“Economics creates the conditions — insecurity, a sense of decline, distrust of elites. But immigration (framed as cultural threat, not just economic competition) is what converts that grievance into a right-wing populist vote. The slogan “It’s the economy, stupid” famously explained Bill Clinton’s 1992 win. For right-wing populism, researchers are now saying almost the opposite: it’s the culture, not just the economy.”
Europe was the second-fiddle Christian land until Muslims conquered the heart of Christianity. The Crusades were a delayed response to these invasions as well as continued invasions of lands controlled by Christians.
Muslims from where Algeria is now, raided and enslaved Europeans for hundreds of years. Algeria demands reparations for French colonialism, but hypocritically ignores 300 years of Algerians raiding and enslaving Europeans.
Looking at a variety of studies and data, it doesn’t look like immigration in Europe has increased crime or made Europe less safe; with the important exception that the massive 2015 wave of migrants into Europe appears to have increased crime. Not allowing migrants to legally work can increase crime because those migrants aren’t allowed to earn a living legally.
“After a brutally cold winter in Ukraine, months of supposed peace talks that have produced little more than political theater, and with Russia showing no sign of stopping its barrage of attacks, the EU had been confident it could finally bring Kyiv some concrete help.
But the carefully choreographed support was spoiled when Hungarian Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó announced his country would block Europe’s 20th round of Russian sanctions because of an oil dispute Budapest has with Ukraine, ratcheting up the two countries’ long-simmering feud.
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Hungary’s move marked a “new low” for Orbán, Sweden’s Europe Minister Jessica Rosencrantz told POLITICO. “We’ve seen in previous decisions that Hungary is not acting in a way of sincere cooperation” with other EU states. “That should send an alarm to many of us. We’re seeing what Orbán is doing: he’s using Ukraine as a punching bag.”
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The crux of Hungary’s row is the Druzhba pipeline, which stretches 4,000 kilometers from eastern Russia to Central Europe, providing vast quantities of oil for Hungary and Slovakia. Both have exemptions from EU sanctions on imports of Russian refined oil.
The pipeline has been offline since Jan. 27, when Ukrainian authorities said a Russian strike damaged it. But Budapest and Bratislava aren’t buying that, accusing Ukraine of intentionally keeping the pipeline inoperative.
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Lithuanian Foreign Minister Kęstutis Budrys said he was “really upset and frustrated,” adding Hungary’s move not only calls the EU’s support for Ukraine into question but its unity and ability to act decisively when major decisions are constrained by unanimity.
“I hope that Europe can deliver,” he said. And “that tomorrow it won’t be the situation when we will be saying, ‘We are sorry, 20th package is not there. We are sorry, €90 billion maybe next month, maybe somewhere in the future.’””
The Ukraine war doesn’t have a normal frontline. It has two lines separated by a 13 mile gray zone where a small number of soldiers try to infiltrate and drones search and destroy.
What the US needs in Greenland is access. The US already had that and any additional access could have been negotiated for without threatening war.
Countries like Denmark and the US have already agreed to not solve differences between them with force. The US breaking that by threatening war to take territory from Denmark is a huge violation that damages American soft power.
Trump claimed that Denmark has a weak claim to Greenland because all they did is send some boats there and the US did this too. This is false or misleading because the Danes colonized Greenland before the US existed. It also further violates norms and damages relations with many countries because the US is breaking agreements it has made in the past where it acknowledged Danish control over Greenland.
Other countries know that if the US uses force, or the threat of force, to steal territory from Denmark, the US may do it to them.
The US has claimed that because Greenland can’t defend itself, the US has the right to take it. Under that logic, any stronger country can conquer many weaker countries because a lot of weak countries cannot defend themselves against stronger countries, and having that territory would give the stronger country a more forward defense against other strong countries.
For a long time, the US has dealt with this problem by having weaker countries band together in some sort of treaty organization so that they can help each other defend against a strong country and not need to invade each other for the sake of defending themselves against the bigger country.
Russia and China are not a short term threat to Greenland. Getting to Greenland with a large force would be very hard and require supply chains by US, and European territory. The US didn’t seem to see Greenland as a short term concern because the US voluntarily pulled out most of its troops and equipment and kept most of them gone.
The US also already had commercial access to Greenland, and could negotiate for mining without threatening war.
Using hard power is expensive, unreliable, and often only working while you are still willing and able to use it. Soft power can create more long run influence.
The Trump administration and Republican Congressmen have been dismissive of American allies to the point of being offensively insulting and lying about these countries and their people.
Trump is just as aggressive toward good allies as bad allies. Targeting good allies who have been good and loyal, makes those countries less likely to support you in the future.
The European allies are democracies, and the European peoples do not like Trump threatening to use military force to steal territory from a European country. This will not help get pro-American leaders elected in European countries.
“In an interview with Fox Business, he said, “We’re getting everything we wanted — total security, total access to everything.”
Yet all of that was available to Trump from the start, without the drama that sent the NATO alliance barreling toward an internal crisis, a Danish official told NBC News on Thursday.
The only nonnegotiable point for Denmark was that Greenland shouldn’t be absorbed by the U.S., the person added.
“We can discuss increased military presence and more troops. You name it, basically, you can have it” under existing treaties, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
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his Greenland gambit clawed away some of the trust that underpins a successful alliance, said diplomats, government officials and foreign policy experts.”