For most people in the West, China is a mystery, and given China’s increasing economic, diplomatic, and military power, they want to know what China will do.

Europe paints China as an economic threat that competes unfairly. The United States paints China as a military threat bent on taking over the world.

But what is China saying?

China’s government publishes its plans. Five-year plans, long white papers, and separate departments each issuing their own documents. If we want to know what China is going to do, all we need to do is listen and read a little (or a lot).

Two cultural differences that help us know the direction China is heading are Fast Messages vs. Slow Messages (Hall) and Individualism vs. Collectivism (Hofstede)

• A fast message is a headline, slogan, press release, memo, or bulleted list. It is quick to send and quick to read but contains less information.

• A slow message is a book, a hundred-page plan, a white paper running tens of thousands of words; it’s time-consuming to read but provides much more information.

Western governments communicate in Fast Messages, and China communicates in Slow Messages. Therefore, we know more about China’s plans because of their longer Slow Message communication.

• Individualism is a culture built around the person. People act for themselves, speak for themselves, and are judged on what they personally achieve.

• Collectivism is a culture built around the group. People act as part of a group; the group’s goals matter more than any one person’s, and people are judged by what the group achieves.

Western governments communicate as individuals. A leader makes a campaign promise to attract votes, but they are not required to keep it. Even if a campaign promise becomes policy, the next leader is not required to continue that policy.

China communicates as an organization. The Party issues the policy. The commitment belongs to the organization. Officials come and go, and the policy stays in force. We know more about China’s plans because their commitments extend beyond the people who made them.

Slow Messages and Collectivisms work together to give us a solid idea of where China is headed.

Six documents give us a solid understanding of China’s trajectory:

The 15th Five-Year Plan, adopted by the National People’s Congress on 12 March 2026, covering the economy, technology, and spending.

The 20th Party Congress work report, 16 October 2022. The Party’s own statement of where the country is going, and by when.

The Third Plenum resolution, 18 July 2024. The Party's plan for the economy at home, with every reform task due by 2029, the 80th anniversary of the People's Republic.

The national security white paper, 12 May 2025, is the first one China has issued. It states what China will not do.

The national defense white paper, 24 July 2019 (the most recent). The dated military milestones.

The global governance white paper, 17 June 2026. What China asks of other countries and institutions.

So why is none of this well known? Most people read the English versions of these documents. The English versions differ from the Chinese. In one case, Beijing’s English version inserted a year that isn't in the Chinese version. Secondly, they are long documents, and Westerners, Americans in particular, are used to Fast Message communication that doesn’t require a long attention span.

The good news is that China’s intentions are focused on China and a commitment to international institutions (no desire to take over the world). This reinforces my optimism for the future.

Wednesday’s Edition: China’s commitments: Internal growth, the environment, more say in international institutions.

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If the U.S. held free and fair elections, there would be no doubt the Republicans (and Trump’s power along with them) would be swept aside during the midterms on three November. We already know Trump and the Republicans have rigged the elections: there will not be free and fair elections. They have:

• redistricted mid-decade

• restricted who can vote

• attempted to stop mailing ballots

• threatened intimidation tactics at polling places

• seized ballots from a county election office

• sued more than 30 states to get their voter rolls

• threatened to prosecute election officials

• called for Republicans to “take over the voting”

• refused to commit to accepting the results

• used a federal immigration database to flag voters as noncitizens

• cut federal election security support to the states

• ordered an investigation of ActBlue, the Democrats’ main fundraising platform

• delayed the release of a federal voting machine security study

Despite their efforts, they may still lose, and Trump and the Republicans are setting the groundwork for that as well. Based on past actions, this is what Trump and the Republicans are likely to do.

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Imagine the Supreme Court rules that Trump and the government no longer have to follow due process: give a reason or retaliatory actions, follow published rules, or hold a hearing before taking away a benefit. Here is what happens, based on what other governments have already done.

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Do the Americans want a repressive, authoritarian-style government such as Russia, North Korea, or Turkey, or a free America?

The 5th and 14th Amendments of the U.S. Constitution, along with court interpretations, are key components of maintaining a free America. Trump and the Republicans would like them to go away. The latest iteration was Trump attempt to ban CNN, MS NOW, and Politico from the White House.

Authoritarian control depends on punishing people arbitrarily, without explanation, and with no recourse for those targeted. That’s exactly what the amendments and court cases protect against in the U.S. Currently, before the government takes away a benefit, the Due Process Clause in the 5th Amendment requires it to give the reason, follow published rules, and allow those targeted to respond. If Trump and the Republicans can get the appeals courts or the Supreme Court to uphold Trump’s press ban (a lower court blocked it with a temporary restraining order on September 24), it weakens the law that protects all Americans.

