Inevitable, Impending Implosion

The Course of Empire: Destruction by Thomas Cole (1836)

In my circles — call them ‘right-wing politics’ — it’s common to compare the United States to Ancient Rome*. Rome is often used as a historical point of reference for modern societies. In order to remind myself of where we are in the span of history, I purchased a print of Destruction by Thomas Cole a few years ago. It is Cole’s fourth painting in a series of five that make up The Course of Empire. Given the Trump administration’s renewed interest in the use of force against numerous foreign entities, it’s about time for an updated reflection on where the United States stands versus the Roman timeline.

*Note: I associate with numerous groups of varying political views. Anarchocapitalism is my political ideology, but there are too few of us in the world to dismiss anyone of different or even opposing beliefs. While historically I found the American right-wing (the hardcore, radical type) to be dangerously extreme, the Gates-Schwabian propaganda campaign of 2020 dramatically shifted my political views away from “live and let live” to “I’ll do what I want while seeking out the truth.” That has aligned me with something that resembles ‘big-tent’ paleoconservatism.

Starting in 1776, Edward Gibbon wrote a six-volume series called The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. While I expect to read it fully in my lifetime, I have not committed to reading the over 3,500 pages just yet. Thankfully, Grok is able to summarize this sort of thing. Per Grok:

With the exception of the fifth point above (Role of Christianity), I fervently agree with Gibbon’s take. Having said that, I’m no historian. It’s striking to read these points, considering that it’s a history and analysis written by an Englishman and published the year of America’s founding; on top of that, it reflects on a period concluding 1,300 years prior to its publishing. While all the points are interesting, I’ll focus on Gibbon’s point #2: “Excessive size and prosperity.”

What originally drew me to deeply care about politics, as I often mention, was former Congressman and Presidential candidate Ron Paul. In his 2012 campaign, I was fascinated by his clear explanations regarding the flawed foreign policy pursued by successive administrations essentially since the start of the Cold War (though today I’d go further back than that). Almost 15 years later, it’s impossible for me to view any action taken by the U.S. government through any other lens. It comes down to not just military bases and nuclear weapons, but also their costs to the American taxpayers and their effects on the psyches of the remaining ~8 billion non-Americans in the world. Put another way, the U.S. government can’t simply wage war and meddle in the affairs of other countries without money and, more importantly, without creating pockets of freedom fighters around the world — those whom we call “terrorists.”

There are now several conflicts around the world in which the United States is engaged, or preparing to engage.

Iran

The first Iran bombing by the U.S. military took place on June 22, 2025 in Operation Midnight Hammer. 14 ‘bunker busters’ were dropped on three nuclear facilities. While most people probably don’t remember these names anymore — I, for one, had to look them up — the media messaging over the course of at least a week taught us the names of each location so well that corporate break rooms and local watering holes were alive with Iranian geography discussions. Fordow, Natanz, and Isfahan. The late-senator John McCain would have been so proud.

Essentially, “we” bombed those Iranian facilities in order to prevent Iran from getting nukes (an per Netanyahu, they’ve been on the verge of getting a nuke for the last 33 years). Iran can’t have nukes because if they get them, they’ll use them against Israel. “Israel is our greatest ally.” And if the American government defending the 51st state a foreign nation isn’t sufficient enough a reason, the Iranians (read: the Iranian regime) have shouted “Death to America!” for decades. You know, those decades in which we’ve meddled in Middle Eastern politics.

On Saturday, February 28, 2026, the United States and Israel proceeded to bomb Iran. As of March 8, there have been nearly 3,000 Iranians killed, including over 1,400 civilians. The cost so far is about $1 billion per day.

By the way, I’m sure readers will appreciate knowing that this was posted by Charlie Kirk about 11 months ago. What would the Zionists and neocons say about it now?

Where does the war go from here? Well, in 1992, Francis Fukuyama wrote his infamous book, The End of History, in which he argued that the conclusion of the Cold War led to a unipolar, American-centered world order; he suggested that capitalism won over communism, and that western values would reign supreme indefinitely. 34 years later, it seems he was wrong. Russia and China are both heavyweight geopolitical rivals, and it seems that the over $300 billion that the United States has provided to Israel in the last 75 years has really solidified its presence in the Middle East. Ignoring George Washington’s warning, the American Empire has pursued one of the most entangling alliances in world history in its unending support for Israel. Not only do we live in a multi-polar world, but what happens when Israel decides that it has enough backup from the United States to pursue the use of its nuclear weapons (theoretically they have around 90 in their arsenal) to expand its borders in order to fulfill the goal of Greater Israel? Below is this theoretical and biblical border, extending from Eastern Egypt to the middle of Iraq, and from southern Turkey to around the middle of Saudi Arabia.

“Greater Israel”

One year ago, it seemed that war with Iran would be postponed indefinitely, administration after administration. It seems that with the second Trump administration something changed, be it Kushner, Adelson, or Epstein-related. Now, nuclear proliferation is a real danger. Don’t believe me? Ask the Japanese about what they thought when the pesky Americans leveled Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which incidentally is the only time in world history that nuclear weapons have been used. Sadly, it seems that we’ll see their use again.

Israel & Palestine

I refuse to go into too much detail on the history of this conflict. I will, however, add that it began many decades prior to October 7th, 2023. Below is a nice infographic showing the death toll between 2008 and 2020 — before October 7th! Just don’t use the word genocide — it’s not used in polite circles.

