In both wars, superpowers like America and Russia fight “underdogs” like Iran and Ukraine, respectively, and have become hostage to desperate defenders who have mustered incredible resilience to survive increasingly powerful onslaughts. In Ukraine’s case, the people are technologically gifted and psychologically repelled by Putin or the thought of being under the boot of Russia ever again. The threat from Moscow is also existential because Putin announced his war was genocidal and he intended to destroy the Ukrainian people, culture, and language. Faced with this, there has been no sacrifice too great or period of time too long for them to resist. As a result, 39.5 million outnumbered Ukrainians have reinvented war by developing state-of-the-art drones, missiles, and kill zones, and by creating a “pop-up” military-industrial complex that churns out more weaponry than any NATO country except for the United States.

In Iran’s case, its 93 million people are essentially enslaved and held captive by a ruthless regime of religious zealots who represent an existential threat to America, Israel, and their neighboring Arab countries. Iran’s Ayatollahs are allies of Putin’s and have pledged “death” to both America and Israel. But, fortunately, they cannot deliver on their promises unless they obtain nuclear weapons. And Iran’s attempt to get nukes resulted in the current war, which will continue through its regional proxies, and because its people cannot overthrow the government. Estimates are that tens of thousands of Iranians have died fighting their regime as street protesters in just a handful of years.

Both wars are stalemates. Neither side is winning nor losing, so negotiations and ceasefires have been difficult to pull off. Another complication in these wars is the involvement of democracies. Polls and elections play oversized roles in America’s commitments concerning warfare. In Ukraine’s case, the election of Trump has dragged out the war because of his ambivalence. He didn’t want to pay for Ukraine’s costs and wanted to make a deal with Russia, despite its invasion. He pressured Ukraine to bend, then handed off the financial burden of the war to Europe. That “handoff” has also lengthened the war because Europe is a committee, not a country, and decisions are political and take a long time. Fortunately, Europe is firmly committed financially to backing Ukraine’s war against Russia on behalf of its own defense, but, ironically, this is a stance that will prolong the fighting.

In Iran’s case, Trump’s involvement in the most recent war with Iran was due strictly to the persuasiveness of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who claimed that Iran was close to building its own nuclear weapons. That was a legitimate reason to attack. So in June 2025, the two bombed Iran’s alleged nuclear site and some military facilities, a conflict that was dubbed the “12-day war”. Then, on February 28, 2026, a new “40-day war” began as the two re-attacked Iranian nuclear sites, military infrastructure, and killed top leaders such as Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Iran retaliated by attacking neighboring Arab countries, killing six Americans in Middle East U.S. bases, blocking the Strait of Hormuz, and triggering an international oil price crisis.

In March, Iran’s terrorist proxy Hezbollah attacked Israel from Lebanon in retaliation for the Ayatollah’s death. This has dragged Lebanon into the war, and on March 2, Israel bombarded and invaded that country and now occupies roughly 20% of its territory. This situation underscores the other reason why military actions often end up as wars of attrition, because there is an alliance with other nations involved. As talks between Iran and the U.S. made some headway and a ceasefire was signed on April 7, Israel unleashed an enormous bombing attack on Lebanon on April 8. This created a rift between Trump and Netanyahu, whom he labelled as “crazy”, and the result is that talks and attacks have been on and off ever since. The current deal announced on June 15 is preliminary and simply defers the toughest issues.

These wars continue due to fierce fighting, squabbling, disagreements within the alliances, democratic imperatives, or political posturing. Iran won’t stop creating trouble in the region, especially since its awful regime keeps an iron grip on power and since it gained huge leverage in negotiations by blocking the Hormuz Strait. This has the added benefit to Tehran of creating division within the Western alliance, which its ally Russia also appreciates. Trump was unable to get Asian and European nations that depend on the Strait to become involved in his war by sending fleets to help America keep the Strait open. He had to make a deal of some kind with Iran.

The most significant commonality between these two attritional wars is that the “underdogs” – Ukraine and Iran – wage successful wars of “economic attrition”. This provides them with the leverage to outlast their enemies. Theoretically, Russia’s war against Ukraine, already as lengthy as World War I, could become another ongoing quagmire like Vietnam or Iraq. Ukraine’s war has lasted for more than four years, while Vietnam's war lasted for 19 years, Iraq's for 8 years, and Iran’s for decades.

Currently, it’s safe to say that Russia is not winning, Ukraine is not losing, and the same applies to America, Israel, and Iran. The only way that Ukraine will win is if Russia’s military collapses, Putin disappears, or its government goes bankrupt. The same attrition scenario applies to the United States and Iran. The only way that America will win is if the Ayatollahs collapse, but the problem is that there is fatigue on the part of the Americans. Some recently pointed out that Trump’s Pentagon wants a 44% raise in allocation, even though it cannot defeat Iran, which spends roughly 1% of what the U.S. spends. That’s why Trump pursued a “peace deal”. The midterms loom.

Tragically, wars don’t end, but simply peter out or become postponed. In Ukraine and Iran, getting across the finishing lines will remain difficult. Both are wars of attrition, which, unfortunately, have become the new normal.

Share

Subscribe now

Give a gift subscription

After Putin became alarmed, according to reliable reports, he also revamped the security protocols for himself and everyone around him. Even so, on June 10, another high-ranking Russian general was blown up as his car sped through Moscow’s streets late at night. Roughly 15 Russian military leaders have been assassinated so far, and, embarrassingly, the attack occurred close to a spot where, one year ago, another high-ranking general was killed in a similar car bomb attack. Russian state media also reported there had been an attempt to kill an employee of a scientific-industrial enterprise that evening.

All fingers pointed at Ukraine. But little is known about the clandestine Ukrainian networks or “black ops” operating inside Russia and Russia-controlled territories. They are successful and have been assassinating and attacking with increasing frequency, which is another reason why Putin has embarked on a draconian security clampdown.

However, Israel’s “AI target production machine” represents another level of danger. It is deadlier and was developed in conjunction with the U.S. military. The Israeli AI operation to assassinate the Ayatollah and others began by hacking all of Tehran’s traffic cameras so that its AI could determine the Supreme Leader’s previous movements and companions. It extracted video footage from these cameras over many years to analyse behavior. It knew who would meet whom, when, and where. The system analyzed all this footage, visual intelligence, and taped communications to build profiles for targeting purposes. The Ayatollah’s daily schedule, locales, and security measures were documented. And just before the target was identified and destroyed in February, Israelis disabled all of Iran’s cellular networks to prevent warnings.

Putin also knows that Ukrainians have surpassed Israel and everyone else technologically during the war. They have killer drones armed with AI that can identify Russian soldiers on a battlefield by recognizing facial contours and heat signatures. “A (Russian) soldier can walk across the field. Then he hears a drone flying overhead. He sits down, covering himself with his coat. Then the drone attacks, and he doesn’t go anymore,” explained a Ukrainian border guard in an interview with a Kyiv newspaper. Some Russians use special coats with ballistic protection that also aim to prevent their identification as enemies, but these coats do not work. “We can `see’ them (Russians) from a kilometre. They are especially visible during such cold weather. And also at night, when they are moving,” he said.

However, Israel’s Killer AI goes further and is essentially a “Big Brother” surveillance system. For instance, once anyone has been identified, the system generates detailed profiles of their movements, personal information from databases, and interactions. “Intelligence officials told the FT [Financial Times] that these modern systems already go beyond conventional facial or number plate recognition and enable the analysis of behavioural patterns, including people’s movements, relationships, changes in appearance, and recurring vehicle or walking routes. Capabilities like these are raising concerns in various countries, as they effectively turn urban camera networks into tools for mass analysis and surveillance. Once identified, the system automatically generates a detailed profile of an individual’s movements and interactions.”

(Note: China already has in place such a surveillance system with 200 million deployed CCTV cameras and microphones which monitor its population, allegedly to prevent crimes in public spaces.)

However, Israel’s AI goes a step further and can even identify obscured faces because it uses a neural network to identify 14 features on a face, which it then compares to its photo libraries. Once made aware of this, Putin must have panicked, which is why Russia moved rapidly to counteract the possibility that such Western AI could locate him or that, alternatively, Putin’s rivals could eliminate him. This year, drastic shutdowns began, and restrictions on Putin’s inner circle were also put in place. Anyone in contact with the dictator – from generals to chefs – cannot use internet-connected cellphones. They are required to use government transport only, not private vehicles, so that their movements can be monitored. Now the Kremlin has once again become a fortress and is completely wired and surveilled, as are the residences of all its staff. Some workers have been relocated to shelters, and anti-drone teams plus snipers are everywhere in Moscow.

Technology has turned Putin and the Russians into prey, instead of predators. Russia’s gigantic military is being shredded in the war and is slowly losing to Ukraine. Russia’s economy is being decimated as Ukraine’s $500 drones destroy or disable tanks worth millions. Kyiv’s digitized kill zone and drone army have turned the battlefield into a “turkey shoot” where 325,000 Russians have been killed just since February. The estimated number of Russians killed or wounded since February 2022 totals at least 1.2 million. Worse, the war is a stalemate that won’t end as long as Putin remains in charge. Fortunately, the difference now is that Putin’s biggest enemy is technology, and he knows that the war will end, whether he wants it to happen or not. It will end once there is an AI Killer with his name on it.

