Emotion aside, we were always heading here – and the Democrats knew it

It’s been almost two weeks since three “Democratic Socialists” championed by Zohran Mamdani bulldozed their way to U.S. House nominations in overwhelmingly blue seats in New York City. Two of them had to do it the old-fashioned way and unseat incumbents, and the other just had to ride what has been a rising tide for almost two decades. I wrote about the New York primary, and what it means for the future of American politics, previously.

From that article:

Excuse me, but have we already forgotten what the “moderate” Democrats did to us? Do you remember when the Obama administration used the Internal Revenue Service to persecute conservative organizations, or when it was coordinating with cartels causing unrestrained chaos along our southern border (thanks, President Trump, for fixing the border all the whiners forget about). Yet here we are, acting like the Democrats are a necessary force for good now being pulled into extremism.

Yet here we are, with people still pearl-clutching over the supposedly tragic loss of the moderate Democrat faction. Since the New York news broke, things have gotten even worse, as Diana DeGette lost her three-decade career in Congress representing CO-1 to a little-known Ethiopian-born Marxist named Melat Kiros last week:

This confirms the leftist brainrot has more staying power than can be found exclusively in coastal enclaves, but then again, we are talking about Denver here – which is bluer than New York City and hopped up on Antifa vibes, drug culture, and radical environmentalism. If Denver didn’t have a breathtaking view of the Front Range, it would be widely considered one of the greatest hellholes in the United States.

I maintain my position that the continuing retreat of the moderate Democrat wing is only bad news if you were hoping for Democrats to make a major comeback in the age of Trump. This new brand of Democrat, which will be increasingly beholden to the whims of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) just as the Republican Party has had no choice but to tip its proverbial cap to its grassroots organizations, will leave the electorate no choice but to assess and adjust to its impact. I am confident it will lead to the following (especially if we can make progress in cleaning up our rotten electoral system):

• Consolidation of Hispanics as a majority-GOP voting bloc
• Forfeiture of Democrat gains with white suburbanites made in the Trump era
• Further erosion of urban voting power, with remaining sane citizens leaving impacted cities
• Shaping of the American electorate to embrace, rather than reject, increasingly aggressive right-wing positions

The Democrats have been trying to keep this baby in the cradle for as long as possible. They started feeling the heat during the Occupy Wall Street protests in 2011, but with Barack Obama as incumbent president seeking reelection in 2012, they were able to contain the crazy. The crazy began to spill over in 2016, when Bernie Sanders gave Hillary Clinton everything she could handle and arguably would have taken her crown if the Democrats didn’t have a stranglehold on their primary system in how they wield superdelegates.

To quote Joe Biden – “Think about it…”

• 2016 primary: Bernie Sanders thwarted by the Democrat machine and its superdelegates; one out of eight Sanders supporters back Trump in the General Election thanks to the issue of trade
• 2020 primary: Everyone except Sanders forced to drop out ahead of Super Tuesday so Biden can have a head-to-head against a socialist
• 2024 primary: The “Democratic” Party abandons the concept of democracy altogether to nominate a woman who didn’t even make it to the Iowa Caucus with her 2020 campaign

The irony is striking, and thanks to having been denied for so long, the bill is finally coming due for the Democrats. You think the GOP grassroots hates its establishment? Then you haven’t looked at the other side. Trump has been around long enough that he is beginning to encompass the establishment (not meant in a negative way); there is enough irritation on the online right to suggest there is room to grow with the new ideas (now acceptable thanks to the rise of the DSA goons) on top of that which Trump has already platformed at a mainstream level. If there had been the internet in the days of George Washington, you’d have heard the same thing – his supporters grew impatient with his style and reforms, as well.

But how could our country stoop to mainstream candidates supporting Communism?

Let me explain why this has long been inevitable:

I. When the Cat’s Away…

Living in a blue city or county, especially a significant or highly politicized one, is risky business. I understand why people leave them having dealt with broken law enforcement or courts firsthand in Pima County, Arizona. A look at a place like the Atlanta metro and its eight major counties (Fulton, DeKalb, Cobb, Gwinnett, Clayton, Henry, Cherokee, Forsyth) tells another plain tale as I described in The American War on Election Corruption. George W. Bush carried those eight counties collectively in 2004, but now they are worth more than 600,000 in Democrat margin.

The shift in Georgia and other states can be attributed to conservative voters relocating further and further away from the urban centers. Their absence ensures only one party has a visible footprint, and as such, makes it impossible to mount any resistance to the next big thing, as we found out with Mamdani’s rise in New York City last year.

With no viable challenge possible from the Republican Party (Los Angeles is another good example) the left has nothing to do but fight itself and split over ideology. With so many letdowns of their whacked out base and the emergence of young candidates itching to get past the roadblocks set up by the Democrat Party, the tides had to shift someday – and now they are finding success in doing just that.

II. The Faithless Emergence

One of the major drivers of Hispanics away from the Democrat Party goes hand in hand with the rise of socialism and/or communism – the wholesale rejection of God. Atheism as a political way of life is a major point of the DSA and modern leftism, and it appeals to crazy, white urban liberals. This new left, should it take over the mainstream Democrat Party, will be forced to stoke fears of racism around every corner in order to keep the votes of (not necessarily appeal to) black Americans, who are absolutely required to be in the fold for the Democrats to hold or compete in the following states:

• Georgia
• North Carolina
• Virginia
• Delaware
• New Jersey
• Pennsylvania
• Michigan
• Wisconsin
• Illinois

It is going to become increasingly difficult for pastors of black churches to keep tooting the horn for “souls to the polls” as the open evil of the new left is put on full display and they continue to register as the most outrageous option on the ballot instead of the constantly-adapting American right. You can already see the atrophy in black turnout from the Obama high point, especially in states with reasonable election laws.

What should we have expected of the modern left with their constant promotion of anti-American values, destruction of the nuclear family, and booing of any mention of God in their conventions? This lurch toward militant atheism, rather than mere respect for freedom of religion (or lack thereof) goes naturally with what the party is becoming.

