[Originally posted on Substack - 23 min. video+transcript] Back in 2022, Ukraine’s President Zelensky posed for a photo shoot wearing an olive green t-shirt emblazoned with a bizarre design that read, “Come to the dark side … Dominate or Die.” At the time, I wondered who thought it appropriate to even come up with such slogans, let alone have Ukraine’s president wear it on his chest. The photoshoot was arranged by a British PR team. At the time, a short documentary report about this was published in social media (here’s a YouTube clip).

Who thought this up?

Dennis Small, an editor at the Executive Intelligence Review, commented as follows:

“Let’s remember, Zelensky is an actor … he’s being given lines to read. The people providing those lines to Mr. Zelensky are two public relations (PR) firms in London who are working with Ukrainians to craft the message coming from Zelensky, which is largely directed to the West.”

The Clarion call, “come to the dark side” was probably passed down to Zelensky through these channels. He obliged and addressed the Western public with that message on his chest. Imagine how the Western media would have reacted had Vladimir Putin worn a t-shirt like that. But if Zelensky invites you to the dark side, that’s all perfectly good and wholesome and there’s no need to question that message. I do believe, however, that this was a very significant moment that should not have been overlooked.

Disclosure of mission and intent

Zelensky’s t-shirt didn’t make itself: someone had to think up its message and they wanted us to see it. They took the trouble to design that t-shirt and made sure that Ukraine’s president wore it while addressing Western audiences. That message was somebody’s brainchild and it wasn’t a random choice, nor was it a joke. It was a disclosure of mission and intent and it should be taken seriously as such. Today we can see that Europe’s leading powers are following the call as they collectively and single-mindedly embrace militarization and earnest preparations for war.

Europe’s idiot warhawks

European Commission’s president Ursula von der Leyen has announced her ReArm Europe plan with up to €800 billion of military spending. Soon to be German Chancellor Friedrich Merz is pushing for unlimited borrowing for infrastructure and defence spending. Even before assuming office, he won German parliament’s approval for a €500 billion fund to finance defence projects. But this is only the start: Merz is pushing through constitutional amendments that would remove fiscal restraints on debt and unleash a massive boost to military spending. Ultimately, the figure could rise up to €1.7 trillion. It would more than double Germany’s debt to GDP, from 62.4% currently, to about 125%. How much money is €1.7 trillion? It’s about €20,400 per man, woman and child in Germany.

Over in France, Emmanuel Macron wants to send troops to Ukraine and boost France’s nuclear arsenal. He’s dreaming about hypersonic missiles that could carry nuclear warheads toward Russian targets. Across the channel, Keir Starmer is obsessing about military conscription, scotching up a “coalition of the willing” against Russia and providing ever more financial and military aid to Ukraine. He even said that Britain’s deployment of troops to Ukraine is already “operational,” whatever that means.

Weakening, exhausting Russia

But what is the point of all this busywork? Even European leaders are not so delusional as to think that they can reverse Ukraine’s defeat or vanquish Russia with their weak militaries. Instead, they simply want the war to continue, hoping to weaken and exhaust Russia with the view of toppling Vladimir Putin’s government. Well, let’s see how that’s going…

Russia has been fighting the war in Ukraine for more than three years now. When the war started, the Armed Forces of Ukraine were the largest and most powerful army in Europe. The estimates of its size vary, but in an interview with the German TV network ARD, Zelensky said that, "...We have 880,000 [troops]. We have a million-strong army.” In February 2022 that force was fully intact, all trained up and armed to the teeth. They also had full support from the collective West. Together with the United States, they were united behind Ukraine with their arsenals full of weapons and ammunition. Then, as soon as the conflict began, they hit Russia with a nuclear sanctions package, determined to collapse her economy.

But none of it worked; Russia didn’t weaken: instead, it got much stronger. In a recent talk at Hillsdale College, former Navy Seal and founder of Blackwater Worldwide, Eric Prince ​delivered a sobering message: “First of all, don’t listen to the idiot politicians that say, yeah, we've degraded the Russian army. No,” said Prince, “we have chewed up a lot of material. The Russian army has gotten infinitely smarter.”