Share

Subscribe now

Give a gift subscription

NOTE TO READERS: Please consider supporting my writing by subscribing to my Substack. A paid subscription grants access to all of my articles year-round.

At first blush, Bernie’s idea is a combination of socialism and confiscation. But in fact, it’s only fair that Americans reap dividends from Silicon Valley because its early development was largely built on fundamental, publicly funded research that they provided as taxpayers. For instance, a $4.5-million National Science Foundation research grant awarded to Stanford University in the mid-1990s financed a digital library initiative by Larry Page and Sergey Brin that eventually became Google, now Alphabet.

Similar programs by DARPA, NASA, and the Department of Defense heavily subsidized the development of integrated circuits, GPS, deep learning, and the internet. DARPA (the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) was created in 1958 after Sputnik and is the research and development branch of the U.S. Department of Defense, tasked with creating breakthrough, high-risk technologies for national security. It is also at the cutting edge of science, invented an early version of the Internet, and has produced innovations that were available, without fees, to tech entrepreneurs. One expert estimated, for instance, that Steven Jobs repurposed billions of dollars’ worth of DARPA and other free research to create the iPhone without paying a dime in royalties.

America has led the world in providing taxpayer-funded research funds to government agencies and universities and, as a result, underpinned America’s growth, reinvented the world, and allowed Silicon Valley companies to become staggeringly wealthy and powerful. In that context, it’s only fair that these profits should be shared with the American people who forked out these billions toward research. It’s also important to note that Sam Altman, OpenAI’s chief executive, also pitched the idea of the acquisition of stock in tech companies to Trump and policymakers in order to bridle and regulate AI research. The President has already started obtaining small stakes in Intel and some start-ups in rare earths and quantum computing on behalf of the government. But each deal was criticized by lobbyists, investors, and libertarians as un-American.

Buying half the shares of these companies would be impossible because of their stratospheric valuations. OpenAI, Anthropic, and SpaceX alone are going public and valued at trillions of dollars. Whenever Trump has “paid” for small stakes in small companies, it’s essentially a fee in return for government approval of transactions. However, Sanders’ idea of a one-time “tax” aims to get around legislative protection against expropriation without compensation to shareholders and will result in litigation. It would also be viewed as a form of “statism” that would be opposed by libertarians and raise fears of a Big Brother scenario.

However, sovereign wealth funds are a good idea. For instance, Norway and other resource-rich countries set up funds decades ago that re-invest proceeds from their country’s wealth (in oil and gas) for the benefit of the people who “own” the resources. Norway’s fund is $2 trillion in size and invests in enterprises at home and abroad, monitors their actions, and helps lower the cost of government services. Alaska has a similar fund that keeps state taxes low and distributes annual dividends to residents. More than 50 countries have sovereign wealth funds, including Australia, Middle Eastern countries, and China.

Trump’s regime intends to grow and regulate the sector, but also wants America to remain ahead of China in the global technology race. Politically, the polling shows that Americans are angry about the proliferation of data centers, looming power shortages, excessive wealth in the hands of a few people, and the adverse effects on children by unregulated social media companies. As a result, the public doesn’t trust the tech giants or the government. In addition, there are concerns about the issues that Pope Leo XIV raised, that machines will destroy human values and eventually humanity itself.

Sanders will push his audacious solution hard, and Trump must act quickly to create a public partnership with Silicon Valley and to bridle tech giants before they move offshore to duck regulation. Some are doing so, including Trump backer and tech honcho Peter Thiel (a partner of Elon Musk’s), who is relocating to Argentina, where its right-wing government has pledged to create unique corporate structures for technology that will make companies and owners immune from regulations, taxes, safety legislation, and ownership restrictions.

For this and other reasons, Bernie’s proposal is urgent. He announced his wealth fund scheme in a New York Times op-ed recently and correctly noted that “even President Trump, in an executive order, has proposed establishing an American sovereign wealth fund.” However, the suggestion of creating a fund was quickly attacked by The Wall Street Journal, which pointed out that such funds usually enrich the rulers and their friends more than citizens. “We blasted the President’s idea last year,” it wrote. “Democrats criticize the Trump family businesses for profiting from the Presidency with crypto deals. Imagine the temptation for corruption if the government owns stakes in America’s wealthiest companies.”

Clearly, rules must prevent that, but there’s little time to waste. Even some tech tycoons who own Anthropic and others are goading Trump into regulating Silicon Valley due to concerns about the danger of rogue AI development. Thus far, Trump’s latest directive to regulate the sector is a requirement that “frontier labs” – Anthropic, OpenAI, Google, and others -- voluntarily submit their new AI models to a government cybersecurity review up to 30 days before release. This was pushed by Anthropic but reduced from a 90-day review after the rest of the tech lobby argued that only minimal controls are needed, or else China will overtake America.

The AI issue will be controversial for some time. Trump publicly responded favorably to Bernie’s policy, but his tech guru, David Saks, blasted the idea. “Nationalization of AI will accelerate the corporate-government fusion we’re already sliding toward,” wrote Sacks. “America won’t win the AI race if we beat China but end up with a CCP-style social credit system in the U.S. — and that is the danger as the government becomes more deeply involved in AI development and assumes direct ownership and control.”

Ironically, China’s booming technology sector is already a partnership between its government and technology companies. In April, OpenAI began pushing for a wealth fund that would provide citizens with a stake in AI-driven economic growth. Now Bernie wants to expedite the process, gain public ownership, and address the issue of inordinate economic power accumulating in the hands of a few tech billionaires. He wrote: “AI is built on humanity’s collective knowledge and the wealth it generates must benefit humanity – not just Elon Musk, Sam Altman and other AI oligarchs.”

Share

Subscribe now

Give a gift subscription

Share

Subscribe now

Give a gift subscription

Putin’s St. Petersburg International Economic Forum has always attracted attendees from dozens of countries worldwide. He always delivers the keynote address, and other heads of state speak. A high-ranking Chinese leader attended, but not President Xi Jinping, and this year’s guest of honor is Saudi Energy Minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman Al Saud. Despite the ongoing war, there were also delegates from Europe and the United States, and, not surprisingly, former German Chancellor, traitor, and Putin pal, Gerhard Schroder, was in attendance.

The attack on the city where Putin was born demonstrated to both Russians and the world that no part of Russia is safe. “It was yet another stab to the heart of Putin’s pseudo-Russia, signaling time for regime change,” noted one commentator. The BBC reported that “unverified videos posted on social media by Ukrainian military figures showed drones heading for docked military ships [in St. Petersburg], with the video cutting off before impact. Robert Brovdi, the commander of Ukraine’s unmanned systems, said on Telegram that the corvette Boikiy was struck.”

This was the most high-profile embarrassment for Putin since Kyiv began bombing Russia. Then there’s also the fact that Ukraine has completely repelled Putin’s spring military counter-offensive. His casualties soar, and his military is stalled. Not surprisingly, the Forum’s attendance by Western countries and companies has dropped steadily every year since the 2022 invasion of Ukraine. So has the quality of attendees. A small US delegation attended, but it was led by the guy overseeing President Trump’s ballroom project in the White House.

Ukraine’s decision to take the war to the Russians may not trigger regime change among its terrified residents, but it marks the beginning of the end of this war. Russia’s eventual bankruptcy will do the trick and finally halt the conflict, which seems increasingly inevitable. Every day, Ukrainian missiles and drones destroy Russian oil and industrial facilities, slashing its energy export income. Oil and natural gas Production is at half pre-war levels, and rationing has been imposed inside Russia. This, plus an Internet blackout for weeks, has brought home to Russians the cost of their leader’s war. For instance, there is now no gasoline in Crimea, which means that the thousands of Russians who vacation there every summer will have to make other plans.

There is also unease inside the Kremlin. Reports from there are always suspect, but reliable sources now state that Putin has been warned that overspending on the war has caused the deficit to skyrocket and economic growth to stop. But he ignores these red flags, refuses to reduce the military budget, and continues to insist on seizing all of Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region, even though his troops are stymied and being slaughtered there. Fortunately, as his coffers empty, Kyiv’s fill. Ukraine is about to receive tens of billions in additional European Union funding, and the continent continues to finance the flow of American weapons to the Ukrainians.

However, in recent weeks, Moscow has shifted strategy by launching a record wave of attacks against Ukrainian cities and civilians. Some 8,150 long-range drones hit Ukraine in May, up 24% from April, according to Associated Press. The shift has occurred, speculates Zelensky’s Foreign Minister Andrii Shyiiba, because Putin has run out of military options on the battlefield. So he pounds Ukrainian cities in the hopes of wearing down the country and its people. Now, Ukraine is asking Europe and America to provide more of their air defense systems. “Europe needs its own anti-ballistic defence so that this war can finally be brought to an end,” wrote Zelensky. “And assistance from the United States in supplying missiles for Patriot systems is necessary.”

