US - China war? Trump, Putin, Xi and the Balkans - Let's talk about the actual risk

Out of market context... Great Depression, US Civil War part 2.

"Any great power that spends more on debt service than on defense risks ceasing to be a great power" (Sir Niall Ferguson)

Let me talk about the actual risk that few sees… I will share a lot of insider informations with you. Read carefully.
Collapse is not an event, it’s a process!
And never forget that the media isn’t a window on the world; it’s a curtain drawn across the window.

What’s in crisis now is our ability to forecast—algorithmically, from familiar, historical patterns and an assumed order. The decisions that have led us into today’s geopolitical and economic mess are far more complex, as many more elements collide, and far more irrational variables drive the outcomes.

The world order that once averted nuclear catastrophe and began tackling the climate crisis is now starting to collapse—and the very actor dismantling it is the one that created it: the United States.

UNSTABLE CONFIDENCE
Remember, the whole idea behind “Holy Alliance 2.0” - a plan that was drawn up behind closed doors even before Trump’s official inauguration - has rested on unchallenged U.S. hegemony.
On a leaked audio from a Eurasia Group conference in 2019, analysts said that “despite surface hostility, Washington and Moscow might find common ground on containing China’s influence in Europe and the Middle East.” This was not a prediction of alliance, but the nuance that, for instance, both the U.S. and Russia preferred Europe not become too dependent on China’s 5G technology or investments. Such convergence in narrow areas was something some investors kept an eye on (for instance, European telecom equities or Belt & Road port operators – would U.S./Russia pressure curtail Chinese involvement? Sometimes it did, as in some Eastern European countries that backed out of China deals). So investor intelligence did track these subtle shifts, even if the broad alignment didn’t happen.
Hacked emails of UAE’s ambassador in 2017 (Otaiba) showed UAE lobbying the U.S. to support the Qatar blockade and also courting Russia (discussing investment deals), which illustrated the Gulf’s dual-track approach – squeezing an opponent via U.S. influence but also striking win-win arrangements with Moscow. There also were documents showing U.S. allies quietly reaching out to Russia. For instance, a leaked draft of an Emirati-Russian memorandum in 2018 spoke of defense cooperation and intelligence sharing. Such details, while not directly about investors, create the backdrop where investors feel more comfortable partnering with Russia or China, knowing U.S. allies themselves are hedging.

Funds associated with the Russian elite or diaspora (think oligarch investment vehicles, or wealth managed from London/Switzerland by Russian tycoons) also send signals. Many of these actors network in forums like Davos or Monaco and share their views. One trend: Russian private capital has flowed West to East – with oligarchs investing in Gulf real estate, Asian markets, and gold – anticipating perhaps a long chill with the West. Conversely, some diaspora figures tried to broker better ties. For example, Kirill Dmitriev (RDIF head, Western-educated) has been a vocal advocate for U.S.-Russia business cooperation. (He prepared the ‘Holy Alliance’ plan and the Jeedah meeting as well in 2024.) He penned op-eds and spoke at Davos about joint investment initiatives, often hinting that “Russia doesn’t have to be locked with China, we welcome Western investors if politics improve.” Dmitriev’s involvement in the early 2017 backchannel effort (Seychelles) and later his appearance in U.S. media in 2023–2024 pushing peace in Ukraine, show he and others were actively positioning to bridge divides.
This suggests that some Russian financial elites were signaling openness to a grand bargain with the West – essentially validating the insider theory that a managed outcome (where Russia pivots slightly West, helping manage China) was on their agenda. However, after 2022, with war and heavy sanctions, those hopes dimmed and diaspora funds largely hunkered down or shifted to neutral havens (Dubai, etc.).
Additionally, diaspora investors from other regions (e.g., Chinese diaspora in Southeast Asia, Middle Eastern diaspora in London) have been discussing the rise of a “multipolar financial order.” One semi-public forum is the Boao Forum in China and another is the Future Investment Initiative (“Davos in the Desert”) in Saudi Arabia. At these events in 2018–2019, there were panels on “East-West cooperation” featuring executives from BlackRock, SoftBank, Chinese funds, etc., along with Russian Direct Investment Fund. The tone was often optimistic about cross-investment (China/Gulf into Russia, Russia into Asia, etc.). While not explicitly anti-U.S., the subtext was that the Gulf and Eurasia are forging new investment linkages that don’t center on Wall Street. For instance, at the 2019 FII, Abu Dhabi’s ADIA and RDIF announced a joint tech investment fund, and China’s CIC sovereign fund joined an infrastructure co-investment with Middle East and Russian partners. These semi-public deals convey that major investors were allocating capital in line with geopolitical realignment – i.e., Gulf money into Russia and Asia, Russian money into Middle East, Chinese money into Gulf, etc., all of which lessens the traditional U.S.-Europe dominance in capital flows.

