It’s been said that not only does history repeat itself, but it also rhymes. That may be mixing adages, but regarding the United States, China, and Taiwan, both may apply.
Similar Geopolitical Factors
Let’s consider the geographic similarities between Cuba and Taiwan.
Cuba sits 90 miles offshore from the United States, a global superpower. It was an ally of the former Soviet Union, a communist regime that competed with the United States for global power and influence from 1945 to its collapse in 1991.
Likewise, from 1949 until today, Taiwan has been a U.S. ally located about 100 miles from the mainland communist China regime. This global superpower is also competing with the United States for control and influence over the world.
In 1962, Havana’s alliance with Moscow was a critical asset for the Soviets in several ways. Cuba was an ideological thorn in the side of the United States, as it showed the world, and especially the region, that American power had its limits, even in its own front yard.
Cuba’s communist revolution also showed the world that Russia’s power extended all the way to the Americas. As a result, Russia’s influence and military support spawned movements and governments sympathetic to the Soviet Union across Latin America. Most notable were Chile, Peru, Argentina, Nicaragua, Brazil, and of course, the one-time jewel of the region, Venezuela.
Much the same can be said about Taiwan, with a few critical differences, of course. For example, just as Cuba was an inspiration and perhaps even a catalyst for communist revolutions in the region, a secure, free, and independent Taiwan is a key factor for U.S.-led security, independence, and freedom of the entire Asia-Pacific region.
A Thorn in Xi’s Side
Furthermore, Taiwan is an ideological thorn on the side of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). The small, free, and capitalist island nation of about 23 million shows the 1.4 billion Chinese living under the bootheel of the CCP that they don’t need the Party to rule over them in order for China to succeed. The tiny but wealthy island nation is undeniable proof of that fact.
That is why Xi Jinping, in his ascent to absolute power, has pledged to bring Taiwan under Beijing’s control by 2027, if not before. As his power over the economy grows, the more it will contract in real terms.
Taiwan’s Global Strategic Significance
But in the Cuba-Taiwan comparison, the key distinction is Taiwan’s unique strategic technological and economic value to the world. Unlike Cuba, which produced nothing the world really needed, barring excellent cigars, a bit of sugar and rum, as well as Latin jazz and mercenaries for export, Taiwan produces microchips that are critical for virtually all of the developed economies.
The strategic importance of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) and a handful of other manufacturers cannot be overstated. It’s estimated that the chipmaker provides up to 92 percent of the world’s most important chips for satellite communications, guidance, artificial intelligence, robotics, and many other high-tech verticals. No advanced economy in the world can function without them.
The Lynchpin in US Hegemony
Because Taiwan is the lynchpin of American power in the region and, arguably, in the world, it would fundamentally alter the world order if it were to fall under Beijing’s control. U.S. military and economic credibility would be shattered.
Other nations in the region would have to rethink their alliance with the United States, as well as all other nations allied with America. We might see a cascade of Asian nations abandoning the United States in order to make a separate peace with Beijing.
The Losing Blockade Calculus in Cuba
There’s at least one other parallel in the Cuba-Taiwan matrix that may come to pass. The resolution of the Cuban Missile Crisis in the fall of 1962 wasn’t accomplished with military force per se but rather by the U.S. naval blockade of the island.
The blockade forced the Russians to either escalate the situation by engaging the U.S. Navy 90 miles off the coast of the United States or stand down. If Moscow sought to break through the blockade, it would be viewed as starting World War III or at least facing the possibility of a nuclear attack.
It was a lose-lose situation for Moscow. If the Russians attacked the U.S. Navy, they’d be seen as the aggressors in a naval battle against the United States. That would be bad enough. But they would also most certainly lose that battle and suffer both a military and ideological defeat. Worse, engaging the U.S. militarily could also trigger nuclear escalation.
Would the Soviet Union trade Moscow for Havana? Of course not.
Would the US Violate a Chinese Blockade of Taiwan?
China needs access to TSMC’s microchips badly, and needs the production facilities intact. An invasion may lead to Taiwan destroying its factories.
But what if China decided to deploy a naval blockade around Taiwan? What if Beijing declared that any violation of the blockade, or associated airspace, would be considered an act of war?
More to the point, would the Biden administration be prepared to break such a blockade were one to manifest?
Much of the same arguments above may also apply to this scenario. The onus of initiating actual warfare would be on the United States, and the risk of escalation would certainly be there. Such an escalation would likely involve Taiwan, Japan, and perhaps South Korea. It could also trigger a North Korean attack on both South Korea and Japan.
Several additional negating factors would have to be considered as well. U.S. economic weakness, a depleted navy, and the decline in overall military readiness in U.S. forces would play a role in such a decision. Increasing and extended U.S. involvement in Ukraine’s war against Russia would also be a significant factor.