III. Forfeiture of All Institutions

I laugh at the notion that college should be an automatic next stop for kids graduating high school. With leftists in cities having record low birth rates, the only way they can make up ground outside of importing an entirely new electorate is to control all institutions a young person will be exposed to. They love to send your innocent little conservative straight from youth group to the campus indoctrination centers, where their impressionable minds will become too afraid to speak out for fear of being called racist, bigoted, xenophobic, or intolerant by any definition.

Similar to the lack of political competition in cities I pointed out in Point I, we can trace the inevitability of a radical leftist movement to the inability/unwillingness of the cultural (patriot) right to compete in the arenas my friend Lance Wallnau refers to as the “Seven Mountains” of influence:

The left is firmly invested in all seven, with the primary goal of undermining exactly what it is that has made us uniquely American. If you don’t think we’ve given away business, pay attention to the virtue signaling happening at the beginning of June every year from almost every major corporation, or go post a conservative viewpoint on LinkedIn. Almost no one will touch the latter online for fear of retaliation. Similarly, and to the surprise of few, we’ve even yielded the high ground on family and religion – something people of faith should control.

With so little effort dedicated to resisting anti-American beliefs and sentiments made when our country was strong, now we definitely feel the impact of the investments made by those who hate us and want the world devoid of our influence.

Was there ever any doubt a truly threatening ideology would rise in America?

Conclusion

You should not fear this new strain of leftism. You should welcome it politically because it is so extreme it will force your sleeping neighbors to invest some brainwaves and emotional energy into pondering what it is they want for their futures, and the futures of their children. We should also be thankful for Western Europe, because they are decades ahead of us politically and give us an early detection system for what awaits the fate of the fight for Western civilization. The water there is getting hot, and people are taking notice. Right-wing movements are ripping through Europe and Latin America, and it looks to me like we are getting a wonderful gift for our 250th anniversary – the honest aggression of an opponent who hates us and who will leave us no choice but to remain engaged.

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Seth Keshel, MBA is a Fellow at the Gold Institute for International Strategy and a retired Army Captain. He publishes Captain K’s Corner on Substack.

On congratulating the United States of America on the 250th Anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, we should never forget the foundations on which that great nation is built and the need to restore them and strengthen the irrevocable ties that bind Britain and America, in spite of occasional hiccups.

The great British 18th century thinkers that observed events in America and provided the philosophical basis for modern Conservatism were clear that the American colonies should be “let go” and foresaw the rapid rise in population and prosperity of the future United States.

Adam Smith, whose works influenced the thinking of the authors of the Declaration of Independence, thought that defence of the colonies was a massive financial burden and preferred that Britain should have a profitable, duty-free trade agreement with a friendly sovereign neighbour.

In his 1775 “Speech on Conciliation with the Colonies,” Edmund Burke saw that “the people of the colonies are descendants of Englishmen. England, Sir, is a nation, which still I hope respects, and formerly adored, her freedom. The colonists emigrated from you when this part of your character was most predominant; and they took this bias and direction the moment they parted from your hands. They are therefore not only devoted to liberty, but to liberty according to English ideas, and on English principles.”

President Trump echoed these sentiments when he welcomed His Majesty King Charles III to the White House in March 2026, adding that “we share that same root. We speak the same language. We hold the same values. And together, our warriors have defended the same extraordinary civilization under twin banners of red, white and blue.”

Throughout history our Western civilisations have faced terrible threats and challenges and in the end, with God’s grace, right has prevailed.

Once more we live in difficult and threatening times and our peoples are despondent and open to easy, wrong-headed influence. And our leaders often lack wisdom. It is ever more vital to the cause of freedom and liberty that Britain and America stand strongly together with mutual affection, understanding and respect.

Geoffrey Van Orden CBE is a Senior Fellow at the Gold Institute for International Strategy, a Washington D.C. based foreign policy and defense think tank.

(This article was written by Peter Huessy and appeared in RealClearDefense. Nuclear Choices Ahead: What Road to Take?)

With the expiration of the START series of arms control agreements, the U.S. now faces serious choices particularly how to respond to the emergence of two peer nuclear adversaries. Especially when the current nuclear modernization program of record was agreed to in 2010 when the nuclear balance was far more benign. Projected into the future, people across the political spectrum see a nuclear environment with storm clouds ahead. However, there is a serious divide as to what the U.S. should do. As a result, the U.S. will soon have some difficult choices to make.

In 1981 the U.S. faced a similar crossroad. Would détente continue along with a nuclear freeze of very large nuclear arsenals, modernized in the USSR but lacking in the U.S.? Or alternatively, would the U.S. and the West secure major nuclear reductions while modernizing, and adopt a peace through strength strategy as a pathway to dismantle the Soviet empire?

By 1991, the latter option won out. Strategic long range nuclear forces were projected to come down by over 80% through a series of START arms agreements. Miraculously, the Soviet Union collapsed and all of Eastern Europe was freed. But despite this extraordinary victory, the U.S. assumed it was the end of history, and all enemies were gone and would not emerge. And consequently, we took a subsequent interim forty year holiday from nuclear sustainment.

The U.S. now faces the challenge of simultaneously sustaining and modernizing the entirety of the nuclear deterrent.

So, like 1981, the U.S. and the West face another crossroads: either seek further nuclear reductions toward zero or abolition, while significantly curtailing nuclear modernization; or alternatively, accelerate and enhance both nuclear modernization and sustainment, while once again adopting a strategy of peace through strength but now to take down the hegemonic aspirations of the Chinese communist party.

Both options are relatively well spelled out by proponents, but they rely on very different assumptions.

Like the advocates of the nuclear freeze, abolitionists think nuclear deterrence is bound to fail. And while nuclear deterrence has worked since the dawn of the nuclear age, it will not be useful if deterrence breaks down. A key assumption underlines this new belief: if one or even a few nuclear weapons are used in retaliation, the odds are that nearly all other nuclear weapons will subsequently be used as escalation will take over. Thus, there is no capability to “use” nuclear weapons and survive.

