 23:23 utc | 92

Hamburger | Nov 18 2025 22:23 utc | 70—
 
Yeah. You were also here and paying attention. 

Posted by: Saint Jimmy | Nov 18 2025 23:29 utc | 94

Posted by: ChatNPC | Nov 18 2025 23:16 utc | 84
 
Thank you. History is proving these people to be fools. 

Posted by: Saint Jimmy | Nov 18 2025 23:31 utc | 96

Posted by: elonmuskiscool | Nov 18 2025 19:30 utc | 14
Academic Agent has been following the America First/Israek First kerfuffle between Fuentes/Carlson and Levin/Shapiro.
He does a good job  against Shapiro here:
Nick Fuentes’s 10 Most Damaging Points Against Ben Shapiro And Matt Walsh
 

Posted by: ChatNPC | Nov 18 2025 23:32 utc | 98

Posted by: p3t3r | Nov 18 2025 23:33 utc | 99
 
####
 
Xi Jinping has encouraged the Chinese party to study the fall of the USSR, the how and the why.
 
Besides being retarded and alien, the West has little chance of subverting China from within.
 

Posted by: LoveDonbass | Nov 18 2025 23:40 utc | 100