Greetings, All!

It’s been a long and very eventful week. Let’s catch up on the latest top headlines, opinions, and recommendations.

Global Geopolitics and Declining US Power: How China Won the US-China Economic War with Einar Tangen

Donald Trump’s trade war, especially with China, was a failed bluff rooted in economic nationalism and zero-sum thinking. Einar Tangen points out that the unilateral tariffs aimed to intimidate, but transparency in trade data revealed the U.S. had little leverage. Contrary to his claims, tariffs hurt American consumers, fueling inflation and deepening middle-class decline. Globally, erratic policies shattered trust in the U.S. as a reliable economic partner, destabilizing markets and raising doubts about the dollar's reserve status. Meanwhile, China positioned itself as a stabilizing force, favoring diplomacy and multilateralism. The episode highlights the perils of populist bluster over pragmatic, cooperative leadership.

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$2.5 TRILLION in Deals: Big Win for U.S. Weapons Industry as Persian Gulf Buys More Arms

President Trump reshaped regional dynamics in a dramatic Middle East tour with billion-dollar deals and controversial diplomacy. Starting in Saudi Arabia, he secured a $142 billion arms agreement and encouraged massive Saudi investments in the U.S. In Qatar, Trump oversaw a record $96 billion Boeing deal and major defense contracts. AI took center stage in the UAE with a landmark deal for Nvidia chips. Most shocking was Trump’s handshake with ex-terror ISIS/ al-Qaeda leader Mohammad al-Jolani, signaling the end of U.S. sanctions on Syria. While geopolitical tensions simmer, the military-industrial complex and tech giants emerged as clear winners in this high-stakes journey.

Thank you to all my subscribers for being part of World Affairs in Context. Your support makes the newsletter happen, and your questions, ideas, and suggestions inspire it. Please consider becoming a paid subscriber, which will help contribute to the resources needed to produce more content on the platform. If you’d like to make a one-time contribution, please do so via PayPal or Buy Me a Coffee.

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• The U.S. housing crisis is worsening:

  The U.S. housing market has officially reached the most unaffordable level in history.

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Russia has informed Ukraine of its baseline condition for conflict termination—the withdrawal of all Ukrainian troops from the territory of lands which, from the perspective of the Russian Constitution, constitute part of Mother Russia. These include Kherson, Zaporozhia, Donetsk and Lugansk. Russia has also made it clear that if Ukraine does not accept these terms, the next time Russia is willing to sit down and negotiate with Ukraine their demands will include four additional Ukrainian oblasts, or administrative regions—presumably Odessa, Nikolaev, Dnepropetrovsk, and Kharkov. We have reached the Odessa Moment.

Back in January 2023, while appearing on “The Gaggle” with George Szamuely and Peter Lavelle, I postulated that Russia was approaching what I called “the Odessa Moment,” that confluence of military and political circumstances which, once reached, would trigger a strategic decision by Russia to expand the Special Military Operation (SMO) beyond the geography defined by the territories absorbed by Russia following a controversial referenda held in September 2022 on the territory of Kherson, Zaporozhia, Donetsk and Lugansk, in which the question of self-determination was answered by a vote on whether these territories should be incorporated into the Russian Federation or not.

As originally conceived, the SMO was not about territorial acquisition but rather defending the rights of the Russian-speaking population of Ukraine. In negotiations which began less than a week after the SMO began—first in Gomel, Belarus, and later in Turkey—Russia simply sought to achieve that which had been promised as part of the Minsk Accords entered into with Ukraine, Germany and France in 2014-2015, in which Ukraine promised to make the appropriate changes to its Constitution guaranteeing that the rights and status of Russian-speaking Ukrainians would be protected.

Ukraine, backed by both Germany and France (and the United States as well) opted to treat the Minsk Accords as an opportunity to build up military power sufficient to reclaim parts of the Donbas region (comprised of the oblasts of Donetsk and Lugansk) as well as Crimea which were lost in the aftermath of the CIA-backed Maidan coup of February 2014 which saw the Russian-speaking lawfully elected President, Victor Yanukovych, ousted and replaced by US-backed Ukrainian nationalists. Between 2015 and 2022, the US and its NATO allies trained and equipped hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian soldiers for the sole purpose of reclaiming by force the territories of Donetsk, Lugansk and Crimea.