Unfortunately, America’s attention has shifted to Iran, and it has essentially abandoned diplomacy aimed at ending the Ukrainian war. Equally regrettable is that Europe’s leaders haven’t got their act together to launch talks with Putin, and that Putin is under no pressure to negotiate. His generals keep telling him he’s winning the war, so there’s no discussion about cutting losses or reaching a deal. Instead, it appears that Belarus is being press-ganged into joining the fray to distract Kyiv from decimating the Russian military. But Ukraine has prepared its northern border to meet another potential conflict and has identified hundreds of targets inside Belarus.

The Economist suggested recently that Ukraine’s recent battlefield advances should prompt Europe to immediately restart negotiations. “We are not against negotiations if they are real,” said Margus Tsahkna, Estonia’s foreign minister. “But there is nothing to talk about yet.” Her response was appalling, given Russia’s bombing escalation against Ukraine’s cities and Trump’s handoff to Europe. However, the Euros are trying to organize and appoint negotiators, but one French diplomat said, “This is clearly Europe’s war now. The question is whether it can be Europe’s peace.”

Obviously, Kyiv has dug in for a longer war, not a deal. It is investing tens of billions every year in domestic arms production and turning its military-industrial complex into a profitable export sector. Two dozen countries now have security deals with Ukraine, and Kyiv also deepens business ties with Germany, the Netherlands, Britain, and Nordic nations to create a significant military-industrial complex on the continent. In addition, Europe is rearming quickly and aims to eliminate its dependence on the United States for defensive technology.

Meanwhile, a bona fide Russian poll showed that between 62% and 67% of Russians support peace negotiations as opposed to the continuation of military operations. And there are other signs of war weariness. Anecdotally, one correspondent in Moscow noted that Kremlin insiders do not refer to Ukraine as “our war” but as “Putin’s war”, a notable distancing from the dictator. Internationally, Russia is becoming more isolated than ever as allies like Iran, Venezuela, and Cuba are attacked, while China and others carefully stay away from defending Putin’s genocidal war.

The positives thus far are that Putin’s war has ruined his army, strengthened the Western alliance, and this, along with Ukraine’s incredible resolve, will inevitably be his undoing.

Share

Subscribe now

Give a gift subscription

For more than a century, nations that control energy have dominated history. The British Empire used coal and naval supremacy to build a global empire. America pioneered the petroleum industry, fuelling the rapid industrialization and transportation boom that gave it global dominance. The next superpower must dominate outer space, then commercialize it by harvesting its resources and capturing solar energy, as Elon Musk and Japan propose. Both are launching solar panels on satellites and will build them on the moon itself, which could potentially provide ubiquitous, unlimited energy for the world. But the United States has always dominated space. If this continues, thanks to SpaceX’s cost-effectiveness in space travel, both geopolitics and economics will be transformed.

The Artemis Accords, signed in 2020 by dozens of nation-states, set out common principles, guidelines, and best practices for the safe exploration of the Moon and beyond, as humanity extends the duration of space missions and its reach to Mars. In December, President Donald Trump also issued a Presidential action entitled “Ensuring American Space Superiority” that set out national goals. “The United States must therefore pursue a space policy that will extend the reach of human discovery, secure the Nation’s vital economic and security interests, unleash commercial development, and lay the foundation for a new space age.”

America’s lead in commercial space is real and widening. Japan is also in the running concerning tapping solar energy with its exciting OHISHAMA Project. But China and Russia have fallen by the wayside. So has Europe. American private-sector aerospace companies, such as SpaceX and Blue Origin, have turned launch economics on its head. Reusable rockets will lower costs, and satellites are being put into orbit for communications, surveillance, and solar power generation. Military planners already regard space as a strategic domain equal to land, sea, air, and cyberspace. And space is big business. Consulting and intelligence firm Novaspace estimated: “The global space economy will grow from roughly $596 billion in 2024 to $944 billion by 2033.”

Geopolitically, the implications of space-based solar power and investment will be profound. Petro-states will be weakened, new alliances will form, China will have to become a partner or a competitor, and American strategic supremacy will reign. Energy has always dictated political leverage. Petroleum built American industrial might; oil-rich states have become diplomatically powerful, but Russia has deployed its country’s energy wealth as a geopolitical weapon. Putin provides cheap oil to India and China, and purposely made Europe fossil fuel dependent before invading Ukraine in 2022. He tried to blackmail Europe by denying it energy, but the continent scrambled and found alternative supplies. Iran also weaponizes its oil wealth, which it uses to subjugate its people, finance terrorism, and wage war in the Middle East.

However, ubiquitous, cheap space energy will remove the leverage held by Russia, Iran, and all sizeable energy producers. In a solar-powered world, only countries with space technology, capital, engineering talent, and military power will dominate. Geopolitical power won’t be wielded by those who have large tracts of land with fossil fuels and other natural resources. It will belong to those who control the sky with technology, space, and infrastructure above Earth: Satellites, communications networks, military might, launch systems, navigation systems, surveillance capabilities, and energy transmission.

There are also untold, untapped natural riches in space. The Moon is believed to have mineral wealth, as do asteroids. In 2023, NASA launched a mission to study and orbit a metal-rich asteroid named “16 Psyche” worth an estimated $10 quintillion. It is 140 kilometers wide and located between Mars and Jupiter, and NASA will reach it by 2029. Then it will orbit the asteroid for 26 months to photograph, study, and map it. The asteroid is believed to be composed primarily of iron, nickel, and potentially precious metals like gold, making it staggeringly valuable. Mining is the goal, but it won’t happen for lifetimes.

Dr. Pippa Malmgren is a tech entrepreneur and chief executive officer of Geopolitica Institute who has extensively studied the coming “space economy”. She said positioning is already underway by the United States: “The Arctic, Greenland, and Canada are central to the space race. It’s not about rare earth metals or getting control of these countries, because we’ll get these materials from space and asteroids. The focus is on getting into space, which can only happen if you have the Arctic under control [for launches, assembly, and monitoring] and properly developed. The Arctic is now at the center of the geopolitical chessboard.”

All nation-states will increasingly become dependent on American-controlled orbital systems as much as they currently depend on U.S. digital infrastructure, according to Malmgren. China understands this better than most, and it plays catch-up by accelerating lunar exploration, expanding military space capabilities, and building anti-satellite technologies. It is also investing in Russia’s Arctic, potential lunar infrastructure, and currently controls production of 80% of the world’s solar panels. Mastery of space represents the next great power rivalry: Washington and Beijing will fight for control over the “cislunar space”, or the strategic region between Earth and the Moon. Issues will include who controls orbital “lanes” and the rights to launch satellites into orbit, as well as the right to mine and build infrastructure on the Moon for manufacturing and energy production.

Naturally, the militarization of space is a given and is already underway. Satellites already guide modern warfare and military forces. GPS systems guide missiles. Surveillance satellites provide intelligence. Missile warning systems prevent deaths. Shut off satellite transmission, and armies fail, as happened recently to Russia in Ukraine. As a result, Russia and China are developing anti-satellite weapons or jamming technologies. This is why America’s Space Force exists, and this is why the Space Age will likely result in conflicts.

However, American dominance will remain as long as it continues to lead in these essential capabilities: Reusable rockets, orbital manufacturing, lunar mining, satellite power grids, military capability, space internet, and asteroid resource extraction. Its allies will become dependent on its space technologies as they now are on its financial systems and cloud computing. However, China will challenge, and competition will break out regarding lunar bases, access to rare minerals on the Moon, orbital positions, communications satellites, and military dominance. But like the oceans, airspace, or airwaves, international treaties and deals will have to be forged to facilitate sharing and partnerships.

Theoretically, energy abundance from space will benefit all economies and people and save the planet. And global space infrastructure and abundant solar power will also yield geopolitical benefits because authoritarian energy leverage will disappear. But there’s always the challenge of human nature, greed, and ignorance. As William Shakespeare wrote in Julius Caesar: "It is not in the stars to hold our destiny but in ourselves."

Share

Subscribe now

Give a gift subscription

NOTE TO READERS: Please consider supporting my writing by subscribing to my Substack. A paid subscription grants access to all of my articles year-round.

The space race is not about who plants a flag on what planet first. It’s actually about the future of life on Earth. The safe splashdown in April of the Artemis II crew after its successful NASA Moon mission validated that life-support, communication, and navigation systems with astronauts on board can pave the way for sustainable lunar exploration. Elon Musk’s SpaceX hopes to build orbital data centres for AI computing by 2028, to power AI processing/computing capacity for use on Earth. However, Japan’s OHISHAMA Project is actually ahead of the U.S. It is soon launching the first solar power station satellite into orbit that will capture and transmit solar power to a receiving site on Earth for conversion into usable electricity. If scaled, by also building gigantic solar farms on the Moon, space-based solar power could replace fossil fuels, dams, and massive nuclear plants, drastically cutting greenhouse gas emissions while providing clean, global energy distribution.

