We may be closer to World War Three than we have been in 42 years.
World wars happen when giant alliances face off against each other, with each nation pledged to come to the defense of the other. World War I happened when there were two giant alliances facing off against each other. Those alliances had mutual defense pacts. An attack on one was an attack on all.
So the assassination of an unimportant prince in a tiny country, in a minor principality triggered World War I.
We are in danger of that happening today. Why?
September 3rd, Polish president Karol Nawrocki visited our president in the White House. Said President Trump to Nawrocki, “we’re with Poland all the way.”
But on the night of September 9th, nineteen Russian Gerbera reconnaissance drones penetrated up to 250 miles into Poland, deep, deep into Polish territory. NATO scrambled its jets. It put Polish F-15s, Dutch F-35s, Italian AWACS, and NATO air refueling tankers into the air. And it put German Patriot defense missiles on high alert.
NATO itself also went into high alert. Article four of the NATO treaty was invoked and diplomats from all 32 NATO countries met at NATO headquarters in Brussels. NATO’s Mark Rutte said that the NATO allies “expressed solidarity with Poland and denounced Russia’s reckless behaviour.” And Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said, “Poland is closer to a military conflict than at any time since World War Two.”
According to ChatGPT, “NATO military leaders described the incident as a deliberate and unprecedented violation. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen pushed for tighter sanctions; Ukraine’s President Zelenskyy and EU” and NATO leaders called for a joint European air defense system, a drone wall. But that’s all talk. In the end, there was no change in NATO’S force posture.
As for Moscow, it declared the whole thing “baseless and routine.” The Kremlin also implied that there was no threat to NATO. But remember, that’s what Putin said in the two months in which he was massing troops for the invasion of Ukraine. “ Talk,” he said, of “of an invasion is a lie. …Russia poses no threat to anyone.” Then the tanks rolled in.
Worse, we, the United States, are tempting Vladimir Putin to widen his Ukraine war. We are doing it by displaying weakness.
President Donald Trump’s lavish meeting with Vladimir Putin in Alaska has made Putin cocky. It has reassured him that we will do almost nothing to defend Ukraine.
Just seventeen days later, in the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation meeting of ten nations in China, Putin was celebrated as one of the world’s most powerful leaders. He was photographed with China’s Xi Jinping, India’s Narendra Modi, and North Korea’s Kim Jong Un. And China gave Putin a seat of honor at one of the most impressive military parades in modern history. All of this made Putin even cockier.
Worst of all, on September 4th, President Donald Trump was talking about tighter sanctions on Russia but was doing the opposite. He quietly ordered the withdrawal of security assistance funds—funds to strengthen the militaries of seven nations in Eastern Europe. He withdrew funds from the Baltic Security Initiative, which supported defense programs in Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia. And he pulled funds from Slovakia, Moldova, Finland, and, most important, Poland. So much for Trump’s “we’re with Poland all the way.” In other words, our president yanked the funding to strengthen the armies and air forces of the nations on Russia’s border. He weakened Europe’s first line of defense.
No wonder Polish Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski says that “Putin laughs at President Trump.” Our President’s Alaska summit and his withdrawal of defense funds from nations on Russia’s border were a virtual invitation to Putin to take more territory. A virtual invitation to invade more of Eastern Europe.
Republican Congressman Don Bacon said that Trump was signaling “shear weakness to Putin.” And that weakness may tempt Vladimir Putin to trigger world war three.
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About the author: Howard Bloom of the Howard Bloom Institute has been called the Einstein, Newton, Darwin, and Freud of the 21st century by Britain’s Channel 4 TV. Bloom’s new book is The Case of the Sexual Cosmos: Everything You Know About Nature is Wrong. Says Harvard’s Ellen Langer of The Case of the Sexual Cosmos, Bloom “argues that we are not savaging the earth as some would have it, but instead are growing the cosmos. A fascinating read.” One of Bloom’s eight previous books–Global Brain—was the subject of a symposium thrown by the Office of the Secretary of Defense including representatives from the State Department, the Energy Department, DARPA, IBM, and MIT. Bloom’s work has been published in The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, Wired, Psychology Today, and the Scientific American. Not to mention in scientific journals like Biosystems, New Ideas in Psychology, and PhysicaPlus. Says Joseph Chilton Pearce, author of Evolution’s End and The Crack in the Cosmic Egg, “I have finished Howard Bloom’s [first two] books, The Lucifer Principle and Global Brain, in that order, and am seriously awed, near overwhelmed by the magnitude of what he has done. I never expected to see, in any form, from any sector, such an accomplishment. I doubt there is a stronger intellect than Bloom’s on the planet.” For more, see http://howardbloom.net or http://howardbloom.institute
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References:
https://apnews.com/article/1232774279039f9e5c5b78bd58686cb9
https://apnews.com/article/099050548a8aab5b086b36d7f6bb1203
https://apnews.com/article/37d58d94f70814c8e7a23721997abc2b
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/aug/31/putin-modi-erdogan-xi-china-talks
https://www.ft.com/content/0157d5f9-1b27-4d6c-b44e-f0a77da59b5d
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2025/09/04/trump-europe-security-russia-ukraine
https://cepa.org/article/attack-on-poland-russias-debris-still-falling/
https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/topics\_110496.htm