In April 2019 Volodymyr Zelensky, the former comedian-turned politician, won the election for the office of President of Ukraine, ousting the incumbent, Petro Poroshenko. Zelensky ran on a platform of peace, winning over the Russian-speaking population on the promise that he would “crawl on his knees” if necessary to work out a peace plan with Russia. Instead, within months Zelensky was convening a war council where he promised to use the Ukrainian military to reclaim the parts of Donetsk and Lugansk that had freed themselves from Ukrainian rule.

This was Zelensky’s first mistake.

The path he chose led to Russia, in the days before the initiation of the SMO and after Ukraine began mobilizing its forces to attack the Donbas, recognizing the independence of both Donetsk and Lugansk and entering into a collective security agreement, actions which guaranteed that the Donbas would never again be part of Ukraine.

This was Zelensky’s Donbas moment.

Zelensky’s second mistake came in April 2022, when he walked away from the negotiations that Russia had initiated immediately after the start of the SMO which culminated in a finalized signature-ready peace agreement which has become known as the Istanbul communique. This agreement would have recognized the independence of the Donbas republics, but returned all other Ukrainian territory that had been occupied by Russian troops during the SMO.

Zelensky, pressured by his US and NATO supporters, rejected this agreement, and instead took tens of billions of dollars in military aid from the US and NATO which he used to rebuild his depleted military force, which he then used to launch a counterattack against Russian forces which had already began their withdrawal from Ukraine as a good faith measure in keeping with the terms of the Istanbul communique.

Russia responded by organizing referenda in both the Donbas and the two oblasts, Kherson and Zaporozhia, that constituted the land bridge connecting Crimea with Russia proper. These referenda were on the question of these territories becoming part of the Russian Federation; all four voted yes, and after the appropriate legal action was taken by the Russian parliament, President Putin signed a decree which made all four oblasts part of the Russian Federation.

This was Zelensky’s Little Russia moment.

And now Zelensky finds himself at a new crossroads.

His Odessa Moment.

He has a chance to end the SMO on the most favorable terms possible, terms which reflect the harsh reality the Ukrainian President and the nation he leads faces due to Zelensky’s prior poor decision-making regarding Russia.

The Donbas is gone. So, too, is Little Russia. These losses are irreversible, politically and militarily.

Ukraine has a chance to end the conflict now. But to do so it must respect the reality of the moment.

Unfortunately, the same “friends” and “allies” which encouraged Ukraine to walk away from the Minsk Accords and the Istanbul communique are now urging Ukraine to do the same when it comes to Istanbul 2.

But the promise of European support is illusory—the armories have long since been stripped bare, and the potential for meaningful military intervention never existed, either militarily or politically.

Moreover, any European action would, by necessity, require backing from the United States. While this may have been a possibility during the presidency of Joe Biden, it is a non-starter under the new administration of Donald Trump—even as the Istanbul 2 meetings were underway, the US announced that it was going to be withdrawing its forces from Europe.

Russia is to be taken seriously. While the challenges that Russia will face in occupying the four new territories it has put its sights on if Ukraine balks yet again regarding a peace agreement are many and not to be minimized, this is a military question which is best answered by the political resolve of the Russian leadership and nation, which at this juncture is unassailable.

Last year Vladimir Putin won a mandate to governing as a wartime President.

As the recently concluded May 9 celebration clearly demonstrated, the determination of the Russian people to defeat Ukraine is rock solid.

As the lead Russian negotiator in Istanbul made clear to his Ukrainian counterparts, Russia is prepared to fight for however long it takes, even alluding to the 21 years it took Peter the Great to defeat Sweden.

Ukraine will be lucky to survive the summer.

Zelensky faces one of the greatest tests of leadership he will ever face.

Nationalist forces in his government are willing to commit national suicide in pursuit of the failed Banderist cause.

Ukraine’s erstwhile allies, whose objectives continue to center around Cold War fantasies of strategically defeating Russia, are pushing Zelensky to reject the Russian conditions for peace, all too willing to sacrifice Ukraine as a proxy in pursuit of their unattainable goal.

If Zelensky truly cared about his nation and his people, he would swallow his pride and make the only decision capable of saving them—surrender.

But Zelensky is not a leader who cares about his nation or its people—he has already sacrificed Ukraine’s national integrity and more than a million of its citizens in pursuit of his EU and NATO driven fantasies of relevance and fortune.

This is Zelensky’s Odessa Moment.

And he will fail.

Again.