The Japanese demonstration satellite will generate only one kilowatt of power, but it will prove that solar energy can be transmitted, via microwaves, directly from space to ground-based antennas, then converted into electricity. This will be revolutionary. Wind and nuclear power have limited potential, fossil fuels pollute, and solar parks are not a solution. They devour large tracts of land, and access to sunlight on Earth is limited by clouds and weather. But Silicon Valley has lowered the cost of rocketry, making it possible to build a space-based energy industry.

Japan’s 180-kilogram spacecraft will carry photovoltaic panels and wireless power transmission equipment into a roughly 400-kilometre orbit. Its purpose is to prove that solar can be beamed accurately, safely, and efficiently to a ground-based receiving antenna and converted immediately into usable power. If successful, this will eventually lead to commercial-scale orbital stations in space or giant solar farms on the Moon that can provide power, unaffected by weather. One kilowatt would barely supply one household, but success would unlock an energy revolution that could transform existence.

Space-based solar power addresses the central constraint of modern civilization: energy abundance without environmental collapse. Every major problem—climate change, water scarcity, industrial decarbonization, data centers, artificial intelligence, desalination, even space exploration itself—ultimately boils down to energy availability.

Japan has worked on space-based solar power for decades, not as an experiment but as a strategic national objective. The country’s 2008 Basic Space Law identified space solar power as part of Japan’s long-term energy security strategy. In a nation poor in fossil fuels, traumatized by nuclear accidents, and dependent on imported energy, the imperative is obvious. But the implications extend far beyond Japan.

The U.S. Naval Research Laboratory is also experimenting and has tested a similar form of solar power generation in space, with limited success. But Japan is well advanced and is evolving other far-reaching concepts that read like science fiction. For instance, one such project is called “Luna Ring”, conceived by Shimizu Corporation to build a vast belt of solar panels around the Moon’s equator, some 11,000 kilometers away. The Moon is ideal for power transfer because it has no atmosphere and long periods of uninterrupted sunlight. Energy captured in this way would be transmitted back to Earth via microwaves or lasers. This is not a funded project and won’t be feasible for a decade or more. But the importance of this scheme is that Japan thinks big and is pursuing a space-based solar power revolution to provide clean energy forever.

Japanese researchers have already demonstrated wireless power transmission in laboratories and in controlled field experiments. OHISAMA takes the final step that matters: proving it works from a moving satellite in orbit. Its success would be profound, and once power can be reliably transmitted from space to Earth, then gigawatt-scale solar power stations can be built and launched into orbit or built on the Moon, delivering electricity around the clock to designated regions on Earth.

Space-based solar power does not replace wind farms, fossil fuels, or hydro dams; it leapfrogs them. Sunlight in space is far more intense than at the Earth’s surface, uninterrupted by atmospheric scattering. Unlike land-based solar farms, orbital systems do not compete for land, water, or local acceptance. Unlike nuclear plants, they cannot melt down. Unlike fossil fuels, they emit nothing. Once in place, their fuel—the sun—is free and infinite on human timescales.

“Japan is putting efforts into acquiring its own solar energy as presently 90 per cent of its energy is imported,” wrote AI News. “The urgency is driven by the tragic Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster in 2011. Generating solar energy on land is challenging for Japan, as it has a high urban population concentration. With orbital solar collectors come the solutions that are reliable, renewable, and scalable nuclear alternatives.”

If Japan’s demonstration satellite is successful, it will revolutionize clean energy. Both the United States and China are watching with great interest and have similar projects on the drawing boards. But “the Land of the Rising Sun” is currently in the lead.

(Next: On June 1, “Geopolitics and Space”)

Share

Subscribe now

Give a gift subscription

In recent days, everyone has read about Elon Musk’s “Monster Merger” of tech companies. It’s all dizzying to stock pickers and insiders, but this is not a business story. This is about the transformation of human existence and the beginning of the next phase of history: the exploration and exploitation of space. At its center is Musk, the world’s richest man, who is restructuring his business empire into a single gigantic AI-and-space titan, headed by SpaceX, his artificial intelligence company xAI, and with Tesla as its flagship automation and robotics anchor. Attention is on the market maneuvers, but Musk’s philosophical mission is behind all of this, and important to understand. “My companies are doing AI, robotics, space, and tech at the same time with the overall goal to maximize the future of civilization and expand consciousness beyond Earth.”

Musk grew up reading science fiction books and developed an interest in space exploration and technology. He has created incredibly successful businesses, and now wants to explore space, not to find aliens, but to protect human civilization. He believes that life and consciousness — the foundation of existence, which enables learning, empathy, and deliberate action — are rare and might only exist with human beings. “If that’s true, we must do everything possible to ensure life is not extinguished,” he said. “I see it as a tiny candle of consciousness in a vast darkness that could easily go out. This is why it’s important to make life multi-planetary, so if there is a natural disaster or manmade disaster on Earth, consciousness continues. That’s the purpose of SpaceX.”

He has singlehandedly ushered in the Space Age because his engineers are on the verge of breakthroughs in rocketry that will allow more exploration and development. “We are hoping this year to achieve full re-usability of our aircraft. Starship is the largest flying machine ever made (29 storeys tall), and in 2026, we want to prove full re-usability, which will be profound and will drop the cost of access to space by a factor of 100. The cost of access to space will be below the cost of freight on aircraft, under $100 a pound.”

The new economics of launching will allow SpaceX to undertake its major project, which is to build and launch enormous orbital data centres for AI computing by 2028. These will use solar energy to harness vast amounts of AI processing/computing capacity for use on Earth. He said, “Solar in space is five times more effective than solar on the ground. It’s always sunny, and there is no daylight, weather, or seasonal cyclicality. There is five times more energy in space than on the ground. The lowest cost place to put AI is in space, within three years.” (However, he must get permission from Washington so that his data centers do not disrupt existing telecom and research satellites that are already in orbit.)

Data will travel from these orbiting AI data centers to Earth using high-bandwidth optical laser communications or high-frequency Radio Frequency (RF) links. Beams of light or radio waves will transmit information from the data center satellites directly to Earth-bound "optical ground stations" or teleports, which will then route the data via fiber optic networks to terrestrial AI training clusters.

This will address the problem of building enough electricity generation to meet the needs of technology on Earth. This will, in turn, provide enough AI compute to solve some of the world’s biggest problems, such as poverty, believes Musk. “People talk about solving global poverty, but the only way to do this is with AI and robotics. It doesn’t mean this would be without issues. We need to be very careful with both, and don’t want to find ourselves in a James Cameron ‘Terminator’ movie.”

“Electricity is an issue, and today there’s only 4% growth in maximum power,” he said in a recent interview. “By the end of this year, the U.S. will produce more silicon chips than we can turn on because of insufficient electrical capacity. The exception is China, and the U.S. is behind. But 99.8% of all the energy in the solar system comes from the sun. It’s all about the sun. In a few years, we will be launching solar-powered data centers. Space is a source of immense solar power potential, and there’s no need to take up any room on Earth. The scale is enormous.”

Ubiquitous and free AI computing will, in turn, lead to expansion of the global economy “beyond all precedent”, he said. Tesla is a leader in robotics. “There will be a large number of humanoid robots, which will increase productivity. My prediction is that robots and AI will meet all human needs, and there will be an abundance of goods and services, and more robots than people. If you have billions of humanoid robots, everyone will have one to watch their kids, walk their pets, and take care of elderly parents. I’m optimistic about the future, and it will be the most interesting time in history,” he said.

Musk said his “humanoid robotics” will advance quickly. “Some now do simple tasks, but by the end of 2026, they will be doing more complex tasks in industrial environments. In 2027, we will be selling humanoid robots to the public. Self-driving cars are a solved problem, and robo-taxis are being rolled out in Europe and China this year. In 10 years, we might have AI that is smarter than any human, and by 2030 or 2031, AI will be smarter than all of humanity collectively.”

Frankly, it’s a terrifying prediction unless AI and robots remain under the control of human beings. To allay such concerns, Musk advocates for regulatory oversight and AI safety, as have other Silicon Valley tycoons. There will be watchdogs, but at the same time, Washington intends for America to remain the world’s AI-dominant player. Without guardrails, Musk’s future looks more like “Mad Max” than “Star Trek”, but he says the transition is essential and cautions against letting fears take hold. “The future of humanity is going to bifurcate in two directions: Either it’s going to become multiplanetary, or it’s going to remain confined to one planet, and eventually there’s going to be an extinction event,” he said.

He believes that a great future lies ahead but will require hard work, risk, and deliberate engineering, he said. “I think if you want the future to be good, you must make it so. Take action to make it good, and it will be.”

