How do we describe the current shift in geopolitics?
The problem with terms is that they mean different things in different contexts. In Russia, the communists are right wing. In America, they are on the extreme left. American libertarianism is extreme right wing, but extreme left wing at the same time. Those terms are meaningless because they shift over place and time. The most helpful paradigm is that the political realignment is no longer horizontal — left vs. right — but vertical — populism vs. the elitism. We see all over the West the people rising up to push the globalist elites out of office. That is also now a worldwide phenomenon.
I’m excited about Trump’s foreign policy. He has been right more than 50 percent of the time, but he was forced to compromise with the neoconservative war hawks in his first term. The plus is that Trump was always against foreign wars. He was against Iraq and Afghanistan when most Republicans believed we were fighting an existential threat in radical Islam. Most Republicans in Washington still believe that, but a few are waking up. I woke up only four years ago when asking questions and began the research that became my book, The Fourth Political Theory in Biblical Perspective.
In 1996, Samuel P. Huntington showed in The Clash of Civilizations that the Islamic Resurgence of the past 40 years (now 70 years) is not radical like Islamic jihadism. Rather it was made up of highly educated, middle class, and younger generation families who were part of the population boom in Africa, the Middle East and Asia. The terrorists are a small minority. Of course they get disproportionate attention because they use violence, but most of Islam hates them. But the Muslim Resurgence thinks generationally and works to reform all of their society away from Western Liberal values back toward their religious and cultural values.
Western leaders like to think of war as a chess game or a Risk game. Some have said the Muslims, Chinese and Russians play 4-D chess and American politicians and military brass play checkers. They plan at least 100 years ahead. We look to the next election cycle. This is not far from the truth. This country does not know how to win wars anymore. We can’t even defeat the Houthis. Since the 1950s, the sole purpose has been not to win wars, but to fund the military industrial complex, with the benefit of being able to enlarge the money supply anytime we want and make the nations who are our trade partners bear the brunt of it. This large cache of dollars enables the West to weaponize the world’s largest reserve currency.
For example, in March 17, 2014, the United States, the European Union, and Canada agreed to introduced specifically targeted sanctions against Russia, the day after the Crimean referendum and a few hours before Russian president Vladimir Putin signed a decree recognizing Crimea as an independent state. The plan was to crush the Russian economy and put Vladimir Putin out of office. The great irony of this is that not only are the Obama, Biden and Clinton families out of politics, but the only European political figure left in office from that time besides Vladimir Putin is Viktor Orbán of Hungary.
As a response, we see a BRICS+ coalition emerging with an alternative banking exchange and messaging service. Possibly a rival world reserve currency is in the making as well. This system would finally make economic sanctions and other forms of hybrid warfare ineffective. Military warfare has become unprofitable as well as the Ukraine war has harmed the economy of the EU much more so than Russia.
These are the geopolitical realities that will bring the forever war to an end. This would occur even beyond a Trump presidency, although he might push harder to bring these destructive policies to an end.
First, the West can’t afford to simultaneously fight a war against Islam, China and Russia. It would be disastrous.
Second, the EU can’t economically help the US win WWIII. Who do we have as allies with a strong military at this point? Israel and Ukraine? Both are crumbling even as we speak.
Third, when there is a ceasefire in Ukraine, martial law will end and the Ukrainian Rada (parliament) will need to call presidential elections and then general elections. Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskyy was elected in 2019, and his first term is supposed to have ended. But under the country’s martial law, which was introduced because of the war, no election can be held. Will Ukraine continue to ban all opposition parties who don’t support the Euromaidan Revolution? Zelenskyy probably would not win no matter which opposition parties were banned. Ukraine’s military commanders, Zaluzhny and Syrskyi, are more popular and likely they would form an alliance or launch a civil war if the elections were to be fixed. (They will be as always.) Then all bets are off. The time for the US to step in is now. There need to be three points. 1. The US must cut off funding to the Ukraine was (not aid to the economy). 2. No UN membership. Not in 20 years. Not ever. 3. Russia keeps the territories that acceded to the Russian Federation in 2014 and 2022.
