The first six months of 2026—leading up to the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence—delivered astonishing, draining upheaval. The joint U.S.-Israeli assault of Operation Epic Fury triggered unexpected consequences of miscalculation: a blocked Strait of Hormuz and a cascade of uncertainty across the globe.
Markets scrambled as oil and energy shocks depleted sovereign reserves. Inflation exploded upward, leaving consumers to absorb the pain as gas and food prices spiked.
Looking back over six months, Iran has done it again—remaining defiant and striking key U.S. Gulf bases, even while absorbing blow after blow.
A menacing new turn in Eastern Europe
While the Middle East commanded America’s attention, ominous voices began surfacing in Russia by mid-spring—some openly calling for unthinkable responses to surprising advances by Ukrainian forces.
The contrast with early 2025 could not be starker. A little over a year ago, in a tense Oval Office exchange, President Trump confronted a then-beleaguered President Volodymyr Zelensky: “you don’t have the cards!” From the new administration’s perspective, Ukraine was finished without American military aid.
Instead, Ukraine has stunned military and political leaders by taking the war directly to Russian industry—especially oil refineries and critical energy infrastructure. Direct Ukrainian strikes in the Moscow region are now commonplace. The war has come home to ordinary Russians, who face fuel rationing atop painful, life-impacting economic stress.
A life expectancy of 20 minutes
New Russian recruits face bleak odds at the front. Russian military bloggers now report that in certain sectors, soldiers survive an average of only 20 to 35 minutes. Foreign Policy magazine explains the turnaround: “Much of the reason for this is the extraordinary shift in battlefield technology and tactics—in particular, the ways that drones have become the primary killing machines in this war, with stark implications for the future of combat in other parts of the world.”
And the escalation continues. Bloomberg reported in early July that Russia strenuously objected to Ukraine’s first deployment of its domestically produced FP-9 long-range ballistic missile. Ukraine offered no official comment—but if true, more than half of Russia now sits within range of Ukrainian forces.
The deck of strategic cards, it appears, has been reshuffled.
All of this arrives as Russian combat deaths are estimated to exceed one million—dwarfing Soviet-era wars like Afghanistan, where losses numbered around 15,000. How much more slaughter will Russians tolerate?
“Beware the Drowning Man”
“Unsurprisingly, discontent over [Russian President Vladimir] Putin’s management of the war is brewing,” continues Foreign Policy. A Russian executive told the Financial Times in June that top business leaders are “in full agreement that this [war] is a catastrophe.”
The upshot? “As the Tide Turns Against Putin, Beware the Drowning Man,” warns Foreign Policy—the risk that “the flailing Russian leader will succumb to drowning man syndrome—when a swimmer in difficulty pushes others under the water in a desperate attempt to stay afloat.”
The warning signs are visible. Reuters reported in late June that some Russian hawks now call for deploying nuclear weapons against Ukrainian drone factories. In May, official Russian reports confirmed joint nuclear-force exercises with Belarusian units, justified by intelligence claims of a NATO scheme to attack Russia.
“Given the growing tensions in the world and the emergence of new threats and risks, our nuclear triad must continue to serve as a reliable guarantor of the sovereignty of the Union State of Russia and Belarus,” Putin declared from the Kremlin.
From Moscow’s vantage point, President Trump is increasingly portrayed as unreliable—officials citing his failure to force an end to the war after the 2025 Alaska Summit.
The Strait of Schrödinger’s cat
From the start of Operation Epic Fury in late February, President Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth quickly tallied an unbudgeted $40 billion in military costs. Some 13,000 U.S. airstrikes—alongside more than 10,800 Israeli strikes—decimated Iranian defenses. Yet all that firepower could not deny Iran its single economy-busting advantage: closing the Strait of Hormuz.
Since February, the President has repeatedly declared that hostilities would cease, have ceased, or will cease—and that the Strait, with its singular chokepoint on global energy, would be open. Online memes compared the situation to Schrödinger’s theorical cat: the Strait simultaneously open and closed.
What’s on deck – are America’s best days behind us?
All this upheaval, layered atop months of consumer-level economic turmoil, has left many Americans in “a sour mood” as the nation’s 250th birthday arrives. The bottom line, according to Pew Research: “most Americans think that the country’s best days are behind us.” Asked to picture American life in 2050, upward of half of U.S. adults expect a weaker economy, diminished global standing, deeper political division, and a worse-functioning system of government.
Notably, the youngest adults are the most pessimistic of all. What will be left for them?
And the turmoil arrives just as the critical midterm election cycle takes shape. In the nation’s all-but-declared political civil war, both parties forced through as much redistricting as their states could choke down. At this writing, polls show Democrats positioned to retake the House, with the Senate a toss-up leaning slightly Republican.
Much can change. But imagine the already fiery-hot political environment of January 2027 if the Trump administration faces a Democrat-controlled Congress bent on systemic change. How soon would Articles of Impeachment be introduced?