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The Bluff That Failed

Donald Trump’s trade war, particularly targeting China, was rooted in a flawed bluff. By imposing unilateral tariffs and treating global trade as a zero-sum game, U.S. President Trump sought to intimidate countries into economic submission. Einar Tangen points out that the President’s strategy mirrored “a schoolyard bully” demanding tribute, hoping to create a world where America was the central hub and all other nations acted as dependent spokes. However, the transparency of trade data meant that other nations could clearly see the U.S. had no "royal flush" and called its bluff.

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Economic Decline in the United States

Contrary to President Trump’s claim that foreign nations would pay the tariffs, American consumers and businesses would bear the brunt. Importers face higher costs, pass them on to consumers, and, as we’ve seen over the past several weeks, even stop shipments due to risk, leading to inflation and empty shelves. Middle—and working-class Americans, many living paycheck to paycheck, suffer deeply, resorting to payday loans for groceries. The middle class, once a majority in 1971 at 61%, had fallen to just 40% by the last census.

Global Distrust and Financial Instability

Trump’s erratic trade policies led to a profound erosion of global trust in the United States. Countries and markets viewed the U.S. as an unreliable partner, undermining institutions like the WTO. The fallout extended to concerns over the U.S. dollar’s future as the global reserve currency. Bond markets began to tremble as debt soared, expected to surpass $38 trillion. Investors fear rising interest payments and a potential run on bonds.

China’s Measured Diplomacy

In contrast, China has been the adult in the room. Rather than escalating tensions, it removed tariffs on certain goods and invited discussions on a "Phase Two" deal, meeting in Geneva, home of the WTO. While not perfect, China emphasized stability, multilateralism, and global economic cooperation—values that starkly contrasted with Trump's extractive and transactional approach.

Lessons for the Future

Trump's strategy has shown the dangers of populist economic nationalism disconnected from reality. The economic pain it inflicted on average Americans, the distrust it bred globally, and the instability it created in financial markets serve as a cautionary tale. Responsible leadership rooted in cooperation, trust, and long-term planning is urgently needed to restore America's economic and moral credibility.

Donald Trump’s tariff-driven trade war, especially against China, has become a strategic miscalculation based on bluffing and intimidation. Attempting to recast America as a dominant global hub surrounded by tributary nations, Trump’s unilateral actions backfired when other countries, seeing through the bluff, retaliated or withdrew. Contrary to his claims, American importers and consumers, not China, would pay the tariffs, leading to inflation, halted imports, and growing economic insecurity.

Domestically, the middle class has been disappearing further as many Americans struggle to afford basic necessities. Globally, Trump’s erratic policies eroded trust in the U.S. as a stable economic partner, raising concerns about the long-term credibility of U.S. Treasury bonds and the dollar as the global reserve currency.

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Follow Einar on X: https://x.com/ehtangen and Substack, Asian Narratives: https://asianarratives.substack.com.

Thank you to all my subscribers for being part of World Affairs in Context. Your support makes the newsletter happen, and your questions, ideas, and suggestions inspire it. Please consider becoming a paid subscriber, which will help contribute to the resources needed to produce more content on the platform. If you’d like to make a one-time contribution, please do so via PayPal or Buy Me a Coffee.

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Trump Watch is a new weekly “report card” on all things Trump hosted by Scott Ritter for paid subscribers only. Scott interviews one guest on one topic in each episode. In Episode Two, Scott discusses the selection and performance of U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio with Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, former Chief of Staff to U.S. Secretary of State Colin …

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Greetings, All!

Let’s catch up on the latest top headlines, opinions, and recommendations.

The Maidan Massacre in Ukraine: How Ukraine Became a U.S. Client State | Dr. Ivan Katchanovski

In our conversation, Professor Ivan Katchanovski reveals the truth about the violent Maidan regime change in Ukraine, which enabled the West to use Ukraine as a proxy tool against Russia. Professor Katchanovski notes that after the brutally orchestrated overthrow of the democratically elected Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych, the West transformed Ukraine into a client state, whose political leaders were selected by the United States and other Western officials to further their geopolitical agenda in Eastern Europe.

WORLD WAR II VICTORY: Inside the Soviet Triumph & Demise of Hitler's Empire | Dr. Vladimir Brovkin

May 9, 2025 marked the 80th Anniversary of the Allies’ Victory over Nazi Germany. I spoke with Dr. Brovkin about the key turning points in the history of World War II, the Eastern Front vs. the Western Front, and the Soviet offensive that broke the Wehrmacht. The conversation was truly fascinating (I love history!) and is a must-watch!

