Greg R. Lawson
@ConservaWonk
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Geopolitical Analyst | Strategy, Realpolitik, AI, Nukes, Tech | History Buff (Rome → Cold War) | Nixon/Kissinger Enthusiast | Skeptical of Utopia | Views My Own
Joined November 2008
I think about this every day. A 🧵. #Kissinger #History #Philosophy. "History knows no resting places and no plateaus. All societies of which history informs us went through periods of decline; most of them eventually collapsed.
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That this ever happened is shocking & someone should pay for this obviously poor decision.
It's truly staggering that Microsoft used employees in China to manage US military systems. The CCP has been stealing our tech for decades. All Chinese citizens must assist with espionage. Microsoft knows this.
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But the key is to get Europe to spend more now & not just wait Trump out. .
The reality is Trump is resetting the playing board globally. He's done more to remake The foundation to deal with Russia and China already than he did in his first term and more than the Biden admin. Ensure the Europe spend what it says on weapons and it's a major shift.
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Well Europe should also do its part for defense & even faster than they have already agreed to do.
The $750 billion in energy purchases and $600 billion in U.S. industrial investment pledges are geoeconomic concessions. These are not just economic, but strategic alignment gestures - forced in exchange for reduced pressure. The EU is thus paying politically and economically to.
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Good read by the always thoughtful @IskanderRehman in @EngelsbergIdeas. I believe that using history to contextualize current challenges is essential & Rehman is one of the best at helping a modern audience do this as his work with @WarOnTheRocks illustrates.
Interesting new piece on #AGI by @IskanderRehman. He lays down analogies from history and biology for AGI, to help find where they converge and diverge to help understand AGI. Our brains do this too, as @tjbehrens discussed in a nice review
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Free markets are often the most effective & efficient way of distributing goods. Under normal circumstances the market is better than a centralized authority because of the "information problem" Hayek described. BUT, they must also operate within a broader moral framework with.
“Free markets,” whatever that even means, aren’t a “value.” They’re an instrument, to be used precisely up to the point they make the lives of the citizenry better, and not an inch farther.
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The Battle of Milvian Bridge is probably the most historically significant battle in Roman history after Actium.
Today 315AD The Arch of Constantine was finished & was commissioned by the Senate to celebrate the victory in 312AD of Constantine I over Maxentius at the Battle of Milvian Bridge. Its Situated between the Colosseum & the Palatine Hill. Its also the largest Roman triumphal arch
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Everyone with aspirations of greatness should read Plutarch & should definitely review the life of Alexander, Julius Caesar, &, perhaps most especially, Napoleon.
What was Napoleon’s secret weapon?. He carried Plutarch’s works even on his campaigns in Egypt. Plutarch was a his moral compass, a constant reminder of excellence. His contemporaries said “he lived out of Plutarch’s pages.”. Pasquale Paoli remarked, “There is nothing modern in
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This tells you what kind of person Xi Jinping is. Forget the moral element, what it shows is Xi has "iron in his soul." This is exactly what the great Lee Kuan Yew said if Xi when Xi first assumed power. .
Xi Jinping doesn’t publicly acknowledges the June 4th Tiananmen crackdown, but in internal speeches to his military leaders he does bring it up as an example where the PLA was severely tested & passed. He usually refers to it as the “political turmoil (政治风波) in spring of 1989
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Depends on perspective. Tactically Lee was probably better but in terms of grasping the essence of the war, in all of its brutality, Grant was better.
Who was the better General, Ulysses Grant or Robert E. Lee?
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This is why Augustus is the greatest of the Caesars. .
“I found Rome a city of bricks and left it a city of marble.”. ~ Augustus
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Trump must use his position to ensure we don't over regulate AI & stunt our ability to retain the innovation edge in the Tech Cold War with China.
I asked @nvidia Founder & CEO, Jensen Huang, what America’s most unique advantage is to win the AI race. His answer: President @realDonaldTrump.
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Even if this is true, the key to leadership is to not open up the cleavages that can subsequently be manipulated by your opponents into gaping chasms. Elite Western leadership failed at this task for the first two decades of the 21st century.
Some in British politics are beginning to float the idea that the Russians and Chinese are behind the rise of the non-establishment parties. Expect the establishment to descend into terminal paranoia in the coming months. 🇬🇧
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And this is where the free market does have breakdowns. China strategically recognized how critical rare earths are and sought to get a chokehold on them in the 1980s and especially 90s. They flood the market, bankrupt private business & then claim the.
wsj.com
Rare-earth elements are key to trade disputes with China, but American projects are rife with risks.
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I re-posting this extremely important interview with @pwrhungry which goes into detail regarding how much power over the US China has due not only to the mining of essential rare earths, BUT also the refining , of which they have a near monopoly. Deng.
financialsense.com
Jun 27, 2025 – How could China’s grip on rare earths and strategic materials threaten America’s tech and auto sectors? Author and energy expert Robert Bryce joins Jim Puplava to reveal the hidden
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Agree entirely with @MikeNeedham.In @theammind. Let's be blunt, a world where China wins the Tech Cold War & remains the global manufacturing superpower is a world Americans won't recognize nor be satisfied with. Excerpt,. "American capital markets are.
americanmind.org
Small groups of audacious men built our nation. Now, it falls to us to reindustrialize it—and carve out a new American century.
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This is a great book. It deserves to be read by a wide audience so the terror of nuclear conflict is understood again. After the Cold War that fear declined & movies like the Day After & Threads were seen as anachronistic at the "End of History.". This book by @AnnieJacobsen.
“Handmaidens of the Apocalypse”👇. Read NUCLEAR WAR: A SCENARIO and see what happens, in seconds and minutes, if they ever get used.
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This is a tragedy for the small Christian community in Syria. Sadly, this is what should have been anticipated after Assad's overthrow, as I said at the time. No tears should be shed for Assad, but this this did not happen to the Druze under his regime.
newsweek.com
How can we tell our children that we watched horrors unfold in Syria and didn't do anything to help?
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For Eastern Roman Caesars, Heraclius may well rank #2 behind Justinian.
@RomeInTheEast In a different time, Heraclius might have achieved more than Trajan or Augustus. We will never know more of what could have been. Even in his time, he conquered farther east than any Roman, nor other European since Alexander.
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I would rank Constantine #2 of most important western Caesars after Augustus though Hadrian, Trajan, & Marcus Aurelius are strong contenders. .
Today 306AD Constantine I is proclaimed Roman Emperor by his troops. He was also the first Roman emperor to claim conversion to Christianity & is thus a significant figure in the history of Christianity. Constantine was hailed emperor in the Roman city of York, known as Eboracum
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