“Throughout the 1980s, the Soviet Union fought an increasingly frustrating war in Afghanistan.” At the same time, the Soviet economy faced the continuously escalating costs of the arms race. Dissent at home grew while the stagnant economy faltered under the combined burden.
Then in just two years, elections all across the Soviet Union ousted Communist regimes everywhere, and in 1991 the Soviet Union itself dissolved into independent democratic states.
A big win for democracy, right?
But in times of crisis the masses experience independence like the passengers watching the Titanic sinking.
DON’T WANT IT!
Which is why back in the day the Roman republic built in the role of a dictator to single-handedly take over all the reins of government to efficiently and quickly restore law and order.
The procedure included a series of orders, namely
- the declaration of a crisis,
- the cessation of public and commercial business,
- and an emergency levy of essential personnel, usually a military draft in the event of insurrection or invasion.
We can recognize this procedure being implemented during the COVID pandemic.
In 2020:
- Jan 2: World Health Organization declares COVID a Public Health Emergency of International Concern.
- Feb 25: American Center for Disease Control holds a telebriefing and braces the nation to expect mitigation efforts to contain COVID, stating that the “disruption to everyday life may be severe.”
- March 13: The Trump Administration declares a nationwide emergency.
- March 15: States begin to implement shutdowns including schools.
- March 16: State health departments begin implementing ventilator assignment guidelines.
- March 19 – California issues order for people to stay at home and go out only for essentials, shutting down all unnecessary businesses, enforced by policing.
- May 9 – The unemployment rate in the U.S. is 14.7%— the highest since the Great Depression.
- May 28 – The recorded death toll from COVID-19 in the U.S. surpasses 100,000.
- December 14 – The recorded death toll from COVID-19 in the U.S surpasses 300,000.
January 26, 2021 – The number of recorded COVID-19 cases worldwide surpasses 100 million.
During the COVID pandemic, 20-25 million ethnic Russians found were living in newly independent states that were unequipped to handle this major crisis, and the Corona virus toll in the ex-USSR was 50% higher than the US in per capita terms.
September 2022 – President Vladimir Putin approved a new foreign policy doctrine based around the concept of a “Russian World”. It enshrines in official policy ideas around Russian politics, cultural traditions and Russian Orthodox Christian religion that Russia should “protect, safeguard and advance” those people in its legitimate sphere of influence, which includes the former Soviet space, from the Baltics to Central Asia.
After experiencing the catastrophic COVID pandemic without adequate life support, the ethnic Russians welcomed Mother Russia’s embrace.
And those who didn’t, such as Ukraine, found themselves being brought in forcibly.
That’s because the only way to reclaim power is fight for it.
The bloc’s leaders have pushed for reform of global institutions like the United Nations Security Council, IMF and has since created an alternative to the World Bank, which funds infrastructure and development projects, as well as a new mechanism to provide financial support during economic crises, partially rivaling the role of the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
World Leader Contestant #1 – President Vladimir Putin
Putin’s new foreign policy doctrine also says Russia should also increase cooperation with Slavic nations and further strengthen its ties to the Middle East, Latin America and Africa to establish the Pax Russica as a counterweight to the Pax Americana.
Putin and China’s Xi Jinping made headway towards the Pax Russica with a sweeping long-term agreement declaring a “new era” in the global order and endorsing their respective territorial ambitions in Ukraine and Taiwan.
World Leader Contestant #2 – President Donald Trump
October 2023: The United States must prepare for possible simultaneous wars with Russia and China
July 2024: The North American Aerospace Defense Command intercepted two Russian and two Chinese bombers flying near Alaska Wednesday. China’s Defense Ministry said the Chinese and Russian air forces had organized a “joint strategic aerial patrol in the relevant airspace of the Bering Sea”. In response U.S. President-elect Donald Trump says he wants to make Greenland a part of the United States and for military security.
A Russian international affairs scholar, speaking privately, said Putin’s long-term goal is not war with America, but to manage America’s inevitable decline from its current hegemony so that America is “just one of the peer great powers” focused on the Western Hemisphere, withdrawn militarily from Europe and Asia so Putin can assume hegemony.