Here is a small sample of what Trump could do with that power:

• End the payments of a retired worker who spoke at an anti-Trump rally.

• Revoke a journalist’s passport while she is reporting abroad, which leaves her unable to travel.

• Fire a career scientist the day after her research contradicts a White House statement.

• Revoke the license of a local television station owned by a network that criticizes Trump.

• Cancel a university’s research grants the day after its students protest the administration.

• Revoke the status of a voter-registration group before an election. Donors lose their tax deduction, and the group loses its funding.

Without the protections currently in place, Trump and the Republicans can effectively put down most political opponents. And that’s exactly what they are testing with the latest press ban. The administration has lost most of these fights. That is not a reason to relax. That's why the protections matter. In each loss below, a judge stopped the government because it skipped the reasons, rules, or hearing that due process requires. In the two cases it won, the targets lost their access or were deported. The administration keeps testing because it needs only one Supreme Court win to set a rule that applies to every American. Here is the pattern:

• November 2018: The White House revoked CNN’s Jim Acosta’s pass after he argued with Trump at a press conference. Judge Timothy Kelly ordered the pass returned because the White House violated Acosta’s due process rights. Trump lost.

• August 2019: Press Secretary Stephanie Grisham suspended Playboy reporter Brian Karem’s pass for 30 days. A federal appeals court ruled the White House violated Karem’s due process rights. Trump lost.

• February 2025: The White House barred the Associated Press from the Oval Office and Air Force One after the AP used “Gulf of Mexico.” An appeals court let the ban stand. Trump won.

• April 2025: A lower court ruled the administration’s deportation of Abrego Garcia to El Salvador violated due process. The Supreme Court ordered the government to facilitate his return. Trump lost.

• March 2025: Trump signed an executive order against the law firm Perkins Coie. Judge Beryl Howell struck it down because, among other items, it violated due process. Three other targeted firms also won. Trump lost.

• 16 May 2025: The Supreme Court ruled that deporting Venezuelans under the Alien Enemies Act with about 24 hours’ notice violated due process. Trump lost.

• May 2025: DHS revoked Harvard’s certification to enroll international students. Judge Allison Burroughs blocked it the next day because it violated due process. Trump lost.

• June 2025: The Supreme Court let the administration deport migrants to third countries without the notice and review a lower court had required. Trump won.

• 12 January 2026: Judge Amit Mehta ruled the Energy Department violated the equal protection guarantee of the Fifth Amendment when it canceled clean energy grants based on how states voted in 2024. Trump lost.

• 27 August 2026: Judge Rita Lin ruled the Pentagon’s designation of the AI company Anthropic as a supply chain risk violated due process. Trump lost.

This is not a comprehensive list.

Due process is a cultural choice written into law. It is Trompenaars’ Universalism in practice, where the government follows the law. The other choice is Particularism, where the government decides the law based on who the target is. Universalism and Particularism are reinforced by GLOBE’s Power Distance: whether a society expects power to be shared and leaders to answer to the public, or accepts that those at the top rule without explanation. Low Power Distance societies expect equal treatment and a say in government. A government that punishes people without giving reasons or a hearing is acting on High Power Distance.

This is the choice America must make: a free, Universalist, Low Power Distance government and society or a Republican, Particularist, High Power Distance dystopia.

The upside is that when culture drives the outcome, we have a good idea of what will come next.

Friday’s Edition: America’s choice: Trump - anger, threats, and revenge or America - institutions, law, and dignity.

Get a solid understanding of Trompenaars’ cultural dimensions by purchasing the guide or subscribing to Cultural Perspective (free or paid) and receiving the guide for free.

Americans are familiar with part of their Fifth Amendment. You see it in movies when a witness or defendant “takes the Fifth,” meaning they are protected from being forced to testify against themselves.

But there are four other stipulations in the American 5th Amendment that most Americans are unaware of:

• Requiring a grand jury to formally charge a person with a federal felony before trial

• Barring “double jeopardy,” which is trying a person twice for the same crime

• Requiring fair payment when it takes private property for public use

• Requiring fair legal procedures before the government takes your life, liberty, or property - the Due Process Clause.

The Due Process Clause is a key component that keeps Americans free, and it is at the center of the lawsuit CNN, MS NOW, and Politico filed after Trump revoked their reporters’ press passes. Supreme Court decisions interpreting the Due Process Clause hold that once the government grants a benefit (press credentials, in this case), it cannot take it away without notice, a stated reason, and a chance to contest it. It has implications far beyond a free press or free speech for the Americans.