Fourth, Trump needs to simply argue that the Russians already occupy 99 percent of Lugansk, about 80 percent of Donetsk, and about 70 percent of Zaporozhye and Kherson. Most of what is left are the two major capital cities of Zaporozhye and Kherson, and a lot farm land and villages. He should argue that the Ukrainians keep what is north of the “bend” of the Dnieper in Zaporozhye. It is sort of illogical that the Ukrainians want to “liberate” territories that are Russian when most of the population centers in Crimea, Lugansk and Donetsk left Ukraine ten years ago. How would they be reintegrated? It makes no sense. It makes no sense for the Russians to want to occupy Western Ukraine either. So a line has to be drawn. Even Obama recognized that most Crimeans are Russian and want nothing to do with Ukrainian Nationalism. It was the reason he didn’t push Russia too far beyond some economic sanctions. Zaporozhye and Kherson are to the West of the Donbas region and are about 50-50 culturally Russian vs. Ukrainian. It would be a headache for the Russians to integrate them. They might already recognize this. The Dnieper is very wide in this area and offers a nice buffer. To take the rest is at least one year (or two or three years) of war. The Russians don’t want that either. They want what is more than 50 percent culturally Russian to be part of Russia for as long as Western Ukrainian nationalists are hostile to the Russian people.
Fifth, when there is a ceasefire in Gaza, Netanyahu will be deposed by his parliament. He will go on trial for previous corruption charges and possibly to prison. The UN will charge him with war crimes, but the US will block it. Will the successor government be Zionist or will they agree to a Palestinian State? Most of Israel won’t allow the latter. but the Arab League with the UN’s backing might force it. Then it’s all on Trump to either oppose it, or get Israel a “better deal.” Maintaining the status quo is kicking the can down the road for another Israeli-Palestinian conflict a few years down the road.
Sixth, China is too big for any nation to win a war against. They will soon become the largest economy in the world. They are already the largest when GDP is divided by purchasing power parity (GDP/PPP). China will then become twice as big as the US economy by 2050. This is inevitable. You can be against this as a patriotic American. You can also be against glaciers, hurricanes and plate tectonics. They are going to keep coming anyway. China is going to absorb Taiwan by 2050 economically, politically, and/or culturally. Or else the US is going to push China into a war, which we cannot win.
Seventh, Iran has wanted normalized relations for with the US since the end of the Cold War. The reason for the Shah of Iran’s regime (1941 to 1979) was to provide a buffer nation in the Islamic world against the USSR. That became unnecessary 34 years ago. Now we need to accept the Islamic Revolution us here to stay and stop thinking the Iranians want regime change. They don’t. If they do, they will do it by vote and don’t want our help. Most want a moderate civil government and a conservative Ayatollah. Iran is in fact the most moderate and democratic state of all the Islamic republics in the region. We need to open up dialog and try to work with them. Get our troops out of Iraq and Syria. Trump will do that rather than start a war with Iran. He’ll talk tough, but he’ll work for peace.
Eighth, North Korea. Well … Trump owns Kim Jong Un. There is that reality. So Trump should invite the DPRK, Iran, Pakistan, India, Russia and China to a nuclear arms non-proliferation summit. Let’s solve the nuclear problem for the next 50 years for the whole world. Very soon, the biggest threat won’t be nukes, but cyber-tech and AI warfare. We need to begin creating international law to regulate the weaponizing of technology against the economic and political interests of nations. Trump impressed Kim with talk about his friendship with NBA players, WWE stars, Miss America contestants and Elton John. They male bonded. Trump never followed through with a treaty with Kim. He needs to do that this time around during year one.
Ninth, we have to stop worrying about which nations are Liberal, democratic, conservative, traditional, autocratic, etc. Let’s get busy solving our own problems first and lead by example. Nations should want to be like us, and not just economically. They shouldn’t hate our immorality and fear our aggression. Instead they should admire our success, creativity and love for true Liberty.
Tenth, Biden said on several occasions in speeches that “I am running the world” and “we need to be in control.” Literally, he has said that. In Trump’s first inaugural in 2017, he said the opposite.
We will seek friendship and goodwill with the nations of the world – but we do so with the understanding that it is the right of all nations to put their own interests first. We do not seek to impose our way of life on anyone, but rather to let it shine as an example for everyone to follow.
In summary, Trump needs to repudiate neoliberal unipolar globalism and offer a common sense alternative that still sees America as great, but not the world’s sole hyper power. We can’t impose our system on others, but must lead by example. We are only a powerful nation when we are a godly nation — as John Winthrop’s City on a Hill vision for America was in the beginning.
For we must consider that we shall be as a “City upon a Hill.” The eyes of all people are upon us; so that if we deal falsely with our God in this work we have undertaken and so cause Him to withdraw His present help from us; we shall be made a by-word through the world….
Beloved there is now set before us life, and good, death, and evil in that we are commanded this day to love the Lord our God, and to love one another, to walk in His ways and to keep His commandments and His ordinances…. That we may live and be multiplied, and that the Lord our God may bless us in the land wither we go to possess it. But if our hearts shall turn away so that we will not obey, but shall be seduced and worship other gods … we shall surely perish out of the good land whither we passed over this vast sea to possess it. Therefore let us choose life that we, and our seed may live; by obeying His voice, and cleaving to Him, for He is our life, and our prosperity.