And that is happening.
In the same inevitable fall from power, America has also gone broke fighting a war in Afghanistan, and consequently America is also transferring responsibility / cost from a bankrupt federal government to the states.
President Donald Trump spoke at the Justice Department Friday, promising to end corruption — something he claimed was at the heart of his now-dismissed federal indictments. Trump is the first president to speak from the agency in more than a decade. Political analysts say that it rarely happens as, historically, the Justice Department looks to maintain its independence.
Since returning to power, Trump has installed close allies and hired members of his personal defense team. He has also fired department employees who served on the team that charged him for allegedly trying to overturn the 2020 election and for his handling of classified documents.
The following – abbreviated – analysis of President Trump’s plans for America by three-time Pulitzer Prize winner journalist and author Thomas Friedman demonstrates there is in fact an American decline in status, power, and ambition.
The America you knew is over. The bedrock values, allies and truths America could always be counted upon to defend are now all in doubt — or for sale.
Trump does not see American power as the cavalry coming to rescue the weak seeking freedom from those out to quash them; he sees America as coming to shake down the weak. He’s running a protection racket. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent’s recent meeting in Kyiv with Zelensky presented Zelensky with an offer he couldn’t refuse — to sign over Ukrainian mineral rights to America, worth hundreds of billions of dollars, to compensate for U.S. aid.
The whole thing is just shameful. Trump, in effect, is looking to make a profit off Ukrainians as a result of Putin’s invasion of Ukraine while making no demand on Putin for reparations or promising any future U.S. protection for Kyiv.
The drama going on between President Trump and President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine raises one of the most disturbing questions I’ve ever had to ask about my own country: Are we being led by a…Mafia godfather, looking to carve up territory with Russia the way the heads of crime families operate? “I’ll take Greenland, and you can take Crimea. I’ll take Panama, and you can have the oil in the Arctic.”
A serious U.S. president would recognize that Putin is playing a very weak hand that we should exploit. Most of Russia’s gains were in the first weeks of the war. Instead of rallying all our European allies, doubling down on the military pressure on Putin and making the Russian leader “an offer he can’t refuse,” Trump did just the opposite. He divided us from our allies at the U.N. by refusing to join them in a resolution condemning Russian aggression in Ukraine — voting with the likes of North Korea.
“When I first heard President Trump when he blamed Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, for starting the war that Russia launched against Ukraine — I was absolutely shocked…He repeated a line from the Kremlin that sounded like Soviet-style propaganda.”
Masha Gessen, the Moscow-born activist and writer known as one of Vladimir Putin’s harshest critics, shared some of her insights on the similarities between Trump’s presidency and Putin’s autocracy.
“There were things that I never could have imagined would happen in Russia…“I know he said he’s going to arrest people, but how could that possibly happen”—and then they go ahead and do it. Trump was talking about deporting people on the campaign trail… Sure enough, that’s exactly what happened..
There’s this weird dynamic that they delegitimize government, basically. The only legitimacy becomes sort of domination and extremely high popularity.
In the 1990s during the chaotic aftermath of the Soviet Union’s collapse, Russian oligarchs made their fortunes privatizing state assets of oil and gas, metals and mining, railway and transportation, agricultural products and other core industries, often in corrupt deals. Putin, who has ruled Russia in one form or another since 2000, treats tycoons and their businesses as pawns in his political chess matches.
And that’s exactly how Trump has conducted business with the federal government’s assets and influence.
Some of the world’s richest entrepreneurs collectively earned $64 billion as a result of Trump’s reelection. Elon Musk, the richest person in the world, saw his wealth skyrocket from about $265 billion to $290 billion the day after the election results were counted, and has since increased to $412 billion as of February 9, 2025.
It is possible that Trump has sincere admiration for Putin…he imagines himself as a president like Putin, who’s superpopular and has a tight control on government.
Trump has expressed very clearly that that’s how he understands power. His expressions of support for Putin have centered around Putin’s extremely high popularity and Putin’s tight control of government...there’s a really high danger that there will be a war abroad, because that’s the way to get popularity.
