I have this theory, and when you stop rolling your eyes we’ll get into it. I can’t help it if I’m right-brained. It could be worse, I could be L. Ron Hubbard.
Anyway, let’s take a quick trip up to Low Earth Orbit (LEO), where we can better appreciate the tapestry of history.
My theory is that the old European theocratic empires are reassembling themselves. I’ve discussed this before in “Royals, Reich or Wrong” and a wide-ranging discussion with Dr. Joseph Farrell, among other postings.
A new twist has emerged in recent months. Several new twists, really.
The most obvious is the fall of the Assad regime in Syria, and Turkey’s apparent readiness to annex the lot. By the time this article is published, it may already have begun. Assad, interestingly enough, fled to Moscow for reasons that will become apparent.
Let’s recall that the capital of the Ottoman Empire was Istanbul (Constantinople), and it spread across a wide swath of southern Europe and western Asia, absorbing most of the previous Byzantine Empire. Specifically the empire consisted of the modern nations of Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Greece, Hungary, Kosovo, Montenegro, Macedonia, Romania, Serbia, Slovenia, Ukraine, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Cyprus, Georgia, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Palestine, Saudi Arabia, Syria, and of course Turkey.
If you compare this list to a list of the political hot spots of the past 80 years, you’ll see an interesting correlation emerge.
Meanwhile, the Holy Roman Empire, conquered by Napoleon Bonaparte, encompassed all of the core members of the European Union today, including Switzerland. The capital was, naturally, in Rome.
The British Empire, or perhaps more accurately the Anglican Empire, is represented in today’s 5 Eyes — UK, US, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. The capital was/is in London, and it still controls a number of vassal states and territories through the Commonwealth.
This brings us to the Russian Empire, and the recent use of a particular word by Putin in speeches over the past few months — Novorossiya.
If you are unfamiliar with Russian history, as many Westerners are, Novorossiya was the name given to territories annexed by the Russian Empire from the Ottoman Empire by Catherine the Great, after the Russo-Turkish Wars (particularly the Treaty of Küçük Kaynarca in 1774). The region had previously been part of the Crimean Khanate, an Ottoman vassal state.
Where did Assad flee to?
Novorossiya was composed of eastern and southern Ukraine, and Crimea, particularly Odessa, Kherson, Mykolaiv, Zaporozhzhia, and Dnipro. If you’ve been paying any attention to events during the Special Military Operation (SMO) in the Ukraine, then all these names will sound intensely familiar.
We predict Novorossiya will gain much greater visibility as the SMO winds down and negotiations commence. Putin’s mention of Novorossiya in recent comments means it will likely feature heavily in any negotiations.
Now, let’s go one step further and look at the dominant religions of these empires. Russia is predominantly Orthodox, the Holy Roman Empire was predominantly Roman Catholic, the Ottoman Empire was predominantly Islamic, and the British Empire is predominantly Protestant/Anglican (see Henry VIII).
I know what you’re thinking right about now: but what about Israel?
Palestine was one of the spoils of the Ottoman Empire claimed by the United Kingdom in the early 20th century (see Lawrence of Arabia). Under the Sykes-Picot Agreement, the Churchill White Paper, and the Balfour Declaration, British Jews, and European Jews in general (essentially the Ukrainian Khazar diaspora) were encouraged/pushed to emigrate to Palestine, which eventually became the state of Israel in 1948. This was both an effort to get Jews out of Europe, and to keep Islam distracted with more immediate issues than rebuilding empires.
This effort was supported by the League of Nations, by the way, as “The Solution to the Jewish Problem” in Europe. Any Jews who remained were subjected to the Final Solution enacted sometime later.
What we have here are four empires that share the Old Testament, but differ significantly in their views of the New Testament. From up in our LEO perch, we can see that all of the major political issues across Europe and the Middle East today are simply rehashes of thousand-year-old religious and political disagreements.
If we raise our orbit just a bit, we can now see that China’s Belt and Road Initiative, part of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation of 2001, is a reconstruction of the Han Empire (206 BC – AD 220). The Han Empire encompassed most of modern China, Mongolia, North Korea, Vietnam, and large swaths of Central Asia and eastern Russia. Notice a pattern with wars over the past century?
This is all nested under the BRICS, which is a wider effort to establish unified Eastern and Southern hemispheres to push back against Western hegemony and neo-colonialism.
Now the Big Picture we are looking at is cooperation between Eastern empires (Russia and Han) to expand their territories and influence, while the Western empires are embroiled in centuries-old squabbles and family feuds over who gets to be boss.
For its part, Russia appears to be playing both sides against the middle, retaking Novorossiya, while allying with the Han Dynasty, essentially closing the back door while the front door is open. If you hear of any Romanovs making headlines in the near future, you can bet the end-game is on.
So here we are at the quarter century mark of the 21st century, still duking it out over ancient empires.
