While I was reading Dune, I heard about the religious war between the two contenders for Brazil presidency: Lula supported by Catholics and Bolsanaro supported by protestants.
I think Dune by Frank Herbert should be mandatory reading in schools to see how religion is used for political purposes.
I just read a book regarding Romanian secret service during world war one.
The image painted by Romanian spies of the Austro Hungarian empire after first year of war it of war , is of exhaustion. The contingent of men in their '40 and '50 was drafted, the wheat flour was replaced with maize flour and sugar in production of bread.
In Budapest there were food riots.
Austro Hungary and Germany seek to make peace and they even thought of giving some land to Romania to avoid that it entered the war.
And yet, war continued for 3 years
Austro Hungary didn't have the ethnic homogeneity of Russia. It didn't had the resources. It didn't had the internal control, the secret police, and a recording device in pocket of each citizen. But it dragged on for 3 years in the war.
Russia could drag also 3 years.
The situation from word war one should be lesson for Russia too. People then supported much heavier difficulties than now, and didn't gave up.
So if Putin is imagining that high bills will overthrow governments in west and stop the support for Ukraine, he is wrong.
Many pretenders competed for beautiful Helen. Her father feared that if one wins, the other will kill him, and then they will fight each other. He asked Ulisses what to do.
Ulisses proposed that the pretenders swear to defend the one who wins.
Replace Helen with world peace and pretenders with nuclear powers.
If all nuclear powers will retaliate in case someone strike first, do you think that someone will dare to use nuclear bombs?
He cannot hit all the world at once, and he will be exterminated.