Now, if Trump’s calculations fail and his aggressive tariff war ends up strengthening the BRICS, Russia will no longer need the United States at the cease‑fire negotiations—because it will be the U.S. that finds itself in zugzwang if it wants to avoid an armed conflict with China.
The problem is that Trump’s policy is highly unpredictable—he is too impulsive and too impatient. You can never be sure what will happen overnight, and investors don’t invest in uncertainty; meanwhile they’re tired of intraday trading, and decreasing their exposure to US. The Russian jews and Arab investors, who together control more than 42% of the world’s wealth, are under no obligation to back the United States if their own interests dictate otherwise. (Moreover, the globalist networks—led by the deep state—are profiting enormously from the war and from the inflated prices driven by wartime panic.) They care about one thing: money. But more on that later…
Trump needs to settle the dust with China somehow, because what is happening now poses a big problem for the funds and big people who are supposed to support the U.S., save its ass, and build the new Holy Alliance among the United States, Russia, and the Middle East, and control China.
As it stands for now, the results we’re seeing do not favor the U.S. at all, and that’s the biggest issue.
Russia and the Gulf states are already looking for (temporal) alternatives, and keep building the already existing alliances, because investors cannot remain stagnant.
If the U.S. fixes things (including supply side), they’ll come back; if not, and they lose confidence, the U.S. is lost.
As said, the risk/reward does not favor for Trump. He is either hero or zero.

CHINA’S PERSPECTIVE
When the Trump administration took office in 2017 with overtures toward Putin, some in Beijing grew concerned about a possible U.S.–Russia rapprochement against China. Chinese strategists openly discuss the risk of being “encircled” or diplomatically outmaneuvered (a memory of the Cold War when the U.S. exploited the Sino-Soviet split). In early 2017, there were Chinese commentaries (for example in Global Times and ThinkChina.sg) analyzing whether the U.S. could steal Russia from China’s orbit. The prevailing view was skeptical – Chinese experts felt Russia wouldn’t trust the U.S. and that their own ties with Moscow were solid. One Chinese analysis noted “the idea of the US allying with Russia to counter China seems improbable”, reflecting confidence that Beijing’s partnership with Moscow was resilient.​

Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin met frequently (over 30 times since 2013). China offered Putin symbolic and substantive support – e.g., signing a major joint statement in 2019 on global governance, aligning positions on everything from North Korea to internet control. By reinforcing the narrative of a “no limits” friendship, Beijing worked to preempt any Russian wavering towards the U.S.
China accelerated certain deals with Russia. The Power of Siberia gas pipeline (long in negotiation) was finalized and construction sped up, bringing Siberian gas to China by 2019. China also opened its market wider to Russian exports – for instance, lifting bans on Russian food imports, financing Russian enterprises via policy banks, and increasing bilateral trade to record levels. Bilateral trade hit $110 billion in 2019 and kept rising. This created a thicker web of interdependence, making it costlier for Russia to contemplate betraying China. Notably, in 2020, China overtook the EU as Russia’s largest trading partner by far.
Joint exercises (like the annual “Vostok” drills) included China, and for the first time, China participated in wargames on Russian soil with large contingents. Intelligence sharing between Beijing and Moscow improved, reportedly even on U.S. force deployments. These moves signaled to Washington that a Russia-China bloc was reality, perhaps to deter the U.S. from trying to break it.

China also took advantage of the Gulf states’ rift with the U.S. (and the new Russian role) to increase its own diplomatic profile. Beijing maintained neutrality in the Qatar crisis (like Russia did) and kept strong ties with all GCC members. It signed a strategic partnership with Qatar in 2014 and with Saudi Arabia and UAE around 2016–18. China’s energy dependence on the Gulf is high, so it naturally cultivated these links. As the Gulf looked for other great-power partners, China offered investments (e.g., tech and port projects in the UAE, refinery investments in Saudi Arabia) and even began to mediate regional issues. A pinnacle of this came in 2023, when China brokered a détente between Saudi Arabia and Iran – something unthinkable without the decline of unquestioned U.S. primacy. That move signaled China’s readiness to fill a mediator role in the Middle East, traditionally an American domain (and one where Russia had also gained influence). While this occurred after Trump, it’s part of a continuum: China incrementally building diplomatic capital in a region where U.S. influence plateaued.
Anticipating a polarized world, China has put more effort into strengthening multilateral groupings that exclude the West. The BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) forum is one such vehicle. China pushed for BRICS financial cooperation – the BRICS New Development Bank was established, offering developing countries an alternative source of loans to the U.S.-led World Bank. China also promoted using local currencies in BRICS trade and expanding the bloc (as seen in 2023 when BRICS invited new members including Gulf states). This can be seen as hedging against any U.S.-led containment by broadening China’s coalition. If the U.S. and Russia had cozied up, China likely would double down on courting other partners like India or the global south to ensure it isn’t isolated. Indeed, China has made diplomatic overtures to India even amid border tensions, partly to keep India from firmly joining a U.S. camp. Likewise, China has wooed Europe to avoid a total West vs. China lineup.