The Russian army got infinitely smarter

For example, "The thing that the Russians are very good at is electronic warfare," which has negated the effectiveness of the most advanced Western systems, such as Javelin missiles, HIMARS and Copperhead guided artillery shells. Such weapons often became ineffective within weeks of their use in the battlefield: “It works for a week or two, and the Russians figure [out] how to jam the navigation or the command link, and the stuff goes blind.”

Meanwhile, all the bright minds at NATO haven’t been able to figure out how to fight the Russians. A report published by the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) acknowledged that Russia's evolving tactics are leaving NATO strategists at a loss. In a nutshell, the Russian military is combining infantry operations with drones and gliding bombs in a sort of "offensive triangle" that paralyzes enemy troops behind the front lines. Infantry and artillery action prevent them from maneuvering; drones continuously attack and wear down the trapped forces and the gliding bombs finish them off with precise hits at their fortifications. If the Ukrainian military chooses to hold static positions, they become targets for gliding bomb raids; if they opt for 'flexible,' mobile defense, they expose themselves to attacks with artillery and drones.

Sharpening its sword…

Contrary to Western media's trash talk, Russian military has not been degraded. If anything, it has been significantly upgraded. The Russians have been very strategic and methodical in learning from their operations. Battlefield experiences have been systematically fed back up the command chain in order to study the army's weaknesses, and potential improvements to its operations. Eric Prince offered another telling example:

"If you shot at a Russian with artillery in March or April of 2022, it would take them an hour and a half to shoot back accurately. Now, about two minutes, which means if you shoot at them, you better be in your vehicle and hauling ass because they're going to get you otherwise."

I was trained as an artillery marksman in the military; for a well-trained, coordinated team, two minutes is enough to fire off perhaps four or five rounds but with no time to adjust the aim. Hitting a target with the first round can only happen by luck: normally you fire, get feedback if the shot was too long, short, off to the left or right, and then adjust the aim accordingly. Unless you’re shooting smaller calibre mortars, two minutes is only enough time to fire a few rounds, hope for a lucky strike and run.

If what Eric Prince said is true, the implications are actually quite staggering. It means that the Russian troops have been able to largely neutralize one of the most important and most effective means of modern warfare. And let’s not forget Russia’s logistical operations and unmatched industrial base producing a massive abundance of ammunition.

Their artillery weapons are designed to be simple, robust and reliable in all battlefield conditions so that they can fire almost 24/7 for days or weeks on end. They also have the world's best air defence systems, electronic warfare capabilities and an array of hypersonic missiles against which Western militaries have no defenses. Then there’s the Russian economy, which not only withstood the impact of all the Western sanctions, it is eclipsing the performance of all its Western rivals, including the United States.

Cut losses or double down on failure?

Rational policymakers would have to take all this into account, recognize a lost cause and adjust course. This is what the new administration in Washington is doing. But the European ship of fools is resolute, determined to double down on failure, no matter the cost. It must be the definition of idiocracy​,​ as it leads the old continent ​into a ​predictable tragedy. It will give rise to a large and powerful military industrial complex (MIC) - an alliance of big banks, government, military and private, for-profit defense corporations. The danger of this development was underscored by US President Dwight Eisenhower in his January 1961 farewell address.

Eisenhower’s warning

Today, it is worth pondering his words as they foreshadow the future of Europe:

“… we have been compelled to create a permanent armaments industry of vast proportions. Added to this, three and a half million men and women are directly engaged in the defense establishment. We annually spend on military security more than the net income of all United States corporations.

This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence – economic, political, even spiritual – is felt in every city, every state house, every office of the Federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society.

In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.

We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.”

Of course, Eisenhower’s words fell on deaf ears and the disastrous rise of misplaced power ​h​as indeed displaced the democratic processes and liberties in the ​U​nited States, leading it into one war after another, everywhere around the world, creating misery at home and mayhem abroad. European leaders are now deliberately embarking on that same path.

The flock and the (evil) shepherds

It is important to recognize that these changes also represent a teachable moment that should help us understand what’s driving them. Europe’s economies are stuck in a slow-motion decline, which has been largely self-inflicted and which may seem unstoppable. Unemployment is rising as small and medium-sized businesses face bankruptcy in their thousands and large corporations are idling productive capacities or moving them to China or the United States. Against that backdrop, government-directed large-scale investment programs will be received as a lifesaving relief.