US Dollar DROPS 9% as Trump Pushes for INFLATION and Fed Alerts STAGFLATION Is Here | Ryan McMaken

The U.S. economy contracted 0.3% in the first quarter of this year, and the Federal Reserve just warned of growing stagflation risks. In the meantime, President Donald Trump is pushing the Federal Reserve to lower interest rates.

The push for low interest rates and monetary inflation benefits Wall Street at the expense of Main Street. These policies disproportionately serve the wealthy by inflating asset prices, boosting disposable income for top earners, and rewarding those with significant debt and investments. Meanwhile, lower-income Americans, who own fewer assets and benefit less from such policies, face rising costs and minimal income gains.

Ryan McMaken notes that Fed Chair Jerome Powell's latest warning is a major red flag, as the Federal Reserve habitually downplays economic risks and misrepresents warning signs.

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$2.5 Trillion Dollar Avalanche: Asia Prepares to Dump U.S. Currency as Global Trade Fragments

A massive shift in global finance may be underway as Asian nations, holding over $2.5 trillion in U.S. dollar reserves, consider moving out of the currency. Economist Stephen Jen warns that these unhedged dollar investments are increasingly vulnerable amid political tensions, particularly U.S. policies targeting China. With the Federal Reserve lowering interest rates and the dollar weakening, countries like China could repatriate large sums, triggering a broader selloff. This could lead to rising U.S. inflation, falling bond prices, and shifts toward emerging market currencies or digital assets. Meanwhile, BRICS+ nations, especially China and Russia, are accelerating de-dollarization in trade settlements. I further discussed the underlying causes in this new video.

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Let’s move on to the week’s top geopolitics, economics, and finance headlines.

• Markets Pause After Rally: The S&P 500, Dow, and Nasdaq ended the week down 0.3–0.5%, snapping a nine-day winning streak. Investors remain cautious amid ongoing U.S.-China trade talks and President Trump’s renewed tariff proposals.

• Tariff Concerns Impact Earnings: Berkshire Hathaway reported a 14.1% decline in Q1 operating earnings. CEO Warren Buffett announced plans to retire by year-end and criticized proposed tariffs.

Remember to tune in to World Affairs in Context for more news, analysis, and upcoming interviews available on YouTube, Rumble, Patreon, Locals, and Spotify.

Thank you to all my subscribers for being part of World Affairs in Context. Your support makes the newsletter happen, and your questions, ideas, and suggestions inspire it. Please consider becoming a paid subscriber, which will help contribute to the resources needed to produce more content on the platform. If you’d like to make a one-time contribution, please do so via PayPal or Buy Me a Coffee.

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• Federal Reserve Holds Rates Steady: The Fed maintained interest rates, while Treasury yields remained flat. During my discussion with Ryan McMaken, economist and editor at the Mises Institute, Ryan noted that Fed Chair Jerome Powell's latest warning is a major red flag, as the Federal Reserve habitually downplays economic risks and misrepresents warning signs.

• The Federal Reserve’s balance sheet runoff slows: The Federal Reserve’s balance sheet declined by $17 billion to $6.7 trillion since March 2025, the lowest since April 2020. In March, the Fed announced it would slow the average pace of Quantitative Tightening from $60 billion monthly to $40 billion. (If you’d like a refresher on how this works, Ryan McMaken did a great job explaining the basics here.)

  

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On May 9, Russia celebrates the 80^th anniversary of the defeat of Nazi Germany. The United States played a major role in the defeat of Nazi Germany, one the American people should never forget and never stop honoring. But the margin of our victory over the Nazi scourge was razor slim, measured in the lives of millions of our Soviet allies without whom our collective victory would never have happened. We should never forget their sacrifice.

The Battle of Waterloo, in June 1815, Napoleon’s dream of French glory, was crushed by the combined armies of Great Britain and Prussia. According to field marshal Arthur Wellesley, the Duke of Wellington and commander of the British forces, “the nearest-run thing you ever saw in your life.” If one or two more battalions of French Imperial Guardsmen had been available during the third and final infantry assault on the British center, the British positions would have collapsed, allowing Napoleon to pivot his army and meet the Prussian forces under the command of Field Marshal Blücher head on, pinning them in place until French reserves closed in from behind, an action which would have led to the destruction of the Prussians. But the French had reached the end of their resources, and when the tired soldiers of the British 52^nd Regiment of Foot made a last desperate charge, the French Old Guard broke, sending the entire French army into retreat, ending the battle.