Since the 2023 movie “Oppenheimer,” the abolition folks have brought forward a new twist on what is or is not possible for deterrence. As Annie Jacobsen in her book “Nuclear War: A Scenario” and the 2024 movie “A House of Dynamite” conclude, nuclear deterrence will someday not work and war will break out. And the assumption is that the U.S. military will “jam up” the American President to retaliate “all in.” The only alternative is nuclear abolition.

To get there HASC members Representators Mo Khanna and Jim Garamendi (both D-CA) and SASC members Senators Markey (D-MA) and Warren, (D-MA), have joined with Senator Sanders (I-VT) to propose a unilateral cut of U.S. nuclear forces from 400 to 150 ICBMs, from 12 to 4 strategic submarines and from 60 to zero nuclear capable bombers. The implied force is between 300-500 strategic warheads compared to the New START allowed 1550-1850 warheads which is the current force of choice.

On the other hand, there is an option one might describe as “Record Plus.” In 2010 the U.S. Congress strongly supported a modernized force of 12 submarines, 400 ICBMs, and 60 B2 and B52 strategic bombers for the U.S. strategic nuclear force. Funding for such modernization has generally been approved and is projected to cost $450 billion over the next decade. This was a force consistent with the limits of the 2010 New START nuclear treaty that expired earlier this year. What has yet to be decided is how much more nuclear capability the United States needs as generally recommended by the 2023 Commission on the Strategic Posture of the United States.

The choices are relatively straight forward. The U.S. needs theater or shortrange, nuclear forces such as sea and land-launched cruise missiles, and such development funding has now been approved. The U.S. could add to the existing silo based and submarine-based missiles we already have in the legacy nuclear forces or add to the planned new nuclear forces.

Each silo-based ICBM can add upwards of two warheads. The upload process allows 3 missiles per ICBM wing per month or 44 months, while sub warheads can be added much faster. Other buildups could be an additional 3-4 submarines but that could probably only be done at the end of the current acquisition schedule, with such submarines being acquired 2041-4. The new B21 Raider is now undergoing flight testing and there is general consensus that the U.S. needs not 100 but 175-200 more nuclear capable strategic bombers, with Northrop Grumman having committed to accelerate such new acquisition.

There is however a major new concern as the U.S. moves forward on modernization. In April 1999 Russian President Yeltsin in a secret decree ordered the development of thousands of short-range, low yield, “battlefield” nuclear weapons that Russia could use to win a nuclear conflict.” One recent study determined that Russian micro-testing of very low yield strategic long-range weapons could attack all 400 U.S. silo-based ICBMs and cause less than 10,000 casualties, making a U.S. retaliatory response less than certain.

Now the current U.S. retaliatory deterrent strategy is to destroy an enemy’s leadership and their supportive security forces along with their remaining nuclear weapons and industry support. The rationale is simple: threaten to take away those things the bad guys value. Mao Tse Tung once casually dismissed the consequences of nuclear war with the United States, declaring that Chinese women would in a generation make up for the loss of a few hundred million people. He hardly cared for his own people having killed some 65 million to sustain power.

To abolitionists such a U.S. strategy is illogical as they assume such a strategy is “warfighting” and not winnable. In the two movies and one book referenced earlier, some of the abolitionists are pushing to jettison current U.S. nuclear deterrent strategy altogether as unworkable. But what does the U.S. do for deterrent strategy on the long road toward nuclear abolition? How does one deter bad guys brandishing nuclear weapons prior to their hoped for abolition? How do you still deter on the way toward abolition?

Author Annie Jacobsen was asked just this question, but she explained she would drop her explicit support for abolition but let other “experts” figure it out. The movie “Dynamite” took both deterrence by retaliation off the table and missile defense to intercept an attack in the first place. The movie assumed missile defense—even against a single warhead—would not work. And not knowing where the missile originated, the U.S. had to guess— retaliate against everyone as one military officer proposed or do nothing.

Yeltsin’s 1999 decree is being implemented. And since the invasion of Ukraine in 2014, Moscow has threatened to use nuclear weapons against Ukraine and its allies dozens of times. Many have assumed such nuclear strikes would involve the very battlefield nuclear forces called for in Yeltsin’s 1999 decree.

Critics of such weapons say there is no consequential difference between using a regional/theater/battlefield nuclear weapon with a minimal yield and a long-range strategic nuclear warhead of many hundreds of kilotons. Any such weapon use will result in Armageddon.

That may indeed be true.

But Moscow and Beijing may not believe so and thus would be reckless enough to use such weapons. That the U.S. and its allies must defend against and deter such use. That may take a sea-launched nuclear armed cruise missile. And a robust missile defense such as Golden Dome. Or any number of new technologies and strategies. But probably not unilateral restraint that does not take such threats seriously in the first place.

Peter Huessy is President of GeoStrategic Analysis and a Senior Fellow at the National Institute for Deterrent Studies & the Gold Institute for International Strategy.

As we mark the 250th anniversary of the United States of America, we are not merely commemorating the founding of a nation, but the birth of an idea unlike any the world had ever seen. It is truly wondrous to reflect on how this great nation has evolved, from a bold experiment in governance to a global force shaping the course of history.

Looking back across the past millennium, it becomes increasingly clear that the greatest invention of the last 1,000 years was not a machine, a scientific breakthrough, or a technological marvel. It was the United States of America itself. The term “invention” is not used lightly. This nation was not formed out of precedent, but out of imagination. It was a deliberate creation, a Democratic Republic consciously forged through a fusion of Greek democracy and the Roman republic, grounded in Judeo-Christian values and moral philosophy.

Throughout history, many peoples have sought independence, sovereignty, and self-determination. Yet what distinguished the American founding was not simply the desire to break free, but the clarity of vision that followed. Our founders, with what can only be described as divinely inspired wisdom, established a nation where rights were not granted by rulers, but inherently possessed by the people, rights that “are endowed by their Creator.”

This was a nation that did not wait for permission. It did not depend on approval, funding, or partnership from foreign powers, even from those sympathetic to its cause. It was built on conviction. It was an idea so powerful that it entrusted ordinary people, not government, with the responsibility of shaping their own destiny. In doing so, it altered the trajectory of human history.

