An insider’s verdict on power, accountability, and the quiet decay of American institutions.
Lawrence “Larry” Wilkerson belongs to a rare generation of American military and government officials who understood power from the inside — and later chose to question it publicly. After more than three decades in the U.S. Army, he moved into the highest levels of American foreign policy, not as an ideologue, but as a strategic planner deeply aware of institutional dynamics and bureaucratic leverage.
Wilkerson became widely known as Chief of Staff to Secretary of State Colin Powell at the U.S. State Department. In that role, he was directly involved in national security decision-making in the early 2000s — including the diplomatic groundwork that preceded the Iraq War. He operated at the intersection of intelligence assessments, military planning, and executive authority, witnessing firsthand how information can be filtered, framed, and politically weaponized.
💬 “The greatest failure was not an intelligence mistake — it was the politicization of intelligence.”What distinguishes Wilkerson from many former officials is his willingness to publicly reassess his own role within that system. After leaving government service, he emerged as one of the most outspoken internal critics of the Iraq War justification, describing institutional pressure, selective intelligence use, and the consolidation of executive power.
Today, Wilkerson’s analysis extends beyond past wars. He speaks about structural decay — about what he sees as the steady erosion of constitutional norms, the expansion of national security prerogatives, and the weakening of legal restraints on power.
What is announced as an act of transparency is evolving into an instrument of power, where political damage control takes precedence over the rule of law.
Nima Alkhorshid opens with a scene that is both symptom and symbol: Marjorie Taylor Greene, for years one of Trump’s loudest supporters, stands before women demanding justice in the Epstein case — and is labeled a traitor by the president for doing so. Wilkerson appears stunned.
Greene fought a hard political battle in Georgia; she maintains direct contact with her base; she responds to what her voters want to hear. That, he argues, is precisely her offense: she allowed the vote to release the Epstein files — against Trump’s wishes.
In that moment, the fracture becomes visible: loyalty in this system is not measured by years of service, but by immediate compliance. The message is unmistakable — anyone who prioritizes public accountability over personal allegiance risks being recast as the enemy. What unfolds is less a dispute over files than a demonstration of power: who controls the narrative, who defines betrayal, and who decides when truth becomes expendable.
The mechanics of betrayal:
Wilkerson expects Trump will attempt to walk it back in some form — not with an apology, but with a gesture. Because he needs her. Because she has a voter connection he does not. The pattern is familiar: Trump starts something, stops, starts again, stops again — and ultimately lands where he believes the least personal damage will occur. What that means for the country often becomes clear only days later.
What remains is a style of leadership driven less by principle than by calibration. Decisions are tested, withdrawn, reframed — not according to institutional responsibility, but according to personal exposure. In that calculus, transparency becomes tactical, loyalty conditional, and governance reactive. The long-term cost is erosion: of trust, of norms, and of the expectation that public power serves the public rather than the individual who holds it.
Behind the scenes, truth is not determined by law but by networks of loyalty, influence, and strategic self-preservation.
Alkhorshid asks the obvious question: why would Trump protect Democrats if he considers them his enemies? Every time he speaks about the Epstein file, he says it implicates only Democrats. Yet he withheld its release until the political damage to himself became too great.
Wilkerson frames it starkly: this is less about law or justice and more about control. Information is currency, and timing is power. By holding back until it suited his interests, Trump ensured that leverage remained firmly in his hands — a reminder that in this administration, political calculus often outweighs principle, and strategic patience can be weaponized with devastating precision.
Wilkerson’s assessment, based on conversations with insiders:
The blackmail potential of this affair is enormous. If half a trillion dollars can be mobilized — and that may be realistic when adding up the billionaires involved — many people can be bribed and many others pressured. Tucker Carlson reportedly advised Trump privately not to choose Rubio as vice president, but Vance instead.
The reason given: with Rubio, they would kill him. Wilkerson states, “That came out of his mouth. I have to assume that’s an accurate representation of the advice he gave.”
When experienced prosecutors leave in waves and leadership is replaced by spectacle, the rule of law begins to lose its capacity for self-correction.
“Sixty percent of the attorneys are gone,” Colonel Larry Wilkerson says. “We effectively no longer have federal prosecution as we knew it. Law is what keeps people — who are not angels — from becoming devils.”
What is happening at the Department of Justice is, for Wilkerson, not a crisis — it is a rupture without return. Sixty percent of the attorneys have left the department, whether dismissed or by their own choice.
For comparison: under George W. Bush, forty percent left the DOJ in the first four years, and that was considered an alarming warning sign at the time. These are not people without alternatives. They are lawyers. They have options. They are leaving because they can no longer do what they believe is right.
