Martin Armstrong has spent decades tracking economic cycles and predicting major turning points in markets and geopolitics. In some of his predictions, he’s hit the mark down to the day. In a recent interview — Empires Always Fall — he warns that the unrelenting push toward war with Russia stems from desperation and will eventually lead to the economic collapse of Europe and the break up of the European Union. And, eventually, the United States.

Armstrong’s forecasting model centers on an 8.6-year cycle he stumbled on while studying financial panics dating back to 1683. The cycle, which works out to exactly 3,145 days, kept appearing everywhere he looked. “It was like oh, that’s pi,” he says, “which is the perfect cycle.” This mathematical constant shows up in ancient coins, the procession of the equinoxes, and across the universe itself. More importantly, it tracks the movement of capital around the world with remarkable precision. Always watch the capital flows.

Armstrong’s approach stands in contrast to how most analysis gets done these days. “The vast majority of analysis out there is linear, which comes from the classic physics side,” he says. “And it’s always wrong.” He uses climate change as an example. “Went up one degree this year, so it’s going to do that forever, and we’re all going to die in 50 years. There’s a cycle to everything. Nothing goes up forever.” Anyone who trades the markets understands this instinctively based on history and years of experience. You don’t assume that because the Dow went up a thousand points this month it will do that forever. 

Armstrong’s insight came from understanding how money actually behaves in real life. “Capital moves like a herd of wild animals,” he says. “I developed a model to track this.” The breakthrough for him came when he realized the model wasn’t just predicting financial crises. It was also predicting wars as well. “What I’ve learned over the years is that with capital, somebody always knows,” Armstrong says. War comes when you see the money start to move in advance. And we never see these conversations reflected in the media. 

Armstrong’s model has predicted wars before they happened because someone always knows what’s coming and starts moving their money. Before the Lebanese Civil War in the 1980s, his computer warned that the country would “fall apart in 8 days.” Eight days later, the war began. A shipping magnate in the Gulf called and told him Iraq would start attacking ships the next day. Listening to Armstrong, it’s clear he has a vast network of highly capitalized people in his circle of clients and friends.

By 1998, Armstrong understood the pattern completely. He stood up in London in June of that year and announced his computer said Russia was going to collapse. “I said I give it a little more than 30 days,” he says. What Armstrong didn’t realize was that the London Financial Times happened to be in the back of the room. They put it on the front page. “Armstrong says that Russia is going to collapse and we’re going to have a bunch of nukes running around.” Russia collapsed. The Long-Term Capital Management crisis followed. That’s when the CIA called. “They said, ‘All right, fine. We’ve been monitoring you guys for quite some time.'” They wanted Armstrong to build the model for them. He offered to run studies for them from his own office. “They said no, they had to own it and I said well it’s not for sale. So that started my whole nightmare with government.” Armstrong didn’t say in this interview that he ended up in jail for years over this, but he talks about the experience at length elsewhere. Cross the Deep State at your own risk.

When Hamas attacked Israel in October of last year, defense stocks started moving a week in advance. “It’s always the same thing,” Armstrong says. “It doesn’t matter what country we’re looking at. Somebody always knows.” At the top of the market where serious capital lives, the markets are objective, not emotional, and they show you what’s happening if you know how to read them.

These days Armstrong’s model is flashing red for Europe. Germany, which represents 25% of the EU’s GDP, has seen its economy actually shrink by 3 to 5 percent. That’s not a recession, Armstrong says, but instead it’s a permanent reduction in the number of available jobs. COVID lockdowns, climate change policies, and sanctions against Russia have devastated small businesses and the industrial base throughout the country. “The EU is doomed. It cannot recover,” he says. “They’re still running around with the climate change nonsense. And this is why they need war with Russia. No matter what government you look at, when they’re in trouble, they need an external enemy.”

Armstrong’s model doesn’t just predict that war is coming. It predicts the outcome as well. “I can tell you our computer warns that Europe will lose,” he says. “It’s in too much of a weak state economically.” Britain already spends over 3% of GDP on interest payments. Now NATO wants 5% on top of that for defense. At least 10% of GDP would be going to something that has nothing to do with improving the economy. You can’t win a war when your economic foundation is crumbling.

But Armstrong sees another motivation behind the war push, one that’s purely mercenary. “Russia is the richest country in the world from natural resources,” he says. “Even Maggie Thatcher said they had everything from platinum, gold, oil, timber. It’s estimated their natural resources were 75 trillion. That’s double the US national debt.” Some Europeans hold delusional fantasies about conquering Russia and seizing those resources. “If we can conquer Russia then we’ll have the 75 trillion, the US will be back to this vassal state and we will rise again like the Roman Empire,” Armstrong says. He also says he’s heard this thinking process firsthand. “I’ve heard this complete deranged nonsense. Oh, if we go into Russia and we remove Putin, they’ll give us like a ticker tape parade and cheer. I said, no, they’re not. They’re going to shoot your ass.” The problem is that neocons “demonize the opposition to the point that they just believe their own BS.”