As U.S.–Russia relations see-sawed in Trump’s term – initial warmth, then new sanctions (e.g., CAATSA in 2017, sanctioning Russia for chemical weapons in 2018) – Chinese leaders likely concluded that a genuine alliance between Washington and Moscow was not materializing. By 2019, the Mueller investigation and domestic U.S. blowback had frozen Trump’s rapprochement hopes. From Beijing’s perspective, the window where Russia might pivot West had closed. Especially after 2018 (when Putin’s fourth term began and he pivoted harder towards China), China grew more confident that Russia was firmly on its side. President Xi in 2019 called Putin his “best and bosom friend” and China celebrated the 70th anniversary of China-Russia diplomatic ties with fanfare.
However, China is always calculating. It has not forgotten historical Sino-Soviet mistrust. Thus, part of China’s hedge has also been to ensure it is not overly dependent on Russia either. For example, while China buys a lot of Russian oil, it also diversified suppliers (boosting imports from Gulf, Africa, Latin America) to avoid over-reliance on any single partner. Likewise, on defense, China builds its own weapons rather than depending on Russian arms. So China’s strategy is multi-layered hedging: strengthen ties with Russia (since that’s its strategic rear and partner against U.S. pressure), but also maintain enough autonomy and alternate partners to not be hostage to Russia.
Beijing certainly welcomed Gulf states’ drift from the U.S., as it opened economic doors. China negotiated huge investment deals with the UAE (e.g., COSCO operates a terminal in Abu Dhabi’s Khalifa Port, integrating it into the Maritime Silk Road). Saudi Arabia became a top oil supplier to China, and discussions of pricing oil in yuan have periodically emerged – which would be a significant symbolic blow to U.S. financial hegemony if it happened. All this indicates China positioned itself to capitalize on the Gulf’s more independent foreign policies.

In Chinese Communist Party discourse, the term “multipolar world” is longstanding – Xi and other officials frequently speak of supporting multipolarity (implicitly, less U.S. dominance).
For China, multipolarity is both an ideological stance and a practical objective: it means no united front against China, but rather a world where big powers (including China and maybe Russia, EU, etc.) each have a say. The developments we’ve discussed – Russia’s Gulf role, U.S.-China trade war, etc. – have been interpreted by China as evidence of the U.S.’s declining ability to dictate outcomes. Chinese state media often highlighted rifts between the U.S. and its allies or between the U.S. and Russia as positive trends. For example, when Gulf states didn’t follow the U.S. line 100%, Chinese media would say the U.S. is losing influence. When Europe insisted on doing business with China or keeping the Iran deal against U.S. wishes, China portrayed it as the world moving towards multipolar autonomy.
However, historically, multipolar systems are the ones most prone to large‑scale, even global, conflicts.

WHAT HAS THE BIG MONEY DONE?
Perhaps the clearest signals come from the investment flows of Gulf sovereign funds, which in the last decade have made striking moves in Russia and Asia. These state-backed investors don’t speak much, but their money talks. Notably, since the mid-2010s, billions of Gulf petrodollars have been directed into Russia, a trend accelerated after 2014 when Western sanctions on Russia for Crimea pushed Moscow to seek non-Western capital. For example, the UAE’s Mubadala and Department of Finance committed $5+ billion to Russian infrastructure and energy projects from 2013 onward. Saudi’s PIF struck a $10 billion deal in 2015 to invest in Russia – a partnership personally cemented by Crown Prince MBS’s visit to the St. Petersburg Economic Forum in 2015​. By 2017 that turned into concrete projects (petrochemicals, transport, etc.) and even talk of Russia potentially investing back in Saudi’s Aramco IPO. The Kuwait Investment Authority (KIA) put $500 million into Russian transportation infrastructure via the RDIF as early as 2012. Qatar’s QIA, as mentioned, became a part-owner of Rosneft (19% stake) in a 2016 deal worth over $11 billion​ – one of the largest foreign investments in Russia’s history, done in partnership with commodity trader Glencore. Additionally, QIA holds stakes in Russian banks (VTB) and airports.

These moves are strategic portfolio decisions that imply confidence in Russia’s trajectory and a desire to diversify away from over-reliance on Western assets. Gulf SWFs typically prioritize stable returns and geopolitical alignment; their Russia forays suggest they anticipated a stabilization or improvement of Russia’s global position, making those investments prudent. Gulf officials have hinted that they see Russia as undervalued and an essential part of an emerging Eurasian economic zone. One could infer that Gulf elites were partially betting on a Russia that is integrated with (not isolated from) the West – otherwise those investments could be at risk from sanctions or conflict. Indeed, their willingness to invest signaled a belief (or inside reassurance) that a modicum of U.S.–Russia détente might occur under Trump, or at least that the risks were manageable.