Share

Subscribe now

Give a gift subscription

(Next: “Japan Leads Space Race” on May 28 and “Space and Geopolitics on June 1)

Who can blame Ukraine for wanting full strategic independence? After all, it’s smarter than all of its allies or enemies; it has stared down Russia and will defend Europe for some time to come. Europeans pay for Ukraine’s American-made weapons, but the continent has yet to militarize itself. NATO is a dream, not an aligned force to be counted on, and America aims to pull out of Europe altogether. On top of it all, Kyiv has had to suffer Europe’s timidity and Trump’s stupidity: He no sooner took over the White House than he inaccurately concluded that Russia could not be beaten and that Ukraine “had no cards”. He then tried to bully Kyiv and negotiate an end to the war, but he got distracted when Putin dangled $ 14 trillion in business opportunities that didn’t even exist. (This week, China’s Xi Jinping finally tipped off Trump that “Putin might regret invading Ukraine.”)

In late February, American-backed peace talks to end the fighting in Ukraine were completely halted when the first bombs fell on Tehran. Once that war started, U.S. negotiators had “no time for Ukraine,” said Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky. Worse, an American decision to suspend sanctions on some Russian oil in the hopes of lowering oil prices for American consumers has given the Kremlin “a sense of impunity,” he protested. Further, the Trump administration, in pushing Ukraine to trade territory for peace, “still chooses a strategy of putting more pressure on the Ukrainian side” than on Russia, added the Ukrainian leader. This is why Ukraine has moved on and built a military that is preparing for a longer war with Russia, with or without American assistance.

Ukrainians had to get out from under Washington and Europe’s “no long-range weapons against Russia” vetoes. Now its factories produce long-range drones and missiles, and soon powerful ballistic missiles will roll off its assembly lines. By so doing, its military has turned Russia into a sitting duck. Putin’s troops are bogged down digitally, their homeland is being bombed, and dozens of Ukrainian special forces teams wreak havoc inside Russia, identifying targets, blowing up things, or assassinating Russian officers. Now, Ukraine’s aerial attacks erode public morale in Russia and destroy its air defenses and infrastructure. Not surprisingly, these attacks have bolstered Ukrainian resolve and strength.

Its military is uniquely cunning and creative. In June, Ukraine’s finest hour was “Operation Spiderweb”. Operatives hid 117 powerful drones inside containers that were transported by trucks thousands of miles to Russian bases. Lids were opened remotely and simultaneously, releasing swarms of drones that targeted critical military aircraft deep inside the country, a fleet worth an estimated $7 billion. The assault crippled Russia’s Air Force. It was a brilliant military-technological-psychological coup. It was David slaying Goliath because David was smarter.

In March, Ukraine began outpacing Russia in drone attacks, 7,300 or more a month. Drones spearhead their swarms, drawing and exhausting air defense ammunition to pave the way for powerful missiles. Unlike Russia, Ukraine attacks industrial or energy facilities, not civilians. Its most recent campaign has forced nearly 40% of Russia’s primary oil refining capacity offline and halted at least 40% of its crude oil export capacity. Russia’s energy and military-industrial sectors have also been degraded, cutting Russia’s economic lifeline, reducing refining capacity, halting critical component production, and forcing Moscow to restrict fuel exports.

Unfortunately, Trump’s Strait of Hormuz blunder has impeded the Iran war, as well as the one in Ukraine. He diverted some weapons meant for Ukraine, but worse, a major strategy lapse by the Pentagon created the global oil price crisis. To try to lower prices, Trump issued temporary, 30-day "waivers” on some Russian oil, which has indirectly hurt Ukraine because it provides Putin’s regime with needed income. Also damaging is the fact that Washington remains preoccupied with negotiating a ceasefire with Iran rather than with stopping the slaughter between Russia and Ukraine.

The Ukrainian-Russian ground war is a stalemate. Each nation has one million soldiers, and Ukraine must mobilize another 100,000 ahead of an anticipated Moscow “summer offensive”. However, Kyiv has just revealed another tech advance -- its first glide bomb, which is a primitive yet highly destructive weapon widely used against front-line areas. “This is not a copy of Western or Soviet solutions, but an original development by Ukrainian engineers designed to effectively strike fortifications, command posts, and other enemy targets dozens of kilometers behind the front line after launch,” announced Ukrainian Defense Minister Mykhailo Fedorov on May 18.

To date, human costs on both sides are staggering. Western intelligence estimates up to 480,500 Russian troops have been killed, and up to 140,000 Ukrainians. But Ukraine’s high morale and technological superiority have saved the day. Further, it’s also a good bet that Ukraine has already developed weapons of mass destruction or is close to building them. There’s no evidence of that as yet, and this would be top secret, but it’s only logical that the smartest country in the world, whose allies forced it to give up its nukes in 1991 and which is at war with an evil nuclear power, would have that up its sleeve. Besides, lest anyone forget, Ukraine was not only the Silicon Valley of the Soviet Union, but it was also where its “Manhattan Project” took place. Ukrainian scientists, engineers, and facilities were vital to the post-war development of Soviet atomic and thermonuclear bombs.

With the war still raging, it is only fitting that this year’s Vyshyvanka Day marks a national turning point and, hopefully, the beginning of the end of Putin’s genocidal war.

Share

Subscribe now

Give a gift subscription

Putin’s aerial terrorism was a shocking tactical intrusion. His next move will occur on May 20, when he heads to Beijing for his own summit with Xi, scheduled to last for only two days. He fancies himself a hegemon, but heads a peanut-size nation, so there will be no parade or special fanfare for him in Beijing. He will be hosted for only two reasons: China has profited from the Ukraine war by getting cheap Russian oil and by exporting components at inflated prices to Russia for the war effort. Then there’s the matter of China’s whopping debt to Russia worth billions, an IOU that will be repaid one day in resources, Manchuria, and large chunks of Siberia.

The contrast between Xi and his two “partners” is instructive: Xi talked to Trump about being “partners, not rivals”. But years ago, on February 4, 2022, Putin and Xi declared that they were “friends without limits”. The U.S.-China relationship continues and is about mutual self-interest and a commitment to peace and prosperity. But Putin never told Xi when they made their pledge in 2022 that he was about to invade Ukraine, and did just days later. That treachery put Xi in an awkward position geopolitically and generated enormous annoyance and anger in Beijing. Now there are “limits” to that “friendship”.

Of course, the two dictatorships continue to do business, and China has told Trump that it does not sell weapons to Russia directly. However, its companies have been caught exporting dual-use technology and materials that enable Russia’s military production, and have been slapped with American sanctions. Trump said the two discussed trying to end the Ukraine war. Then, on May 9, Putin announced that the “war was coming to an end,” and during the superpower summit on May 14 and 15, he unleashed his biggest attack. Trump responded to the attacks by stating that they “could delay peace efforts” and called the situation “a shame”. When asked about his and Xi’s response to these attacks, Trump added, “It’s one [issue] that we’d like to see settled,” said Trump. “Until last night, it was looking good, but they [Ukraine] took a big hit.”

Clearly, the three-day summit made no progress concerning any of the wars underway, and here’s a summary of talks concerning the other issues:

Taiwan:
Xi warned Trump that Taiwan was his key issue and to be careful concerning U.S. policy and military support for the island. A $14-billion arms package for Taiwan was approved by Congress in January, but Trump has held up the sale for months, which some hardline Republicans worry may mean he will shift to appease Beijing. If he does, that would be illegal.

Tehran: China is Iran’s biggest trading partner, which gives it leverage over the regime. Trump said he’s losing patience with Iran, but said he didn’t ask for “any favors” from Xi concerning Iran because he doesn’t want to be asked for favors in return. However, he said Xi told him that China would not provide military equipment to Tehran in the future and that Xi was willing to help broker peace there. Both leaders agreed that the Strait of Hormuz “must remain open” and be free of tolls or future militarization. Both agree that Iran should never have nuclear weapons. (However, the readout of talks released by the Chinese Foreign Ministry made no mention of either Iran or the Strait of Hormuz.)

But if China helps with Iran, it will want something in return from Trump, such as backing off on support for Taiwan. But if he renegs, there will be a showdown with Congress.

Trade:
The U.S. wants China to open its doors to more American investment, but also wants guardrails against state interference. China also wants more access to the U.S., and discussions have been ongoing. After this summit, Trump claimed that “fantastic trade deals, good for both countries,” were struck. But full details were not disclosed, only that China would buy at least 200 Boeing jets, and possibly another 750. Trump added that China would buy billions of dollars worth of American soybeans plus other agricultural commodities – a claim that Chinese authorities did not corroborate. Another major concern is the extension of the trade truce due to expire in November, but no agreements were announced, only that Xi would come to the United States in the fall for the next summit. “Surprisingly, Trump told reporters that he and Xi did not discuss tariffs at all,” reported the BBC.

Technology:
Trump was flanked by highly placed American CEOs and Silicon Valley billionaires who wanted safeguards to prevent the Chinese from stealing their artificial intelligence technologies. Washington has accused China of “industrial scale” theft of US technologies and demanded that firms be held accountable. China called the accusations “baseless”. In February, U.S. AI developer Anthropic accused three Chinese firms, DeepSeek, Moonshot AI, and MiniMax, of intellectual property theft. OpenAI (creator of ChatGPT) accused China’s DeepSeek of “ongoing efforts to free-ride on the capabilities developed by OpenAI and other U.S. frontier labs.” This issue is a high priority for the U.S., and thus far, it has deployed export controls, law enforcement, and trade restrictions to protect its domestic industry. But it continues. Officials and market players describe this as a systematic, state-led assault on U.S. technology.