Earlier this month, for example, the CEO of VolksWagen, Oliver Blume overtly embraced the opportunity to repurpose some of the company’s productive capacities and become a weapons manufacturer. Defense procurement contracts from the government will boost the company’s performance, so regardless of the nature of those contracts, the VW’s management and shareholders will welcome them. The workers will also benefit: keeping their jobs is certainly better than ending up on the street.

The cumulative effect of all the planned spending will create a temporary bonanza for the whole economy. If Chancellor Merz’s spending plans materialize in full, they could boost Germany’s economic growth from 1% to 2%. Of course, many politicians will try to hitch a ride on this gravy train and claim credit for the economic revival and all the new jobs. But all these considerations are downstream from where this policy originates. The politicians, businesses and labor are merely responding to the incentives that will cascade down the food chain. But who defined this system of incentives, and where do they originate? Before we get to that, ​l​et's spend a moment talking about black holes.

“An element of fear has to come in.”

According to the Financial Times, on 28 February 2025, five days after German elections, Friedrich Merz had lunch with the acting Finance Minister, Jörg Kukies. As FT reported, the future Chancellor “received a sobering briefing on the state of the economy from Mr. Kukies who explained that after two years of stagnation and with more clouds gathering over Europe’s largest economy, Berlin faced a €130 billion budget shortfall over four years and dwindling growth potential, according to people with knowledge of the presentation.” The shock and consternation of this revelation persuaded Merz about the urgency of “one of the sharpest U-turns in recent political history.”

If the FT reported this, it’s because that’s what they want the public to know. But the story rings vaguely familiar… something about black holes... Oh, right, last year Keir Starmer also discovered, just after his own election, that Britain faced a £22 billion budget shortfall - it’s the famous £22 billion black hole. Now, what’s the deal with all these black holes, and how come these politicians and the mainstream media are being so forthright about them? Well, they will ​b​e invoking these black holes to justify​ the savage austerity that the Merz government will impose on the German people, exactly as Starmer is doing in the UK.

The Financial Times foreshadowed all that with an article titled, "Europe must trim its welfare state to build a warfare state." Its author, Janan Ganesh spelled out what must be done. Basically, we must rearm and prepare for war. Only, the public is too stupid to realize it, so we must ratchet up the pain dial until the morale improves. Says Mr. Ganesh: "The question is whether the public agrees. .. Chronic discomfort isn't enough. An element of real fear has to come in..." ​T​hat's quite a nice mindset there so let’s check ​who the main protagonists of these events are.

Seriously, how do they find these sinister geeks?

Who’s driving the agenda?

The very fact that all of a sudden, Britain, France, and Germany, together with the EU, are all on board with this “sharp U-turn,” toward militarization and war preparations, also rings familiar. It’s reminiscent of that pandemic we had back in 2020 when nearly all the governments in the world somehow came to adopt the same unscientific, incoherent and nonsensical countermeasures.

And then it turned out that they were all incentivized to do so in a similar way: first, their economies were crippled by lockdowns, and then when they turned to the IMF and the World Bank for emergency loans, the loans were conditioned on all governments implementing the same incoherent and nonsensical countermeasures. I wrote an article about that in August 2020, titled “Covid 19: the banking cartel is driving the agenda.”

Back then, the enemy was a virus; today, the enemy is Russia, but the protagonists of the drama all report for work to the same bosses, the people who control the too-big-to-fail financial institutions. Take, for example Germany’s newly elected Chancellor: he used to be the chairman of the board of BlackRock for Germany. BlackRock happens to have very extensive investments in Ukraine.

The finance astrologist Jörg Kukies, is also a former banker: he spent 17 years of his career at Goldman Sachs and also served on the boards of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, European Financial Stability Facility and European Stability Mechanism (ESM). Incidentally, the fact that Kukies served at the ESM is very telling: this boring-sounding institution is an utter legal abomination. I dissected the ESM in an article I published last year (see below).