The potentially huge and unknown direction of events should the United States break a Chinese blockade around Taiwan may cause hesitation on the part of the Biden administration, which has shown a preference for avoiding or ending. Another critical factor is China’s arsenal of hypersonic anti-ship missiles, against which U.S. ships may have little or no defenses.
A US Withdrawal in Asia?
What might be the position of the United States in such a scenario?
Despite the president’s hawkish rhetoric about defending Taiwan, in the event of a blockade by China, rather than an invasion, it’s conceivable that the United States would come to a negotiated settlement in order to save face. The administration would characterize itself as a peacemaker, believed only by diehard supporters at home, but no one else, particularly in the region.
Shortly after that, Beijing would likely break the agreed-upon terms to finish the job on Taiwan, humiliate the Biden administration (again), and potentially end U.S. pretensions of hegemony in the region, if not the world.
Article cross-posted from our premium news partners at The Epoch Times.
Two Storms, One Harvest
Every food crisis in living memory has been a one-shock event. The 2008 price spike was a commodity bubble. The 2020 shortages were a logistics failure. The 2022 grain scare was a war on one exporter’s ports. Each time, the system bent, adjusted, and recovered, and each time the experts assured us afterward that global markets are simply too big and too diversified to fail.
What nobody in Washington seems eager to discuss is that 2026 is shaping up to be something the modern food system has never actually faced. Two independent shocks, one climatic and one geopolitical, are converging on the same harvest cycle at the same time. Not sequentially. Simultaneously.
Start with the weather. The Pacific Ocean is currently building toward what forecasters now openly call a record event. NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center puts the odds of at least a strong El Niño near 88 percent, with roughly two in three odds it reaches “very strong” status, the tier reserved for perhaps three or four events in the entire satellite era. Every major global model now projects a median peak in Super El Niño territory, and most of them project it exceeding the 2015-16 event, which until now held the modern record. Sea surface anomalies were already brushing the super threshold in mid-July, months before these events normally peak. The atmosphere has already shifted into El Niño mode, and the event is forecast to crest in late fall and early winter.
This is not about “climate change.” It’s about the standard cycles of weather, and the cycle we’re currently in is one that has likely devastated societies in the past. We’re better prepared as a society today, but not all Americans are equally prepared.
Serious households have started doing the quiet math on their own. Grocery bills tell part of the story, and the forecast maps tell the rest, which is why long-term food storage has moved from fringe hobby to mainstream line item in the family budget, with established suppliers like Heaven’s Harvest seeing demand from people who five years ago would have rolled their eyes at the idea. That instinct is not paranoia. It is pattern recognition, and the pattern is worth walking through carefully.
Editor’s Note: Heaven’s Harvest IS a sponsor, but the warnings of this article are real and would be written even if we didn’t have a survival food sponsor. With that said, those who take advantage of what they offer can use promo code “Patriot” for 15% off.
The Fertilizer Clock Is Already Running
While the Pacific warms, the second shock has been unfolding in the Strait of Hormuz. The conflict with Iran turned the world’s most important energy chokepoint into a contested waterway, and the consequences reach far beyond the gas pump. Roughly a third of global fertilizer trade moves through Hormuz, and the disruption sent urea prices up 86 percent year over year by March, with a 53 percent jump in a single month.
The World Bank projects energy prices rising about 24 percent in 2026 and fertilizer about 31 percent. By its own accounting, fertilizer prices ran 35 percent higher in the first five months of this year than the same period last year.
Here is the mechanism the nightly news will not explain. Fertilizer is not a grocery item. It is a time-delayed input. The nitrogen a farmer in Iowa or Punjab could not afford to apply this spring does not show up as a problem this spring. It shows up as a thinner harvest six to twelve months later.
The World Bank’s own food security brief concedes that the effects of reduced applications earlier this season “are likely to become visible only later in harvest outcomes.” Translate that from institutional language into plain English and it means this. The damage is already done, it is already in the ground, and we are simply waiting for it to arrive on the shelf.
Now check the calendar. Six to twelve months from the spring planting season lands us squarely in late 2026 and early 2027. Which is precisely when the strongest El Niño in the instrumental record is forecast to peak, bringing its signature droughts to Southeast Asia, Australia, southern Africa, northern Brazil, and South Asia, the very regions that grow the world’s rice, sugar, and oilseeds.
The World Bank warns openly that a strong El Niño “could disrupt multiple crop belts simultaneously” on top of the conflict-driven input costs. Their baseline projection assumes the Middle East disruptions ease by autumn. What in the last two years of Middle East history suggests that assumption is safe?