The margin of victory was literally a few hundred men in a battle that involved hundreds of thousands on either side.

In July 1863, during the Battle of Gettysburg, the 20^th Maine, a regiment which normally mustered some 1,621 men but which, because of the effects of war and heavy campaigning, had been whittled down to 266, was tasked with holding the left flank of the Union line, a small hill known as Little Round Top. Prior to the battle commencing, the 20^th Maines was reinforced by 120 deserters from the 2^nd Maine, who were given the option of joining the 20^th or being shot. This brought the 20^th Maine up to 386 men.

Facing the 20^th Maine were two Alabama regiments, the 15^th and the 47^th. The approach march to the position held by the 20^th Maine took several hours, in the hot sun, with no water. Between them, the 15^th and 47^th Alabama mustered just under 1,000 men. By the time the men from Alabama reached the base of Little Round Top, they had deployed some 180 men as skirmishers to protect their advance from Union sharpshooters. Another 15 men from the 15^th Alabama were sent out to look for water.

The men from Alabama charged up Little Round Top four times but were repulsed. The fifth charge brought them to within 15 yards of the 20^th Maine’s positions. Here they nearly broke through. The men from Maine had seen 130 of their number fall dead or wounded. They were running out of ammunition. But the men from Alabama were similarly exhausted, with 150 of their number fallen on the hill. When Colonel Chamberlain, the 20^th Maine commander, ordered a last desperate bayonet charge, the men from Alabama broke.

If it weren’t for the 120 men from the 2^nd Maine regiment who reinforced the 20^th Maine at the last moment, Little Round Top would have fallen.

If the Alabamans had retained the nearly 200 men they had left behind as skirmishers or water bearers, Little Round Top would have fallen.

If Little Round Top had fallen, the Battle of Gettysburg would have ended in a Union defeat, and the US Civil War may very well have had a different outcome.

Once again, the margin of victory came down to a few hundred men at the right time and place to change history.

Throughout the course of history, the margin of victory in battles that shaped world events often could be measured in terms of hundreds, if not thousands, of men whose presence at the right place and time tipped the scale of fate in their favor.

“We won two World Wars—but we never took credit for it!,” Donald Trump, the 47^th President of the United States, recently posted on his Truth Social account. “Everyone else does! All over the World, the Allies are celebrating the Victory we had in World War II. The only Country that doesn’t celebrate,” Trump wrote, “is the United States of America, and the Victory was only accomplished because of us. Without the United States,” Trump continued, “the War would have been won by other Countries, and what a different World it would be.”

Donald Trump went on to proclaim May 8 to be World War II Victory Day (he also redesignated November 11 as World War I Victory Day).

The impetus for such a historically flawed statement is not stated by those who issued it but is apparent to all: Trump is jealous of the attention being given to Russia’s May 9 Victory Day celebration and is looking to create a competing event which would thrust the United States into the limelight.

One of the problems Trump will face in generating enthusiasm for his new May 8 holiday is that the American people have long forgotten about “The Greatest Generation” and the sacrifices they made for the United States and the world in defeating the dual threats of Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan. More than 16 million Americans served in the military during World War II, of whom just under 300,000 were killed in combat, with another 670,000 wounded.

I will never denigrate the service of anyone who served their nation honorably in the time of war.

Every American who wore the uniform during World War II deserves praise, as do the millions of Americans who helped turn the American industrial base into the arsenal of democracy.

Americans fought the Germans and the Japanese simultaneously, requiring a division of resources and national focus that meant we could not bring the total weight of our national power down on our enemies.

This required a balanced approach to both theaters of conflict where specific timings were linked to manpower and resource availability.

The margin of victory was often tighter than would otherwise have been desired. Take, for instance, the D-Day landings in France on June 6, 1944. The United States had been carefully martialing resources for this event, even as we engaged the Nazis in North Africa, Sicily and Italy.

But there was no guarantee of victory, as General Dwight Eisenhower’s statement he prepared in case of defeat demonstrated: “Our landings in the Cherbourg-Havre area have failed to gain a satisfactory foothold and I have withdrawn the troops. My decision to attack at this time and place was based upon the best information available. The troops, the air and the Navy did all that Bravery and devotion to duty could do. If any blame or fault attaches to the attempt it is mine alone.”

