Bottom line; we are at war with the Roman Empire v. 3.0

This is not the first time we go to war against an empire, ask the British about 1812 or the Spanish about 1898. 

The war with Russia was started by Putint in 2016 or before. If you want to win in war it helps to understand the enemy; capabilities, history, goals and psychology. 

Recently I have connected with Eastern Europeans who have enlightened me about the history of Russia and how it influences the mindset of Putin’s regime. Some of them were behind a shocking documentary, Breaking Point: The War for Democracy in Ukraine (2017). 

But "Breaking Point" is not just a history lesson. When Russian President Vladimir Putin took advantage of Ukraine's chaos to invade, he did not just send troops, he unleashed a chilling disinformation campaign that looks from this vantage point like a trial run for the one in this country during the last presidential campaign.

This film is a must watch if you want to understand Putin’s strategy and tactics and how they apply to what Putin’s hackers did in 2016 and may do in the future in their undeclared war on us.  I will diary about it soon but before I do I wanted to understand the historical framework and that is where I came across, thanks to the historians I recently connected with, Putin’s vision of Roman Empire v. 3.0;

Third Rome Rising: The Ideologues Calling for a New Russian Empire

The importance of the Byzantine Empire to Russian civilization was highlighted during a conference called “The interpretation of the concept of ‘Moscow as the Third Rome’ in the East and in the West,” attended by members of both the Byzantine and Izborsk Clubs. Few argued with the speakers who said that Russia has its own historical path, which is the special mission of protecting moral values. Supporters of the “Moscow as the Third Rome” concept of revival are fully convinced that only Russia can liberate humanity from liberal ideology and demonstrate a new path of development.

At the same time, according to high-level Russian ideologues, the implementation of this particular mission is impossible without a strong leader, who is embodied by President Vladimir Putin. The conservative imperial elite sees Putin as a natural successor of the rulers of the Byzantine and Russian empires. He did not allow the destruction of Syria and Ukraine, and challenged the unipolar world. In this regard, it is not surprising that Putin’s visit to holy Mount Athos was received with special feelings among the Russian masses. It is not the throne that the Russian president sat on that matters. It is all about the symbolism, which emphasizes Russia’s special neo-Byzantine mission.

To give you another data-point, here is a new bust of Putin as a Roman emperor in St. Petersburg.  

To defeat this new Roman Empire we need to understand what we are up against.  This imperial vision that Putin and many Russian intellectuals share about Moscow becoming the 3rd Rome is a framework that will help us plan, prepare and defeat them.  Understanding its implications will help us in this new war against an empire.  If we do not digest all this we will be ineffectual and Putin, who may be in power for 20 more years, will become the new Caesar and our democracy will end like in the Roman republic that evolved from the original democracy in Greece and became the Roman Empire. 

The next battle in this war is already in course and it will culminate with the November midterms.  A blue wave will give us a chance to start turning things around.  I also hope that people at the top in the next administration, after Putin’s serf goes away, also understand this framework because it is for real.