Well, you have to say the history was made last Friday when a Russian drone hit an apartment building in Romania. Just to state the obvious, it was not an accident. Just to state another obvious fact, it wasn’t intended to be understood as an accident. It was a clear signal of provocation coming from Russia.

Now, of course, Russia has been at war now for years with Ukraine because Russia invaded Ukraine and Ukraine has proved itself to be remarkably resourceful and courageous in fighting back against the Russian invasion. Frankly, we have some of the old rules of military theory being very much rewritten right before our eyes. And yet at the same time, there have been many provocations towards the West in general coming from Russia and in particular challenges towards NATO, The North Atlantic Treaty Organization.

Let’s just remind ourselves that that organization, NATO, as we know it, came out of the smoldering ruins of the Second World War in an effort to unite the Allies in particular in a common defense pact, but also because of the rise of the threat of the Soviet Union and what would become the Cold War, it became an absolutely crucial alliance in terms of defending Western democracy over against what were open declarations of Soviet expansionism. And remember that when you’re looking at the picture in Europe after World War II, you are looking at a very bitter rivalry between the East and the West and you had the Soviet Union putting up what can only be described as puppet governments of a client state in so many cases. You had repression. The differences, of course, were made starkly evident to the entire world in the distinction between East Germany and West Germany during the decades that they were divided.

East Germany under a communist government and to one degree or another under rather overt Soviet influence, if not direct control. And then of course, you also had West Germany emerging as one of the most powerful economic engines in the free world. And so the contrast there was clear for all to see. And of course, in Berlin, you had the scar of what became known as the Berlin Wall and immediately on the East German side of the wall, the East Germans had created what was known as the killing zone in which so many people gave their lives just trying to escape to freedom. 

But now we’re talking about Romania, and Romania became independent and it became basically a Western-directed nation. After the breakup of the Soviet Union, Romania had been to one degree or another simply described as a client state of the Soviet Union and that by Soviet control. With the breakup of the Soviet Union, Romanians declared their own revolution. They toppled the government and created a new social experiment. They identified with the West and with freedom and Romania actually joined NATO. NATO began with just a handful of states, European states plus the United States of America and then it expanded to about 10. Now after the breakup of the Soviet Union and during the last several decades, 20 other member states have joined. One of them is Romania.

Now, let’s just make very clear, this was a Russian drone attack. It was a Russian drone with an explosive charge that hit an apartment building in Romania causing damage. It could have caused death and it was not an accident. Let me just make an interesting point to you. Romania does not border Russia. Romania does have five bordering nations. They are Ukraine, Moldova, Bulgaria, Serbia, and Hungary.

And so as you’re looking at this, you realize this was something that the Russian forces should have sought to avoid at all costs because it is directly a provocation, but it’s more than a provocation because now you have Romania, a NATO member state able to claim the self-defense clause of the NATO treaty, which states that an attack upon one member nation is an attack upon all and that if indeed NATO recognizes this as a Russian attack upon Romania, there would have to be a commensurate response. Now we’re going to talk more about the strategy that might be behind this in terms of Russia in just a moment. Let’s just state that right now the technical issue is what might Romania do? Romania is likely to move forward in invoking a NATO Article 4 process. Now that’s Article 4, not Article 5. Why does that make a difference?

Article 5 has been invoked one time and that means that NATO has come to the conclusion that a member state has been attacked and that there should be a concerted NATO response and that means a military response. It was invoked only one time and that was on behalf of the United States of America after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. And so it hasn’t otherwise been invoked. Now that’s not to say there haven’t been some very close calls, especially during the Cold War, some very, very close calls. Article 4 is not a call for direct concerted military action. It is a call for an official consultation on the part of NATO. The NATO member states together are to confer and if indeed Romania goes forward as it is expected to do, it will bring about an official conference and that means an official discussion among NATO members as to what this incursion or attack by Russia means.

Now let’s ask the bigger question. I said we’d return to it. Why in the world did Russia do this? What could possibly be the rationale behind this? What possible sense does it make? Now that Russia has been basically in so many ways humiliated by the fact that there was no immediate victory over Ukraine, which had been expected. They thought there would be victory in weeks. They don’t have victory in years. As a matter of fact, by some counts they have gained less than about 10%, some are saying about 1% of what they had targeted as the territory that they wanted to obtain by force and the Ukrainians have fought back.

The point is this: when you’re looking at Russia’s current situation, and we talked on The Briefing just days ago about the fact that the Russian government and in particular Russian President Vladimir Putin, they’re losing support fast. There are some rather significant economic issues, political issues, but the big issue has to do with the fact that Vladimir Putin hasn’t produced the victory that he promised.