The Due Process Clause protects ordinary Americans when the government takes away something it has already given them. The same words appear in the Fourteenth Amendment, which applies the rule to state and local governments. Under this rule, the Supreme Court has held that the government cannot cut off a family’s welfare benefits without a hearing first (Goldberg v. Kelly, 1970), cannot suspend a driver’s license without a chance to contest it (Bell v. Burson, 1971), cannot suspend a student from public school without telling the student the charge and hearing their side (Goss v. Lopez, 1975), and cannot fire a public employee who has job protections without notice and a chance to respond (Cleveland Board of Education v. Loudermill, 1985). The same principle covers federal benefits like Social Security and veterans’ payments, and professional licenses. The government is not required to let an individual keep the benefit forever, but it is required to:

1. Tell the person why it is taking the benefit away.

2. Follow published rules.

3. Allow the person to respond before it acts.

These are exactly the procedures that dictators and authoritarian regimes cannot allow. It’s not surprising that Trump and the Republicans want to take them away from the Americans.

The Trump-Republican regime failed to provide advance notice and a way to challenge the decision. Trump’s explanation for taking the benefit away is a problem in itself. He called the outlets' reporting "unfavorable coverage," a weak argument at best.

Now it’s up to the courts to decide the outcome. Will the American justice system support Trump or the Constitution?

Wednesday’s Edition: What happens if the upper courts uphold Trump's press ban? It’s not good for America’s freedom.

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Trump’s tariffs, his war, and his redrawn districts are not the worst of it. The worst is what those three policies are doing to the voters. After Trump is gone, Americans may look at the tariffs, war, and vote rigging and vote to keep them. Trump and the Republicans won’t have to lie to them. They will want the tariffs, they will want the war, and they will accept elections decided before the voting starts.

Here is why.

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Trump is losing control of the Republican Party, and the collapse is already underway.

His approval is at a record low. Gas set a new record over Labor Day weekend. The war he started with Iran is deeply unpopular. A majority of Republican voters call the Texas redistricting what it is: cheating. Groceries cost more than they did a year ago, and people notice that every week at the register.

Republicans came to Dallas for the “midterm convention” to cheer him on. Behind the scenes, they are planning for the day he is gone. Donors, strategists, and lawmakers are already fighting over who takes the party from him. JD Vance wants it. Ted Cruz has already said the party is not behind Vance.

So the obvious question is who wins that fight. But that is the wrong question.

A party is not a person. It’s a set of policies, and the policies are the things that continue after Trump:

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Governments make policies that either support profit for corporations and the rich or opportunity and success for people.

When a government writes a law, it decides who comes first. The US government tends to put companies first. The Chinese government tends to put ordinary people first. Here is what that difference looks like:

1. Transportation. In 1982, Congress raised the federal gas tax and assigned 80% of the new money to highways and 20% to public transit (Eno Center for Transportation). The highway money paid road builders and expanded the market for cars, car parts, car maintenance, and most importantly, oil companies. Sixty-six percent of oil goes to vehicles (EIA, "Use of oil”).

China took a different route and built 50,400 km of high-speed rail (China Daily). China has highways also but the US has no dedicated high-speed line (Fast Company).

2. Drug prices. A U.S. 2003 law barred Medicare from negotiating the prices of the drugs it covers under Part D (KFF).

Since 2018, China’s national government has bought generic drugs in bulk. By the end of 2022, prices on 294 drugs had fallen by about 50% on average (Frontiers in Pharmacology).

3. Health insurance. In the U.S., health insurance and many hospitals are run to be as profitable as possible. As a result, Americans pay an average of $15,474 per person (CMS; Home Health Care News). Costs are so high that about 45,000 Americans die every year because they can not afford health insurance (Harvard Gazette).

At the end of 2025, China’s basic medical insurance covered 1.33 billion people, about 95% of the population (State Council of China).

4. Taxes. The 2017 US tax law cut the corporate tax rate from 35% to 21% with no end date (Tax Policy Center). This increased the profit margin for corporations and the wealthiest individuals.

In 2018, China raised the monthly income at which workers begin paying income tax from 3,500 yuan to 5,000 yuan (China Daily). The change cut government revenue by about 320 billion yuan a year but helped China's poorest.

5. Education. In the 2025 to 2026 school year, tuition at US public four-year universities averaged $11,950 a year in tuition and fees and $45,000 at nonprofit universities (College Board). In June 2024, Americans owed $1.65 trillion in student loans (Federal Reserve Bank of New York). In fiscal year 2025, 21 US universities each held endowments worth more than $10 billion. Harvard's endowment reached $55.67 billion, and Yale's reached $44.15 billion (Forbes).