On Wall Street and in global banks, one key indicator is the tone of internal research and risk assessments. BlackRock, for example, through its Investment Institute, regularly briefs clients on geopolitical risks. In recent publications, BlackRock has highlighted “geopolitical fragmentation and the emergence of blocs” as a defining trend. A July 2022 BlackRock risk report explicitly stated: “U.S.-China tensions… will likely deteriorate. We see Russia and China increasingly establishing economic and trade relations independent of the West.” This reflects a consensus that the Russia-China bloc is solidifying, which implies attempts to woo Russia away (as speculated earlier) largely failed. For investors, this means adjusting to a world of two or three competing spheres of influence. BlackRock’s strategists have advised clients to be cautious on assets heavily exposed to U.S.-China decoupling (e.g., certain semiconductor stocks or Chinese equities facing sanctions), while noting opportunities in markets like India or Southeast Asia that might benefit from supply-chain reorientation. While not taking political stances, the big institutions are effectively pricing in a protracted U.S.–China rivalry and a Russia aligned with China – a scenario opposite to a U.S.–Russia alignment against China. This suggests that institutional money does not buy the theory of a U.S.-Russia grand coalition; instead, they see a need to navigate a divided landscape.

JPMorgan and others have likewise commented in investor calls that geopolitical risk – trade wars, sanctions, great-power tensions – has become a top concern for capital allocation. Jamie Dimon in early 2019 cautioned that the U.S.–China trade war and decoupling trends could “roll back decades of global integration”, signaling that the bank was considering worst-case scenarios (though he was optimistic a deal would be struck, which it was, temporarily). The fact that banks developed tools like geopolitics risk indices (Citi’s, BlackRock’s, etc.) and hired geopolitical advisors shows how seriously they took these shifts. There have been reports of closed-door briefings by former statesmen (e.g., ex-Kissinger associates, or ex-MI6/ CIA officials working as consultants) to top fund managers, discussing scenarios like U.S.-China conflict, or the impact of a Russia-China tech alliance.

KEEP YOUR FRIENDS CLOSE, BUT YOUR ENEMIES CLOSER
The US should remain free and safe for democracy by keeping Europe (and the wider Western world) both militarily and economically strong. And Europe needs to boost defense spending (GDP per capita there has fallen from ~70 % of U.S. to ~50 %).
US full decoupling from China is theoretically possible over time if that were the goal—but the question is if it should be done. Especially in these times. It is simply unnecessary and counterproductive except on national‑security supply chains.
U.S. should work with its allies (Europe, Japan, Korea, Australia, etc.) to present unified, fair trade terms. Otherwise, we are going back into pre‑WWI/WWII world of fragmented nation‑states, as I said it earlier.
Trump should not negotiate with China alone but leverage its “strong hand” through coordinated Western and Indo‑Pacific partnerships.
Don’t forget, that China dominates processing and refining of many rare earths and minor metals. Metal supply bottlenecks have led the U.S. and EU to designate gallium, indium, scandium and certain REEs as “critical” or “strategic” minerals, investing in domestic mining and recycling initiatives. China’s near‑monopoly on refining exerts leverage: trade controls on these elements effectively become tools in the broader U.S.–China tech and tariffs war, as Chinese firms can throttle exports of GaN substrates or ITO targets to Western competitors. The metals’ strategic value in the U.S.–China tech rivalry has elevated them to critical‑mineral status, driving geopolitical competition over supply. US needs all of these minerals for his tech, even in military tech. Through BRICS, China holds a near‑monopoly on these minerals. It can continue advancing its military technology while restricting U.S. access. With help from the Arab states, Beijing can expand its military power over the coming years and fading America’s current hegemony.

Trump’s moves are either part of a masterful bluff—just as Michael Corleone did - convincing his rivals he was weak so they’d let their guard down and forge an alliance, only for him to dismantle their power from within—or they risk collapsing America’s entire alliance system, handing all its influence and leverage over to China.
The real contest is over who wins the loyalties of Russia, the Gulf states, and Europe.

U.S. recession risk at about 50/50.
And the volatility we see in equities and bonds are primarly caused by geo and supply-chain uncertainity that triggered hedge-fund deleveraging around the globe. Trump must stabilize the market and win investors’ confidence back. Market is highly illiquid. And time is going against Trump.
He can’t afford a new war. There is more debt than income. China knows this, and he won’t hold himself back anymore. Remember what I said about the soybeans? China’s got huge edge, while Trump faces a risk of a 19th century type of Texas vs. California civil war.
Globalists also know this, and they are patiently waiting, and so Marco Rubio's efforts to persuade the EU to lift sanctions on Russia have been unsuccessful. And this limits the US’ leverage. Trump has nothing to offer. Ans this is a big problem.
While Putin wants to prevent NATO expansion, ensuring friendly governance in Kyiv, and establishing a buffer zone akin to the Korean Peninsula, divided into two distinct regions, with frozen conflict and advances towards strategic cities like Odesa and Mykolaiv.

If Trump cannot solve the problems, Putin will move on.
They don’t need US anymore.
Russia’s ability to negotiate energy‑linked financial incentives with Qatar softens Kremlin resistance to Western‑led ceasefire frameworks, complicating U.S. sanction‑based coercion. Expanded Qatar–Russia gas cooperation risks creating an energy bloc that undercuts U.S. efforts to diversify Europe and Asia away from Russian supply—Qatar’s LNG could cushion the impact of U.S. sanctions on Moscow.
US-Russian negotiations are stopped. There is an upcoming summit in London, scheduled for April 23-25, 2025, is the International Summit on the Future of Energy Security, co-hosted by the UK government and the International Energy Agency. They both are waiting for this. The summit aims to address global energy security challenges amidst geopolitical tensions.

