“Washington already has tremendous access to Greenland under past agreements with Denmark; U.S. troops already operate in Greenland and Washington can send more. Trump’s demand that Denmark grant the territory to the U.S. is a body blow to U.S. relations with its European allies. It also hurts NATO, a military alliance that includes the U.S. and Denmark — and which would defend Greenland should an adversarial power threaten it.”
Is Trump pushing the world toward a realist Westphalian order with less emphasis on permanent alliances and international organizations, or is he really moving us to a royalist system where global actions are less based on countries and more based on personal, familial, and buddy enrichment and aggrandizement.
Greenland is less about the defense of the US and minerals, which the US could do in Greenland without threats of war because Greenland, through Denmark, is a US ally, and instead about Trump making himself look great by adding territory to the US and making his friends with business interests rich. Ronald Lauder, a billionaire with business interests in Greenland, suggested Trump take Greenland back in 2018. Similarly, refineries that benefit from the Venezuela attack include Trump megadonors. Trump raised tariffs on India after Modi said Trump didn’t play an important role in creating peace between India and Pakistan. So this action was more about Trump’s status and aggrandizement than realist and economic strategy for the benefit of the United States.
“The classified assessment, compiled by Vietnam’s Ministry of Defence in August 2024 and titled ‘The 2nd US Invasion plan,’ was made public on Tuesday by Project88.
It reveals that Hanoi’s defence establishment was privately preparing for a possible ‘war of aggression’ even as the two countries upgraded their relationship to a Comprehensive Strategic Partnership in 2023.
The partnership, announced during former US President Joe Biden’s visit to Hanoi in September that year, marked the highest level of diplomatic ties since relations were normalised in 1995.
But the leaked document suggests Vietnamese military planners were treating the United States as a hostile ‘belligerent’ power and remained deeply suspicious of Washington’s intentions.
Far from considering the US to be a strategic partner on par with China, Hanoi considers it a rogue state that is preoccupied with regime change and which might invade Vietnam if the country refuses to join its anti-China coalition.
According to Project88, the assessment warns that the US could seek to undermine Communist Party rule through support for a so-called ‘colour revolution’ – similar to pro-democracy uprisings in post-Soviet states – and could exploit Vietnam’s long coastline and maritime geography in future conflict.
Project88 quoted the document as stating: ‘While there is currently little risk of a war against Vietnam, due to the US’s belligerent nature, we need to be vigilant to prevent the US and its allies from ‘creating a pretext’ to launch a war of aggression against our country.
…
‘Hanoi sees Washington as an existential threat and has no intention of joining its anti-China alliance,’ Swanton wrote.
‘In this respect the plan upends over a decade of US policy, which has sought to court Vietnam into such an alliance, while turning a blind eye to human rights abuses in service of this goal.'”
When Russia licensed China to manufacture their own Su-27s, China broke the contract by reverse engineering the aircraft, making improvements, and then building them completely on their own, stealing Russian technologies.
Respected general arrested by Chinese President Xi may have written a letter describing the problems with Xi’s rule and warning of where Xi is taking the country. He may have not actually written this letter.
The centrality of the United States in the world financial system allows it to use that power to cut countries and people off from basic financial services. The United States has long used this power to cut off rogue states, but Trump is abusing this power and the power of the US domestic market, which could lead to a rebellion and weaken America’s power to use these tools when it more needs it.
Trump ran on China being a major threat, but his aggressive actions toward non-China countries, has strengthened China’s relationships with these countries and made China stronger compared to the US.
Trump throws around power to try to get short term gains, not realizing that long term no one trusts him or the US and this ultimately weakens US power.
“While the US can draw a certain degree of confidence in its capabilities from the success of the mission, there’s a risk of reading too much into that success, especially when it comes to weapons made by American rivals in the hands of other militaries.
Some of the failures of the Venezuelan-operated foreign air defenses, for example, have been attributed to issues like inactivity, incompetence, and a dearth of functional cohesion between different systems.
Wins in Venezuela during Operation Absolute Resolve or in operations against Iranian-operated Russian-made air defenses may not translate the same in fight with Russia or China.”