In fall 2023, Shanghai raised public university tuition for the first time in more than 20 years. After the increase, students pay $913 to $1,039 (The China Project). In July 2021, China ordered tutoring companies for core school subjects to become nonprofits. It also banned them from raising money on stock markets (WilmerHale).

6. Minimum wage. The US federal minimum wage has stayed at $7.25 an hour since 24 July 2009. No other period since the minimum wage began in 1938 has lasted this long without a raise (NPR). Low wages mean larger bottom lines for companies.

A 2004 Chinese regulation requires provincial governments to increase their minimum wages at least once every two years (CECC).

7. Rural internet. From 2015 to 2020, the Federal Communications Commission paid AT&T, Frontier, and CenturyLink more than $7.3 billion to bring broadband to rural homes. After the payments ended, AT&T served only 31.5% of the addresses it had reported as covered (Broadband Breakfast).

By the end of 2021, more than 99% of China’s villages had both fiber and 4G service (Yicai Global).

No government chooses only profit or only people. The US government pays for Medicare and Social Security. China’s basic insurance leaves patients paying a large part of their medical bills themselves. The difference is which side each government favors when the two conflict.

Culture also decides what “good for the people” means. US culture puts the individual first: Individualism (Hofstede). Americans define a good life as the freedom to choose, compete, and earn. US lawmakers act on this belief when they assign transit, medicine, and broadband to private companies.

Chinese culture puts the group first: Collectivism (Hofstede). For more than 2,000 years, Confucian teaching has held rulers responsible for the people's welfare. In the fourth century BC, the philosopher Mencius wrote: “The people are the most important, the state comes second, and the ruler is least.” Chinese leaders act on this belief when they order drug prices down and build rail lines across the country.

Culture narrows their options. Understanding the cultural drivers helps explain the why and the what’s next.

Americans are at the breaking point of making sacrifices and paying for corporate profit, and helping the rich get richer. I am optimistic this will change. The change may happen as soon as the midterm elections on 3 November; it may take another decade, but it will happen.

Get a solid understanding of Trompenaars’ cultural dimensions by purchasing the guide or subscribing to Cultural Perspective (free or paid) and receiving the guide for free.

Trump wins the headlines, even the week, but he loses the long term for himself and the U.S. A loss not for years, but for decades, maybe permanently. Trump has made three strategic errors that will cost America.

Political decisions work on three levels.

1. Tactical is what it does for you this news cycle.

2. Operational is what it does to your position in the next election.

3. Strategic is what it does to your party and your country over decades.

Trump is excellent at the first. There is no evidence he has ever thought about the third.

Tariffs

Tactically, they owned the news cycle, delivered a campaign promise, and brought foreign leaders to Washington. Three quick wins for Trump.

Operationally, Americans paid them, essentially a federal tax enacted by Trump.

Strategically, it’s a disaster. Trump has dismantled America’s free trade system that put the United States at the center of world trade. Europe is trading with Asia. Asia is trading with South America. Canada is trading with Mexico. All are excluding the U.S. None of it comes back. New supply chains are in place. Contracts are signed for the next decade.

Iran

Tactically, the February 28 strikes killed Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei along with Iran’s armed forces chief and the head of the Revolutionary Guards. Trump’s numbers went up. He was a hero in Israel. Three quick wins for Trump.

Operationally, Iran closed the Strait of Hormuz. Diesel prices are at an all-time high, and gas is closing in on $5.00, and voters trust Democrats more than Republicans on the economy. U.S. bases in the Gulf are heavily damaged, two aircraft carriers were driven off, and Americans are dead. Republican support has fallen from 77 percent to 69 percent.

Strategically, it’s a disaster. Trump did a sneak attack during negotiations. He did it without Congress, UN approval, or even informing the allies from whom he then expected support. It will take decades to regain this lost trust. Gulf states that host American bases must decide whether those bases protect them or make them targets in someone else's war. Munitions stockpiles are drawn down, there are no carriers left in the Pacific, and anyone who wanted to test that has been handed the window. Iran now controls the Strait and may do so permanently.

Redistricting

Tactically, it produced headlines, reassured supporters and donors, and put the Democrats further behind in the House race. Three quick wins for Trump.

Operationally, it may deliver as many as 7 to 9 seats for the Republicans in the midterms.

Strategically, it’s a disaster. It creates a system in which the election is decided before it happens, and it creates an arms race no one can stop: Missouri redrew. Ohio redrew. California redrew. Seventy-one percent of Americans and 69 percent of Republicans say partisan map-drawing should not be allowed.

Three of Trump’s tactical victories and strategic disasters that will afflict the U.S. for decades to come.

If these were the only 3, it would be damaging enough, but these are three of many.

