The only way to understand Trump is to recognize him as an egotistical bully writ large. His own family says he was like that from childhood. Growing up, he managed to gain a sense of stage presence and charisma — the ultimate Alpha Male.
Whether it is merely an expression of his ego, or there really is a solid strategic case for seizing Greenland, you should not imagine he will drop it. He’s quite willing to alienate the whole of NATO and the EU to get what he wants. The problem is that the other NATO countries have always accepted the junior partner status. That worked well for nearly a century of letting the US spend its resources while Europe kept theirs invested in economic and social stability. It’s not working now.
I rather like this analysis by Moon of Alabama, even if I can’t quite buy the whole thing. I agree that the only way the EU can avoid the embarrassment over Greenland is to very quickly develop full independence. The article mentions military independence, something Europe can not afford, if we are being honest.
But it’s worse than simply military considerations. Europe needs to develop the entire range of military technology and supporting industries that rivals what they have been buying from the US. That includes the full range of military intel capability, like airborne radar systems. On top of that, they would need to declare technology independence. Do you realize how much of an economic drain it is for them to run Windows and use Office 365? That’s one massive chunk of global economic dependence. Microsoft is not entirely a global corporation; most the money goes back to the US. And that’s not the only major software dependency that holds everyone back.
You notice that Russia and China have already fielded their own OSes and software stacks, not to mention making progress in producing their own hardware. Microsoft is bleeding market share. Further, both of them have built up their own internet, capable of continuing in the absence of any networking with the West.
As another sign of who is calling the shots here in the US, it was Netanyahu who warned Trump not to strike Iran recently. At least part of the calculus was just how badly Israel suffered the last time they tried that. We didn’t get good reporting on that from the MSM; we learned by intel leaking through from people on the ground in Israel. The destruction was precise and substantial. Iran is not just a paper tiger any more.
In another direction, I’m not so sure if the call-up of Alaskan troops for action in Minnesota is just a cover for invading Greenland, as Moon suggests, but it’s plausible. It could be some of both. But domestic warfare is inevitable. The sheeple can be herded back and forth between Democrats and Republicans, but there is a growing consensus of divergence between two completely different nations. Soon, it will be necessary for lefties and righties to separate geographically.
On the surface, it looks like things are just muddling along, but the action around ICE is going to be what rips it wide open. Does it worry you that the division is also increasingly gender based? Younger generations of American men are increasingly conservative and refusing to deal with the growing radicalism of US feminists. It shows up in religion, too, as Big Eva is entirely too feminist and younger men are migrating to Eastern Orthodoxy or Christian Nationalism. Catholicism itself is deeply divided, and other liturgical denominations are fracturing.
As always, we have no dog in this fight. We can see that, by biblical standards, both right and left are too materialistic. The political and social agendas associated with either one is deeply morally flawed. We’ll be very fortunate if we can simply stay out of the way.