The dimensions of institutional collapse:
Wilkerson invokes James Madison: if men were angels, no laws or government would be necessary. Law exists precisely because people are not angels. It restrains them from becoming devils. That law, he argues, is now being dismantled — domestically, in international law, and on the high seas. The wrecking ball is not swinging randomly. It has a function: to block anything that could threaten Trump, MAGA, or those aligned with them.
A proposal framed as stabilization risks becoming the bureaucratic management of an unresolved conflict — reassuring for governments, but offering little horizon for those living inside it.
China and Russia allowed the UN resolution on a Gaza peacekeeping force to pass — no veto. Wilkerson explains the cold calculation behind it: why block something that drives your greatest rival deeper into the abyss? Xi Jinping and Putin, he argues, rationally decided to let the disaster unfold.
Julian Barnes in The Guardian described it as a bizarre deal, trying simply to explain what it entails. What his reporting suggests, Wilkerson says, is that the UN General Assembly’s proposal would have been better — because it would not have put the usual power brokers front and center.
Why the agreement is corrupted from the outset:
It will be a slower eradication of the Palestinians, Wilkerson states bluntly, one that appears more acceptable to the world. Colonial administrators will manage a situation they aim to resolve in Israel’s interest — though Israel itself is merely the instrument.
Arab governments can only sign such an agreement if it at least contains the promise of a Palestinian state. But their populations see that the promise is hollow. Preventing a second Arab Spring will require more than rhetorical assurances from Washington.
Between regional escalation and global deterrence stands a military power whose last strategic guarantee increasingly rests on nuclear threat.
Wilkerson has not changed his assessment: another Israeli strike on Iran is coming. Iranian media have reportedly confirmed for the first time that F-14 Tomcats were used in the twelve-day war — meaning Iran can now produce parts for the F-14 itself. Internally, Iran is communicating that the next war is expected in December.
For Wilkerson, the military calculus is clear: if Israel attacks, he says that in the position of Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad, and all others, he would strike immediately — from every flank, with everything available. That is professional military logic.
America’s structural weakness in a major conflict:
The Palestinians are caught in the middle — and Israel believes, Wilkerson says bluntly, that even a four-year-old must be killed because otherwise the child will grow up to become a terrorist. The problem of Gaza is therefore not being solved. It is being managed, slowed, and concealed. Netanyahu will leave the stage, someone else will come — and give the whole matter a new veneer of Israeli consent.
When domestic myths begin to guide foreign policy, strategy loses coherence and becomes projection.
Colonel Larry Wilkerson says — reflecting on how the U.S. narrative around Venezuela has shifted from traditional strategic concerns to a mix of domestic political mythology and foreign policy impulse.
The obsession with Venezuela, in Wilkerson’s telling, isn’t fundamentally about drugs or migration — the usual public rationales. It stems from a deeper narrative tied to the 2020 election and domestic political grievance. Within some political circles, Venezuela and its leadership became symbols woven into the broader explanation for internal U.S. disputes, rather than being addressed through sober geopolitical assessment.
The logic behind the obsession:
Wilkerson hopes senior military leadership continues to provide sober counsel. A limited covert operation is one thing, he suggests. Attempting to occupy or fundamentally restructure Venezuela would be another entirely.
His broader concern mirrors his other warnings: procurement inefficiencies, strained logistics, and declining industrial readiness mean that prolonged conflict would quickly reveal structural limits. If adversaries recognize those limits, deterrence weakens.
And once deterrence weakens, escalation dynamics change.
For Wilkerson, the Venezuela question is not primarily about Caracas. It is about whether American foreign policy is being shaped by strategic calculation — or by unresolved political mythology at home.
Behind enormous budgets and cutting-edge technology lies a structural weakness: industrial mobilization and strategic sustainability are missing.
He delivers a stark assessment of American military power. Vietnam. Afghanistan. Iraq. Ukraine. Wars waged against the poorest countries — and lost. Neither superior firepower nor strategic patience changed the outcome. Meanwhile, Russia and China have grown both economically and militarily. The Pentagon knows it, the generals know it — but publicly, this reality is denied.
The record of U.S. interventions:
Wilkerson warns that the defense procurement system has hollowed out true combat capability. Everything flows into ever more expensive weapons, often unreliable or delayed. The U.S. industrial mobilization capacity — what made the difference in World War II — effectively no longer exists.
Yamamoto said after Pearl Harbor that he had awakened a sleeping giant. Today, Wilkerson implies, China is the sleeping giant — and America remains asleep.
While Washington clings to the categories of past dominance, Beijing quietly and systematically builds the industrial depth that determines victory or defeat in a serious conflict.
Yamamoto did not want Pearl Harbor. He knew Japan was committing suicide. As a captain stationed in the U.S., he had seen America’s industrial capacity firsthand. He knew Japan had to win within six months — an almost impossible task — yet he proceeded out of loyalty.