TAIWAN
To become the superpower, China needs to control Tibet, Macau, Hong-Kong and Taiwan. And Xi has already decided he will take it back.
Now, China is gearing up for a war against Taiwan at an ever‑increasing pace.
Such a conflict could collapse the global economy, lead to nuclear war, and result in as many as half a million fatalities. Even a successful American intervention would only halve those figures.
Since 2024, China has increased its military activity around Taiwan by 300%, and these are no longer mere drills but concrete invasion exercises. Currently, China produces 1.2 fighter jets and 6 warships for every single American plane and ship, giving it a significant edge. On top of that, it is developing ever more powerful air‑to‑air missiles, which, according to USSOCOM leadership, pose a serious threat.

China has caught up with the United States in information warfare, and the U.S. military is not innovating fast enough to keep pace with the rapid changes in the wartime environment.
A war around Taiwan could cause a 10–12% GDP contraction in the United States and a 25% decline in Asia, averaging an 18% drop globally—which would be more severe than the Great Depression. And this would lead to further escalation, as the great powers would begin to compete for new resources.
Export‑oriented economies (e.g., Germany, Japan) would collapse, millions would lose their jobs, supply chains would break apart, and critical shortages of goods would emerge. Financial markets would crash, sovereign debt crises would deepen, and severe socio‑political tensions would surface. With the economic and geopolitical foundations of our world order shaken, this would escalate into a civilization‑level crisis.
Also it would also weaken the U.S. alliance system in the Indo‑Pacific region, while some countries—such as Japan and South Korea—might consider building their own nuclear arsenals.

In exchange for the support Russia received in Ukraine, it provides China and North Korea with advanced weapons systems—such as missiles and submarine technology—which could significantly enhance China’s capabilities, particularly the effectiveness of its submarine fleet, despite its current relatively small size and “noisy” (easily detectable) nature.

This ties into the tariff war initiated by President Trump.
One consequence is the transformation of relationships between military supply chains and the U.S. military and major arms manufacturers—who still import significant amounts from China. Another is how this could further damage U.S.–allied relations, not only in terms of intelligence‑sharing but also in their willingness to cooperate in scenarios like a Chinese invasion of Taiwan.
And the third is the acquisition of advances in quantum computing.

The First Island Chain is a string of archipelagos stretching from Southern Japan through Taiwan down the Philippines to Borneo, Brunei, and Vietnam.
Any power that controls Taiwan can monitor or block naval and air traffic along this entire arc. Its location gives strategic oversight of the East China Sea and South China Sea, plus nearby access to key sea lanes. Roughly 30–40% of global shipping passes through the South China Sea—and Taiwan sits right at the northern entrance. Lose or gain Taiwan, and the entire strategic balance of the First Island Chain can shift.

For the United States and its allies, the First Island Chain is a containment line. If the U.S. and its allies maintain control over this chain, China’s navy (PLAN) is mostly bottled up inside, limited in its ability to access the open Pacific. Also Taiwan acts as a “cork in the bottle”—preventing free movement of Chinese submarines and warships. If the U.S. holds Taiwan, it can station surveillance and missile systems that help detect and counter Chinese aggression.
If China would take Taiwan, it gains a forward platform to extend its A2/AD reach—making it more dangerous for the U.S. to intervene in East Asia. Also it could break out into the Pacific, flank U.S. forces in Japan and the Philippines, threaten U.S. bases in Guam, Hawaii, and beyond, challenge U.S. dominance in the Pacific.

The problem is that China’s electronic‑warfare technology is highly advanced. The Russians keep testing it against American systems, and it performs well—jamming signals and blinding missile guidance.
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang's recently visited to Beijing, where he emphasized China's importance to Nvidia amidst U.S. export restrictions on AI chips. And other things that would sound conteo-like, but they are actually true. It is not a coincidence that NVDA led the market all along, spying the US.
If you ever see China impose a blockade on the First Island Chain, you’ll know Trump’s nightmare has come true.

The United States remains the world’s strongest economic and military power, yet that strength can be diluted—especially if it loses too much allies—and therefore weakened. Because if U.S. authority weakens, many dormant conflicts around the world will flare up, and a new China‑centered world order will strip America of what it holds dear—there’s no doubt about that. NATO and the EU are already divided enough that we can say they exist only on paper. China, once a defeated and exploited nation after World War II, has risen to become the world’s second‑largest power. Through hard work and meticulous planning, it turned its disadvantages into strengths. The great powers profited from China’s cheap labor, but failed to recognize that, over time, China was developing—and that they were growing ever more dependent on it. And their time has come.

It is essential to remember that, throughout history, the world has never remained multipolar for long.
In earlier eras—when communication and transport were slow and peoples lived in relative isolation—multiple power centers could coexist. But as the planet has knit itself into a single, integrated machine, a stable multipolar order has become nearly impossible. Inevitably, one super‑power emerges to set the rules; the need for a single “global sheriff” is almost instinctive. For now, the United States still plays that role and is determined to keep it. Multipolar systems, by contrast, are the most prone to large‑scale—or even global—conflicts.