Get a solid understanding of Trompenaars’ cultural dimensions by purchasing the guide or subscribing to Cultural Perspective (free or paid) and receiving the guide for free.

Trump told the Americans that he would have gas at $2 a gallon, and now it’s $4. He promised no new wars, and then he started one. He said tariffs would bring factories back, and spending to build them has dropped 25%. This list goes on, and I have a longer partial list at the end.

But my question to you is, at what point do the Americans, or more specifically, do the Republicans, and narrowly, does MAGA, realize what Trump is doing to them?

It’s not all their fault, in part because we all want to believe our leaders. We want to believe someone who says, “Things are not going right, and I can fix it.” It’s great to trust someone like that, vote for them, and say, “Yes, get the job done.” And that’s what Trump promised: he would get the job done, but he hasn’t. It’s time to face that reality.

So at what point do the Americans say,

“It’s over, Trump, I don’t believe you anymore. I put my trust in you. I believed you. But you have not delivered. You promised me things only to get me to vote for you. It’s called lying, and now that I know it, you don’t have my trust, my belief, or my vote.”

In a democracy, a campaign promise or a declaration from those in power is a public contract. You hand someone power, and in return they do the things they said they would do. The only enforcement is the next election. There’s no court, no penalty, no refund. If voters keep returning a politician who doesn’t deliver, then promises become meaningless. That’s how a system stops working, one unpunished lie at a time.

Believing Trump the first time was not a failure; it was hope. Believing him lie after lie is the failure.

So, America, do the work yourself. Read the ten items below. Check every one against sources you trust, not mine. Then vote in November, and hold Trump and the Republicans to the contract the way you’d hold anyone else who took your money and didn’t do the job - fire them.

1. Release the Epstein files. He promised release while campaigning, then called the push for transparency a Democrat hoax. In July 2025, his FBI and DOJ said there would be no further disclosures. Congress eventually forced it by law, and the releases came out heavily redacted.

2. Eliminate the national debt. Total public debt crossed $40 trillion for the first time on August 18, 2026, months earlier than projected. The deficit for the first ten months of fiscal 2026 was $1.799 trillion, already more than all of fiscal 2025’s $1.775 trillion. Interest on the debt now costs more than national defense. (U.S. Treasury)

3. Gas under $2.00 a gallon. The national average was $2.81 in early January 2026. It hit $4.56 on May 21 after the Iran conflict closed the Strait of Hormuz, and sat at $4.14 on September 3, heading into the first Labor Day in history with gas above $4. (AAA, GasBuddy)

4. “Cut energy and electricity prices in half within 12 months.” Residential electricity is up more than 18% since he returned to office. Rates rose 7.3% between April 2025 and April 2026 alone, from 17.55 to 18.83 cents per kilowatt-hour. The 18-month version of the deadline passed in July 2026. (EIA)

5. Lower prices on day one. PolitiFact rates this stalled. Groceries, electricity, housing, and medical care all cost more than when he took office. (PolitiFact)

6. “We’re not cutting Medicaid.” He said in April 2025 he’d veto any bill that cut it. CBO estimates the law he signed cuts federal Medicaid spending by $911 billion over ten years, with 10 million people losing coverage through Medicaid or the marketplace. (CBO)

7. “Insurance for everybody,” lower premiums. Enhanced subsidies expired December 31, 2025, and Congress did not renew them. Base marketplace premiums rose an average of 26% in 2026. KFF projected the average subsidized enrollee’s annual payment would go from $888 to $1,904, a 114% jump. More than a million fewer people signed up for 2026 coverage. (KFF)

8. End the Russia-Ukraine war in 24 hours. Delegations met in Geneva in mid-February 2026, near the war’s fourth anniversary, and reached nothing. (PolitiFact). More than a year and a half after ‘day one’ the war rages on.

9. No new wars. He announced combat operations against Iran on February 28, 2026. The Strait of Hormuz has been effectively closed since. The war is nowhere near an end.

10. Deport “the worst of the worst.” ICE data as of April 4, 2026 shows 70.8% of people in detention had no criminal conviction. In January 2026, when detention hit a record 70,766, it was 74.2%. Of the growth in detention during fiscal 2026, 92% came from people with no criminal convictions. (TRAC, Cato Institute)

Get a solid understanding of Trompenaars’ cultural dimensions by purchasing the guide or subscribing to Cultural Perspective (free or paid) and receiving the guide for free.

A party on death ground does not repeal its unpopular policies to win back voters. It writes stricter rules and punishes the people who break them.

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The Republican Party is on “death ground” (see Wednesday’s Edition). Death ground is when your survival is at stake and fighting to the death is the only choice.

