Greg R. Lawson
@ConservaWonk
Geopolitical Analyst | Strategy, Realpolitik, AI, Nukes, Tech | History Buff (Rome → Cold War) | Nixon/Kissinger Enthusiast | Skeptical of Utopia | Views My Own
I think about this every day. A 🧵 #Kissinger #History #Philosophy "History knows no resting places and no plateaus. All societies of which history informs us went through periods of decline; most of them eventually collapsed.
Good read by the always thoughtful @IskanderRehman in @EngelsbergIdeas. I believe that using history to contextualize current challenges is essential & Rehman is one of the best at helping a modern audience do this as his work with @WarOnTheRocks illustrates.
Interesting new piece on #AGI by @IskanderRehman. He lays down analogies from history and biology for AGI, to help find where they converge and diverge to help understand AGI. engelsbergideas.com/essays/making-… Our brains do this too, as @tjbehrens discussed in a nice review…
This tells you what kind of person Xi Jinping is. Forget the moral element, what it shows is Xi has "iron in his soul." This is exactly what the great Lee Kuan Yew said if Xi when Xi first assumed power...
Xi Jinping doesn’t publicly acknowledges the June 4th Tiananmen crackdown, but in internal speeches to his military leaders he does bring it up as an example where the PLA was severely tested & passed. He usually refers to it as the “political turmoil (政治风波) in spring of 1989
Depends on perspective. Tactically Lee was probably better but in terms of grasping the essence of the war, in all of its brutality, Grant was better.
Who was the better General, Ulysses Grant or Robert E. Lee?
Even if this is true, the key to leadership is to not open up the cleavages that can subsequently be manipulated by your opponents into gaping chasms. Elite Western leadership failed at this task for the first two decades of the 21st century.
Some in British politics are beginning to float the idea that the Russians and Chinese are behind the rise of the non-establishment parties. Expect the establishment to descend into terminal paranoia in the coming months. 🇬🇧
And this is where the free market does have breakdowns. wsj.com/business/washi… China strategically recognized how critical rare earths are and sought to get a chokehold on them in the 1980s and especially 90s. They flood the market, bankrupt private business & then claim the…
This is a tragedy for the small Christian community in Syria. Sadly, this is what should have been anticipated after Assad's overthrow, as I said at the time. No tears should be shed for Assad, but this this did not happen to the Druze under his regime. newsweek.com/call-it-what-i…
Free markets are often the most effective & efficient way of distributing goods. Under normal circumstances the market is better than a centralized authority because of the "information problem" Hayek described. BUT, they must also operate within a broader moral framework with…
“Free markets,” whatever that even means, aren’t a “value.” They’re an instrument, to be used precisely up to the point they make the lives of the citizenry better, and not an inch farther.
The Battle of Milvian Bridge is probably the most historically significant battle in Roman history after Actium.
Today 315AD The Arch of Constantine was finished & was commissioned by the Senate to celebrate the victory in 312AD of Constantine I over Maxentius at the Battle of Milvian Bridge. Its Situated between the Colosseum & the Palatine Hill. Its also the largest Roman triumphal arch
Everyone with aspirations of greatness should read Plutarch & should definitely review the life of Alexander, Julius Caesar, &, perhaps most especially, Napoleon.
What was Napoleon’s secret weapon? He carried Plutarch’s works even on his campaigns in Egypt. Plutarch was a his moral compass, a constant reminder of excellence. His contemporaries said “he lived out of Plutarch’s pages.” Pasquale Paoli remarked, “There is nothing modern in…
This is why Augustus is the greatest of the Caesars...
“I found Rome a city of bricks and left it a city of marble.” ~ Augustus
Trump must use his position to ensure we don't over regulate AI & stunt our ability to retain the innovation edge in the Tech Cold War with China.
I asked @nvidia Founder & CEO, Jensen Huang, what America’s most unique advantage is to win the AI race. His answer: President @realDonaldTrump.
I re-posting this extremely important interview with @pwrhungry which goes into detail regarding how much power over the US China has due not only to the mining of essential rare earths, BUT also the refining , of which they have a near monopoly. financialsense.com/podcast/21322/… Deng…
Agree entirely with @MikeNeedham In @theammind. Let's be blunt, a world where China wins the Tech Cold War & remains the global manufacturing superpower is a world Americans won't recognize nor be satisfied with. americanmind.org/salvo/building… Excerpt, "American capital markets are…
This is a great book. It deserves to be read by a wide audience so the terror of nuclear conflict is understood again. After the Cold War that fear declined & movies like the Day After & Threads were seen as anachronistic at the "End of History." This book by @AnnieJacobsen…
“Handmaidens of the Apocalypse”👇 Read NUCLEAR WAR: A SCENARIO and see what happens, in seconds and minutes, if they ever get used. bloomberg.com/news/articles/…
For Eastern Roman Caesars, Heraclius may well rank #2 behind Justinian.
In a different time, Heraclius might have achieved more than Trajan or Augustus. We will never know more of what could have been. Even in his time, he conquered farther east than any Roman, nor other European since Alexander.
I would rank Constantine #2 of most important western Caesars after Augustus though Hadrian, Trajan, & Marcus Aurelius are strong contenders...
Today 306AD Constantine I is proclaimed Roman Emperor by his troops. He was also the first Roman emperor to claim conversion to Christianity & is thus a significant figure in the history of Christianity. Constantine was hailed emperor in the Roman city of York, known as Eboracum
Well said.
In an essay he wrote for Dr. Herschel Coffin’s class in the Philosophy of Christian Reconstruction at Whittier College, Richard Nixon wrote: "The greatness of the universe is too much for man to explain. I still believe that God is the creator, the first cause of all that…
Good @ArthurLHerman piece in @RCDefense on building a more cooperative defense industrial sector. Given the atrophied defense base, this is the sort of thinking that should be considered. realcleardefense.com/articles/2025/…
Another aspect of the AI aspect of the Tech Cold War with China is China’s ability to leverage its tech around the world and isolate the US. Good @ForeignAffairs piece on this phenomenon. foreignaffairs.com/united-states/… Excerpt, “But the threat posed by Chinese open models is not…