In Germany, which is the economic engine for the EU, the fundamental problem runs even deeper than the current crises. The country has followed what Armstrong calls the mercantile model: “We build stuff, we sell it to you, we get rich.” But the wealth never reaches the people. Germans have the highest tax rates in Europe, and the net worth of an average German is less than that of an Italian. They’re selling the house to stay afloat. Meanwhile, “China has looked at both models,” Armstrong says. “It’s trying to copy the United States. It’s trying to create a consumer-based economy” with government controls over industry. The contrast is stark. “The capitalization of the New York Stock Exchange — just one exchange — is worth more than all of Europe combined. Home Depot, the IPO, when that was launched, was worth more than all the IPOs of Europe.”

The reason for Europe’s failure is ideological, Armstrong says. “They’re against capitalism. They’re against just about everything.” During World War I, European governments shut down all the stock markets. Now they’re pursuing digital currency as the ultimate control mechanism. “They go to a digital currency and that’s it. You can’t get it out.” Spain recently announced that people can’t withdraw more than $3,000 in cash from their accounts without government permission. “This is freedom? Oh, Putin’s a dictator. It’s beginning to look the other way around. Everything that they accuse Putin of, they’re doing. Denying free speech. It’s becoming much more like a socialistic communist state and it’s not sustainable.”

The European establishment is losing control, and the political landscape reflects this, Armstrong says. “Look at the AfD in Germany. They wanted to ban it at first. Then they called them all Nazis. Now it’s the number one party.” Similar shifts are happening across the continent. Portugal has moved right. Poland too. Nigel Farage’s Reform party in the UK is now number one in Britain. Kaja Kallas, the former prime minister of Estonia who now heads foreign policy in the EU, has come out and said Russia’s too big and needs to be broken up. Boris Johnson made the front pages of Norwegian newspapers saying that Britain is at war with Russia. This is all an openly declared proxy war, Armstrong says, where the old guard is desperate to hold on, and that desperation manifests as increasingly authoritarian control and the drumbeat for war. ​He doesn’t pull his punches. He’s emphatic. 

Armstrong is particularly critical of NATO’s role in all of this. “NATO is, its sole purpose is war,” he says. He’s seen the internal memos. When climate change funding threatened NATO budgets, officials panicked about losing their salaries and pensions for doing nothing. Their solution was to manufacture a threat. “They have to keep saying, ‘Oh, Putin wants to invade Europe.'” The absurdity is obvious to Armstrong. “Putin’s been there since 1999. Why hasn’t he? Because there’s nothing there.” Europe has tried to invade Russia three times throughout history. Russia has never tried to invade Europe.

Now NATO via the Trump Administration wants EU member states to spend 5% of GDP on defense. Britain already spends too much of its GDP on interest payments alone. “What are we talking about here?” Armstrong asks. “At least 10% of GDP is now going for something that totally has nothing to do with improving the economy.” This is economic suicide dressed up as security policy. The establishment is trying to retain power through oppression and military spending while the actual economy crumbles beneath them.

Moving to Ukraine, Armstrong is blunt about where the responsibility lies for the current conflict. “We created the whole Ukrainian war,” he says. Victoria Nuland was in Maidan handing out sandwiches. John McCain stood on there on stage saying we’re behind you, overthrow your government, America’s behind you. “Can you imagine if Lavrov from Russia stood on the steps of the capital building in the US saying to overthrow your government? We’re with you.” There was a peace deal in Ukraine early in the war. Boris Johnson hopped on a plane, went over there, and told them no, you’re not allowed to sign a peace deal, Armstrong says. We want war. “The death toll was basically 130,000 at that point. It’s now over a million. Do they care if any Ukrainian is still standing at the end of the day? No, they don’t.”

In the US Armstrong has heard neocon lunatic Lindsey Graham saying this is the best money we’ve ever spent to kill Russians. But what Armstrong heard from Europe is even worse. “They could care less about the Eastern Europeans. They were all basically communists anyhow. So send them in first. Let them be the vanguard. Let them die first. Take down as many Russians as you can.” The cynicism is complete. “They could care less if we live or die. There’s too damn many of us anyhow from their perspective.”

This pattern holds across history and geography. “War does not take place when everybody’s fat and happy,” Armstrong says. “Turn the economy down and that’s when you get war. People are aggravated.” Biden blamed inflation on Putin. Canadian leaders campaigned against Trump rather than addressing domestic issues. When governments face domestic crises, they reach for the oldest playbook. 

One problem with governments, he says, is their lack of institutional memory. “When you’re a kid, your parent will say, ‘Don’t stick your finger in that candle. It’s going to hurt.’ We all still do it.” But while individuals learn from pain, governments constantly change administrations. “There’s no collective memory. They don’t learn from past mistakes.” It doesn’t even seem they care about previous mistakes as well. 