As written in a 2 July 1776 letter from John Adams to his wife Abigail,

“The second day of July, 1776, will be the most memorable epocha in the history of America. I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated by succeeding generations as the great anniversary festival. It ought to be commemorated, as the day of deliverance, by solemn acts of devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemized with pomp and parade, with shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires, and illuminations, from one end of this continent to the other, from this time forward, forevermore.

You will think me transported with enthusiasm, but I am not. I am well aware of the toil, and blood, and treasure, that it will cost us to maintain this declaration, and support and defend these States. Yet, through all the gloom, I can see the rays of ravishing light and glory. I can see that the end is more than worth all the means, and that posterity will triumph in that day’s transaction, even although we should rue it, which I trust in God we shall not.”

What Adams foresaw was not merely independence, but endurance, and more importantly, influence. It is without doubt that the invention of the United States catalyzed the modern age. The freedoms enshrined at its founding, freedom of thought, freedom of inquiry, freedom of expression, and freedom to create, unlocked human potential on a scale never before witnessed.

In the 250 years since its founding, the pace of technological and scientific advancement has not only accelerated, it has eclipsed the progress of the previous millennium. Every major technological advancement we see globally today rests on foundations first laid by the United States, whose inventions, institutions, and capital made such progress possible. Innovations such as electricity, aviation, telecommunications, computing, and space exploration did not emerge in isolation. They flourished within a system that protected curiosity and rewarded ingenuity. The United States became the epicenter of this transformation, not by accident, but by design.

From the Industrial Revolution’s expansion on American soil to the digital revolution of the 21st century, the environment of liberty allowed inventors, entrepreneurs, and thinkers to challenge limits and redefine possibility. The same principles that empowered a small group of colonists to defy an empire also empowered generations to push beyond the boundaries of science and technology.

Consider a simple illustration. For most of human history, travel was limited to the speed of a horse or a ship. Within less than two centuries of America’s founding, humanity not only mastered powered flight but set foot on the moon. Similarly, communication evolved from handwritten letters carried over weeks or months to instantaneous global connectivity. These leaps were not merely technological, they were philosophical, rooted in the belief that individuals should be free to imagine, to question, and to build.

The American model demonstrated that when human freedom is protected, innovation becomes inevitable. It created a ripple effect felt across continents, inspiring democratic movements, economic systems, and technological ecosystems worldwide.

As we stand at this 250-year milestone, we are called not only to celebrate what has been achieved, but to recognize the responsibility that comes with such an inheritance. The same principles that gave birth to this nation, and fueled its unprecedented progress, must be preserved, strengthened, and renewed for generations to come.

For it was never just about independence. It was about possibility.

Eli M. Gold is the president of the Gold Institute for International Strategy, a Washington, DC based think-and-do tank.

I have spent thirty-three years in uniform and a good deal more than that studying how nations are born and how they endure. This Fourth of July marks two hundred and fifty years since fifty-six men sat in a sweltering room in Philadelphia and signed their names to the Declaration of Independence. I want to take you back into that room, and then I want to take you two hundred and fifty years in the other direction, because a milestone this size demands that we look both ways down the road.

Picture Philadelphia in the summer of 1776. The city sat low along the Delaware River, and by July the heat settled over it like a wet wool blanket that never lifted, day or night. The windows of the Pennsylvania State House were shut tight against spies and eavesdroppers despite the heat, so the men inside debated in heavy wool coats, sweat running down their backs and soaking through their linen shirts. Horseflies drawn by the stables nearby got in anyway and buzzed the room all afternoon. There was no air conditioning, no ventilation, no relief of any kind, only candlelight after dusk, the scratch of quill on parchment, and the low murmur of fifty-six men arguing, sentence by sentence, over the future of a country that did not yet legally exist. Some of them had ridden for days on horseback to reach that room. Some had left wives managing farms alone and children they would not see again for months. When they finally put their names to that parchment, they were signing a document the British Crown would call a confession of treason, and in 1776, treason carried one sentence. There was no institutional safety net waiting to catch any of them if the Revolution failed. There was a rope, a trial before a Crown court, and a family left behind to answer for it.

They signed anyway.

Richard Stockton of New Jersey, a respected judge who had given up a quiet legal career for that room, would later be dragged from his bed in the middle of the night by loyalist raiders, marched through the cold in restraints, and thrown into a New York prison. He was eventually released, but his health never recovered. He died a broken man only a few years after the war ended. Thomas Jefferson’s estate at Monticello was raided by British forces before the fighting was through, his fields stripped and his household scattered. George Washington went eight full years without drawing a salary while commanding an army that was starving, freezing, and shrinking by the week, an army held together by nothing but discipline, faith, and a stubborn belief in the cause they had signed onto. On Christmas night in 1776, with morale collapsing and enlistments about to expire within days, Washington loaded his remaining men into flat-bottomed Durham boats and crossed the ice-choked Delaware River under cover of darkness and a driving sleet storm, then marched them nine miles through the snow to strike the Hessian garrison at Trenton before dawn. He understood plainly that retreat meant the death of everything he had already staked his life on. Men froze standing up in those open boats that night. Two soldiers died of exposure before they ever reached the far shore. Others marched on feet wrapped in rags because their boots had worn through to nothing, leaving bloody footprints in the snow behind them the whole way to Trenton.

These were not reckless men chasing glory but serious men who had studied history before they went out and made it. John Adams defended British soldiers after the Boston Massacre because he believed every man, even a soldier wearing the uniform of an occupying army, deserved a fair trial under the law. He took that case fully aware it could end his standing in Boston overnight. James Madison spent years poring over the collapse of ancient confederacies, tracing failures all the way back to Greece and Rome, before he ever wrote a single clause of what would become the Constitution. He refused to guess at a system of government when history had already run the experiment and recorded the results in painstaking detail. The Founders read Cicero and Polybius by candlelight so they would not repeat the mistakes that buried the Roman Republic centuries earlier. They deliberately built a constitutional Republic rather than a pure democracy. They understood that unchecked majority rule eventually turns on itself and eats its own. Power was divided deliberately across three branches and two levels of government, so that no single man, no single office, and no single mob could ever gather all of it into one fist.