Oh, I see. Gaza is just a really great opportunity for a Middle Eastern real estate deal! From NPR:

Kushner's plan envisions four district-like areas for Palestinians to live in, nestled between large green areas for parks and industrial zones that appear equal in size or larger than the areas designated for housing. These industrial zones would create more than half a million jobs for Palestinians in Gaza, according to the plan.

Here’s a visual that Jared Kushner, an American, provided for his audience at Davos — in Switzerland — regarding the plan for the Gaza strip… in Palestine:

Russia & Ukraine

I first wrote about the now-four-year conflict in March 2022. As with most conflicts in which we’re involved, nobody — anywhere — really cared much about Ukraine until suddenly the media reported on it, portraying Russia as the big bad wolf, and the previously unknown Zelenskyy as a strong, patriotic Ukrainian. The immediate reaction (the mainstream narrative) was that Ukraine had a much stronger and ‘resilient’ army than anyone expected, and that Putin was in over his head. Four years later, everyone is aware that there will be geographic concessions by Ukraine to Russia, something deemed unacceptable in 2022. Theoretically, as long as the United States is willing to bankroll the Ukrainian military, the war can go on indefinitely. It seems, though, that Zelenskyy doesn’t have quite as much pull in Washington as Netanyahu does. According to the Center for Strategic & International Studies, “Combined Russian and Ukrainian casualties may be as high as 1.8 million and could reach 2 million total casualties by the spring of 2026.” This war should have been over a long time ago.

Venezuela

It’s not about the oil! It’s about drug boats and weapons. And freedom for the Venezuelan people! Out with Maduro, in with… well, not Maria Corina Machado, who is quite popular among American and European liberty and freedom-oriented folks. So popular, in fact, that she won the Nobel Peace Prize Trump suggested that she should re-gift her Nobel Peace Price (awarded to her for trying to secure liberty in Venezuela?) to him instead — and the crazy part is that she did.

As it stands, after ousting Maduro and bringing him to Brooklyn (on charges of drug trafficking and conspiracy… by the Department of Justice), the Vice President under Maduro, Delcy Rodriguez, is acting president, and it seems that she is ready to ‘play ball’ with the CIA the Trump administration. In retrospect, it looks like the Venezuela action was a warm-up for the current war in Iran.

Greenland

At some point, I really believed that Trump was using the tariffs as a negotiation tactic. When he announced his excitement about the External Revenue Service as a money-making machine, and when I see just how far Robert Lighthizer was willing to push protectionism on America, I lost all faith in those supposed tactics. Now, we get to Greenland. As countries de-globalize, due to the counter-trend of onshoring that is here to stay, suddenly there is a need to have all necessary land and resources within one’s own purview. Free trade is gone, and “Fair trade” has arrived. As such, Greenland moves way up on the American hitlist because it ticks two important “national interest” boxes: Rare earth metals and a mighty convenient location in terms of proximity to Russia.

A very interesting map | Aljazeera

No wonder there’s a long history of trying to bring this icy property into the empire! Oh yeah, and there are about 50,000 protestants that inhabit the island. I guess they will just have to acknowledge that they are bystanders in a much larger game.

Conclusion

There are a few different ways of interpreting the actions of the American empire. I view the U.S. government as an aggressor around the world; we claim that we have the moral high ground because we are bringing freedom and democracy to all. The problem I have with this messaging is that it is utterly hypocritical for us to say such a thing. Being a free country, we have quite a lot of people in prisons… According to the Prison Policy Initiative,

The U.S. has the highest incarceration rate of any independent democracy on earth — worse, every single state incarcerates more people per capita than most nations. In the global context, even “progressive” U.S. states like New York and Massachusetts appear as extreme as Louisiana and Mississippi in their use of prisons and jails.

On top of that, American citizens were not spared from the Covid hysteria. At one point, under the Biden administration, it was announced a vaccine mandate for all ‘large’ employers:

Democracy? I seem to remember the year 2000, in which George W. Bush (Jr.) and Al Gore were in a contested election. A month later, after sketchy re-counting (namely Florida), the election was decided — not by the Electoral College, which is a topic for a totally separate discussion, but by the Supreme Court! So as far as checks and balances, the sketchy American voting process was decided by the highest level of the Judicial Branch. And what happened in the 2020 election? The ever-impressive Joe Biden won? And then Donald Trump attempted to insurrect? And this same Donald Trump was convicted of 34 felony counts in an attempt to prevent him from being re-elected? Well now, that is some form of democracy! No wonder we want to spread our values and our ideas around the world — we lead by example!

I truly wonder what happened to the guy who wanted revenge against the Swamp. He wanted to eliminate the status quo, to end foreign adventurism and nation building. Maybe the two attempted assassinations on him, followed by the actual assassination of Charlie Kirk, led to Trump moderating his ideas a bit. Or, maybe Hilary Clinton was right, and he’s always been a puppet. She was just wrong about the identity of the puppeteer…

Whatever the case, I see very muddy waters in terms of the goals of the American experiment, and the execution of those goals is problematic. In essence, we are exporting the western values developed in Europe over several centuries, and we are exporting them at gunpoint. Those that appreciate western civilization are probably in favor of their leaders being overthrown by force. However, western civilization doesn’t quite jive with all societies or all cultures. And in fact, when you look at the ferocious debates currently in the United States (welfare, LGBT, vaccines, abortion, immigration), you have to ask yourself if this American hypocrisy is obvious to everyone else. And if it is, how much power do we have to control the world, and for how long? History tells us that nothing lasts forever, and I’ve never seen a more calamitous future on the horizon.

Godspeed.
John

P.S. Cuba has been put on notice. If this falls into the Trump category of “too much winning,” I’ve had just about enough.