The Republican Party that created, enabled, and supports Trump cannot separate itself from the disastrous results. Many realize that losing power means jail terms for corruption, failing to follow their constitutional duties, and, for some, treason. People in that position will fight to the death.

Americans vote on 3 November 2026. All 435 House seats are on the ballot, along with 35 Senate seats and 39 governorships. Democrats need three net House seats to take the chamber.

Political decisions sort into three levels:

• Tactical: what it does for you this news cycle.

• Operational: what it does to your position in the next election.

• Strategic: what it does to your party and your country over decades.

Read more

Trump put Iran on “death ground.” Death ground is what you create when your war aim is to remove the other government. The target has no option but to fight. People in that position fight harder than anyone predicted. Deterrence stops working, because there is nothing left to threaten them with.

War comes in two kinds, and the difference decides how a war ends. A limited war leaves the losing government in power, so it ends in negotiation. An unlimited war removes that government, and at the extreme it destroys the population, regime change, and genocide. Trump named regime change as a purpose of the Iran campaign on February 28, 2026, the day it started. That is an unlimited war.

Ali Khamenei, Iran’s Supreme Leader for 36 years, was killed in the opening strikes. His son Mojtaba replaced him. Ali Larijani, one of Iran’s most senior political figures, was killed. Intelligence minister Esmaeil Khatib was killed. The Revolutionary Guard’s naval commander, Alireza Tangsiri, was killed. Reported Iranian military deaths run from 3,528 to more than 6,000, and UN humanitarian reporting counts more than 3,400 civilians killed. Iran did not surrender because if they surrender, they lose everything; that’s an unlimited war. It can only escalate.

• Hitler put Russia on death ground in 1941, and the formerly dysfunctional Red Army finished the war in Berlin.

• Putin put Ukraine on death ground, and Ukraine’s mediocre military is now striking Moscow and deep into Russia’s interior.

• The United States put Iran on death ground, and Iran’s outmatched military has closed the Strait, wrecked the headquarters of US Naval Forces Central Command in Bahrain, killed six American soldiers in a drone strike on Port Shuaiba in Kuwait, and forced two aircraft carriers out of the fight.

Trump is driven by Internal Control (Trompenaars), the cultural perspective in which people control the environment and situations. Trump genuinely believes that if he applies enough force, he can produce the result he wants.

External control is the cultural perspective in which one works with the environment and the situation. The Americans have always tended toward internal control but, after the Cold War, have been more willing to work with others and the developing situations: External Control. Trump has doubled down on Internal Control.

In a limited war, the losing side decides when it ends, because it decides when the cost of fighting exceeds the cost of surrender. But in an unlimited war, when a nation is on death ground, a nation fights to the end.

The second thing Washington got wrong is the “value of the object”, meaning how much each side cares about the result. The people in the war zone care most, because the bombs land on them. Distant parties care least. For the Iranians, this is existential; their lives depend on winning, and they are fully in the fight. For the Americans, it’s a nuisance; it raises gas and food prices. Americans are far less motivated to fight.

Iran will fight with much more ferocity and as long as it takes. The Americans will lose interest; their heart is not in the fight. Winning this type of war has little to do with military strength. The Americans know this from Vietnam and again in Afghanistan, but seem not to have learned.

The U.S. has dropped a lot of bombs on Iran and killed thousands of people, including several Iranian leaders and over 100 schoolgirls.

Iran has cut traffic in the Strait of Hormuz by 95 percent. Gulf crude exports fell 47 percent. Oil passed $130 a barrel in April. American support facilities for naval and air operations have been damaged and destroyed. American carriers had to stay out of the Persian Gulf entirely, operating from the Arabian Sea to avoid Iranian missiles. The USS Gerald R. Ford caught fire and had to retreat to Crete for repairs. The Lincoln strike group could not resupply because Iran had destroyed the resupply base and had to retreat to Thailand. Internationally, the U.S. has become the pariah, and Iran the noble nation standing against the oppressor.

This is what death ground produces. America can not win this war.

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Trump made a pivotal error. A pivotal error is costly because it permanently removes options. Trump will never get the discarded options back, so he spends the rest of the game choosing from what is left, and everything left is worse than what was before.

For roughly 30 years after the Cold War ended, China and Russia turned their attention inward, and the United States mostly followed the rules it had written. The U.S. and Russia stopped funding opposite sides of the same insurgencies. Those funds and the peace helped fuel compounded growth and wealth. Globally, hundreds of millions of people moved out of poverty and into the middle class. Millions moved from the middle class to the wealthy. That was the rules-based order, and it worked: a positive-sum game in which everyone who participated could get richer.