And furthermore, there’s no quick way in which any reasonable person thinks that that victory is going to come about. Now that doesn’t mean the Russia just decides to abandon the battlefield. It does mean that we are way past the date when Russian confidence could be invested in this effort. Furthermore, you’re talking about the deaths of tens of thousands of Russian young men and that begins to add up in a country that already has a deficit of young men, and indeed is facing a birth rate crisis of dramatic proportions. But it’s not just that. If you are the head of an autocratic government, you better win the battles you start or you are in big trouble. And so that’s just a part of what’s in the background to this.

But then you can ask the question, yes, but with all that said, why would there be an intentional provocation of a NATO member that could invoke the entire NATO conversation? It is because at least in part, Vladimir Putin wants to be able to say to the Russian people, “See how they’re ganging up on us? See this vast conspiracy with the United States and others behind it that is now coming to the aid of Ukraine and even Romania? See how they are lining up to oppose us?” That’s also a part of the dynamic of how an autocratic government stays in power. Furthermore, there are those who believe that Vladimir Putin’s aims go well beyond Ukraine and there is plenty of evidence to back that up. It’s just not fully evident that there is any reasonable way that Russia can pull this off, but that’s another point you have to watch in this kind of situation.

Sometimes there isn’t a great strategic purpose behind something like this. Even a risky, extremely risky provocation like this. Sometimes it comes down simply to throwing things on the wall to see what sticks or in another dimension, simply attempting to buy time.

Okay. Coming back to the United States, something very interesting happened. Last Thursday, the Supreme Court of the United States handed down a decision in a case from Mississippi. It was a death penalty case. And in this case, the court ruled it was a 5-4 decision in favor of a Black defendant who had filed the appeal because he is hoping to escape a death penalty conviction. And the legal argument behind his appeal was that the prosecutor and the justice system there in Mississippi had conspired to prevent there being African American members of the jury. Now this is really interesting and you’re talking about something here that’s very important. There are only three typically identified liberal justices on the Supreme Court appointed by Democratic presidents. The other six are conservatives to one degree or another appointed by Republican presidents. If you have a 5-4 decision, then that means at least some of the conservatives in this case are with the liberals. So you had Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Associate Justice Brett Kavanaugh join with the three liberals. Now, why did they do this? Well, it comes down to the fact that the Constitution assures those who are facing a criminal trial with the jury of their peers. And without going into tremendous detail here, this is the second case that has come from this same jurisdiction in Mississippi, and with the same prosecutorial personnel in place. It comes down to this. In both of these cases, the Supreme Court has found that there was a concerted effort to deny defendants a jury of their peers.

So this raises a host of good issues that we should think about as Christians about how race should and shouldn’t function in terms of decision making. And so for instance, if you’re talking about the kinds of things the Trump administration has been doing, and conservatives have been seeking, which is say to look at college admissions and to look at hiring processes and just have a concerted effort against DEI, that’s diversity, equity and inclusion agendas, which often case actually came up with something like minority quotas and other things.

That’s been a key concern of conservatives and so many Christians counted in that number simply because it is a violation of justice to say this person is qualified for this job, but this person’s equally qualified for this job, but it’s going to be given to this person because of a minority preference in terms of hiring sometimes with the power of law and with the backup of the power of the administrative state. Sometimes internally brought about, sometimes under political pressure. The fact is I think we as Christians should recognize that as a wrongful application of race as a category to say we’re going to have two people applying for one job and they’re of two different races, they’re equally qualified and the job goes to the minority candidate simply because that person is a minority candidate. 

So the Supreme Court’s been pressing back on this, pressing back on the theory of what had been called affirmative action and against racial quotas and all the rest. But now you have a 5-4 decision by the conservative led Supreme Court coming back to say, yes, but it is a violation of justice and a violation of the constitution for a Black man who is accused of capital murder, in the trial to be basically facing a jury in which there has been an intentional effort to try to remove Black people from the jury, Black jurors from the panel. And that’s where you understand, okay, here’s something helpful because here is where we do understand that when the Constitution says a jury of our peers, that does mean a jury of our peers. Now you don’t take that to ridiculous links and that’s why, for example, it would have been a much weaker case coming from this convicted criminal who was facing the death penalty. It would be a much weaker case if he just said, “I thought the jury panel was imbalanced in racial terms.” That is not what he actually argued. Instead, his defense team argued, and the Supreme Court verified that there was an intentional effort to try to prevent Black persons from being seated on the jury. So there you see the critical difference. Once again, you have a situation in which I think just about any fair-minded person. I think we all should agree that when there is a concerted effort to keep Black people off of the jury, when you have a Black defendant, precisely because presumably the prosecution wants a conviction, that is a problem.