In conclusion, neither country came away from the summit with clear-cut wins or losses in terms of trade, tech, Taiwan, or Tehran. However, Trump broached the topic of human rights, notably the incarceration of Hong Kong media tycoon Jimmy Lai and others, but without success. In summary, as one commentator described it aptly, the U.S. and China were able to attain “a stabilized stalemate” on all fronts.

Share

Subscribe now

Give a gift subscription

NOTE TO READERS: Please consider supporting my writing by subscribing to my Substack. A paid subscription grants access to all of my articles year-round.

Many hope that Putin will be removed, but Kasparov says he will be replaced by an equally odious member of the “siloviki”, the inner circle of Russians from security, military, and law enforcement agencies that run the nation. The war is going badly for Putin, so rivals are already circling, and some want him removed. But that won’t end the war. Another Russian expert, Boris Bondarev, a former diplomat who defected after Ukraine’s invasion, believes that any successor would be worse, due to the nature of the elite surrounding Putin and the indoctrination of the system.

Russia must be defeated to destroy what Kasparov calls Russia’s “imperial virus”, or toxic nationalism. “Ukraine must win, and Russia must lose. Victory for Ukraine is important. This is not just Putin’s war or about getting less than all of Ukraine,” said Kasparov in an interview with me. “In 1991, Ukraine changed history. Its Maidan revolution turned west, and it’s now a military powerhouse. Since 2022, Ukraine has been the spiritual leader of the Western world, and Ukraine must eliminate this imperial virus.”

For years. Ukrainians staged mass protests and risked their lives to break away from the Russian dictatorship. In 1991, Ukraine was the first Soviet republic to leave the Soviet Union, and then others followed. However, Putin wants it all back, and invaded Ukraine because it wanted to join Europe. He still tries to bully other former republics into rejoining Russia. For instance, on May 10, Putin warned Armenia to scrap its goal of joining the European Union. He said people there should hold a referendum on the topic, but then, in a press conference, he threatened that a future alignment with Europe could lead to a “Ukrainian scenario”. Other republics remain mindful of Moscow’s imperial designs, and that they may also be invaded again. They avoid confrontations.

Bondarev believes that President Donald Trump’s negotiating approach to ending this war and dealing with Putin has been counterproductive. For instance, Trump’s haste in finding a quick deal to end the war has allowed Putin to “weaponize peace attempts”. And Trump cozies up to Putin and ignores his war crimes, global terrorism, and the ongoing enslavement of his own population. He invokes no moral or strategic leverage over Putin, nor does he seek it, which benefits Russia and encourages Putin to stay the course. Trump has also been easily distracted by promises of “profitable” business deals in Russia. (Read my “$14 trillion swindle” newsletter.) The result is that “Trump holds little sway over Putin, who is convinced he can win and that his goals will be met regardless of American involvement,” wrote Bondarev.

Putin believes he can outlast Western support. Even worse, he benefits from Trump’s public bickering with allies, which exposes divisions in the West. If that weren’t the case, argues Bondarev, the war would have been over because Russia is weaker than it looks. The war has only been propped up by two factors: Russia’s inhuman disregard for mass murder or for sending hundreds of thousands of Russian soldiers to their deaths in Ukraine, and the fact that a strong and united Western alliance doesn’t exist.

Kasparov put America’s negotiating failure another way: “In the fifth year of a three-day `special operation’, Russia is now in an unwinnable war with Trump’s goalposts moving constantly.”

Fortunately, Moscow is already hurtling toward bankruptcy, but will go bust more quickly if a few strategies are put firmly in place: Ukraine, with increased allied help, must step up the damage it’s doing by bombing Russia’s industries and oil export facilities; Europe must finally crack down on Russia’s “shadow fleet” that delivers Russian oil; all of Russia’s foreign assets worldwide must be seized and used to support Ukraine, and China, India, and other Russian customers must be excessively sanctioned by the West for buying Russian oil and supplying its military.

There is unrest inside Russia. Its economic problems are grave and causing dissension among the populace and insiders. Newsweek cited intelligence reports that tensions have arisen among those Russian agencies that are to protect senior officials from assassination. Putin hides. There are reports that recent arrests for corruption, among colleagues of former military chief Sergei Shoigu, signal that a coup against Putin may be underway. The problem is that they all embrace the hyper-nationalist narrative and imperial ambitions to recreate the Soviet Union that the incumbent has perpetuated and that Kasparov calls the “imperial virus”.

Another report by the Institute for the Study of War in Washington states that the regime’s biggest threat is alienated Russian veterans. Already, hundreds of thousands of former soldiers, including convicted criminals who were pardoned for joining the military, are behind an increase in violence and organized crime that is afflicting Russian society. This same restlessness and backlash after Russia’s debacle in Afghanistan contributed to the overthrow of the Soviet Union.

A master chess strategist, Kasparov, believes “Ukraine must win to end the Russian empire and eliminate this virus. Crimea must be liberated, and Russia pushed into bankruptcy. Then no new Putin will return to empire building.”

Share

Subscribe now

Give a gift subscription

Here is Garry Kasparov’s latest Substack newsletter, “The Next Move”.

NOTE TO READERS: Please consider supporting my writing by subscribing to my Substack. A paid subscription grants access to all of my articles year-round.

Here’s a conversation I had with Louis Sykes of Times-Radio about Putin and the state of play in Russia and Ukraine:

Share

Subscribe now

Give a gift subscription

One year ago, their association was in tatters. America slapped 145% tariffs on Chinese goods, then China retaliated and imposed rare-earth export controls, threatening the global tech sector. Then, in October 2025, the two pulled back and agreed to an economic truce. Now, there is hope they will bury the hatchet completely or possibly agree to a massive bilateral investment deal. Both outcomes would be welcome but are highly unlikely given that China continues to support and profit from wars waged by Russia and Iran, conflicts that are opposed and condemned by America. That’s why Trump must use leverage such as sanctions and economic power to demand that China stop helping Putin and the Ayatollahs.

The two are not evenly matched. China has a large military, cheap labor, technology, customers around the world, and leverage thanks to its critical chokehold on the refinement of most of the world’s rare earths. By contrast, the U.S. has more wealth than any nation, has Silicon Valley, vast amounts of oil, farmland and agriculture, resources, and military superiority. But in these talks, both have leverage, and what follows is a summary of their agendas and the impact of the wars.

The War in Ukraine
China is an ally of Russia’s and profits by supplying the country with tech and equipment. It also uses its UN Security Council veto to stop any pesky controls or condemnations concerning Moscow’s genocide. Financially, it benefits as the biggest buyer of cheap Russian crude oil, smuggled via a global “phantom fleet”. China stores this cheap oil in its 1.2-billion-barrel strategic reserve, which serves as a hedge against the threat of volatile prices and disruptions in the Middle East. This energy strategy now gives Chinese manufacturers a cost advantage over European or American competitors.

China is also Moscow’s financial lifeline. Its oil purchases keep that regime afloat. But Putin is borrowing so much from Beijing that Russia will eventually become an economic colony of China. Russia repays by selling cheap oil, but it slowly goes bankrupt. When that happens, China will settle debts by gaining access and title to enormous portions of Russia’s resource-rich and Asia-based hinterland. This dependency, and its relationship to Iran, gives Beijing leverage over Moscow and Tehran and represents potential cards it can play at the summit in return for economic concessions from Washington.

Unfortunately, China benefits from these wars militarily, too. They distract the West, giving it room to maneuver and compete in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. The Ukraine war has also made Europe weaker because it lost access to cheap Russian energy and now spends billions to buy American weapons for Ukraine and to remilitarize itself. The result is that China has gained and been able to capture important export markets that Europeans once dominated.

America, on the other hand, also benefits from helping Ukraine for several reasons. Kyiv protects Europe from invasion by Russia. The U.S. profits from weapons sales to Ukraine, which are paid for by Europe, and has used the war to force Europe to pay its share of NATO costs and rebuild its armed forces. In addition, America’s support for Ukraine is supported by Americans and admired globally because Ukrainians are respected for their heroism. Finally, their defeat of Russia will help stop Moscow’s global campaign of terrorism.

The War in Iran
Xi spent a decade cultivating the Islamic Republic to gain Chinese influence in the Middle East, and its destruction will represent an immense victory for Washington, Europe, and Arab allies. Thus far, Xi’s comments on Iran have been cautious and equivocal. But President Trump recently claimed that China agreed not to send weapons to Iran and that Xi was “very happy” with America’s efforts to open the Strait of Hormuz. If accurate, that is good news, but Trump must now act to stop China from helping Iran.

