drleostrauss.bsky.social - Profile | ThreadSky | a Reddit-style client for Bluesky

Yes.

submitted 4 hours ago • 0 comments

Putin has won a major strategic war aim: breaking transatlanticism and the post-1949 int'l order, Paris Charter. Ukraine was always a stepping stone, means to that end. Gifted byTrump Admin. In this frame Putin's roll of dice, incredible war losses, damages- while massive -not wholly squandered.

submitted 4 hours ago • 1 comment

Both the data and its ironic shape say much about Trumpism geographic footprint in Europe. See last sentence in post below.

submitted 6 hours ago • 0 comments

Waltz, like all who came before, will be a tragic figure even w/his knowing ambition. Performing like this not only for Trump but for Stephen Miller and others in and out of WH who scrutinize him, Rubio, Kellogg and others for slightest deviation from Trump line.

submitted 8 hours ago • 0 comments

Steve Bannon in the White House openly and publicly rooted for Le Pen. Franklin Graham embraced Putin in 2013-14, Giuliani, KT McFarland and Laura Ingraham 2014, Amconmag increasingly from 2007, esp. after 2011, Flynn & Kushner 2016-17, Orban openly feted at CPAC, Heritage, MAL, as was Bolsonaro...

submitted 8 hours ago • 0 comments

One wonders what Eastern Flank Trump enthusiasts like 🇵🇱 PiS/Duda, etc must think of blatant Admin alignment w/Putin. Duda waited 1.5 hours for his CPAC meeting w/Trump. Instead of his scheduled 1 hour, Trump gave him 10 minutes & a monologue. Yet many Eastern Flank & Ukrainians wanted Trump.

submitted 9 hours ago • 0 comments

The US election was about mobilized white racial grievance and related male anxiety - both resenting social/political change, liberal democracy as its perceived engine. It's not difficult.

submitted 9 hours ago • 0 comments

This gift link should work: wapo.st/41qBKwR

submitted 1 day ago • 1 comment

Charlie Moskos, whom I knew, would not wholly agree with this. Like me. 🇺🇸 military is a blended institution. Senate via advise & consent, House via auth/approps, have constitutional role. Congress created Goldwater-Nichols JCS reform, ODNI etc. W/ NatCon/MAGA intent, "disappointing"... generous.

submitted 1 day ago • 0 comments

If one has corporate transactional exp w/ bank credit revolvers, syndicated loans or leveraged buy outs, all very familiar. Per earlier, essentially steps and mindset of private equity funds or creditors in a bankruptcy/default situation. Temp injection of equity (weapons) for asset strip and dump

submitted 1 day ago • 1 comment

A mistake to parse Trump Admin thru trad geopolitics lense. Acts like Bank Syndicate or raiding private equity fund imposing terms during corporate default. Stripping 🇺🇦 assets, future cash flow for temp equity injection (weapons). No guarantees for 'best efforts' a give away for loot & flip exit.

submitted 1 day ago • 0 comments

Excellent @politico.com - NatCon/MAGA war on GOP internationalists, defense experts. 🔹Vance leads drive. 🔹Rubio, Waltz, Kellogg under intense WH/Stephen Miller scrutiny; Grenell wants Rubio job; Kellogg marginalized. 🔹Senators like Cotton pressured to comply. www.politico.com/news/2025/02...

submitted 1 day ago • 0 comments

Oleksa's right. And congressional GOP is now just a Duma. Grim.

submitted 1 day ago • 0 comments

It's about the Power Ministries. And their internal use. JAGs give it away. NatCon/MAGA already decapitating FBI. Signal a FSB political transformation. DoJ, too. DHS, ICE, prepared to deputize Local LEOs. Gabbard at ODNI, Ratcliffe at CIA. Hegseth ideological policing of military. In 4 weeks.

submitted 1 day ago • 2 comments

I'm also sure White reactionary males campaigned openly on reactionary and male grievance. And won by 1.5%. Senate GOP knew the racial and male grievance agenda, approved Hegseth et al. We are at the mercy of a white racial defiant rejecyion of Modernity and the American Idea.

submitted 1 day ago • 0 comments

No doubt.

submitted 2 days ago • 0 comments

Warsaw quite logically, I think, withholds commitment as leverage for West of Oder finally to put up concrete military sacrifice/capability over ephemeral rhetoric. 🇫🇷🇬🇧🇮🇹🇩🇪 Etc. And a card to play trying to convince Trump to provide air/intel/ISR Art V Lite. Make saving 🇺🇦 truly a European project.

submitted 3 days ago • 1 comment

In truth, most GOP electeds are most craven betrayers of stated ideals. Marco may be Senate's "inside man" in Admin (100-0). Their illusions of influence. His wings clipped, surrounded by Beattie, Anton, others in State. Hegseth, Gabbard, Patel, Ratcliffe and politicized NSC and Trump outside.

