Give Ryan Routh, the latest would-be Trump assassin, some credit. Not every felonious building contractor has enough drive to write an entire book about a foreign war and global geopolitics. But that’s what he did.

I just finished all 291 pages of Ukraine’s Unwinnable War: The Fatal Flaw of Democracy, World Abandonment and the Global Citizen. Taiwan, Afghanistan, North Korea, WWIII, and the End of Humanity. It was self-published on Amazon seven months ago.

Reading this nutty, uninformed, but clearly fervent screed, I was torn between dissecting it in terms of ideas, or seeing it as a window into Routh’s rather tortured mind. I would submit the former is necessary to do the latter. Hence the need to adduce his positions on some of these issues.

Making International Affairs His God

Routh is a self-described atheist. He muses that “if we could wipe away all religions and government systems … we could all get along just fine” (p. 98). He also deems all religions “buffoonery” (p. 186).

Routh clearly has substituted the liberal/Leftist collective “good of humanity” for belief in God. Specifically, as he writes repeatedly, he thinks Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has set off a Manichean struggle between evil (Putin’s Russia) and good (the rest of the world). Much of the book finds him railing against those too stupid to see this: the international community, particularly we Americans; the media, which he nonsensically accuses of downplaying the conflict; but also Ukrainians themselves, who at the time of his writing didn’t even take the war seriously enough to enact conscription (a policy now changed).

Routh says he went to Ukraine via Poland and offered to fight, but was turned down for his lack of military experience and age. He then stayed on, trying to raise awareness about foreign fighters going there, as well as recruit more of them — only to be shut down by the Kyiv police. He also claims to have tried to help build drones, but was never allowed to test-fly them.

Routh finally concludes that while Ukraine wants foreign money and military kit, its people do not want fighters from overseas. Eventually he was forced to leave.

Advocating Nuclear War

Much of the rest of the book consists of Routh’s sophomoric foreign affairs analyses.

We (presumably Americans) have “failed Hong Kong, Afghanistan, Myanmar, Yemen, Peru, Syria, Iraq, Turkey, Belarus and countless other countries struggling with conflict” (p. 48). The US should be willing to “install law and order” in such places (p. 51).

In fact, regarding the Ukraine war, we should launch a nuclear first strike on Russia, since “all Nato nations have missile defense systems in place to eliminate the what [sic] Putin sends and all the fallout will blow in his direction” (p. 92). Nuclear weapons ended WWII, so “why are we afraid now?” (p. 93).

Barring Armageddon, Routh says the West should try to assassinate Putin and maybe invade Russia. Anthony Blinken he ain’t.

Routh Really Came to Hate Trump

Routh says he’s neither Democrat nor Republican, and does criticize Joe Biden for the Afghanistan pullout which allowed the Taliban to retake control.

But most of his vitriol is reserved for former President Donald Trump. He calls him an “idiot” (p. 125), a “brainless” and “retarded child” (p. 278), and decries “our own catastrophe on January 6^th perpetrated by Donald Trump and his undemocratic posse” (p. 135).

Routh also apologizes to Iran for voting for Trump, telling Tehran “you are free to assassinate Trump,” as well as Routh himself (p. 278).

Fatalism Should Have Been a Warning Sign

FBI and Secret Service psychologists should have read this book, because Routh comes quite close to spelling out his plans right after excoriating the former president: “No one here in the US seems to have the balls to put natural selection to work or even unnatural selection” (p. 278).

Routh was clearly unhappy, perhaps despondent. “I have some imaginary fantasy in my head that these words will have some significance and relevance, and be impactful and elevate me to some useful position unlike the place where I am now” (p. 105). That’s a woeful locale, it seems. “I have worked 7 days a week for my entire life, nearing 60 and have ended up with nothing” (p. 114). Later in the book, he continues this pitiful theme. “As you might have figured out by now, this story is also the conclusion of my life. It has been my goal to make every country’s leader and civilians around the world mad at me…. I will sacrifice myself if need be to push the war and the world forward…. The goal is for them to hate me as much as Putin and hopefully render an even greater resolve” (p. 163). He continued “Captain obvious who I must be for the short time that I have left” (p. 164). And finally, most tellingly, Routh ponders that maybe he’ll be killed by the Taliban or Russians, but that “one way or another I doubt I will make it out of this year alive” (p. 290).

All of that last indicates Routh was planning suicide-by-Secret Service while taking out former President Trump. He appears to hope sacrificing himself to stop Putin and/or Trump would give his “loser” life some meaning. The stymied shooter filled his interior “infinite abyss” with a political cause — saving Ukraine — instead of with the Triune God, which led him to that armed stakeout of Trump on Sunday. Thank God he was discovered and arrested.

Let’s pray this is the final attempt on the Republican presidential nominee’s life. But we should also pray for Ryan Routh, a truly troubled man.

 

Timothy Furnish has a PhD from Ohio State in Islamic, World & African history. He’s been an Arabic interrogator in the 101st Airborne, a US Special Operations Command analyst, an author and professor. Furnish is the military/security affairs writer for The Stream.