China also uses both wars for propaganda purposes. Beijing’s latest talking points present the U.S. as a destabilizing military player and position itself as the world’s “stable power” that is anti-war, pro-trade, stable, and open to negotiations. This messaging is spread throughout the Global South, Africa, the Arab nations, and the BRIC countries — all are important audiences for China. Since 2013, China’s Belt and Road Initiative has “bought” allies, export opportunities, and strategic positions around the world. In 2022, China established strong relationships in the Middle East by signing enormous infrastructure projects with Iran, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Israel. But to most nations, its support for Iran is unacceptable.

China’s complicity with Russia and Iran exposes it to more retaliation. On May 8, the U.S. sanctioned nine mainland Chinese and Hong Kong companies and individuals for helping Iran’s military. Sanctions have also been imposed on Chinese entities for helping Moscow. Beijing also faces a growing anti-China coalition in Asia, where nations fear it will end up being like Iran or Russia and begin blocking shipping lanes or possibly invading Taiwan.

The U.S. must use this leverage against China, wrote the New York Post: “Within months, Washington has broken the two regimes (Iran and Venezuela) that Xi used to project influence in the Middle East and Latin America…Venezuela’s dictatorship has fallen, Nicolás Maduro is in US custody, and Beijing’s position in Latin America has collapsed. What remains is a rump regime [in Iran] without the arsenal, command, or finances that lent its threats weight. President Trump should read this as the strongest card he holds against Beijing.”

By contrast, the South Morning China Post wrote: “Xi will likely try to compartmentalise Iran and keep the summit focused on trade, technology and bilateral stabilisation.”

But that won’t work. A more likely outcome is that the U.S.-China trade “ceasefire” will continue; they will dial down their tech competition; and Taiwan will remain sidelined but intact. However, China must be threatened with more sanctions to stop its support for Russia, Iran, and drug cartels in Mexico, which buy its precursors to make fentanyl. Talks will be heated, but there will be no monumental clashes. This is because both leaders are tethered, not crazed, and each faces internal opposition and pushback, as well as a possible economic slowdown. Expectations are that they will keep the global economy on track, but hopes are that they will dramatically de-escalate and end the vile wars that currently afflict the world.

Share

Subscribe now

Give a gift subscription

In past years, an impressive lineup of leaders attended alongside Putin and his generals. These days, however, Putin is busy culling generals and is personally nowhere to be seen. A recent European Union intelligence report said that heightened concerns about a possible assassination have led the Kremlin to adopt extreme security measures and driven him into hiding. There are only a few unscripted settings where he appears, and most “appearances” are pre-recorded footage. One report noted that multiple identical offices have been set up in different locations to conceal his whereabouts and that the Kremlin forbids anyone from using cellphones around him.

Read more

Trump is right to be upset because allies should never pillory one another’s strategy in public, but he’s wrong about Germany’s condition. The country is a powerhouse and the third-largest economy in the world, after the U.S. and China. The leaders clashed, but, ironically, Merz aligns with Trump’s criticism of Europeans for not spending enough on their militaries and is doing something about it. However, he’s also like Trump in style. Each communicates with German bluntness, or Direktheit, a speaking style that is efficient, clear, honest, never sugar-coated, and perceived as rude by other cultures. Despite the exchange of insults, however, Merz leads Europe’s rearmament and finances the lion’s share of funding to Ukraine’s war.

Read more

Watching Trump in action, insulting and berating the press, competitors, heads of state, the Pope, and allies, is like watching a replay of Chicago Mayors in the 1950s. Shamelessly partisan, he butters up the bad guys, for personal and political gain, then is nasty and insensitive to most everyone else. Trump dodged Vietnam because one of his father’s tenants was a chiropodist and “diagnosed” that he had bone spurs. Then, in later years, Trump slurred deceased military veterans by calling them “losers”, slandered the Pope for preaching peace, called respected journalists “horrible people and liars”, and said, “I hate my opponents, and I don’t want the best for them.” He once bragged to radio bigmouth, Howard Stern, that his dating life in Manhattan during the war was his “personal Vietnam” and that he was a “great and very brave soldier” to have avoided STDs.

Trump’s ugly rhetoric is unbecoming of the presidency, but worse, it has become systemic, normalizing apocalyptic language that leads to violence. American discourse is now incendiary and alarming – on the airwaves, in newspapers, in bars, and across kitchen tables. To news anchors, every election contest is “existential”. Opponents vilify and drag one another through the mud. Each policy disagreement is elevated – through a battery of partisan “network commentators” – into a moral emergency. Major networks are no longer required to provide balanced coverage but are blatantly biased – CNN is Democrat, MS Now is Democrat on steroids, and Fox is Trump’s propaganda machine. Add to this the rise of loopy podcasters and digital influencers—unregulated, unfiltered, inaccurate, and unapologetically biased—and the result is a cacophony of endless outrage.

This environment isolates and stokes all Americans, not just zealots. It explains in part why a recent crop of assassins is not disadvantaged, but are educated and politically engaged. The alleged White House Correspondents’ Dinner shooter was a computer scientist, an engineer, and lived with his family. The man accused of murdering a health care CEO had graduated from an Ivy League school. Both published manifestos that catastrophize the country’s situation and blame their targets, just as America’s vicious public discourse does. Each side demonizes the other. Each amplifies worst-case scenarios. Each feeds its audience a steady diet of grievance. Violence is inevitable.

The consequences of America’s hateful political “conversation” are measurable. Since the January 6, 2021, Capitol attack, political violence has surged. More than 520 acts of terrorism and targeted violence were recorded in just the first half of 2025. While right-wing extremism has historically accounted for the majority of deadly attacks, recent data suggests a sharp uptick in left-wing incidents—enough to temporarily surpass right-wing activity in sheer volume, according to a recent study by the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

The rise of the “lone assassin” makes prevention and detention difficult. The era of organized extremist groups is mostly gone, and now experts state that there is an “ungrouping” or decentralization of self-radicalized individuals. They act independently and do not commit random violence. It is political violence with a purpose. It is fuelled by America’s libertarian and anything-goes laws and the failure to protect public officials from libel and slander. Any public official is “fair game”, unlike in Canada or Europe, where you cannot libel or slander anyone unless you have evidence, provable in court. Unchallenged name-calling is dangerous to society and democracy because it intimidates or frightens away debate and candidates.

America’s social distemper, spreading violence, and incivility are now symptoms of societal drift and are eroding politics and national pride. It’s rooted in libertarianism, based on individualism, free markets, and suspicion of centralized power, which has been a driving force behind America’s technological innovation and economic growth, fostering an environment that encourages risk-taking and competition. However, outright libertarianism and social cohesion or safety are at odds. Libel is not freedom of speech, but weaponry. Keeping the balance is essential and simple. As a high school teacher once explained to us: “Freedom is the right to swing your arm but not hit anyone else with it.”

The deeper issue is cultural. Violence underpins America’s history and is becoming worse. This is not because Americans are inherently more violent, but because the moral boundaries that once constrained behavior have eroded. After surviving his latest assassination attempt, Trump shrugged it off as part of the political “turf”. He dismissed the attacker as a “whack job” but offered no substantive reflection on the broader climate that made such an act conceivable, nor did he provide remedies or comfort. There was no mention of gun control by him or his team. In fact, his Attorney General said from the sidelines that “this was not the time to talk about gun laws”.

If not now, when?

Share

Subscribe now

Give a gift subscription

It’s important to note that Claude Mythos is not an AI weapon and is not yet “the destroyer of worlds.” However, it is dangerous in the wrong hands and “capable of amplifying existing fragilities”, said Amodei. It is an advanced AI model with superior capabilities in reasoning, autonomous coding, and cybersecurity. It is the “hacker’s hacker,” and its creator, Anthropic, discovered in testing that it can find and then exploit long-hidden cybersecurity weaknesses in all of the world’s national security systems as well as financial systems, which underpin the world economy.

If deployed in trading and banking, for instance, this AI could trigger synchronized decisions, rapid selloffs, and feedback loops that accelerate market crises. It could also enable more sophisticated fraud, misinformation, and cyberattacks against individuals, corporations, or countries. The internet itself is too decentralized to collapse from just one AI attack. But the real danger is systemic coupling—AI embedded across finance, infrastructure, and information flows, creating faster, less controllable crises, according to Anthropic’s leader.

This is terrifying, but it is also fortunate for humanity that Anthropic’s co-founders — Dario and his sister, Daniela Amodei — are technology geniuses as well as activists who are deeply concerned about AI’s potential dangers. In January, he published a manifesto entitled “The Adolescence of Technology: Confronting and Overcoming the Risks of Powerful AI”. He wrote: “I suggested that AI could contribute to enormous advances in biology, neuroscience, economic development, global peace, and work and meaning. I felt it was important to give people something inspiring to fight for, a task at which both AI accelerationists and AI safety advocates seemed—oddly—to have failed. But in this current essay, I want to confront the rite of passage itself: to map out the risks that we are about to face and try to begin making a battle plan to defeat them. I believe deeply in our ability to prevail, in humanity’s spirit and its nobility, but we must face the situation squarely and without illusions.”