China as an industrial and military superpower:
The lesson failing to reach Washington: the U.S. is no longer the industrial giant of 1945. China is. And Russia has learned through three years of war what America did not: how to lead and sustain a modern land force. Anyone attempting a land campaign against Russia will lose. This is not opinion — this is military reality.
European aspirations for autonomy may sound resolute, but without American logistics, deterrence, and leadership, they remain largely symbolic gestures.
“I do not believe Europeans are absolutely, ridiculously stupid enough to start a war with Russia. But Russia would be equally foolish to start a war with NATO,” Wilkerson observes.
Europe imagines leading a NATO without the U.S., he notes: France and Ukraine with a ten-year deal, Spain contributing 100 million for U.S. weapons in Ukraine. This is not strategic building — it is temporary crisis management. Ukraine continues to rot. Europeans use it to bleed Russia; Russia uses it to destroy Ukrainian state structures. No one is really building. Everyone is bankrupt.
Why Europe’s strategy is no strategy:
Putin does not want a war with NATO — that is nonsense, created by Polish and American hardliners and arms companies who profit from the cash flow. Yet if parties like the AfD replace current leadership — a scenario Wilkerson considers likely — the question will no longer be whether Europe fights Russia. The question will be whether Europe fights itself. And whether the European Union can survive this disintegration.
A diplomatic window in spring 2022 could have limited the war, but instead the logic of escalation prevailed.
The turning point in the Ukraine war came in April 2022. Russia and Ukraine were on the verge of an agreement that would have left Ukraine with most of its territory and ended the conflict. Boris Johnson traveled to Istanbul — on behalf of Washington — and persuaded Zelenskyy not to sign. What followed is history: nearly three more years of war, hundreds of thousands dead, a devastated Ukraine, and a Russia stronger and more battle-hardened than in 2022.
What remains from that moment:
Wilkerson states bluntly: It didn’t have to end this way. The agreement would have faced constant sabotage by extremists and other actors — but it could have been managed. Instead, the path chosen favored defense contractors and their shareholders, foolish generals claiming Russia is a paper tiger, and politicians on both sides of the Atlantic eager to hear exactly that.
Caught between corruption allegations, power struggles, and radical structures, the Ukrainian president’s political future has become a strategic variable.
Nazis remain a highly disruptive factor at the heart of Europe. Unfortunately, they were never fully eliminated after 1945 — the West was too busy employing them.
Alkhorshid poses the key question: Does the American relationship with Zelenskyy differ from the European stance? Washington seems intent on removing him — citing corruption and other allegations — while Europe acts in opposition. Wilkerson confirms this underlying dynamic. He personally would welcome Ukrainians taking matters into their own hands, but the core problem is the embedded neo-Nazi structures within Ukraine’s power apparatus. These groups would claim a significant portion of any successor government.
The occupation of extremists as a structural problem:
Wilkerson states bluntly: These actors cannot be accommodated. The war may end, but this structural problem will persist. As long as it does, Ukraine remains an unstable buffer state, neither fully integrable into the West nor into Russia. This is not accidental — it is the product of eighty years of Western exploitation of these structures as geopolitical tools.
Through sanctions, pressure, and broken negotiations, two historically mistrustful states have been pushed closer together than diplomacy ever could have achieved.
The empire has united countries in ways I would have considered nearly impossible ten years ago.
Iranian drones fly over Ukraine. In the background of Russian test flights, Iranian voices can be heard. What would have been a geopolitical fantasy a decade ago is now reality. Wilkerson describes the relationship as historically fraught — Iran and Russia have a complicated past — but real, growing, and strategically significant. He argues that the empire itself created the circumstances for this alliance.
How the rapprochement unfolded:
Wilkerson warns that Russia is constantly underestimated by American generals. He finds it appalling what some of them claim. The truth is the opposite: Russia has, through the Ukraine war, one of the most battle-tested land forces in the world. It is a continental power. Anyone attempting to fight it on land will lose — even more so if China provides the logistics and industrial backbone.
With the expiration of the last major arms control treaty, an era of strategic stability ends — and the window for a new framework is closing fast.
Putin is reportedly willing to extend the treaty for a year on Trump’s word — after which the world must negotiate a new regime that includes all nuclear powers. Wilkerson sees Anchorage as the pivotal reference point — the meeting that could have laid the groundwork for serious dialogue. The new START treaty expires in February. Putin signals willingness to extend temporarily, giving a slim, real chance to create a broader, multilateral framework.
Wilkerson’s nuclear agenda:
After observing leaders like Starmer and Macron, Wilkerson is no longer confident about having Britain and France with their fingers on the nuclear trigger. He remains a realist: the ultimate goal of zero nuclear weapons may never be reached, but striving toward it gives those in the nuclear realm a constructive mission — dismantle weapons instead of building them.
When political loyalty outweighs professional competence, executive power becomes a stage for spectacle rather than responsible governance.
