2026 Could Prove as Important as 1989

“Round Table” negotiations between Poland’s Communist rulers and the pro-democratic Solidarity movement ended in an agreement in April 1989 to hold partially free elections by the summer. It would turn out to be a watershed moment for the Communist world.

Hungary dissolved Communist rule in October that year. 

Then, on November 9, the Berlin Wall fell. 

Within days, the Communist governments of East Germany, Bulgaria, and Czechoslovakia collapsed peacefully. Romania, in the only non-peaceful revolution that year in Europe, closed out 1989 by executing its leader and his wife by firing squad in a freezing courtyard on Christmas Day.

Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev captured the scale of transformation at an early December summit with President Bush in Malta. “We stated, both of us, that the world leaves one epoch of cold war and enters another epoch.”

America’s “unipolar moment” was born. 

Though Trump is driving events according to a 19th century–style, spheres-of-influence view of the world rather than in the name of freedom, sovereignty, or other appealing values, 

his embrace of the politics of raw power over lofty ideas means he might end up destabilizing several autocracies and opening the door to greater freedom in Latin America and the Middle East.  

The Free Press 13 January 2026

https://www.thefp.com/p/why-2026-could-prove-as-important


Habsburgs picknick och slutet på järnridån och kommunismen

Mer än 600 östtyskar flyr den 19 augusti 1989 från Ungern till Österrike. De ungerska gränssoldaterna vänder ryggen till när järnridån öppnas på glänt. Tre månader senare faller Berlinmuren.

Walburga Habsburg Douglas hade en betydelsefull del i detta skeende, som Habsburgare har gjort i århundraden.

https://englundmacro.blogspot.com/2009/08/habsburgs-pcknick-och-slutet-pa.html





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