On April 7, they practiced what he preached by launching Claude Mythos, then immediately disclosing the danger as well as creating a safety plan to release the AI in a responsible way. They created Project Glasswing. It was named after a rare butterfly with transparent wings that look like glass, but which makes it difficult for predatory birds to track it in flight and then destroy it.

Claude Mythos will only be released to a few dozen hand-picked tech companies, which were chosen to participate in Project Glasswing. They will collaborate and use it to identify global security weaknesses involving infrastructure, military, medical, finance, corporate, and government. Then they will patch these systems up before Claude Mythos can exploit them. Without such prevention, argues Amodei, Claude Mythos could fall into the hands of those who would use it to identify weaknesses and weaponize them.

Dangers already exist. One report mentioned that the AI had fallen into the hands of Chinese hackers who wanted to do just that, but Anthropic intervened before it was too late. Now it hopes that Glasswing will be “helping secure the world’s most critical software, and to prepare the industry for the practices we all will need to adopt to keep ahead of cyber-attackers.”

Anthropic’s launch — and creation of the Glasswing Project — rattled governments, corporations, and leaders around the world. The next day, on April 8, U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell issued warnings to banks, then summoned major Wall Street leaders to an urgent meeting to discuss the future risks and to ensure they are taking precautions to defend their systems. Their stability is a priority for the global financial system. “We’re taking every step we can to make sure that everybody is safe from these potential risks, including Anthropic agreeing to hold back the public release of the model until our officials have figured everything out,” National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett said on Fox News Friday in response to a question about the Fed and Treasury’s meeting. “There’s definitely a sense of urgency.”

It was not the first time Anthropic’s cautious view toward AI had come to the attention of Washington. Last year, Amodei refused to allow the Pentagon to deploy its Claude Mythos model to create the type of fully autonomous weapons system Zelensky warned against, as well as to use it for mass domestic surveillance. Amodei demanded guarantees that AI would not be used for either purpose and cited that plans to do so would abrogate existing U.S. requirements that a human has to be “in the loop” of firing a weapon. However, Trump’s War Secretary, Pete Hegseth, unilaterally changed that policy.

The two sides disagreed, and the Pentagon labelled Anthropic a “supply chain risk”. A lawsuit followed, and Anthropic’s rival, OpenAI, run by Sam Altman, grabbed the contract and took on the Pentagon’s plans to create autonomous lethal weapons and spy on Americans. The incident underscored the risks of AI, given that there is no regulatory oversight and plenty of buyers and sellers willing to exploit it in predatory or dangerous ways.

This is why Amodei believes, as do many others, that government, companies, and civil society must work together to avert the looming hazards posed by technology. One of the most consequential is job loss. “AI could eliminate 50% of all entry-level white collar jobs in five years, causing unemployment to surge,” said Amodei in a newspaper interview.

Widespread anxiety about an AI Armageddon is building and has already boiled over into violence. Two assassination attempts have been made against OpenAI’s Sam Altman, and political support is gathering to counteract the power held by America’s technocracy. But Amodei’s solution is both elegant and smart. He isn’t a Luddite who wants to stifle technology, but he emphasizes safety first with his Glasswing Project. He taunts his own more libertarian Silicon Valley establishment by saying government regulation and safety are essential: “Does your car have brakes? airbags? and seatbelts?”

On March 26, the Trump administration created an AI regulatory team and a policy framework to address issues. Unfortunately, it emphasizes deregulation, focuses on American AI dominance, and overrides state laws with a “light touch” federal standard. Safety and damage control should be front and center, but the emphasis appears to be on staying ahead of China by facilitating technological innovation and development, building power grids to support the transition to AI, and protecting youth from exploitation.

While important initiatives, too, America’s first responsibility is to protect its citizens and society from dangerous technology. It cannot put too much trust in the AI industry’s ability to police itself. The choice is safety first or the unleashing of world consequences that will be dire.

Share

Subscribe now

Give a gift subscription

Russia exhibits all of the classic “death zone” symptoms: The war effort siphons funds away from education, pensions, healthcare, and infrastructure. Ukraine’s drone attacks on oil facilities have cut exports in half. Inflation and interest rates soar along with business bankruptcies. Its National Wealth Fund totaled US$117 billion in liquid assets before the war and fell to US$47.8 billion in April 2026. This will disappear quickly given current conditions. The size of its economy shrinks, and growth has disappeared. Oil revenues are down 45% from last year, and export revenues are the lowest in years. The trade surplus disappears, and the budget collapses. The official deficit is 1.6% of GDP, but it is closer to 4%. Debts rise, and servicing costs are double what they were in 2021.

None of this is sustainable, and digging out, once the war ends, will take decades. No entity will provide reparations for the odious regime, and the capital carnage mounts as it continues. Estimates are that the cost to Russia of bypassing sanctions (paying exorbitant amounts to shadow fleets and smugglers to get oil to market) is at least US$25 billion per year. Projections indicate that by 2030, Russia will have lost US$136 billion in export earnings, and its energy sector will have incurred more than US$200 billion in damages and losses. Imports cost more than ever, customers have fled or been attacked, and technology is scarce.

War economies destroy wealth creation by investing in weapons and manpower that are obliterated on the battlefield. The war has hollowed out a generation of young Russian men, caused severe labor shortages, a brain drain, and mass emigration. This has left behind an aging population, a weak technology sector, and global isolation. The war is a demographic wrecking ball: More than one million dead, wounded, and permanently disabled, and birth rates are at historic lows. One analyst said Russia’s economy is a classic example of a war-induced “low-growth trap”.

On April 20, Sweden’s military intelligence chief Thomas Nilsson itemized how Moscow is lying about its economic condition to hide its staggering budget deficit, debts, and the costs of sanctions imposed by the West. He wrote that Russia’s reported inflation of 5.8% was actually 15%; its deficits were billions higher than stated; its war production was losing millions and was corrupt; a banking crisis was imminent, and the country “is living on borrowed time”. In 2022, its GDP was equivalent in size to the State of Texas, and by now it is likely the size of a Houston suburb.

Little wonder why, in March, Putin shut down the Internet in Moscow and St. Petersburg as news spread about hardships, bankruptcies, wartime disasters, and high-profile criminal convictions of Putin cronies engaged in war-related corruption. But the pain is not shared in Russia. These two cities, populated with white Slavs, have been spared military conscription and the devastation the war has caused in the country’s remote regions. Those people in the Caucasus, Siberia, or the Urals carry the burden of the war. Their health and education budgets have been diverted to pay for military costs. And most of Putin’s cannon fodder has been recruited from their villages and towns, and hundreds of thousands have returned home in caskets.

Ending the Ukraine War won’t fix Russia. Structural changes have made Moscow too dependent upon Beijing. It now sells Russian raw materials at deep discounts out of desperation and buys Chinese goods at inflated prices, particularly components needed in electronics, auto manufacturing, and technology. This is the result of Putin’s “pivot to the east” that he claimed was necessary after he lost his biggest energy market, Europe, by invading Ukraine. Even Russian bootleg crude is losing value, and in January, it was forced to sell oil at US$22 a barrel, or a third of the market rate. And its “allies” — Iran, Venezuela, and Cuba — cannot help because they are under siege from America.

Nilsson also noted that oil prices would have to remain more than US$100 a barrel indefinitely in order for Russia to pay debts and rebuild an economy post-war. This means that Russia’s situation will deteriorate dramatically once the Iran conflict ends and oil prices stabilize. Worse, Ukraine steadily destroys its oil facilities and industrial base, which were dependent upon state bank lending. Putin also destroyed any foreign investment potential by confiscating billions in assets after the 2022 invasion began. These corporations won’t be back anytime soon.

The center won’t hold once the war is lost, as happened following Moscow’s Afghanistan debacle. Putin will disappear, and the Russian Federation along with it, as it dissolves into pieces. Putin and his oligarchy will flee to tax and extradition havens. Then the West must ensure that the Mafia State is dismantled. If that happens, the world will be more secure than ever since the Second World War ended. Russia will have no cards, except for some resource deposits that will be given away to the lowest bidders. “The Russian Empire must cease to exist as a political entity, and something may be built on its ruins,” said Russian chess master and political activist Garry Kasparov. “Defeat in Ukraine is existential because it means that Putin’s regime will no longer be a threat to the rest of the world”.

Share

Subscribe now

Give a gift subscription

Share

Subscribe now

Give a gift subscription

Trump’s loopy claim that he became President because of “divine intervention” was not just politics, but a worrisome sign of hubris, an inflated sense of self-worth and infallibility. His recent public fight with Pope Leo XIV, for preaching peace, is more evidence of an arrogant and inappropriate extension of his delusional self-belief, wrote David French in The New York Times. (French is a religious Christian, an Iraq War veteran, and a Republican.) “I don’t think it’s possible to separate Trump’s public fight with Pope Leo XIV from his own sense of divine authority,” wrote French. “Pope Leo’s pleas for peace are hardly unprecedented. I distinctly remember Pope John Paul II’s strong objections to Operation Iraqi Freedom. Yet an American President has never responded to a Pope with personal attacks and lies as Trump has.”

Read more