Every time you hear Pam Bondi speak, every time Kash Patel speaks — you sit back and wonder: what have we done?
Wilkerson steps away from geopolitics to examine the personnel. Trump’s second administration, he says, was the strangest, most bizarre group of people on the planet. Pam Bondi. Kash Patel. The Homeland Security Secretary wandering in jeans, pretending to act as an ICE officer in Chicago. This is not “competence in a different form.” It is the absence of competence, masked by theatrics. The U.S. no longer has rational federal law enforcement.
Anatomy of a dysfunctional executive:
The tragic part, Wilkerson notes, is not that Trump appointed these people. The tragic part is that the average congressperson, senator, and American do not confront it. They do not stand up. They do not ask: what have we done? They look away, and the wrecking ball keeps swinging.
As institutional decay unfolds, the media power center shifts — away from establishment conservatism toward digitally anchored counter-elites.
This woman has her life under control — and she causes irreparable damage to many truly hateful people. Wilkerson believes she could remove Ben Shapiro from the tangled web of cable talk shows.
At the end of the conversation, almost casually, Wilkerson turns to Candace Owens. He sees her regularly in his YouTube feed and listens in. He is impressed — not by everything she says, but by the fact that she attacks, appears sincere, and has a base that Ben Shapiro and Mark Levin never had. Alkhorshid confirms: Shapiro and Levin have no connection to the real Trump base. They have platforms, but no grassroots support.
The new tectonics of the American Right:
This, Wilkerson notes, is the true shift running parallel to everything else. The media and political foundation of old conservatism is eroding. What grows in its place is heterogeneous, harder to control, and in part a genuine opposition to the neoconservatives. Whether this is an improvement is left open — but he observes it with interest, aware of its potential long-term implications for foreign-policy power dynamics within the Republican Party.
Religious narratives become geopolitical justifications when Old Testament tribalism shapes 21st-century policy decisions.
How can one base their Christianity on the Old Testament, which Christ completely rejected? That is a total denial of everything Jesus stood for.
A young preacher had alerted Wilkerson to something that had long occupied him as a former seminary aspirant. He had seriously considered becoming a pastor in his final year of high school and had studied intensively. The preacher argued that the New Testament was a complete rejection of the Old. Christ stood for forgiveness, not revenge. “An eye for an eye” was the old God. The new was different.
The theological contradiction in American Christianity:
This is no fringe phenomenon. Millions of Americans, including many of Trump’s most loyal voters, follow a Christianity that is, in reality, Old Testament tribalism. Their foreign-policy decisions — unconditional support for Israel, hostility toward Iran, rejection of negotiation — follow this logic. Wilkerson understands it. He does not share it. And he sees it as partly responsible for the crises unfolding today.
What is emerging is not an isolated policy failure, but a transition from institutional self‑restraint to unbounded power without structural limits.
“I don’t know where we’re headed, Nima. But it is not a good place. And if I told you there was any way out without lots of problems, much death, and a great risk of nuclear war — that would be dishonest,” Colonel Larry Wilkerson says. Based on his long experience inside government, he frames what we’re witnessing not as a crisis, but as a systemic diagnosis: a superpower dismantling its institutions, exploiting its allies, underestimating its adversaries, and erasing its own history.
For Wilkerson, the U.S. justice system appears hollowed out, foreign policy driven by paranoia and leverage, the legislative branch reduced to spectacle, and the military’s industrial base no longer capable of sustained strategic logistics. The result is a governance void in which strategic coherence has been replaced by reaction, image management, and self‑protection.
Open fronts with no strategy:
He invokes figures like James Madison, Admiral Yamamoto, and the Istanbul peace moment — milestones where different choices could have changed history. Wilkerson himself was among those who warned early: as chief of staff to Powell, as a critic of the Iraq War, and as one of the few senior military voices publicly articulating dissent from within. He has not backed down, withdrawn lessons, or softened his warnings.
What replaces law when it is dismantled:
“Law is what keeps people who are not angels from becoming devils,” Wilkerson often recalls — a theme he has reiterated in numerous interviews about America’s strategic and institutional trajectory. Today, he argues, law is being dismantled not by accident, not as collateral damage — but as a method. Stone by stone, lawyer by lawyer, institution by institution.
And as America consumes its own substance, the world is realigning. Iran and Russia draw closer. China expands its industrial lead. Europe fractures without sustained U.S. leadership. Allies watch, calculate, and diversify. The question is no longer whether America will lose its leadership role — it is how fast, and whether the descent is managed or a free fall.
What comes next is unknown. But Wilkerson is clear about the direction: it is not a good one. And no one can say they weren’t warned.
Thank you, Larry Wilkerson.
This article is also available as a English-language edition on Substack:
America’s Institutional Breakdown - Larry Wilkerson
YouTube-Interview:
Epstein Files - NATO's Moves all falling apart - Larry Wilkerson
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