An older man approached me while I was sitting in a park. We spoke about global affairs for almost an hour, and I gathered enough information to realize he was a retired foreign policy advisor.

So, I asked him about Russia's invasion, and he laughed, saying the whole world would have felt a full-scale Russian military intervention - it's Russia!

You realized this instantly, but I didn't consider the entirety of Russia's capabilities. It hasn't dedicated considerable resources yet withstands NATO weapons, military training, finance, and the Ukrainian army, which are enormous.

Russia and China aren't disappearing from existence, and there's nothing the West can do about it. Yet, European and US hegemony refuse to acknowledge and accept reality, which isolates the West and facilitates it's demise.

Meanwhile, we're wandering around crumbled empires claiming superiority while the world progresses, and nothing will make us believe otherwise. The US defender of global democracy is the last string holding our nation's tarnished fabric together, and we're lost without the national narrative because it is our only shared identity.

We need a common enemy and goal, so we must rally against Russia and China and cheer for Ukraine and Taiwan - that's all there's left to believe in.