That structure has now survived two hundred and fifty years of war, depression, and civil conflict that by any reasonable measure should have broken it more than once. It survived because it was built by men willing to trade comfort, wealth, and personal safety for a principle they believed came from God and was worth dying to secure. It survived in every generation since because ordinary Americans kept showing up to defend it, in courtrooms and town halls and frozen river crossings of their own, long before any of those fights ever reached the national stage or made the history books.

Now look two hundred and fifty years ahead, to a Fourth of July in 2276 that none of us will live to see. It exists only as a set of choices that still await people who are not yet born. Everything Stockton, Jefferson, Adams, Madison, and Washington paid for in blood, imprisonment, and ruin only reaches that future if enough Americans between now and then are willing to defend it the way that first generation did. History does not glide forward on its own momentum. It moves because somebody in every generation decides the cost of holding the line is worth paying, the same way it moved because fifty-six men in a hot room decided a rope was an acceptable risk.

I have spent my career studying the kind of warfare that does not look like warfare at all. The slow campaign to capture a nation’s institutions, its schools, its information, and its confidence in itself, without ever firing a shot. That is the fight standing between the country as it exists today and whatever it will be in 2276. If that fight is lost by neglect, by a citizenry too comfortable or too distracted to defend what it inherited, the America two hundred and fifty years from now will not look like a fallen empire in a history book. It will look like a shell bearing the old name, governed by forces the founding generation would neither recognize nor accept. Its sovereignty traded away one quiet concession at a time.

The distance between those two futures is not measured in technology or wealth. It is measured in character, in whether enough Americans between this Fourth of July and that one are willing to do the unglamorous work of citizenship the founding generation did first. Precinct committeemen, School boards, County commissions, and Courtrooms. The same ground Adams and Madison worked before any of it became history. Nobody in 1776 knew whether their gamble would still be standing in 2026. We do not know whether ours will still be standing in 2276. The only honest answer either generation has ever had is the same one. It stands if we make it stand.

This is the story every American should carry into this Fourth of July, looking forward at what is still owed. Fifty-six men crowded into a hot, airless room bet everything they had, their homes, their fortunes, and their lives, on the idea that free people, answerable to God and governed by law, could rule themselves better than any king ever could. We have lived inside the result for two hundred and fifty years. Whether a free people is still living inside that result two hundred and fifty years from now depends entirely on what we do with what we were given. It is worth carrying forward with the same seriousness the Founders carried into that room in Philadelphia two hundred and fifty summers ago.

God bless this Republic on its two hundred and fiftieth birthday. God grant that it sees its five hundredth.

Michael T. Flynn, LTG USA (Ret.) is the chairman of the Gold Institute for International Strategy, a Washington, DC-based think-and-do tank.

This is the seventh article in a planned eight-part strategic series by the Gold Institute examining how global conflict is reshaping security, defense, industry, technology, alliances, diplomacy, and strategic decision-making.

Security diplomacy is no longer only about treaties, summits, communiqués, and declarations of shared values. Those still matter. In some cases, they matter more than ever. But they are no longer sufficient by themselves.

The old language of diplomacy was built around alignment. The new diplomacy of security is built around function.

Can countries act together when pressure arrives? Can they turn political commitments into military movement, industrial output, intelligence sharing, secure communications, and public resilience? Can they prepare before the crisis rather than improvise after it begins?

These questions now matter as much as declarations of friendship.

The reason is simple. The world is becoming more fragmented, while threats are becoming more connected. A war in Europe affects ammunition stocks in Asia. A missile campaign in the Middle East affects air-defense production in the United States and Europe. A crisis in the Taiwan Strait would immediately affect semiconductors, shipping lanes, financial markets, and allied military posture across several regions. A cyberattack on a port or energy grid may have strategic effects without a single soldier crossing a border.

No country can handle this environment alone. Even great powers need partners. Smaller and medium-sized countries need them even more. But partnership is becoming more demanding. It is no longer enough to stand on the same side of a statement. Countries must be able to work together under pressure.

This is the new diplomacy of security. It is not the replacement of alliances. It is the conversion of alliances into working systems.

A promise that can’t be executed quickly is not enough.

This is why NATO’s Enhanced Forward Presence (EFP) on its eastern flank matters. It is not only symbolic. It creates a physical connection between the defense of smaller frontline states and the credibility of larger allies. It tells an adversary that a conflict with the host nation will immediately involve other countries. It also forces the host nation and the framework nation to plan, train, build infrastructure, and align procurement before a crisis begins.

The same logic applies beyond NATO. In the Indo-Pacific, deterrence depends not only on treaties but also on access, basing, maritime awareness, sustainment, and operations at a distance. In the Middle East, security cooperation increasingly depends on integrated air defense, counter-drone systems, maritime security, cyber resilience, and intelligence cooperation.

Alliances are no longer only about who promises to help. They are about whether help can arrive, connect, and operate in time.

This also changes burden sharing. Spending remains important, but the deeper question is what a country contributes to the wider system and how. A useful ally is not only one who spends more. It is one that solves a real problem for the coalition. It may bring geography, technology, industry, intelligence, access, resilience, or political legitimacy. In the new diplomacy of security, value is measured by contribution.

This helps explain the rise of smaller coalitions inside and around larger alliances.

Large multilateral institutions move slowly. Global consensus is harder to build. Even within alliances, members do not always share the same threat perception, domestic politics, industrial capacity, or tolerance for risk. As a result, countries increasingly work in smaller groups around specific missions.

Some groups form around geographic regions, such as the Nordic-Baltic cooperation. Others form around a capability, such as air defense, cyber, drones, maritime security, or industrial production. Some are temporary. Others become permanent habits of cooperation. The common point is that countries are trying to move from broad agreement to practical action.

This is not the end of alliances. It is the adaptation of alliances to a more complex world.

But there is a danger. New formats can become a substitute for real capability. Governments can announce too many initiatives, join too many groups, and still fail to build what is needed. The test is not whether a coalition exists on paper. The test is whether it produces readiness, usable capability, and operational trust.