EU: living in the banksta’s paradise

Alex Krainer October 27, 2024

Banker fingerprints just everywhere

In fact, we find that many of these high-level bankers end up crafting policy in Western governments. A complete list could be very long, but let’s just look at another few examples: French President Emmanuel Macron is a former Rothschild banker. Former Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi, like Jörg Kukies was a Goldman Sachs banker. Draghi’s predecessor, Mario Monti was also a Goldman Sachs banker, as was the new Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney. Carney also served as the governor of the Bank of Canada (2008-2013) from where he smoothly transitioned to run the Bank of England (2013-2020). Notice, a touch of Carney, wrecked both the Canadian and British economies (the same could be said about the French economy under Macron and the Italian economy after two Goldman Sachs’ Marios at helm).

How bankers perform miracles

In my 2020 article about the pandemic, I shed some light on the means and ways in which these high-level bankers effect social change. But Mr. Carney revealed the recipe in a way that everyone can digest. In 2019, he brought his rich and varied skill set to the task of saving the planet as United Nations' Special Envoy for Climate Action and Finance. In an interview with Bloomberg TV in November 2020, Carney explained exactly how he would accomplish the miracle of saving the planet:

"We need a whole economy transition... it's really about looking for, and at the transition plans from all companies and backing those who are part of the solution and taking capital away from those who are part of the problem."

This was in fact, a very illuminating statement. With it, Mr. Carney admitted that the bankers can and do decide who in our economies gets credit and who doesn’t. They clearly make those choices in pursuit of their own chosen agendas, whether it’s pandemics, vaccinations, CBDCs, insect fodder for the masses, saving the planet from global warming or saving the world from the Russians. The whole cascade of incentives that shapes the conduct of our politicians, business leaders and the working people originate from those who employ people like Carney, Macron, Merz and Kukies and give them their marching orders.

If you ever wondered where the blight of windfarms came from, why you should eat insects, why your children need drag queens to read their stories, or why your sons should go and fight wars, the answer is almost invariably that the moneylending oligarchy willed it so.

The monolithic and ruthless conspiracy

The same power structures have been involved in every human tragedy for centuries now: they have been the driving force between most, if not all of the forever wars, color revolutions, regime changes, assassinations and social engineering experiments we have experienced over our lifetimes. They effect those changes, as Carney explained, by backing those who are part of the solution and taking capital away from those who are part of the problem. Now they decided that welfare states are the problem and that warfare state is the solution. See how everyone else already fell in line.

With their dark magic they effect changes in the “very structure of our society,” that Eisenhower warned us about. They comprise the “monolithic and ruthless conspiracy” that John F. Kennedy warned us about in his address to the National Association of Newspaper Publishers in 1961. It is they who almost certainly ordered his killing. And what are they about? In “Tragedy and Hope,” Carroll Quigley wrote that,

"The powers of financial capitalism had [a] far-reaching aim, nothing less than to create a world system of financial control in private hands able to dominate the political system of each country and the economy of the world as a whole. … The growth of financial capitalism made possible a centralization of world economic control and use of this power for the direct benefit of financiers and direct injury of all other economic groups."

The Clarion call, “come to the dark side: dominate or die” is their call. Is it any wonder that it’s exactly their minions ​l​ike Merz, Starmer and Macron ​w​ho responded to that call and are now dragging all of Europe to that dark side. Their plan is to prepare us for the fight to dominate, or to die. Of course, they plan to dominate. The dying is for the rest of us.​

It is time for us to be brave and very vigilant. They'll hype up the economic growth they are now stimulating through military spending. They will also ramp up demonization of Vladimir Putin and they'll blame all the ills of our societies on Russia. If necessary, they'll resort to spectacular false flag actions to create another mass formation psychosis and make us consent to their wars and willing to fight in them. But we are not raising our children to kill and die in their wars but to live out their lives in security, prosperity and liberty. We should stay in the light and choose to love, not to dominate.

P.S. See you in Calgary?

I’ve been very honored to be invited to the Cornerstone forum event which will be held in Calgary on Saturday, 10 May. All the information is in the infographic below.

Don’t be square - be there (if you can)!! =)

Alex Krainer – @NakedHedgie is the creator of I-System Trend Following and publisher of daily TrendCompass investor reports which cover over 200 financial and commodities markets. One-month test drive is always free of charge, no jumping through hoops to cancel. To start your trial subscription, drop us an email at TrendCompass@ISystem-TF.com, or:

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