And that is thus something that runs directly into conflict with the requirement that defendants face a jury of their peers. When there’s an intentional effort to prevent that and that’s demonstrated, you have a huge problem. Now there were other issues here, which also probably explains why the other conservative justices were in the four rather than in the five. And that has to do with procedural issues, including the fact that this defendant’s defense team did not really bring this argument up when it would have been timely at the trial. This is not the end of this case. This is not finality because the Supreme Court’s decision in this case just sends the case back to the state to be reconsidered. 

But this is a very important issue for Christians to understand. Here, Justice Kavanaugh said that what had happened there was, “A relentless determined effort to rid the jury of Black individuals.” I think once you hear anything like that, you recognize that basic issues of justice are very much in view and undeniable. And I go back to the fact that this wasn’t a claim that this had just happened. This was a claim that behind it was an intentionality carried out by the prosecution. And as it turns out, those were the facts verified in the hearing. 

All these issues are incredibly difficult and we need to recognize that we as Christians have to think carefully and take these things apart and understand how exactly do these issues fit together in the facts of this case. It underlines, again, the importance of our third branch of government, the judicial branch to think about these things, isolate the issues, document the issues at hand and then make a ruling.

One further thought for Christians as I think about this and as we support the death penalty based upon a biblical exhortation and the understanding of Genesis chapter nine, that he who takes a man’s life forfeits his own life. And we do understand, that in a situation which capital punishment is very much a part of the picture, we need to be particularly careful that we get everything right in so far as the justice system is capable of getting something right.

Okay. Now for a significant shift of gears, we’re going to look at the race in space and there were big developments in that race because just days ago, some of you no doubt have seen the video of the explosion of a major effort to try to expand America’s space program. It was the explosion at Cape Canaveral of Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket and boy was it an explosion. You’re talking about a massive rocket that if it had worked, would be capable of carrying massive payloads into space. And that includes, by the way, missions absolutely crucial to NASA’s plans in terms of the moon and human space flight, but it did blow up and it blew up in a situation in which you had a test on a fueled rocket.

The rocket, by the way, is about 30 stories tall. It’s more than 300 feet high and you’re talking about an awful lot of fuel and you’re talking about on big explosion. As the Washington Post reported, “The explosion of a Blue Origin rocket on a launchpad at Cape Canaveral on Thursday could have ripple effects throughout the US base program and carry long-term implications for the race against China to put astronauts back on the moon.” As the paper reports, “Already US officials were wary of private rocket makers ability to carry out the intricate steps needed to return humans to the lunar surface. Now, one of the leading potential options has gone up in flames with no timeline for its restoration.”

Okay, there’s a lot there. For one thing we are told that some US officials were “wary a private rocket maker’s ability to carry out the intricate steps needed to return humans to the lunar surface.” Now, behind that’s the presumption the government would do better. Now let’s just go back to the 1960s and you could go through the 1970s and beyond and look at the American manned space program and just come to understand it was from the beginning a government corporate, a government business partnership one way or the other. The government didn’t produce all these parts. The government didn’t produce the computer technologies. In the main, those came from corporate partners with NASA. What’s different now is that the actual building of the rockets is in private hands, the actual building of the equipment, and the development of the technology behind it. That is something that is new as compared to the old golden age of NASA as many remember it in terms of the space race and the race to the moon, and then of course the culmination of all of that with Americans landing on the moon through the Apollo program. Now that was about 50 years ago. 

Now we’re talking about the present and we’re talking about the fact that there has been this vast explosion of human innovation and technology. And so you mentioned names like Jeff Bezos, yes, with Amazon. You talk about the entire array represented by Silicon Valley and you talk about Elon Musk. And in this case, Elon Musk turns out to be oddly enough the big winner because Elon Musk and his company are about to undertake the largest initial public offering in all of corporate history, and that means the entire corporate history of the globe. The context there is the fact that what blew up, the rocket that blew up was the New Glenn rocket that was developed by Blue Origin. That’s the main competitor to SpaceX, which is Elon Musk’s company. Now SpaceX already has this entire array of this vast number of satellites put into space. They are putting big vehicles into space. They are ahead in this race by any estimation. 

And yet at the same time, you have SpaceX facing some big challenges and getting its biggest rocket ready for the kind of mission that would go to the moon. And I just want to push back on the fact that what you had here was a suggestion that some of the government are saying maybe the government should be doing this. There is no sign the government would do this better. There are all kinds of reasons to believe the government would do this worse. Rather, you have these private companies that have all kinds of reasons to get this right and you have private money going into these investments. Now sure, there’s some big government contracts too, but you are now talking about an initial public offering, which means this is going to be a publicly traded company.

