The Last War
An Empire No One Is Ready For
The world is not as chaotic as it appears. Chaos implies disorder, a lack of control. But what we are living through—what we have always lived through—is control disguised as chaos. There are patterns to empire, and once you see them, you can’t unsee them.
The structure is simple. The strong subjugate the weak. The powerful extract from the powerless. The dominant impose their will upon those who dare to exist outside their dominion. This is the way of empire, whether it’s Russia in Ukraine, Israel in Gaza, or the United States apparently everywhere fucking else.
Forget What You Think You Know About Safety, Security, and the Rule of Law
History does not move in straight lines. It loops. It echoes. It refines itself in the shadows until, one day, it emerges fully formed, unstoppable.
For decades, the U.S. played empire abroad. It engineered coups, installed puppet regimes, orchestrated endless wars. But what happens when an empire turns its weapons inward? What happens when the techniques perfected on foreign soil are brought home?
We are finding out.
Ukraine was the test for dismantling sovereignty.
Gaza was the test for perpetual control.
Now, the U.S. itself is the proving ground for what comes next: a world reshaped by conquest.
Once the hijacking is complete—once America itself is subdued—those long-whispered promises of territorial expansion will no longer be whispers. They will be reality.
And when that moment arrives, the world will understand too late that the wars of the last generations were never just about Ukraine, or Gaza, or Iraq, or Vietnam, or Germany, or France, or any single battlefield. They were rehearsals.
The real war—the one that remakes the global map—begins when the United States finally falls.
Step One: The Empire Consumes Itself
Every empire dies the same way: it turns its violence inward. The Roman legions that once conquered the world were eventually deployed against Romans themselves. The British Empire, once spanning continents, collapsed as it tried to hold together a homeland spiraling into economic and political decay.
And now, the U.S. follows the same trajectory.
The IDU—the global machine of right-wing authoritarianism—has spent years refining the playbook of controlled collapse. Ukraine and Gaza were not separate conflicts; they were blueprints for dismantling democracy under the guise of nationalism, for transforming a republic into a war state that serves only power.
The techniques are already in play:
- Electoral delegitimization: Just as Russia declared Ukraine’s government illegitimate before invading, and Israel renders Palestinian leadership irrelevant, the U.S. right-wing has spent years priming its base to believe that elections are only valid if they win. This ensures that power, once seized, is never relinquished.
- Legalized authoritarianism: You don’t need a dictatorship if you can bend the courts to your will. Laws are rewritten, precedents erased, and suddenly, the judiciary is no longer a check on power but its enforcer. See: Netanyahu’s legal war on Israel’s courts. See: Russia’s constitutional changes allowing Putin to rule indefinitely. See: America’s Supreme Court stacking, its erosion of voting rights, its slow march toward government by judicial fiat.
- The militarization of politics: From Putin’s "little green men" in Crimea to Israel’s settler militias, modern authoritarianism does not rely solely on standing armies—it creates armed factions loyal to the regime, willing to do what the official military cannot. America’s far-right militias, its police forces acting as paramilitary extensions of political movements, its normalization of political violence—all of it is preparation.
- Permanent crisis as governance: Gaza has shown the world that people will accept anything if they believe they are in constant danger. The U.S. is being primed for the same fate. Crime waves—real or manufactured. Border invasions. Insurrections, both staged and real. A population battered by fear will accept emergency rule, and emergency rule never ends.
Once this process is complete—once the U.S. is no longer a democracy in anything but name—the next phase begins. And this is where things get dangerous.
Step Two: The Borders Will Move
The West has spent decades convincing itself that the post-WWII world order is immutable. That borders are sacred. That conquest is a relic of history. But this belief is a fantasy, a privilege afforded only to those who have never been on the receiving end of real power.
Look at the people currently consolidating control. Look at the promises they have made.
- Russia has already declared that Ukraine is not the final goal. Moldova, the Baltics—Putin has been clear that his war is about restoring a Russian empire, not merely reclaiming a rogue province.
- Israel’s far-right has openly spoken of a "Greater Israel" that stretches beyond its current borders. The West Bank will be fully annexed. Southern Lebanon is already under de facto Israeli control. The expulsion of Palestinians is not an accident of war—it is the plan.
- And in America? The same forces that have destabilized the country have no intention of stopping at its shores. The idea of expansion is already lurking at the edges of political discourse. The return of the Monroe Doctrine, the "reclamation" of Latin America, the unspoken but ever-present belief that a weakened Mexico could be reshaped into something more useful. Greenland is the first acquisition, then Panama, then...
If you believe annexation is impossible, you have not been paying attention.
Step Three: The World Will Burn
Here is the final, brutal truth: when the U.S. is no longer a functioning democracy, the world will not become more stable. It will become more violent than ever before.
Because once the empire has been turned inward and broken, the chains of restraint are gone. The wars that could not be fought before—because they were too risky, too costly, too politically inconvenient—will begin in earnest.
- Taiwan’s days are numbered. With America too unstable to intervene, China will move. Not in a reckless invasion, but in a slow, calculated strangulation. The kind that works because there is no longer a functional superpower to stop it.
- Europe will fracture. NATO, weakened by internal American chaos, will be unable to stop the encroachment of Russian influence into Eastern Europe. The buffer states will fall one by one—not necessarily to military force, but to political subjugation, to leaders installed by Moscow, to governments that slowly, methodically dissolve the institutions that once held them to the West.
- The Middle East will erupt. A post-democratic America will no longer need to play peacemaker. Israel, freed from even the illusion of restraint, will complete its territorial ambitions with mass expulsions. Iran, sensing opportunity, will strike. Saudi Arabia, the Gulf states, Turkey—all will reposition themselves, and war will no longer be hypothetical.
- Latin America will be reclaimed. The Monroe Doctrine, revived under a nationalist American regime, will not be rhetoric—it will be policy. Expect interventions. Expect puppet states. Expect a return to the days when the U.S. treated an entire continent as its backyard, fit for economic extraction and military occupation.
And as the borders shift, as wars spiral out of control, as the world fractures into spheres of influence, the people at the top—the architects of this chaos—will watch from a distance.
Because that has always been the true function of empire. Not to serve the people, not to bring order, but to ensure that those with power never have to answer to anyone but themselves.
The Last Question: Can It Be Stopped?
We are past the point of warning signs. The structure is already in motion.
The only question left is whether anyone will act before it is too late.
Because if they don’t—if the U.S. falls completely, if the old world order collapses in its wake—the wars we have seen so far will look small in comparison.
And for the first time in generations, conquest will return as a force that redraws the map.
We're watching it happen.
The maps have already changed.
Normally this is where I would put the subscription note, and a paywall, and a hopefully clever summary quote to drop on Bluesky with the link... but I just want to say, thank you. Thank you for reading. For paying attention. For wanting, like me, a world that my kids can exist in without fear. Thank you for watching, and listening, and talking, and sharing, and being part of the humans that want to do this better. We can do this better. I will help. ben@proconsul.ca
The foundation of empire is expansion.This is empire in its traditional form, brute and unapologetic, a war of tanks, trenches, and annexations. This is America.