BALKANS
(The region that has endured more history than it could have bear.)
Serbia with its pro-russian, anti-globalist leader President Aleksandar Vučić (which does not recognize the pro-globalist Vjosa Osmani’s Kosovo’s independence) continues a cold confrontation with Kosovo, punctuated by periodic crises. In late 2023 and into 2024, NATO peacekeepers (KFOR) had to reinforce their presence after violence flared in northern Kosovo’s Serb-majority municipalities.
A notable incident was a September 2023 paramilitary attack on Kosovo police by armed Serb militants, resulting in casualties on both sides. Belgrade officially denied directing the assault, but Kosovo authorities accused Serbian security services and even Russia’s Wagner Group of involvement in smuggling weapons and operatives into Kosovo​. Such gray-zone tactics – reminiscent of Russia’s covert interventions – keep the area on edge. Kosovo’s government, for its part, has at times taken a hard line on asserting authority in the Serb-populated north (for example, attempting to impose Kosovo license plates and mayors on resistant communities), which has provoked angry Serb backlashes. The bridge in Mitrovica separating Serb and Albanian sectors remains a symbolic tinderbox where conflicts…typically ignite.
With Serbia’s military periodically mobilizing forces near the border and NATO troops standing guard, even a small provocation or misunderstanding could escalate. Any armed clash between Serbian forces (or Serb paramilitaries) and Kosovo’s security forces/NATO could spiral into a wider conflict. One security assessment notes that a conflict here “would likely have serious repercussions in other countries in the region, principally in Bosnia and Herzegovina, but also in North Macedonia and Montenegro”. In a worst-case scenario, Serbia can attempt a limited incursion or support a secession of the Serb north; NATO would almost certainly respond militarily to uphold Kosovo’s territorial integrity, pitting Belgrade against the West. Such a confrontation at the NATO frontier raises the specter of great-power involvement (Russia is Serbia’s ally, as discussed later).

Nearly 30 years after the Dayton Peace Accords, Bosnia and Herzegovina remains ethnically partitioned into the Federation (Bosniak/Croat majority) and Republika Srpska (Serb majority). In recent years, Republika Srpska’s leader, the pro‑Russian nationalist Milorad Dodik has openly challenged the state’s authority and threatened secession. In 2023, the RS assembly passed laws rejecting decisions of the national Constitutional Court – a step described as “legal secession” in all but name.
Dodik, who has a close relationship with the Kremlin, vowed to withdraw RS from Bosnia’s joint institutions and was even indicted by Bosnia’s state prosecutors (an arrest warrant he has evaded) for undermining the constitutional order. These moves have pushed Bosnia into “crisis”, raising fears the country could break apart​. Bosniak and Croat leaders in Sarajevo warn that if the RS entity attempts to secede (or if its president were assassinated or removed by force), it will trigger conflict – Bosniak forces would not accept partition quietly, and any unilateral secession could lead to armed clashes reminiscent of the 1992–95 war. International officials share these worries: the EU’s High Representative in Bosnia used special powers in 2023 to counter some of Dodik’s laws, and EUFOR peacekeepers have doubled to about 1,100 troops on the ground as a deterrent. Nonetheless, Russia has been backing Bosnian Serb separatism – both politically and covertly. Moscow provides diplomatic cover for Dodik (Russian officials vetoed efforts to strengthen EUFOR’s UN mandate) and has reportedly supplied RS police with arms and training via private military contractors.
Russian mercenaries and “paramilitary enthusiasts” appearing at Serb nationalist rallies in Bosnia. All of this raises the risk that Bosnia could become a new battleground if Dodik takes an irreversible separatist step or if a violent incident occurs.
Bosnia remains at peace, but it is a tense peace underwritten by foreign troops – a situation that can either prevent war or become a tripwire if provoked.

A small actor with a huge impact
Although not part of the Balkans proper, Transnistria (the pro-Russian breakaway region of Moldova) is a geographically proximate flashpoint.
Transnistria hosts around 1,500 Russian troops and a massive Soviet-era ammunition depot at Kolbasna (estimated ~20,000 tons of munitions).
Tensions around this enclave have grown due to the Russia–Ukraine war. Ukrainian officials have openly feared that Russia might use Transnistria to open a secondary front in western Ukraine or to pressure Moldova. Conversely, Moscow has accused Ukraine and Moldova of plotting to “invade” Transnistria – essentially a potential false-flag narrative that Russia could use to justify intervention​.
In 2023 and 2024, there were indeed reports and alerts: Ukraine’s intelligence warned of Russian provocations, and Moldova temporarily increased security after suspicious explosions in Transnistria (widely seen as Russian-orchestrated).
Listen… as of early 2025, Moldova’s pro-European government negotiated the dismantling of checkpoints that Transnistrian authorities had set up during the Ukraine war​. Moreover, Moldova’s Prime Minister Dorin Recean expressed hope that a comprehensive Ukraine peace might eventually facilitate a Russian troop withdrawal from Transnistria as part of a new European security deal​.
Transnistria faced a severe gas supply crisis over the winter of 2024-25 (after Ukraine halted transit of Russian gas and Moldova refused an alternative route)​. On January 1, 2025, Russia ceased supplying natural gas to Transnistria due to the expiration of its transit agreement with Ukraine. This led to severe energy shortages, with blackouts and heating failures affecting the region's 350,000 residents. The crisis has strained Transnistria's economy and heightened public dissatisfaction. Russia's actions aim to destabilize Moldova ahead of its parliamentary elections, hoping to sway public opinion towards pro-Russian parties. The energy crisis has been perceived as a tool to undermine the pro-European government of President Maia Sandu. As a response, pro-European parties started to initiate military training in UA and war propaganda against Russia. Defense Ministry categorically denied these allegations, labeling them as provocative and unfounded. The ministry clarified that any training programs were focused on demining and humanitarian efforts, not military aggression.
My intelligence sources interpret this as preparation for an aggressive move against the Russians.

