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Johan's avatar
Jan 9Edited

Umair, this is essential analysis. Your framing of the violent expansionist phase of fascist collapse is exactly right, and I appreciate how you cut through the lazy “Donroe Doctrine” explanations to reveal the actual moral-existential logic at work.

I’ve been analyzing Venezuela through the November 2025 National Security Strategy framework, which explicitly documents what you’re describing. The NSS’s “Trump Corollary” authorizes military force to assert “American dominance in the Western Hemisphere” and deny “non-Hemispheric competitors” access to strategic assets. But you’re absolutely correct that this isn’t 19th-century empire building. It’s fascist lebensraum with documented doctrine.

Your point about the annihilation of sovereignty is the key insight most analysts miss. Venezuela wasn’t regime change, it was demonstrating that sovereignty itself is now conditional on U.S. approval. Maduro extracted, Trump announces “we’re going to run the country,” and the message to Greenland, Canada, Europe is clear: your right to exist as sovereign entities is negotiable if we decide your resources or territory serve our interests.

The parallel you draw between domestic predation (no American has inherent rights to dignity, healthcare, safety) and external predation (no nation has inherent sovereignty unless we grant it) reveals the unified logic. The NSS doesn’t just authorize Venezuela, it establishes the framework for systematic erasure of sovereignty anywhere the doctrine applies. That’s not geopolitics. That’s moral order through force.

The behavioral pattern isn’t empire seeking resources. It’s —-fascist state requiring demonstration of dominance to validate its own superiority mythology.

I write from a geopolitical and behavioral analysis perspective, focusing on how authoritarian doctrine operates through game theory and strategic frameworks.

Your moral-philosophical framing adds the existential dimension that explains Why this pattern doesn’t stop at hemispheric borders. The logic of fascist superiority requires constant expansion to validate itself. That’s why Greenland and Europe are already threatened.

Really appreciate your thought process here. You’re one of the few voices connecting the domestic authoritarian collapse to the international expansion in ways that reveal the unified pathology. If readers want the strategic/doctrinal analysis that complements your moral framework, I’d encourage them to check out my work on the NSS architecture and Venezuela as proof-of-concept.

The capital risk point you close with is critical. When moral order collapses and sovereignty becomes negotiable, capital has no stable ground. Markets price risk based on rules. That’s an unhedgeable risk no portfolio can price correctly.

Keep teaching. Those of us analyzing this from different angles all arrive at the same conclusion: We’re watching documented authoritarian doctrine execute in real-time, and most people still think it’s just “politics.” Your voice cutting through that delusion is essential.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

—Johan

Professor of Behavioral Economics & Applied Cognitive Theory

Former Foreign Service Officer

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