And in a season when U.S. leadership is nearly consumed by political distraction, what temptations arise abroad? Would Russia risk an EMP nuclear blast over western Ukraine, shredding unprotected electronics? Would China choose that moment to blockade Taiwan—even as it flexes its muscles across Southeast Asia and watches concerns grow over depleted American military stocks?
In short: are we living in the calm before the real storm?
A Europe preparing to stand alone
Once-complacent Europeans now think intently about a world without American protection. As the Wall Street Journal reported on July 2, Secretary Hegseth planned a massive troop reduction in Europe, held back only by policy disagreements with Secretary of State Marco Rubio. Hegseth nonetheless threw down the gauntlet before European defense chiefs, promising an in-depth review of U.S. forces in Europe.
“Make no mistake about it—this will be a real review,” Hegseth said. “It will be designed to ensure that NATO is moving fast and irreversibly toward Europe stepping up to take primary responsibility for the defense of Europe.”
If you were a European—with a hot war on your eastern flank and mounting Russian provocations in the northeast—what would you conclude?
The destiny of the world is too important to be left to humans
Amid all this, there is enduring good news—and it comes from an unexpected place.
Some 2,600 years ago, another nation faced humiliating destruction.
Judah fell to the Babylonians, its people marched some 900 miles into captivity, its crown jewel—Solomon’s Temple—annihilated. Many nations subjected to that level of disaster lost their identity and faded into obscurity.
But not the Jews.
At the very moment His people were at their weakest, God powerfully demonstrated that He alone commands human destiny and the conduct of nations. He raised up a young man named Daniel, who interpreted a king’s dream tracing history—past, present, and future—with such astonishing accuracy that its very precision is the chief reason some refuse to accept it.
Here is what Daniel was inspired to openly declare:
“Blessed be the name of God forever and ever, to whom belong wisdom and might. He changes times and seasons; he removes kings and sets up kings; He gives wisdom to the wise and knowledge to those who have understanding; He reveals deep and hidden things; he knows what is in the darkness, and the light dwells with him.” — Daniel 2:20–22, ESV
Through this profound truth and other passages like Daniel 2, we are given confidence: God controls the course of this world, keeping matters on track for the ultimate establishment of the Kingdom of God.
So what about today?
The book of Isaiah should give us pause in these modern times. In chapter six of Isaiah, the prophet receives an astonishing vision of God Himself: “I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up; and the train of his robe filled the temple” (Isaiah 6:1, ESV).
He is then directly given a sobering commission:
“Go, and say to this people: ‘Keep on hearing, but do not understand; keep on seeing, but do not perceive.’ Make the heart of this people dull, and their ears heavy, and blind their eyes; lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their hearts, and turn and be healed.” — Isaiah 6:9–10, ESV
How important is this passage? Jesus Christ quotes and teaches from it in all four Gospels. It describes a spiritual blindness God allows in order to fulfill His purpose.
And what comes afterward? Isaiah asked God how long this would continue. The answer chills:
“Until cities lie waste without inhabitant, and houses without people, and the land is a desolate waste, and the Lord removes people far away, and the forsaken places are many in the midst of the land. And though a tenth remain in it, it will be burned again.”
Both ten tribes of Israel and later Judah were conquered and carried into captivity, The 10 tribes of Israel by the ruthless Assyrians in 721 BCE and the nation of Judah in 586 BCE. But much of biblical prophecy is dual in nature—which means this passage potentially awaits a future fulfillment, even in times ahead of us.
The Hebrew behind “desolate waste” portrays a sudden crash into ruins. Does “houses without people” suggest a land made uninhabitable by modern weapons—even nuclear?
As noted in prior columns, much of what the Messiah taught—and the first-century assembly of disciples believed and practiced—was long ago displaced by Greek myths and Hellenistic philosophy.
The spiritual dullness of Isaiah 6:10 has been extant for more than two millennia. As we watch dividers rather than uniters rise across national and international governments, if a new era of “desolate waste” is forthcoming, the question becomes: when?
These are sobering thoughts. The apostle Paul wrote in the first century that disciples are directed to be “redeeming the time, because the days are evil” (Ephesians 5:16).
Concluding thoughts on America’s 250th
As we ponder whether these are days of calm before the storm, we can also draw encouragement from what God has done—personally, and, if you are an American, nationally.
The Declaration of Independence, a document whose language has never been equaled, declares that we are endowed by a “Creator with certain unalienable Rights.” Its signers appealed to “the Supreme Judge of the world” and stepped out in faith with “a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence.”
The Wall Street Journal‘s lead editorial of July 3, “A (Mostly) Happy 250th Birthday,” acknowledged the nation’s sour mood, the existential challenge of a China whose “technological prowess and massive arms buildup make it a greater threat than the Soviet Union ever was,” and the internal threat of today’s political divisions.
Yet its key point stands: “The freedom born in the Declaration still allows creative Americans to raise their families, worship as they please, pursue their livelihoods and dreams, and build a prosperous nation”—rights endowed by the Creator God.
We live in a serious age. Let us redeem the time.
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