Putin and Trump operate from a different cultural perspective. In their view, power means the more powerful nation taking territory, physically controlling government, and extracting other countries' resources at the expense of their people. That is a zero-sum game. It consumes wealth instead of producing it.

This is Trump’s pivotal error: a change from the positive-sum game to the zero-sum game. The underlying driver is a shift from Egalitarianism to Hierarchy (Schwartz).

• Egalitarianism is the cultural perspective in which parties treat each other as equals and accept the same obligations, including the parties strong enough to ignore them.

• Hierarchy is the cultural perspective in which an unequal distribution of power is the natural and legitimate order, so the party with the most power sets the terms but is not bound by them.

Russia is a clear example. Its National Wealth Fund held liquid assets worth 6.5 percent of GDP before the invasion of Ukraine. By April 2026, that figure had fallen to 1.8 percent. The economy contracted 0.3 percent in the first quarter of 2026 despite a large increase in government spending, and Russian trade volumes are at their lowest level in more than a decade. Putin exerted Russia’s greater strength and holds slightly more territory at the expense of a good deal of wealth.

Trump made his pivotal error on February 1, 2025, when he ordered 25 percent tariffs on Canada and Mexico, the two countries most tightly joined to the American economy. He then extended tariffs to nearly every nation. On January 3, 2026, American forces raided a military base in Caracas, captured the Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, and flew him to a jail in Brooklyn, New York. This was an illegal action under the UN Charter and violated the way nations deal with each other. On February 28, 2026, the United States and Israel began striking Iran, and Trump named regime change as a purpose, all Hierarchical actions that led to the zero-sum game.

With Iran, Obama, the European Union, China, Russia, and others spent years building the Iran nuclear agreement, signed on July 14, 2015. It was an Egalitarian instrument. Each party negotiated as equals and accepted the same terms, and a neutral agency verified them. It capped Iranian enrichment purity, limited the stockpile, removed about two-thirds of Iran’s centrifuges, and put inspectors inside the facilities. Trump withdrew from it on May 8, 2018, an outcome of his pivotal error: the move to Hierarchy.

By June 2025, Iran held 440.9 kilograms of uranium enriched to 60 percent purity, which is 99 percent of the way to weapons-grade. Inspectors could still count it, so negotiations over a verified number remained possible. Then Trump bombed Iran. Inspectors were blocked from sites. This reduced his options. Then he started a war with Iran. Iran denied the IAEA any access, further reducing his options.

Before the war, the Strait of Hormuz was open to shipping under Egalitarian maritime law. Iran closed it after Trump’s attack. Now Trump’s options to open it include Iran controlling the routes and charging a fee. Iran has proposed $1 to $2 million per vessel, or one dollar per barrel of oil, a move to Hierarchy. Options worse for the U.S. and better for Iran.

Since Trump’s pivotal error, all his options are worse for the U.S. and make Iran better off. The longer the war continues, the fewer options Trump has and the worse they are for him and the U.S. That is what Hierarchy costs.

Egalitarian rules held Iran because Iran had agreed to them. Hierarchy holds only when the weaker party accepts the terms, and Iran never will.

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What’s the Fed decision in September?

Before I answer, I want to explain the mechanism behind my prediction so you can agree or disagree with my assessment.

Kalshi’s prediction market contract on the Fed decision is trading at:

• A hike of 25 bps at 55%

• Fed maintains the rate at 43%

• A hike of more than 25 bps at 1%

The world invests in the U.S. economy largely because of “independence within government,” a system that separates monetary policy from politics. It is designed so decisions serve the economy, not a political party, but it doesn’t always work that way.

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What will America’s new normal be? All we know for certain is that it will not be what it was.

In America We Trust

The post-World War II American Global Order rested on international law and, significantly, trust in the U.S. As Canada’s Carney said, it was a “pleasant fiction,” but it worked far better than colonialism or empire-building. Then Trump and the Republican Party ended trust in the U.S. Moreover, they have created an environment of hostility toward the U.S. This will be difficult to overcome, but I believe this is what will drive the next reinvention of the U.S. - rebuilding trust.

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Will America return to normal? No, and that is good news.

Every crisis in American history produced a conservative, restorationist faction fighting to keep the status quo.

• In the 1770s, it was the Loyalists.

• In the 1860s, it was the Confederacy and, after the war, the Redeemers.

• In the 1930s, it was the American Liberty League, funded by industrialists who wanted to dismantle the New Deal.

Every one of them lost. The Loyalists, the Confederacy, and the Liberty League all fought the transition head-on as it happened, but could not stop it. The Redeemers, who were successful, attacked Reconstruction's enforcement rather than the amendments themselves.