So the new diplomacy of security must be judged by outcomes.

The clearest shift is industrial.

For decades, defense diplomacy has often focused on arms sales, training programs, exercises, and strategic-level dialogue. Those remain important. But the harder question now is this: who can produce, repair, finance, and sustain the systems that deterrence requires?

Ukraine exposed the limits of Western defense production. Ammunition, air-defense interceptors, drones, artillery, armored vehicles, and repair capacity all became strategic issues. The problem was not only the budget. It was, and still is, production capacity, supply chains, workforce, raw materials, contracting, regulations, and long-term demand signals.

A strong defense-industrial base is now a form of diplomatic power.

Recent developments show how quickly this is moving from theory to practice. NATO’s new investment framework gives greater weight not only to traditional defense spending but also to infrastructure, resilience, industrial capacity, and operational capability. The European Union’s SAFE instrument and similar programs reflect the same logic, using pooled financing to support joint procurement and strengthen Europe’s defense-industrial base. Germany and Ukraine are moving toward deeper cooperation on missile defense and long-range systems. The United States is expanding missile-defense and long-range fires production. Governments are becoming more involved in building defense-industrial capacity and infrastructure, not only as buyers but as strategic stakeholders.

A country that can produce, repair, integrate, or sustain critical systems, in accordance with wartime needs, gains influence. A country that can’t may discover that political commitments are not enough when inventories run low, and production lines are already committed.

Procurement is no longer only a military purchase. It is also a diplomatic, industrial, and sometimes sovereign decision. Buying a system can create dependence; co-producing it can create leverage. For smaller countries, the goal is not to produce everything, but to own a useful part of the ecosystem — maintenance, repair, software, munitions, drone components, testing, or secure logistics.

Repair and sustainment are part of this logic. A platform that can’t be repaired locally and under pressure becomes a temporary asset rather than a strategic capability. In any major crisis, deterrence will depend not only on what countries buy but also on whether they and their partners can keep it operational.

Technology is also becoming a diplomatic domain.

Cybersecurity, AI, space, data, autonomous systems, electronic warfare, and quantum-resistant encryption are no longer narrow technical issues. They shape sovereignty, deterrence, and crisis stability.

A country may have strong political ties with allies, but still lack secure communications, trusted data-sharing agreements, interoperable systems, or cyber resilience when facing attack. The new diplomacy of security must therefore include practical technology arrangements: who shares data, who controls access, which systems can connect, which AI tools are trusted, and which dependencies are dangerous.

These questions are now part of alliance management.

Intelligence is also vital to this change.

Traditional intelligence cooperation, liaison relationships, classified exchanges, selected warnings, and analytical reports, still matter. But it is no longer enough for the speed and complexity of today’s threats.

Modern security cooperation depends on turning large volumes of open-source, commercial, geospatial, cyber, economic, political, social, and military data into usable insight. The goal is not simply to collect more information. It is to detect weak signals, identify anomalies, connect events across domains, and recognize emerging risks before they become visible crises.

AI can help governments and alliances move from retrospective reporting toward anticipatory intelligence. Properly used, it can support analysts by finding patterns, monitoring areas of interest, tracking adversary activity, and generating early-warning indicators. But it does not replace human decision. Its value is in strengthening the human decision cycle and giving leaders clearer options before a crisis arrives.

For alliances and security coalitions, this creates a new requirement: trusted information environments, secure platforms, common analytic standards, and mechanisms to share insight quickly while protecting sources, methods, and sovereignty. Countries that can share trusted insight and make decisions faster will gain an advantage before the first shot is fired.

Infrastructure is becoming a new form of security diplomacy as well.

Ports, railways, energy networks, undersea cables, satellite ground stations, repair facilities, and data centers are no longer only economic assets. They have become strategic assets, not just economic infrastructure.

This is why security cooperation increasingly includes infrastructure. In Europe, military mobility matters. In the Indo-Pacific, access and logistics shape deterrence across distance. In the Middle East, maritime corridors, air defense, energy infrastructure, and cyber resilience remain inseparable from security.

Infrastructure diplomacy is often invisible. It happens through financing, standards, construction, regulations, basing agreements, port access, private-sector partnerships, and emergency planning. But in a crisis, these details become decisive.

A diplomatic agreement that ignores these foundations may look complete on paper but fail under pressure.

The meaning of sovereignty is also changing.

For smaller and medium-sized countries, sovereignty can no longer mean avoiding dependence altogether. No country is fully autonomous across defense, energy, technology, finance, data, and supply chains.

The real question is whether dependencies are understood, diversified, trusted, and politically sustainable. Dependence on one supplier creates vulnerability. Dependence spread across trusted partners creates room to maneuver. Countries that contribute something valuable gain influence; countries that only consume security become easier to ignore.

This is where “workarounding” matters. As the international order fractures, middle powers and smaller states are building practical arrangements in specific sectors where interests overlap, and formal institutions move too slowly.

The purpose is not to abandon alliances. It is to create strategic space.

Countries want partners, but not complete dependence. They want protection, but also freedom to act when great powers disagree. They want access to technology, supply chains, and markets without becoming vulnerable to coercion.

This is also the diplomacy of localization. Governments want defense cooperation that creates jobs, strengthens domestic industry, supports local sustainment, and gives them more power over critical systems. India, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, Turkey, Azerbaijan, and Gulf-Asian defense partnerships all point in the same direction: states still want partners, but they also want more control over production, repair, technology, and long-term sustainment.

The final shift in the new diplomacy of security is timing.

Traditional diplomacy often reacts to a crisis: negotiate after an escalation, build coalitions after aggression, supply weapons after an invasion, and impose sanctions after a violation. The new security environment punishes delay. By the time the crisis is visible, the decisive choices may already have been made.

Coalitions must be built before a crisis. Supply chains must be mapped before a shortage. Production must be expanded before consumption. Cyber defenses must be hardened before an attack. Public resilience must be built before disinformation. Access and basing must be negotiated before deployment. Intelligence-sharing mechanisms must be tested before a warning is needed. Command relationships must be exercised before combat.

