The Fed is heading toward rate cuts. Based on where the dollar index currently sits, prices should be at floor levels — giving the dollar a window to capitalize and stimulate a sluggish economy. Energy and raw material prices have also started moving. As the overall economy recovers, in a typical dollar cycle, energy prices would look less like $30 a barrel and more like $90. That’s not going to happen anytime soon. Even commodities couldn’t be bought at the bottom. Wall Street has been leaned on to dress up dismal economic data, but it hasn’t been enough. Holding this position requires controlling sufficient weight to ride the momentum — perhaps even requiring some form of extraordinary intervention.
A missile has struck and damaged a US destroyer. With carrier group activity in focus, global public opinion has pivoted squarely to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Taken together, all of this creates a passive position. The only way to break through is to engineer something at low cost, generate fear, and then subtly attach that fear to specific groups and their hot-button issues. In doing so, you can fracture public attention, stoke divisions and conflict, and prevent people from different regions and civilizations worldwide from all training their gaze on you.
The great powers’ war has dragged on for two years. The situation has grown heavy and stagnant — yet mass desertions haven’t occurred. Because those going to the front are all volunteers, not conscripts. Whether from remote, impoverished regions fighting for the pay, or from elsewhere — it is all voluntary. And those who are unwilling to fight often become the loudest, most fervent voices — steadfast patriots, every one.
The West’s series of sanctions is fundamentally aimed at triggering economic collapse and driving social life into scarcity. Various parties have proactively moved to reconcile with the Houthis, offering compensation for years of conflict. To dismantle this trend, one must find the weak joints. The deep-seated fear of terrorism among ordinary Westerners, sympathy for the people of Gaza, resentment toward Jewish people — all of these will collide and press against one another. Even some internal regions are not immune.
Beyond this, Moscow citizens experienced for the first time what it means to have conflict encroach on daily life. Whether it is Russia’s own security services or outside actors — including the CIA — there are now far more opportunities to turn dissatisfied individuals and direct them. Cross-border operations face natural constraints, and those very constraints build pressure that pushes more incursions deeper into Russian territory. Beyond the short-term propaganda value, this kind of move achieves extraordinary leverage — moving great weight with little effort. A genuinely clever strategy. Between life and death, principles become a luxury. Throughout history, the struggle for survival has always come down to striking at the vital center.
By rights, in a situation like Emperor Taizong’s [Li Shimin, the Tang dynasty’s great unifier], three men should have stepped forward to meet it.
Western education and ours are fundamentally different. We explain human development through a single unifying timeline: evolving from primitive to advanced, transforming from backward to developed, progressing from barbarism to civilization. Everything that happens along the way is but a small wave in that great unfolding. The West has no such unified narrative framework. They focus instead on the existential struggle between peoples.
Consider this story: a family borrows from banks to invest in the oil industry, drills on their own land for days without striking a single drop. Then, unexpectedly — riding out one day and taking a wrong turn — they stumble onto their white neighbors’ land. From that discovery, they build their own people’s oil industry from scratch. This Hollywood film is excellent, precisely because it is adapted from the real lived experiences of an actual family. The truly effective method for building something lasting is the generational relay — one generation passing the torch to the next, a family’s name enduring across time. They felt no shame for the actions that drove the main story — much like how they slandered and killed that Mexican rancher. And then there were those Native American women…