pcr isn't optimistic about our future;

Our Existence Becomes Increasingly Tenuous by the day

Paul Craig Roberts

Recently I explained that “Presidents have little control over their governments.” https://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2025/09/28/presidents-have-little-control-over-their-governments/

The same holds for monarchs and “authoritarians.” There are many examples. I will use one in front of me at this moment as I reread Harry Elmer Barnes’ book, The Genesis of the World War.

World War I was planned by the French President, who wanted to recover Alsace-Lorraine, which Napoleon 3rd lost to Prussia in 1871, and the Russian foreign minister and Russian ambassador to France, who wanted to take from Turkey the Dardanelles Straits that connect the Black Sea to the Mediterranean Sea. Their conspiracy to ignite a European war in order to achieve these goals was put in place over several years. The French president, Poincare, and the Russians, Foreign Minister Sazonov and Russian Ambassador to France Izvolski, were not confident to take on Germany and Austria-Hungary without British support. Consequently, they brought the British Foreign Minister Sir Edward Grey into their plot, without the awareness of the British monarch.

Once the alliances and reassurances among the war plotters were in place, the Russians and French arranged, encouraged, the Serbian assassination of the Austrian Archduke, successor to the throne, and his wife, and if not responsible seized on the assassination to set in motion the wheels of war. Russia took the line that it had to protect Serbia from the Austrian-Hungarian Empire’s retaliation and used Austria’s ultimatum to Serbia as an excuse to order Russian mobilization............more...........