We prevailed on D-Day.

But the margin of victory was slim.

One of the factors that played a major role in successfully managing this margin of victory was the “other war,” the one most Americans know very little about—the war on the Eastern Front between the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany.

Those familiar with the history of the Normandy operation may be familiar with “Operation Bagration,” the Soviet offensive against Nazi Germany’s Army Group Center which unfolded from June 22 through August 19, 1944. This offensive was ostensibly timed to prevent the Germans from transferring troops from the east front to Normandy. The Soviets employed a combined force of approximately 1,670,300 combat and support personnel against a German force of some 849,000 soldiers.

By comparison, Operation Overlord, by mid-July 1944, saw the US and British deploy some 1,452,000 troops in France, facing off against a force of approximately 640,000 Germans. By the time Overlord concluded, on August 30, 1944, the allies had suffered some 226,386 combat casualties, with the Germans losing some 323,000 combat casualties, including around 233,000 prisoners.

During Operation Bagration, which ended on August 30, 1944, the Soviets suffered some 670,000 combat casualties, while inflicting losses of 539,480 killed, missing or captured Germans. In short, in just five weeks, the Soviets had destroyed 22 German divisions. To stabilize the front, Germany had to transfer 46 divisions to the eastern front, including several divisions that were supposed to be arrayed against the US and British forces in France.

But the real story of the critical role played by the Soviets in helping guarantee a US-British victory over the Germans at Normandy was the Dnieper-Carpathian Offensive which took place between December 1943 and May 1944. Here, the Soviets lost some 270,000 killed, and another 840,000 wounded—greater losses than the entire US military suffered fighting against both the Germans and Japanese—while inflicting 380,000 casualties on the Germans.

But this isn’t the full story.

Because of the Dnieper-Carpathian offensive, on the eve of the Normandy invasion Germany withdrew from France some 46,000 troops and nearly 400 tanks and assault guns organized into some of the most elite combat formations in the Germany military, to reinforce German positions arrayed against the Soviets.

These were troops that otherwise would have been deployed to counter the D-Day landings at Normandy, making the possibility of Eisenhower having to read his draft defeat statement more possible.

The margin of victory was slim.

But the Soviet contribution to allied victory in Normandy doesn’t stop here. The German mobile reserves which were supposed to respond to any allied invasion consisted of six divisions and several separate brigade-sized units which were transferred out of Russia to France in order to refit, ensuring that when Germany did respond to the US-British Normandy invasion, it would be using divisions that had been recently torn to pieces by the Soviets on the eastern front.

The margin of victory for the US and British forces in Normandy was slim and would have been even slimmer had the Soviets not carried out the twin offenses of Dnieper-Carpathian and Bagration. These two campaigns resulted in the Soviets losing more than twice the total number of casualties suffered by the United States for the entirety of World War II in both theater of operations.

Americans would do well to recall the words of British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, who noted in a letter to Soviet leader Joseph Stalin that “It was the Russian army that gutted the German military machine.”

And this came at an unimaginable cost.

Some 34 million Soviet men served in the Red Army during World War II. While the official death toll for the Red Army in World War II stands at some 8,600,000, the Central Military Archives in Moscow contains the names of more than 14 million Red Army soldiers who died or went missing during the fighting with Nazi Germany. Millions more were wounded in battle.

But this is only part of the story.

The fight against Nazi Germany took place on the soil of the Soviet Union—the dark earth of Russia, Ukraine, Belorussia, the Caucasus. Between 15.9–17.4 million civilians were killed on Soviet territory by Germany and its allies during the war.

These are unthinkable numbers.

And they are numbers no western nation, including the United States, could have sustained under similar conditions and prevailed.

Americans and Russians both speak about the importance of US military assistance—“Lend Lease”—on helping sustain the Red Army during the critical years of 1942-43.

But “Lend Lease” did not win the war.

The blood and sacrifice of the Red Army did.

As US President Franklin Roosevelt noted in 1942, “Russian troops have destroyed—and continue to destroy—more manpower, planes, tanks and cannons of our common enemy than all the other United Nations combined.”

It was the “skillful leadership, solid organization, appropriate training and, above all, determination to defeat the enemy, regardless of its own sacrifices” of the Red Army which, Roosevelt noted in a 1943 letter to Joseph Stalin, “certainly forced Hitler’s armed forces to follow the path to final defeat and won the admiration of the people of the United States for a long time.”