MAGA is this cycle’s restorationist faction. The name states the goal directly: Make America Great Again. Again is the operative word. It promises a return to a normal that no longer exists. The historical pattern is clear: MAGA will lose. It gets swept aside by the transition it is trying to stop.

A second pattern explains why nobody can predict what comes next with confidence.

In 1774, almost nobody in the colonies wanted an independent republic. They wanted the arrangement they had before 1763.

In 1859, nobody predicted the end of slavery along with the U.S. becoming the largest industrial economy.

In 1932, nobody proposed that the United States should run the world’s financial and security systems.

Each new normal was unexpected. Friday’s Edition will speculate about the next one, and speculate is the honest word.

Do not expect a switch to flip in 2030. The crisis ending and the new normal beginning are separate events. The Revolutionary War ended in 1783, the Constitution came in 1787, and the first peaceful transfer of power between parties was not until 1801. The Civil War ended in 1865, and the settlement was not fixed until 1877. The Second World War ended in 1945, and the American global order took decades to build. In each case, the architecture went up in about five years, then took a generation to settle.

When the new normal starts, it is built in a short burst. Each time, one coalition gets an unusual amount of freedom to act and uses it to construct the architecture of the next era.

1787 to 1791. The Constitution was written in 1787 and ratified in 1788. The Judiciary Act built the federal courts in 1789. Hamilton restructured the national finances and chartered the first Bank of the United States in 1791. The Bill of Rights was ratified that December. Four years.

1861 to 1868. The Southern delegations walked out, and the Republican majority passed almost everything it wanted. The Homestead Act, the Morrill Act, and the Pacific Railway Act in 1862 built the base of the industrial economy. The National Banking Acts created a national currency. Then the Thirteenth Amendment in 1865 and the Fourteenth in 1868. Seven years.

1933 to 1938. Banking reform and deposit insurance in 1933. The Securities and Exchange Commission in 1934. Social Security and the Wagner Act in 1935. The minimum wage and the forty-hour week in 1938. Five years.

1944 to 1949. Bretton Woods in 1944. The United Nations in 1945. The CIA and a unified military establishment in 1947, the Marshall Plan in 1948, and NATO in 1949. Five years.

Then comes the long stretch where the new architecture either gets enforced or gets hollowed out, and that is where the real fight happens.

• The Fourteenth Amendment passed in 1868 and went unenforced for its purpose for ninety years.

• Reconstruction collapsed in 1877 and delivered Jim Crow instead of equality.

• The New Deal architecture was finished by 1938, then had to survive a court-packing failure and a hostile Congress.

• Bretton Woods held until Nixon ended gold convertibility in 1971.

Construction is fast, but not immediate. Consolidation is slow, and not guaranteed to succeed.

If the crisis comes to a head around 2030, the construction window is roughly 2030–2035. The consolidation runs to mid-century.

Watch for three markers rather than a date:

1. A governing coalition that holds power across more than one election.

2. A burst of legislation instead of executive orders.

3. The losing faction losing its institutional footholds.

The end of the crisis will not restore the American global order; it always ends in something different. So the question is, what replaces it? That is Friday (speculative) Edition.

Get a solid understanding of Trompenaars’ cultural dimensions by purchasing the guide or subscribing to Cultural Perspective (free or paid) and receiving the guide for free.

When will America return to normal? The short answer: never. But I mean that in a positive light. Here is my line of thinking:

• 1770s - 1790s. America (What would become the United States) in revolution. When the turmoil subsides, the 13 British colonies in North America are transformed into something completely different, and better: a representative dem…

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Canada’s prime minister Mark Carney has consistently outplayed Trump.

In Trump’s latest trade tariff tantrum, he announced a deal with Canada that did not exist, delayed his own tariffs for three days waiting for a deal to exist, watched Carney’s negotiators fly home, put 50 percent tariffs on 554 categories of Canadian goods, and then posted that he will double the tariff on Canadian cars, trucks, and car parts to 50 percent on 1 January 2027, and raise steel to 50 percent. Steel is already at 50 percent. He signed nothing. It was a post.

Carney has been laying plans for a year and a half in anticipation of this: twenty trade and security agreements across five continents, 1.5 billion customers tariff-free, $25 billion paid out to Canadian workers and businesses, twenty-seven major projects cleared, carrying $500 billion in private investment behind them.

The question is, what’s next?

That is best answered by understanding what drives the two men, because that is what makes this predictable.

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Fentanyl. Taxes on American technology companies. Aircraft certification. Bridge tolls. Dairy. Provincial liquor sales. A television commercial featuring Ronald Reagan. Canadian wildfire smoke.

Mark Carney read that list out loud on 22 August 2026. Every item on it is a reason the Trump administration has given, at one point or another, for taxing Canadi…

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