CAN WE AVOID A NUCLEAR WAR?
The first thing to grasp is that not every decision is made for rational reasons. Miscalculations, bad measurements, and impulsive reactions have occurred throughout history, and both world wars were ultimately the products of such failures.

Historical analogies compel us to recognize the possibility—however irrational—that Russia might resort to a nuclear option as its sole remaining lever. Not because it would ever be a rational choice, but because of the role of fatal cognitive biases in decision-making. Indeed, the CIA’s warning in 2022 September that irrational possibility became a “real risk.” We must heed the lessons of the Cuban Missile Crisis.
In 1962, the Soviet Union secretly shipped 42 medium-range ballistic missiles (range 2,000–4,500 km) and some 80 nuclear warheads to Cuba. President John F. Kennedy later explained how Khrushchev managed to do this under the United States’ nose: “I think we didn’t expect Khrushchev to install missiles in Cuba because that would have been an incredibly imprudent move on his part… Obviously, he believed he could do it in secret and that the United States would accept the situation.”
What did Khrushchev think of Kennedy at the time? According to Soviet memoirs, he believed Kennedy lacked the courage and support to stand up to a serious challenge. That impression derived from Kennedy’s indecisive handling of the Vienna Summit in June 1961, the Bay of Pigs invasion in April 1961 (which failed in part because Kennedy “wavered,” as Raúl Castro noted), and the early construction of the Berlin Wall in August 1961—all actions that convinced Khrushchev that the West would not risk a major conflict.
By the time Khrushchev realized his error, Kennedy had ordered DEFCON 2 readiness—the stage just before nuclear war—which placed the U.S. strategic nuclear forces on one-hour alert and had 65 bombers airborne, ready to strike Soviet targets.
Further illustrating the crisis’s severity, declassified records from 1992 revealed that after removing those medium-range missiles, the Soviets left behind roughly 100 tactical bombs equivalent to the Hiroshima yield, intending to hand them to Fidel Castro for potential use. Washington did not learn of these bombs until 1992—thirty years after the crisis—by which time McNamara, shaken, could hardly stand.
Moreover, on at least one occasion, a Soviet submarine captain ordered a nuclear torpedo launched in response to U.S. depth‑charge practice, only to be overruled by a superior officer.
This sequence of miscalculations and intelligence failures underscores that crises do not unfold under controlled conditions and cannot be managed with laboratory precision. Simplistic, quantitative risk‐analysis approaches are wholly inadequate for international politics and security policy.
As detailed in a CIA Studies in Intelligence article, the case of the “photo‑gap”—when U‑2 surveillance flights narrowly missed photographing critical parts of Cuba—resulted from political and ideological mistrust among U.S. decision-makers. Amid Soviet propaganda branding the flights “immoral,” U.S. leadership refused to believe what the intelligence indicated, convinced that if the Soviets were deploying special air defenses in Cuba, it must be for ordinary targets, not missiles—so they diverted the planes away from those very areas.
“In crises’ critical moments, U.S. political leaders chose the information they liked, not the information they needed.”
We cannot assume today’s decision-makers would act differently.

‘And we were lucky. Luck was what prevented nuclear war.’
(Robert McNamara, former U.S. Secretary of Defense, 1961–1968)

THE FALL OF HUMANITY
Yes, dear reader, you sense it correctly: this is a marriage forged in hell. Humanity has become lost in its own system. What was meant to serve us has become our enemy, our overseer.
The great powers could avert catastrophe. The middle powers could support whichever side chooses peace over war. Yet they will only do so when it suits their interests, when it feeds their own growth. We live in a disgustingly interest‑driven world, where true peace has no true advocates. The ordinary person merely swaps one ditch for another whenever he tries to join a movement.

