06/03/25 Afternoon CommStock Report – Lessons of History Should be Making us Worry

Prior to WWI becoming a world war, there were smaller conflicts in Europe that were on-going as pretenses for what became the big one, as other nations were drawn into it. It was the competition between two rival peer powers, England then dominant and Germany the challenger, that grew into military conflict and expanded to include colonies. I guess that the US could be construed as one of those drawn in. There were three regional wars going on before WWII. Japan had invaded Manchuria/China, Italy sought an empire in Africa and Germany annexed Austria, Czechoslovakia, and eventually invaded Poland. The latter was the trigger that pulled England and France into the conflict like leaves falling into a fire. Japan, Italy and Germany became allies as the Axis powers. Japan attacked us and the rest is history. All were rising powers competing for peer dominance. Technological advancement determined the winner of WWII and the dominant American hegemony that followed.   Today we have two regional wars going with a third waiting in the wings. The war in Ukraine looks far from settled. Russia is declining as a global power both economically and demographically against NATO which was strengthened by the addition…