A long time.

But not forever.

Today a sitting American president denigrates the unimaginable sacrifice of the Red Army and the Soviet people—the Russian people—in defeating the scourge of Nazi Germany.

America should—indeed must—honor the sacrifices and accomplishments of its own soldiers and citizens in contributing to the great allied victory of Nazi Germany.

But not at the expense of the truth.

The Red Army engaged and destroyed between 76-80% of Nazi Germany’s military machine.

I’ve read and re-read Rick Atkinson’s amazing trilogy on the history of the US Army during World War II.

And I am amazed at just how slim the margin of victory was in many of the battles fought between American forces and their Nazi enemy.

One more German battalion here, a few hundred German tanks there, and a battle may have gone the other way.

But the Germans did not have the resources, because nearly 9 million of their soldiers fought and died on the eastern front—9 million soldiers who otherwise would have been available to tip the scales of fate in favor of the Nazi armies fighting in the west.

The margin of American victory was slim.

And without the sacrifices of the Red Army and the Soviet citizens, there would have been no margin of victory.

For the people of Russia, May 9—Victory Day—is a solemn, spiritual occasion, where the eyes of the 27 million or more ancestors who perished in the horrible struggle against Nazi Germany stare down on the citizens of today, reminding them of the sacrifices they made, and challenging them to never disgrace their memory.

The military parade is a moment of supreme national pride.

It is not, as some in the West posture, a statement of modern Russian military chauvinism.

Instead, the Russian people see before them the progeny of the Russian troops who paraded down Red Square in December 1941, marching straight from the ceremony to the front lines only a few miles away, where they shed their blood to stop the German army that was knocking at the door of the Soviet capital.

They see in the soldiers of today the pride of the Red Army when it again paraded at the end of the war against Nazi Germany, flinging down the banners of their defeated enemy.

They look at the young men who proudly march today and see in them the same indomitable spirit of their forefathers who gave everything so that the Russian people of today might live in peace on the soil of Mother Russia.

Victory Day is not a national gimmick, or a narcissistic pleasure for a Russian leader.

It is an expression of the very soul of a nation and its people.

A reminder that the margin of victory in World War II is measured in the sacrifice of the Red Army and the Soviet nation.

Donald Trump seems to have forgotten this truth.

It is incumbent upon the citizens of the United States, Britain, Canada, France and the other nations that comprised, together with the Soviet Union, the great alliance that defeated Nazi Germany.

The Russian people have never forgotten or forsaken these allies. Indeed, the Russian Army marches in their honor as well.

We must never forget the heroism and sacrifice made by American soldiers in defeating Nazi Germany.

But the margin of our victory was slim.

And only came because of the sacrifice of untold millions of Soviet soldiers and civilians.

It is our duty to honor them as we honor our own.

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The U.S. economy contracted 0.3% in the first quarter of this year, and the Federal Reserve just issued a warning of growing stagflation risks. In the meantime, President Donald Trump is pushing the Federal Reserve to lower interest rates.

The push for low interest rates and monetary inflation benefits Wall Street at the expense of Main Street. These policies disproportionately serve the wealthy by inflating asset prices, boosting disposable income for top earners, and rewarding those with significant debt and investments. Meanwhile, lower-income Americans, who own fewer assets and benefit less from such policies, face rising costs and minimal income gains.

Ryan McMaken notes that Fed Chair Jerome Powell's latest warning is a major red flag, as the Federal Reserve habitually downplays economic risks and misrepresents warning signs.

Ryan McMaken is an economist (Austrian economics), executive editor at the Mises Institute, writer, and the author of “Breaking Away: The Case of Secession, Radical Decentralization, and Smaller Polities" and “Commie Cowboys: The Bourgeoisie and the Nation-State in the Western Genre”.

Follow Ryan McMaken on X (Twitter): https://x.com/ryanmcmaken.

Read more of his work here: https://mises.org/profile/ryan-mcmaken.

Thank you to all my subscribers for being part of World Affairs in Context. Your support makes the newsletter happen, and your questions, ideas, and suggestions inspire it. Please consider becoming a paid subscriber, which will help contribute to the resources needed to produce more content on the platform. If you’d like to make a one-time contribution, please do so via PayPal or Buy Me a Coffee.

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The interview is available on YouTube and Patreon.

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