My friends and I have often talked about religious philosophy.
Eastern traditions teach that sometime in the 20th century humanity entered the Kali Yuga—an age of devastation, secularization, ideological collapse, and moral disintegration. We see it everywhere. The essence of the Kali Yuga is this: mankind becomes obsessed with performance. How fast the car goes, how many sexual partners I’ve had, how many features my iPhone has, whose bank balance or GDP grows faster, etc.
We have become too efficient. By “too” I mean we’ve lost sight of the purpose. We want everything too rational, hyper‑efficient—like machines. Meanwhile the spirit those machines were meant to serve withers. The entire system was created to give us the comfort and security that make spiritual life possible. Instead of hunting and hiding just to survive, we could create art, uncover the secrets of the universe, draw nearer to God, etc. But the balance tipped: the tool became the goal, and the spirit became the slave of the system.
If I were Satan, I would lead humanity into precisely this trap, to prevent its spiritual unfolding. As everything accelerated, we simply forgot the aim of it all. We lost our way. And when a traveler loses sight of the North Star, he soon becomes a captive of the will‑o’‑the‑wisps in the forest.

The Hungarian writer Béla Hamvas called this totalizing, machine‑like principle that reduces spirit, life, and thought to mere function “mechanon”. He wrote of it this way:
“A belief arose that the entire existing world—soul, life, religion, thought—was in fact a single colossal, rationally engineered apparatus.
There is no need to admit any non‑mechanical element when considering the meaning of being. Uncertain factors are unnecessary: God, soul, free will—after all, Kant says, they cannot be proved.
Human existence is not governed by thought or spirit, nor even by life, but by the mechanon.
Within this apparatus, man himself becomes an apparatus, a component in a larger factory—no longer a spiritual being, but a mere function.”

On an ethological level, humans are prone to turn away from grasping the universally convergen moral order and the wellsprings of spiritual inspiration. Or, if you prefer, the “Divine Order” called Brahman in Sanskrit and Logos in Greek. Instead, we cherry‑pick the beliefs that justify our own lives, or—more commonly today—we simply flee into ceaseless distraction (TikTok, YouTube shorts, Instagram, Twitter) and refuse to confront our place within existence.
This tendency on the individual level inevitably precipitates a profound spiritual crisis—made all the more acute by the fact that humanity has grown from two billion to eight billion souls in the last century. Far more ego‑centric beings crowded into the same space…
That crisis now manifests itself in every institution and system we have created and are maintaining.
And that’s why I personally hope the Garabandal prophecies are true, and that we haven’t been left alone here—east of Eden…

Personally, while I recognize that we face risks—both in the markets and on the geopolitical stage—that we can’t even fully quantify and that demand our attention, I also believe that people will solve these problems just as they have solved every challenge before. I’m working on this in various fields myself. I think human beings are remarkable creatures. From time to time we become volatile, swinging toward one extreme or another—sometimes quite dramatically—but eventually we always “reconverge within a one‑sigma range”, and what is truly useful endures only.
But for now, we are in extreme volatile times, and we don’t even know how volatile it is… (this is what is reflected in the charts too)

APPENDIX
The political designations “left” and “right” date back to 1789, when members of France’s National Assembly during the Revolution divided themselves by sitting to the speaker’s left if they favored radical change toward modern ideologies (marxism) and to his right if they sought to preserve the monarchy.
Over time, the right wing coalesced around conservative principles aimed at preserving traditional institutions and hierarchies, while the left evolved toward modern and socialist ideals advocating for social ownership, equality, and progressive reform.
On the spectrum’s fringes, nationalist far‑right movements emphasize exclusionary identity politics and strong centralized authority, whereas communist far‑left movements seek the abolition of private property and a classless society, often via revolutionary means. Both extreme wings have historically tended toward totalitarian control, subordinating individual liberties to an all‑encompassing state ideology.
Everything that ends in ‘‑ism’ leads to totalitarian systems.

In times of stability and economic calm, centrist factions on both sides typically engage in pragmatic cooperation, forming coalition governments that practice a “cordon sanitaire” by systematically excluding extremist parties from power. The right and the left argue—ideally, constructively. For example, France’s two‑round electoral system has repeatedly seen mainstream leftists and conservatives unite in the second round to block far‑right candidates from office. However, during crises the electorate’s frustration with mainstream parties propelled voters toward both far‑right and far‑left movements, giving Nazi and fascist groups in Germany and Italy as well as communist parties in Eastern Europe unprecedented parliamentary influence. In the process, the left tends to drift toward the far left, while the right drifts toward the far right.

Why?
Because every long-term alliance is rooted in shared ideology, and their ideological roots (right - far-right; left - far-left) are similar, the two camps diverge mainly in what they believe about the individual.
The left rarely looks far ahead. For left‑wing thought the individual is paramount, and that individual wants to live well now. Everything around him—country, family, economy, industry—must serve his immediate personal well‑being.
The right takes a longer view. It holds that there are realities that outlast the individual, realities that existed before him and will exist after him: the nation, the family, religion, moral law. The individual’s task is to serve this higher, enduring order.

We need both sides, but they have to stay in balance.
Ethologically speaking, people are driven by their ideologies. Without ideology, every system eventually collapses. Yet human nature inclines us to totalise our own ideology, all‑encompassing framework—and that, in the end, is the true root of every conflict.

***

And now, after all this unsettling news, here’s a beautiful piece of music—to remind us that there exists a spirit which is eternal and cannot die, even if it’s locked up in a cell.