Trump is certainly carrying out Putin’s vision of Trump as his blunt instrument “to manage” – translate “expedite” – America’s “inevitable decline”, freeing Russia to pursue a Eurasian Union into Russia’s “fifth empire”, ruling from Moscow as the third Rome, the Western / Gentile leg of the Fourth Empire.
What is truly terrifying for Bible believers is that this validates the biblical prophecy of the end of the world.
“And the word of the LORD came unto me, saying, Son of man, set thy face against
- Gog, the land – translation of Gog not found other than being derived from gag / rooftop.
- At this very early stage of civilization simple words were used to reference both objects and concepts. In this flat-roofed society a “rooftop” would be, conceptually, the oversight of one’s yard, neighborhood, town, i.e. society. From this perspective we can translate Gog as the capitol region of an empire.
- Ma-gog / “of-Gog” – i.e. the chief ruler of the empire, named in Genesis 10 as Noah’s grandson through Japheth, confirmed by denoting him “the chief prince of…”
- We know that Noah’s grandson Arphaxad established the first multicultural empire, the Akkadian. See relevant posts. The equivalent to Magog the prince would be Arphaxad, Gog the land would be Akkad the homeland,
- Meshech – Magog’s brother
- and Tubal – another ally, not named in scripture other than always associated with Meshech so possibly his son.
And say, Thus saith the LORD God; Behold, I am against thee…and I will bring thee forth, and all thine army, horses and horsemen, all of them clothed with all sorts of armour, even a great company with bucklers and shields, all of them handling swords:
By this we know for sure this is a militaristic nation, with indications that it was foreign to the Middle East by its lack of regular association with known Middle Eastern nations, coming from beyond the northern boundary of
“Persia…and Gomer [another of Magog’s brothers] and all his bands; the house [again with the conceptualization of object family / clan] of Togarmah son of Gomer [specifying] of the north quarters, and all his bands [allies]: and many people with thee.” (Ezekiel 38)
“They of the house of Togarmah traded in thy fairs with horses and horsemen and mules.” (Ezekiel 27:14)
Restricting our search to the post-flood era allows us to identify Gog north of Mesopotamia in a plains region notable for raising horses. That would be north of Turkey’s mountainous region, i.e. in present-day Russia. Human settlement on the territory of modern Russia dates back to the Lower Paleolithic, i.e. the biblical post-flood era.
Currently, this land of Gog is the Russian Federation, the largest country in the world, extending across eleven time zones; sharing land borders with fourteen countries, and is the ninth-most populous country in the world.
“in the latter years thou shalt come into the land that is brought back from the sword, and is gathered out of many people, against the mountains of Israel…
and all thy bands, and many people with thee…
Russia and the former-Soviet Republics of Central Asia, comprising Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan share a deep historical heritage with a strong linguistic, cultural and economic presence in today’s society. Russia holds a strong economic and political soft-power position in the bloc with the Moscow-dominated Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) and the Collective Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO) as the most prominent initiatives.
“Sheba / Yemen, and Dedan / northwest Arabia, and the merchants of Tarshish / Turkey, with all the young lions thereof [i.e. from Turkey], shall say unto thee, Art thou come to take a spoil? hast thou gathered thy company to take a prey? to carry away silver and gold, to take away cattle and goods, to take a great spoil? [I.e. – “We want in!”]
As referenced above, “young” lions are the “powerful” lions. Interestingly, the former rulers of the aging Ottoman Empire were overthrown by the “Young” Turks who established the modern state of Turkey.
2021 – “Iran, Russia and Turkey Signal Growing Alliance“.
This absolutely fits within the historical perspective of the Ottoman Empire, reborn under Turkish President Erdogan, which with Iran and China fully comprises the modern Eastern leg of the Fourth Empire, completing the two legs of the Fourth Empire with Russia as the Christian Leg.
Whoa, wait! Isn’t America with its European allies the Christian Leg of the Empire?
Not anymore.
Kingdom Come 