Okay. So what kind of numbers are we thinking about here? The original equity that is intended to be a part of this initial public offering is about $80 billion. That’s big, but it is thought that the escalation in the equity of this company could go up to about $1.5 trillion in a very short amount of time, $1.5 trillion. Okay. So there’s a lot behind this. An IPO or initial public offering is undertaken both with stock market traditions and a lot of government oversight. One of the traditions here is that the initial trading is actually done kind of old school. There are phone calls involved. There are written records involved.

At the center of all this is what is known as an order book and at least throughout most of investment history, it’s been an order book and these initial public offerings involve a number of investment banks. 23 are expected to be involved in the initial public offering for SpaceX. There’s a lead bank and then there are other banks that come behind. It’s all going to take place over the next several days. And on the other side, we will find out where we stand.

Now when you’re talking about SpaceX, another issue comes into play here and it’s known as TAM, sometimes referred to as TAM. That is the total addressable market. And we are told that this IPO, independent public offering, is going to represent the largest total addressable market TAM in human history. It is expected that that might come to a total of about $28.5 trillion “equivalent to roughly 90% of current US economic output.” Now that doesn’t mean that the company is going to be worth that much. It means that the market to which it is directed could be that big. And I’m in no position to say economically, whether that’s true or false, I’ll simply say those numbers are stratospheric, pun intended.

Okay. There is also a moral issue behind this that’s kind of fun to observe. And it comes down to the fact that you even think of Jesus speaking of the wise and foolish man in terms of what they do with their treasure. So there’s a sense in which when you look at the alternative between burying treasure in the ground, or investing it, the investing is a very promising possibility, but it is also something that comes the higher you go with greater and greater risk. But now here’s something that’s made very evident in this initial public offering for SpaceX. The reality is that getting in brings less risk than staying out, and you might say, well, why would that be so? I mean, if you’re talking about putting money in a company, if it could lose money, well, why is it an automatic that you should as an investment bank seek to get in on this initial public offering and if you can get in on it in a big way? Why would that be so? 

It is because if you get in and it does well, well, you come out looking pretty good. If you get in and it does poorly, really the entire market suffers with you. So the blame game goes all around. If you failed to participate in this IPO, you might be simply blamed with missing a giant opportunity. If you don’t miss it and you get into it as an investment banker, it just might turn out that even if it goes badly, you’ve got a lot of company when it goes badly. But very few people actually think this IPO is going to go badly. The question is just how big will this turn out to be? 

I think one of the thing for Christians to consider in all of this is the fact that once again, this is not gambling. We’re talking about real value. One of the things that’s made very clear in this is that this stock, this kind of stock trade is based upon what is now unquestionably of legitimate essential value. The total valuation will have to wait and see, but the idea behind this, the technology behind this, the structure behind this, the experience behind this, the tests that have already happened, the satellites that are already in space give testimony to the fact there is real value here. This is not just something like a prediction market.

The other thing from a Christian perspective we ought to note as we close is the fact that God made us in his image, male and female, created he them and he gave to us the charge to exercise dominion and then exercise of dominion includes the development of new technologies. That does not mean that in a fallen world, some of these new technologies can be put to evil uses. Of course they can. We know that all too realistically, but this is another testimony to the fact that God has given to human beings the ability to create remarkable things in terms of technology, to develop incredibly intricate technologies and also incredibly intricate financial institutions. And all of this is a part of what could very well lead to a greater flourishing for all.

I think many Christians fail to understand that a cutback or a decline in economic activity hurts the entire economy, which is hardly what would lead to human flourishing. That doesn’t mean that we want the expansion of the economy at any cost without moral considerations. It does mean that when you have a vast expansion of wealth like this, it can be for good for the entire society, or let’s put it another way. If this happened in some other country, we would have preferred that it had happened here.

Now remember, this is also in the context of competition, which is very essential to the way our economy works. And in a free society, you have others that are also free to join in the competition, but competition sometimes goes forward and backwards when you look at competitors and there is no doubt that in recent days, SpaceX is now in a position of strength over against Blue Origin and it’s true that Blue Origin is likely to be back in a very strong way, probably in short order.

In the meantime, just to be reminded of the limitations of human technology, take a look at the video of that rocket explosion. You don’t have to be a 12-year-old boy to want to see it over and over again. Or as a toddler might express it, rocket go boom.