Kingdom of Earth

A few weeks ago, YouTube’s mysterious oracle (a.k.a. The Algorithm) decided that my intellectual diet needed a new flavor: Professor Jiang. Fair enough—given the kind of content I usually consume, the algorithm wasn’t wrong. It read my mind, served me his videos, and said, “Here, this guy is basically you—only with better lighting and a fancier accent.”

At first, I gave him a polite two-minute hearing and moved on. Nothing personal against the man, but I’ve been overdosing on geopolitics lately. And honestly, my predictions about where things are headed have already been confirmed. Once you see the pattern, watching someone else spell it out feels like re-watching last week’s weather forecast.

But then my eldest sister—the nerd trifecta (history, literature, architecture) and proud Alaskan exile—forwarded one of his videos to the family WhatsApp group. Nice of her to share feeding the whole family with a regular dose of intellectual thought. That my cue: I sat down, clicked “play,” and gave him a real listen.

The gist of his point was: Iran will lure the U.S. into a ground war. To which I replied, before even watching: “Nope, not happening.” But hey, I didn’t want to be that guy who dismisses something without giving it a fair shot. So I listened. And yes, the conclusion remained: Iran will somehow seduce America into marching an army across its borders. I don’t even fully remember the narrative of that first video, but then came this bright Sunday morning. I made two parathas, two eggs, and poured steaming tea into a made-in-West-Germany thermos I thrifted at Value Village (thank you, unknown family). 

While sipping chai and chewing parathas, I opened YouTube. Because I had actually subscribed to the professor after my sister’s recommendation, YouTube kindly served me this gem: 

This video pushed me over the edge and forced me to write this blog. To record my ideas not just for myself but for future generations who might need a reminder that yes, some of us were smart enough to call the nonsense out. (Okay, I’m joking, but only partly.)

The problem is that Professor Jiang builds his predictions on eschatological fairy tales. Because in his view, according to “game theory,” fanatics call the shots. And so he sticks to predictions that don’t hold up.

In this video he again starts with Iran luring America into a ground war. Cute. Problem is, that era is over. America’s ground war days ended with Iraq and Afghanistan. The math doesn’t work anymore, invaders need three times the troops of defenders, which means even a million-strong army wouldn’t cut it against Iran. Add in Iran’s ability to sink carriers and America’s complete lack of appetite for another endless quagmire… this whole “Iran baiting” prediction collapses faster than a Jenga tower at a toddler’s birthday party.

But sure, let’s humor it for a second according to Jiang the U.S. takes the bait, loses badly, and spirals into civil war at home. So wait if losing to Iran was so “evident,” does he really think Americans are foolish enough to start such a war in the first place? Apparently, yes. Because nothing screams “sound strategy” like launching a disastrous invasion abroad just to come back and tear yourself apart at home. Brilliant. Truly 4D chess.

Then he hops to Ukraine: Russia will encircle Odessa, NATO will heroically intervene, and—wait for it—Europe will finally revolt against its own governments. Apparently, France and Germany, who can barely mobilize enough soldiers for a parade, are going to stop Russia’s industrial machine. LOL. Here’s reality (my take): Russia is outproducing the entire NATO bloc in weapons and ammunition. NATO troops in Europe? A few divisions at best. Ukraine’s fate? Grim but simple—Russia keeps moving west, takes Odessa, takes Kyiv, until Ukraine finally accepts reality. No “saviors” are coming. Russia will leave the rest of western Ukraine—the real Nazi crackpots—as a European problem. They were never part of the Russian Empire; Stalin only added them after WWII.

Jiang moves on and describes a cherry on top: in this process, Turkey is destroyed, and Moscow revives the Byzantine Empire with Greeks marching back to Constantinople. Excuse me! While I thank him for this free comedy routine.

By the 35th minute, Jiang solemnly predicts the U.S. bows out of the Middle East, Greater Israel emerges as a new empire, and Putin steps in to unify religions. The man delivers this with the seriousness of a surgeon—not even a smirk! Meanwhile, I’m sitting there thinking: how is this not stand-up comedy? Gog, Magog, Mehdi, Putin as global spiritual leader—It’s like the History Channel’s ‘Ancient Aliens’ thought it was too far-fetched, so he dumped it on YouTube instead.

And then comes the kicker: if it’s all such an “open secret,” why don’t the Anglo-Saxons (his words) do something? Because, according to him, they’re too busy enjoying their wealth. At this point, I realized something: maybe Jiang isn’t just spinning yarns for fun. The video had 177,000 views. Imagine 10,000 people tossing him $1 each. That’s $10,000 for narrating fairy tales with a straight face. Huh. Maybe I’m in the wrong business.

Let me take a detour. Recently, while geeking out with my daughter over historical maps (4000 BC, 3000 BC, etc.—yes, we’re that kind of family), I stumbled on an answer to a question that’s haunted me: why don’t prophets appear anymore? The answer was obvious. Humanity used to need prophets because we were too scattered, too dumb, too illiterate to figure things out. Prophets were walking encyclopedias. Today, we have the internet. We can copy each other’s mistakes and good ideas without divine messengers parachuting in. In short: no prophet is coming. No Jesus 2.0, no Mehdi, no Putin uniting religions like it’s a Marvel crossover event.

We’re on our own. Say it again until it sinks in: we are on our own. So when the good professor drapes his predictions in eschatology, Gog and Magog, and mystical third Romes… it’s just a distraction. Nice bedtime stories, but no thanks.

So here’s my bottom line: forget the eschatology, forget the prophets, forget the mystical third Romes. Israel is fighting for survival. Palestinians are already winning in ways that matter. Three powers remain—the U.S., China, and Russia. There will be no world-ending war, just endless maneuvering. Call it “strategic escalation.” There won’t be a “big war.” If you like the word war, we’re already in one.

The focus should be Israel is fighting for its survival, not Palestinians. Palestinians are winning. Palestinians will win. The only country reckless enough to initiate a nuclear detonation is Israel… but Israel is nothing without the U.S. And behind the U.S. stand the Anglo-Saxons. Which brings me to the title of this blog: they believe they hold the “kingdom of the earth.” And they’re losing it. They will lose it. The world is going multipolar, with Russia and China steering it in that direction.

How? Through strategic escalation maneuvering. They will never escalate things to the point of apocalypse. Take that to the bank.

And to think—this whole train of thought started because I made parathas, poured chai into a thrift-store thermos, and clicked on one more Jiang video.