The System Has No Slack Left
The comfortable answer is that global markets always adjust. But adjustment requires slack, and the slack is gone. Global cereal production is expected to decline from last year’s records even before El Niño does its work. The UN World Food Programme, hardly a den of right-wing preppers, is calling this the most significant disruption to its supply chains since Covid and the invasion of Ukraine, and its supply chain director put the stakes bluntly.
Today’s supply chain challenges are tomorrow’s hunger crisis.
There is also a political dimension that markets cannot price. When food gets scarce, governments do not behave like economists. They behave like politicians. Export bans, hoarding mandates, and panic buying at the national level turned the modest rice shortfall of 2008 into a global crisis, and analysts are already warning that import-dependent nations are the first dominoes.
The 2015-16 Super El Niño, a far weaker event than what is now forecast, threw tens of millions into food stress across Africa and Asia. This one is projected to be stronger, and it arrives with fertilizer already rationed by price and shipping lanes already contested by missiles.
What Joseph Knew
Scripture does not treat preparation for lean years as faithlessness. It treats it as wisdom delivered in advance to those willing to act on it.
Behold, there come seven years of great plenty throughout all the land of Egypt: And there shall arise after them seven years of famine; and all the plenty shall be forgotten in the land of Egypt.
Joseph did not respond to that warning with a hashtag or a committee. He stored grain during the years of abundance, and when the famine came, Egypt stood while its neighbors begged. The lesson is not that famine is certain. It is that the time to prepare is precisely when preparation still looks optional.
Nobody who filled a pantry in a year of plenty has ever regretted it, and nobody standing in an empty aisle has ever been glad he waited for certainty.
None of this calls for panic, and panic is the enemy of sound judgment anyway. It calls for the same unglamorous prudence our grandparents considered ordinary. Keep some cash margin, know your local growers, and put real food in deep storage while it is cheap and available, because the entire arc of this story is that cheap and available is a closing window.
Families looking for a straightforward place to start can visit Heaven’s Harvest and use promo code Patriot for 15 percent off long-term storable food. The forecasts may yet soften, the strait may yet reopen, and we should pray they do. But hope is a fine thing to hold and a foolish thing to eat.
CHINA AND RUSSIA
A Vision Received by Brother Dumitru Duduman April 22, 1996
I prayed, then went to bed. I was still awake, when suddenly I heard a trumpet sound. A voice cried out to me, “Stand!”
In my vision, I was in America. I walked out of my home, and began to look for the one who had spoken to me. As I looked, I saw three men dressed alike. Two of the men carried weapons. One of the armed men came to me. “I woke you to show you what is to come.” He said. “Come with me.”
I didn’t know where I was being taken, but when we reached a certain place he said, “stop here!”
A pair of binoculars was handed to me, and I was told to look through them.
“Stand there, don’t move, and look,” he continued. “You will see what they are saying, and what they are preparing for America.”
As I was looking, I saw a great light. A dark cloud appeared over it. I saw the president of Russia, a short, chubby man, who said he was the president of China, and two others. The last two also said where they were from, but I did not understand. However, I gathered they were part of Russian controlled territory. The men stepped out of the cloud.
The Russian president began to speak to the Chinese one. “I will give you the land with all the people, but you must free Taiwan of the Americans. Do not fear, we will attack them from behind.”
A voice said to me, “Watch where the Russians penetrate America.”
I saw these words being written: Alaska; Minnesota; Florida.
Then, the man spoke again, “When America goes to war with China, the Russians will strike without warning.”
The other two presidents spoke, “We, too, will fight for you.” Each had a place already planned as a point of attack.
All of them shook hands and hugged. Then they all signed a contract. One of them said, “We’re sure that Korea and Cuba will be on our side, too. Without a doubt, together, we can destroy America.”
The president of Russia began to speak insistently, “Why let ourselves be led by the Americans? Why not rule the world ourselves? They have to be kicked out of Europe, too! Then I could do as I please with Europe!”
The man standing beside me asked, “This is what you saw: they act as friends, and say they respect the treaties made together. But everything I’ve shown you is how it will REALLY happen. You must tell them what is being planned against American. Then, when it comes to pass, the people will remember the words the Lord has spoken.”
Who are you?” I asked.
“I am the protector of America. America’s sin has reached God. He will allow this destruction, for He can no longer stand such wickedness. God however, still has people that worship Him with a clean heart as they do His work. He has prepared a heavenly army to save these people.”
As I looked, a great army, well armed and dressed in white, appeared before me.
“Do you see that?” the man asked. “This army will go to battle to save My chosen ones. Then, the difference between the Godly and the ungodly will be evident.”
Excepted from:
Dreams and Visions From God
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