Armstrong reserves particular criticism for the neoconservatives and their obviously limited thinking, which relies on linear analysis and regime change fantasies. “The neocons wage endless wars,” he says, “and they use linear analysis.” The pattern is always the same. “Oh, we’re going to take out Saddam. Does anybody ask, okay, if you’re successful, what comes next? They never ask that question.” Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq. None of them had a clear objective beyond the initial regime change. Afghanistan lasted 20 years. Iraq cost $3 trillion, and when you factor in the interest payments, “we’ll be paying $10 trillion for Iraq by the time you get to the 2030s.” The US is still paying interest on World War I debt. It never ends. “There’s no intention of ever paying off any debt,” Armstrong says.

And they’ve been at it for decades with Iran too. The biggest problem with pursuing war with Iran is that sanctions never work. “Sanctions never worked even once in history,” Armstrong says. The thinking process he’s heard is that sanctions will hurt the people, which is their objective, and then the people will rise up and overthrow their government. “Hasn’t worked once.” China just built a railway right into Iran and now gets 80% of Iran’s oil. Sanctions just push countries together and harm powerless populations, not the governments. Iran now has the backing of Russia and China. When we took out Iraq, “I can tell you they were like, wow, we got away with it. Russia, China, nobody stepped in. Okay, we’re all powerful. That’s not going to work with Iran.”

There are some common and obvious tactics governments use to start their wars to distract from economic collapse. False flag operations are the standard operating procedure, Armstrong says. “Usually what they do is they create a false flag. That’s very very common.” World War I and the Lusitania. The US said they were neutral and would never transport weapons. Germany said they were using passengers as a shield. In 1987 they discovered the Lusitania and suddenly the government admitted the hall was full of ammunition. “They lie about everything.” Project Northwoods proposed killing Americans and blaming Cuba. Kennedy said no and didn’t want to go into Vietnam. “So they took him out.” Richard Nixon had the head of the CIA in his office and said on tape, “I know who killed JFK.” Next thing you know, Watergate happens. Nixon later gave up his Secret Service protection. Why? Because he didn’t trust them. Hitler burned the Reichstag to blame the communists. Weapons of mass destruction in Iraq never existed. And the Gulf of Tonkin in Vietnam? “We were never attacked. Even Johnson had said for all he knew they were shooting at whales that night.” Churchill admitted that “the truth is so precious in war, it needs a bodyguard of lies to protect it.” And it goes on and on. Armstrong is clear about this pattern. “I don’t care what side you’re talking about, left, right, whatever, they all do it. This is standard.”

But there are backchannel communications constantly. The Iranian press recently said Iran called the United States to warn that they assumed Israel would create a false flag attack involving America to blame Iran and get the US engaged. “They said it’s not us and we’re telling you in advance of what they’re trying to do.” Armstrong believes Trump told Israel not to take out the supreme leader because regime change in the Middle East is particularly dangerous. “When you have just a dispute that’s economic, all right, fine. I’ll give you this territory. You give me this back. But this is religious. There is no compromise here.” The problem is that the West drew the borders after carving up the Ottoman Empire. “We didn’t do it ethnically or religiously.” They need dictators to hold these artificial countries together.

Armstrong sees all of these moves leading to the political destruction of the European Union. “We’re looking at, basically, the political destruction of Europe. They never designed the Euro correctly from the beginning” because they never consolidated the debt. The US faces similar risks but over a longer time period. “We’ve always seen the political divide. If Trump says the sky is blue, they have to say it’s red. They just have to take the opposite. So the country is basically screwed that way. We’re too polarized to survive.” The computer shows the US will break up just as Europe will. “I live in Florida and it’s like Florida is a completely different country from California.”

The uncontrolled mass migration crisis in the US and the EU adds another layer of constant instability. Armstrong references the Roman emperor Valens. When Attila the Hun marched toward the Roman Empire, Valens allowed the Goths fleeing the Huns to come in. He thought he could rebuild the Roman army. “So he trained them in Roman tactics and they said, thank you very much. They turned around and waged war on him and killed him in battle.” Migrants also bring disease. “Most of the [American] Indians died from the diseases that we [Europeans] brought.” The Black Plague came from Asia. The Tartars in Crimea started catapulting plague-infected bodies into Italian forts. The Italians fled, took it back to Europe, and a third of the population died. “Plagues always come from wars.” The Spanish flu started with World War I soldiers. “Plagues come largely with migrations and migrations are also correlated with wars.”

Armstrong’s verdict is pretty damning. But he’s been talking this way for some time, and he’s not backing down at all. “This is like a giant chess board to these neocons and they could care less if we live or die. We’ve got to wake the hell up. Who’s it benefiting? It’s not benefiting anybody.” And we can’t look to the media. “The press just gets paid to put out the standard BS as if this is moral, we have to save humanity when you’re really destroying it.”

His conclusion echoes an ancient well known warning. “Sun Tzu said that no country has ever benefited from a prolonged war.” Armstrong talks about one of the first famous examples. King Croesus of Lydia went to the Oracle at Delphi to ask about waging war against Cyrus the Great from Persia. The Oracle said a great empire will be destroyed. Croesus naturally assumed he would win. “The empire that was destroyed was his.”