submitted 4 days ago • 1 comment

@ilvestoomas.bsky.social The Yarvin vision for Europe, authoritarian US. Thiel, Andreessen, Vance and EM more or less in this NatCon orbit. The Vance Munich speech merely the opening motif before the more unifying head motif. Their opportunity and predicament is the Trumpian incoherence.

submitted 5 days ago • 8 comments

Would say French partially right. United States proves itself a threat to liberal democracy, empiricism and Enlightenment values. Macron, Vedrine et al. were wrong about Putin, Russia and their vision of accomodations through mid 2023. In fairness, US for decades pleaded w/ Europe to re-arm.

submitted 8 days ago • 0 comments

BlueSky temporarily actually useful. 1) An embryonic escape valve as other spaces shaped into conformity/compliance. 2) BlueSky offers little external embedded reach into other media, pop culture like X posts. 3) Collects opponents. 4) Not public co. When time comes in a way easier to confront

submitted 9 days ago • 1 comment

Suggest it's the American MEDIA that loves MAGA conflict, aggression and performance. And rewards and accentuates it to go "viral", etc. Demotic times demand some performance. But MAGA and Democratic Base(s) are not analogous apart from horseshoe. A performative race to bottom helps MAGA in the end

submitted 9 days ago • 0 comments

WSJ ed board still relatively corporatist/institutional. Apart from the racial psychological implosion driving MAGA Base, Yarvin/Vance/Thiel NatCon Reaction. Investment Funds, shareholders, banks want a stable, financially predictable Europe. WSJ (same building as FOX) won't really rock GOP boat.

submitted 9 days ago • 1 comment

The West celebrated for decades access to KGB archival secrets exfiltrated during Cold War end game. Eg, Vasily Mitrokhin handwritten notes written over decades obtained by 🇬🇧, etc. A DOGE Archives so massively beyond. Russians, Chinese, Saudis, Indians, others will salute across 21st century.

submitted 9 days ago • 0 comments

💯 "smart evil" is precisely right. Vance's speech is NatCon "Dark Reaction". Designed to weaken West liberal democratic identity by re-wiring its own vocabulary. Unfortunately, a "security conference" a prime vulnerable audience. Many focused professionally on instrumentalities not actual meaning.

submitted 9 days ago • 0 comments

Vance in Munich asserts a core tenet of Yarvin/ Thiel/NatCon 'failed democracy' theology. If a democracy can be influenced by outside interference, it's inherently weak - therefore not legitimately sustainable form of gov. Their answer: authoritarian control - "unleashed" centralized Executive.

submitted 9 days ago • 0 comments

The Admin's strategic incoherence on full display. 🇷🇺 already enduring crippling sanctions. Trump military action against 🇷🇺 implausible politically w/ MAGA base. Trump already pushing 🇷🇺 in G7, will attend Moscow Summit. And PUTIN guarantee on 🇺🇦 meaningless. WEST guarantees her. But see Hegseth punt.

submitted 9 days ago • 0 comments

The US Right is at war with Modernity and change. The essence of the American Idea from our creation. A society empowering individual freedom based on progress through time. Liberal democracy makes that possible, inevitable. US finally sees trad Continental Reactionary politics in full bloom.

submitted 9 days ago • 0 comments

Putin already accomplished a major strategic war objective for nothing: dividing, fracturing the Western alliance, breaking US strategic position. Ukraine is a Front - an important, most visible Front in the war. But it is not the war.

submitted 9 days ago • 0 comments

Quite right. If Europe starts meaningful, non-rhetorical re-armament now, its window of vulnerability can close by early/mid 2030s. Moscow will need ~ 5 years to reconstitute an even plausible challenge UA/non-US NATO together. Assuming Europe doesn't mistake перерыв for stable peace.

submitted 9 days ago • 0 comments

Putin played the players, not the battlefield since Feb. 2022. Despite Trump's apparent decision to provide further arms to Ukraine (his rapacious transactionalism aside), quite possible Putin has a decent shot at a plausible strategic victory.

submitted 10 days ago • 0 comments

Bruce Schneier David Ottenheimer have written a tremendous piece for Foreign Policy that everyone should read called "DOGE is Hacking America." It clearly explains why what DOGE is doing has to be stopped, and what's at stake here […]

submitted 11 days ago • 8 comments

Good piece by Sven Biscop of @egmontinstitute.bsky.social on what Ukraine needs from Europe. Europe needs to understand its own potential strength, not persuade itself of its own weakness. www.egmontinstitute.be/ukraine-now-...

submitted 10 days ago • 1 comment

Pete Hegseth's statement at NATO HQ that the US will no longer be the guarantor of European security has shocked our allies and even many NATO supporters in the US. But it should hardly have come as a surprise. I argued this more than a year ago: www.politico.eu/article/what...

submitted 10 days ago • 1 comment