This does not mean every crisis can be predicted. It means countries should be ready and build practical cooperation.

The new diplomacy of security is a pre-crisis diplomacy.

It is the diplomacy of readiness.

A useful partnership is not assessed by statements, visits, or photo opportunities. It is measured by whether countries can act together under pressure from the get-go: exchanging information, mobilizing forces, sustaining systems, protecting networks, and maintaining political unity when costs rise.

For smaller countries, this creates opportunity. The new diplomacy allows them to become providers of specific value, not only recipients of security. A small country with a port, cyber capabilities, a repair hub, a drone industry, a logistics corridor, a key resource, an intelligence niche, or a resilient society can become part of a larger strategic network.

But networks can also create the illusion of action. Countries can join too many groups and sign too many declarations without building real capability. The test is whether cooperation improves readiness before the crisis arrives.

The test will be whether diplomacy changes reality.

Does it create capability? Does it improve readiness? Does it shorten response time? Does it reduce dangerous dependence? Does it make an adversary doubt success?

The new diplomacy of security must therefore be practical. It must connect strategy to industry, industry to procurement, procurement to operations, operations to intelligence, intelligence to decision-making, and decision-making to public resilience along with political legitimacy.

Ambassadors still matter. Treaties still matter. Summits still matter. But the work of diplomacy now reaches deeper into ministries of defense, finance, energy, transportation, industry, technology, intelligence, and homeland security. It also reaches into companies, universities, infrastructure operators, investors, and local governments.

The boundary between foreign policy and national planning is becoming less clear.

That may be uncomfortable, but it is necessary. The next crisis may not wait for institutions to organize themselves neatly. It may begin with a cyberattack, a blockade, a drone strike, an energy disruption, an influence campaign, a supply-chain cutoff, or a sudden demand from a stronger power.

At that moment, countries will discover whether their diplomacy has been ceremonial or operational.

This is the new diplomacy of security: turning promises into working systems, declarations into production, alignment into function, reporting into anticipatory intelligence, crisis response into readiness, and dependence into trusted interdependence.

The final article in this series will bring the argument together: integrated readiness in Europe, integrated deterrence in the Indo-Pacific, integrated strength in the Middle East, economic security as strategic capacity, and smaller countries as specialized partners. The new diplomacy of security shows how these pieces begin to connect.

The common logic is now visible.

In the new race for security, the strongest countries will not simply be those that possess the most power. They will be those who can connect power, military, industrial, technological, intelligence, economic, diplomatic, and social-related, before the crisis arrives.

Omer Haim is a Distinguished Fellow at the Gold Institute for International Strategy, a Washington D.C. based foreign policy and defense think tank.

(This article was written by Adelle Nazarian and appeared in Newsmax. Strengthening Rule of Law Could Raise Albania’s Global Stature)

The ‘Flamingo Revolution’: A Resort Fight Became a Battle for Democracy

Albania finds itself at a crossroads as the “Flamingo Revolution” transforms from environmental protests into a defining moment for the country’s democratic future and European aspirations.

What began as opposition to Jared Kushner-linked resort development on Sazan Island and near the protected Vjosa-Narta wetlands has evolved into a comprehensive challenge to Prime Minister Edi Rama’s governance and Albania’s trajectory toward EU membership.

The protests have exposed fundamental tensions between rapid economic development and environmental protection, between expedited decision-making and democratic transparency.

They have also become a referendum on Prime Minister Edi Rama, who is backing the Kushner-linked resort as part of his push to market Albania as a high-end tourism destination. Rama has vigorously defended the project as a crucial economic opportunity, vowing to proceed despite escalating opposition.

Consequently, protesters increasingly target not only the specific resort proposal but Rama’s overall governance approach, particularly the expedited approval processes that enabled the project’s advancement without adequate public consultation.

Amid the street protests, attention has shifted to Sali Berisha, the 81-year-old leader of the opposition Democratic Party and Rama’s primary political rival.

As the Flamingo Revolution gained momentum, Berisha announced on June 11 that the United States had lifted a 2021 entry ban imposed over corruption allegations, following what he described as “a thorough review” by the State Department.

Berisha characterized the policy reversal as the U.S. administration “correcting” an “unfair decision,” suggesting that high-profile corruption accusations against Albanian political figures do not always withstand rigorous examination.

The contested nature of corruption allegations in Albania becomes particularly evident in the case of Erion Veliaj, Tirana’s mayor and a prominent Socialist Party figure. Albania’s Special Anti-Corruption and Organized Crime Structure (SPAK) has held Veliaj in detention since February 2025 under conditions that have raised substantial due process concerns.

Among 18 defendants in the case, he alone was denied bail, while his legal team received less than half a day to review a 26,400-page investigative file.

During his imprisonment, political opponents attempted to remove him from office, an effort ultimately rejected by Albania’s Constitutional Court as unconstitutional. SPAK has cited Veliaj’s lobbying activities, entirely lawful conduct, as justification for continued detention, suggesting an overzealous and potentially selective prosecutorial approach similar to earlier allegations against Berisha.

Before his detention, Veliaj served not merely as Tirana’s mayor but as the leading candidate to succeed Rama as head of the Socialist Party.

Despite facing no convictions, his continued imprisonment has prevented him from engaging in the political activities that established him as one of Albania’s most popular politicians.

Born in 1979, Veliaj discovered evangelical Christianity at age 13 while volunteering at an orphanage near the U.S. Embassy in Tirana.

There, he translated for American missionaries from Campus Crusade for Christ at Tirana Baptist Church and later became involved with Grace Community.

These experiences connected him with American Christian networks that emphasized humanitarian service, civic engagement, and anti-corruption activism — relationships that remained influential throughout his transition from volunteer work to civil society leadership and eventually national politics.

During the 1999 Kosovo War, these same networks propelled Veliaj into his first major humanitarian role, working with Michigan’s International Aid in Kosovo’s refugee camps before pursuing studies at Grand Valley State University.

