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      How far will Europe go to defend Greenland from Trump?

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      The president’s disregard for international law exposes the continent’s reliance on the US. Leaders have hardened their language in support of Denmark, but the price of confronting him is high• Don’t get This Is Europe delivered to your inbox? Sign up hereDonald Trump’s threat to take control of Greenland “one way or the other” has left the territory and its sovereign power Denmark reeling and the rest of Europe scrambling for ways to stop him.After the shock of the US’s military raid on Venezuela Trump’s ambition to put Greenland next on his hitlist is no longer being seen in Europe as bluster or fantasy, but a serious intention, driven by ideology, neo-imperial expansionism, US thirst for critical minerals, or all of the above. Continue reading… More

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      Europe must now tell Trump that enough is enough – and cut all ties with the US | Alexander Hurst

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      How do you retain a space of democracy in a world that is reverting to violent conquest? By building a protective moat of federalism around it‘He keeps encouraging me … to choose between Europe and the US. That would be a strategic mistake for our country,” Keir Starmer said in response to Ed Davey’s question in the House of Commons last week, about whether a US move against Greenland would mean the end of Nato.What about Europe, though? As Danish and Greenlandic ministers prepared to face JD Vance in the White House, the question was would Europe finally choose between Europe and the US? Will its leaders have the courage to tell the full truth – that the US isn’t simply abandoning its allies and destroying the international order but is now in the position of active and hostile predation by force – and more importantly, to act on it? To offer Denmark moral and material backing, and Greenland a future of self-determination and membership, rather than subservience to US resource plunder?
      Donald Trump has already set the tone by saying the US will seize Greenland “one way or the other”, and no part of the triumvirate around him is trying to hide their imperial intentions any more. Not the nepotists and grifters amassing ever greater private fortunes. Not the white supremacist ideologues drawing inspiration from Ein Volk, Ein Reich, Ein Führer! to post “One Homeland. One People. One Heritage”, via official US government social media accounts. Not the techno-nihilists salivating to mine every bit of Greenland’s mineral resources and rule their own neofeudal city states on its coast.
      When Trump says that the only constraint on his exercise of power is “my own morality”, that means there is no constraint. Like Vladimir Putin, he will keep grabbing until someone imposes a limit on him.Alexander Hurst writes for Guardian Europe from Paris. His memoir, Generation Desperation, is published this month Continue reading… More

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      Why Russia’s economy is unlikely to collapse even if oil prices fall | Phillip Inman

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      Hopes that tougher sanctions and lower oil prices could derail Putin’s war effort underestimate how far the Kremlin has rewired its economyPacing inside the Kremlin last weekend, as news feeds churned out minute-by-minute reports of Donald’s Trump’s Venezuelan coup, Vladimir Putin may have been wondering what it would mean for the price of oil.Crude oil has lubricated the Russian economy for decades – far more than gas exports to Europe – and so the threat of falling oil prices, prompted by US plans for control of Venezuela’s rigs, will have been a source of concern. Continue reading… More

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      in World Politics

      Moldova Needs Security Guarantees as Part of Any Ukraine–Russia Peace Deal

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      Moldova is relevant to any Ukraine–Russia peace deal, which can only be achieved through enforceable security guarantees for both countries. A small but strategically important country, Moldova is decisively pro-Europe, with its voters defeating pro-Russian parties in the most recent election.  Moldova does not border Russia. Nonetheless, Moldovans feel threatened by Russia. In February 2022,… Continue reading Moldova Needs Security Guarantees as Part of Any Ukraine–Russia Peace Deal
      The post Moldova Needs Security Guarantees as Part of Any Ukraine–Russia Peace Deal appeared first on Fair Observer. More

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      If Donald Trump thinks Greenland should be his, how long before he sets his sights on Scotland? | Zoe Williams

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      By the expansionist logic of the president and his advisers, the US is entitled to annex just about anywhere‘We do need Greenland, absolutely,” Donald Trump told the Atlantic on 5 January, with the hand-wavy follow-up, “We need it for defence.” His adviser Stephen Miller was more aggressive still in an interview with CNN, saying: “The real question is, by what right does Denmark assert control over Greenland? What is the basis of their territorial claim? … The US is the power of Nato … obviously Greenland should be part of the United States.” His wife, Katie Miller, posted an image on X of a map of the country papered over with the US flag, with the caption “soon”. It’s hard to orientate sensibly towards things that happen on X these days: if she had posted a Grok-generated image of Greenland in a bikini, would that be more or less concerning?Still, we’re right to be concerned. There is no comfort to be had from old-era ideas such as: “Maybe they’re just sabre-rattling about Greenland to distract from the matter of Venezuela”, or “surely the foundational principles of Nato, a defensive alliance, will prevent the US from any act of aggression towards its own allies?”Zoe Williams is a Guardian columnist Continue reading… More