His faith trajectory led him to found the anti-corruption youth movement MJAFT!, serve as a government minister, and ultimately become Tirana’s mayor in 2015.

At first glance, Veliaj’s religious background and anti-corruption activism might appear inconsistent with his Socialist Party affiliation.

However, Albania’s political landscape defies conventional ideological frameworks.

The Socialist Party has largely embraced market-oriented reforms and Western integration, while the Democratic Party has often advocated expanded state involvement and relied on traditional patronage networks.

With Ambassador Eric Wendt’s recent confirmation as ambassador, Washington has an opportunity to expand its focus beyond anti-corruption prosecutions toward strengthening rule of law, democratic accountability, and due process protections.

While combating corruption remains essential, it cannot undermine fundamental democratic principles. Foreign-funded institutions like SPAK raise legitimate concerns when prosecutors exercise extraordinary powers with insufficient oversight, particularly when they can de facto sideline elected officials before establishing guilt.

In this regard, U.S. policymakers should carefully consider the Venice Commission’s concerns: suspending or replacing mayors absent clear legal justification risks undermining local self-government, local autonomy, and voters’ democratic will.

Since Amb. Wendt has said he wants to improve Albania’s investment climate, Tirana should strengthen the rule of law and due process rights — policy that would help make Albania a much more attractive place for investment.

Adelle Nazarian is a Senior Fellow at the Gold Institute for International Strategy, a Washington D.C. based foreign policy and defense think tank.

This is the sixth article in a planned eight-part strategic series by the Gold Institute examining how global conflict is reshaping security, defense, industry, technology, alliances, diplomacy, and strategic decision-making. Most countries are not great powers, yet they live inside the same security race. Smaller and medium-sized countries must move from strategic exposure toward strategic relevance.

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(This article was written by Hermann Tertsch and appeared in El Debate. Los criminales o el terremoto añadido)

The images say it all. Two days after the two devastating earthquakes in northern Venezuela, in La Guaira, in Caracas, and in other affected towns, Venezuelan men, women, and children try, with ever less hope, to pull survivors from under the rubble. And they do it with their bare hands. When night falls they carry on amid screams of desperation and sobbing, lit by the light of their mobile phones. No excavators, no cranes, no heavy machinery of any kind, no rescue teams, no official coordination of any sort. Alone before their misfortune, in their infinite pain, they cry out for help, because time is running out along with the lives of their loved ones. And they all fear that the help that arrives from abroad — because from within they expect little or nothing — will arrive too late for them.

There is no starker or more brutal image of the helplessness of a people who are now victims of a terrifying apotheosis of the pain that has tortured them for a quarter of a century already. Yes, that Eden that is Venezuela, that most beautiful piece of America, which treasures every imaginable gift of nature, now receives the monstrous final punishment after a long and cruel torture. Nothing more resembles a biblical plague than these earthquakes, as fate’s terrible contribution to the man-made catastrophe that is the Venezuela governed by crime and for crime by criminals without scruples or limits such as Hugo Chávez, Nicolás Maduro, and Delcy Rodríguez.

Crime has stolen everything, has perverted, profaned, degraded, and destroyed everything. So much so that a country sitting atop the largest oil reserves in the world, and that was once the richest on the continent, has no excavators or cranes, nor even shovels or picks, flashlights, floodlights, or anyone to distribute them. From Spain it is hard not to see and feel that nightmarish parallel that shows Spaniards the final stations along these roads of terror toward catastrophe, when the fatal forces of nature already join with the rot of the continued exercise of evil, vileness, and crime from power. Contempt for the interests of citizens degraded to subjects leads to indifference toward their very lives. It has been seen in the floods in Valencia, in Adamuz, in the blackout, and it shows in the Spanish socialist government, a fine emulator of Chavismo that it is.

Listening to murderers like Delcy Rodríguez or Diosdado Cabello give their harangues and official propaganda about their rescue deployment produces the logical revulsion, along with serious fears added to the mourning, that the criminal gang might exploit the tragedy for its own benefit. That by capitalizing on foreign aid it might entrench itself and successfully position itself before Washington in order to thwart the changes that the population is hoping for. These are essential for Venezuela’s reconstruction after its permanent 26-year earthquake, and for its moral recovery, both of which require the liquidation of the power of the gang of murderers, torturers, and thieves that the United States still keeps in place and whose foremost representative is Delcy Rodríguez.

But the effects of a social shock as immense as this tragedy are unpredictable. Just as it is already clear that Delcy Rodríguez smells the opportunity to strengthen and stabilize her power, which will never be anything but criminal, it is worth recalling that the 1972 Managua earthquake — smaller in magnitude than these but one that wiped the Nicaraguan capital off the map and caused nearly 20,000 deaths — was also the trigger for the fall of Anastasio Somoza’s regime, through the then thoroughly cross-cutting national uprising generated by the misappropriation of international aid and the inability to help those affected.

It is clear that criminals have their own way of governing, because they conceive of power as the capacity for abuse. That is just as clear today in Pedro Sánchez’s Spain as in the Venezuela of Hugo Chávez, Nicolás Maduro, and Delcy Rodríguez. Right now the Venezuelan people urgently need help, first to save the lives that can still be saved and to ease the boundless pain flooding the country. But it must also be clear that after the earthquake, even more than before, Venezuela needs leaders who are not stained with blood. And the current leadership is stained with blood up to the crown of Delcy’s greasy black hair, not only because of the many hundreds of thousands murdered, disappeared, or tortured. But also because many of those the earthquake has claimed would still be alive if this regime, instead of stealing, stealing, and stealing, had fulfilled its obligation to govern and to provide Venezuelans with services and resources. Just as in Spain, where the kleptocracy imposed by the government of organized crime is already responsible for many tragedies and many deaths, in Venezuela the regime has had many ways of killing and torturing. Allowing Venezuelans to die of their wounds or of thirst while they hear their desperate relatives just a few meters above them digging through the rubble with their bare hands is one more of them.

Hermann Tertsch is a Distinguished Fellow (Honorary) at the Gold Institute for International Strategy, a Washington D.C.-based foreign policy and defense think tank.