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      The Trump doctrine exposes the US as a mafia state | Jan-Werner Müller

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      The Venezuela incursion is in line with this logic, made even plainer as the US eyes GreenlandWhen a bleary-eyed Trump explained the kidnapping of Nicolás Maduro this past Saturday, he invoked the Monroe doctrine: while the US president sounded as if he were reading about it for the first time, historians of course recognized the idea of Washington as a kind of guardian of the western hemisphere. Together with the national security strategy published in December, the move on Venezuela can be understood as advancing a vision for carving up the world into what the Nazi jurist Carl Schmitt called “great spaces”, with each in effect supervised by a great power (meaning, in today’s world, Washington, Moscow and Beijing). But more is happening than a return to such de facto imperialism: Trump’s promise to “run the country” for the sake of US oil companies signals the internationalization of one aspect of his regime – what has rightly been called the logic of the mafia state. That logic is even more obvious in his stated desire to grab Greenland.The theory of the mafia state was first elaborated by the Hungarian sociologist Bálint Magyar in 2016. Such a state is less about corruption where envelopes change hands under the table. Instead, public procurement is rigged; large companies are brought under the control of regime-friendly oligarchs, who in turn acquire media to provide favorable coverage to the ruler. The beneficiaries are what Magyar calls the “extended political family” (which can include the ruler’s natural family). As with the mafia, unconditional loyalty is the price for being part of the system.Jan-Werner Müller is a Guardian US columnist and a professor of politics at Princeton University Continue reading… More

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      Europe’s failure to condemn Trump’s illegal aggression in Venezuela isn’t just wrong – it’s stupid | Nathalie Tocci

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      The more European countries act as colonies, unable and unwilling to stand up to Trump, the more they’ll be treated as suchThere is no two without a three, as we say in Italian. After their complicit silence on Israel’s war crimes in Gaza and their tacit acceptance of the US/Israel attack on Iran, Europeans now hesitate to condemn the US’s audacious military operation to bring about regime change in Venezuela. With few notable exceptions – such as Spain, the Netherlands and Norway – most European leaders have fudged their response. Spain, in fact, has acted without its EU partners, condemning the US attack alongside a group of Latin American countries. European governments seem unable to utter in the same breath that, although Nicolás Maduro was an illegitimate dictator, the US attack to topple him is a gross violation of international law.The French president, Emmanuel Macron, the UK prime minister, Keir Starmer, and the European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, at least made reference to international law, while emphasising that they shed no tears for the end of Maduro’s regime. Others, such as the German chancellor, Friedrich Merz, strangely talked about looking into the legality of the US military action, as if there were any doubt about its nature. Worse still, Trump-friendly Italian prime minister Giorgia Meloni defined this act of external military intervention as “legitimate” self-defence against narco-trafficking.Nathalie Tocci is a Guardian Europe columnist Continue reading… More

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      The awkward truth about some of Trump’s views on Europe? European leaders agree with him | Shada Islam

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      The US president’s fears about ‘woke’ Europe are laughable. He would feel right at home in today’s EUI expected the EU to push back strongly against Donald Trump’s new national security strategy. Not only does it show contempt for the EU and its “weak” leaders, but it also targets European citizens and migrants with racist dog whistles and barely disguised Islamophobia. Yet instead of a rousing defence of the bloc’s commitment to human rights and equality, there have just been bland platitudes.António Costa, the president of the European Council, denounced Trump’s plans to boost support for Europe’s far-right parties. But there was no public challenge to the racist logic underpinning his argument. Costa, who has spoken proudly of his mixed ancestry, could have made a convincing counterargument to the US president’s false premise that Europe was heading for “civilisational erasure” because of migrants and, by extension, millions of Europeans of colour.Shada Islam is a Brussels-based commentator on EU affairs. She runs New Horizons Project, a strategy, analysis and advisory company Continue reading… More