Trump’s policies/actions are at least partially aimed at pursuing the national interests of the US (albeit possibly in a very misguided/incompetent way)
and further in favor of both
Trump has gone insane,
and/or Trump is intentionally acting on behalf of Putin.
I’d like to find more/better sources of evidence about “what is the US executive branch optimizing for?”; curious to hear suggestions.
(Also, to Americans: How high/low salience is the issue in the US? Also: curious to read your analysis of your chief executive’s behavior.)
The US under Trump 2.0 has a new national security concept which understands the world in terms of great powers and their regions of influence. The USA’s region is the entire western hemisphere and that’s where Greenland is (along with Canada and Venezuela), and the new America will not allow anything in the western hemisphere to be governed from outside the hemisphere. Instead they want to use Greenland however they see fit, e.g. as a base for continental missile defense.
They do not say this openly, but the European Union, I believe, is not regarded as a great power, but as a construct of America’s erstwhile liberal empire. The implication is that the nations of Europe will individually end up as satellites of one great power or another (e.g. China, Russia, post-liberal America, or an emergent indigenous European power), or perhaps as non-aligned.
This insouciant territorial claim on Greenland is the flipside of the way in which America is reevaluating its relationship with all other nations on a bilateral basis. Countries which were used to being treated as equals and partners, at least publicly, now find themselves just another entry in a list of new tariffs, and the target of impulsive hostile declarations by Trump and his allies like Vance and Musk.
This does imply that insofar as the norms of the “rules-based order” depended on American backing to have any effect, they are headed for an irrelevance similar to that of the League of Nations in the 1930s. Anything in international relations that depends on America or routes through America will be shaped by mercurial mercantile realpolitik, or whatever the new principles are.
The one complication in this picture is that liberalism still has a big domestic constituency in America, and has a chance of ruling the country again. If the liberals regain power in America, they will be able to rebuild ties with liberals in Canada, the EU, and elsewhere, and reconstitute a version of liberal internationalism at least among themselves, if not for the whole globe.
I read and watch a lot of political content (too much), and I participate in forums on both sides of American politics. That’s the closest I can give to a method. I also have a sporadic geopolitics blog.
Qualitatively, discussions re: Greenland look a lot like discussions re: North Korea did back in his first term. People thought he had lost his mind and was going to start a nuclear war, but tensions actually ended up calming down—arguably more than usual—after the initial surge.
Partisanism aside, and whether or not people like it or consider it the optimal way to get what he wants, this just looks to be the way that he negotiates. If you’re looking for reassurance, I’ve seen this news cycle quite a few times before during a Trump presidency, and things tended to turn out alright the other times.
After reading about Trump’s actions w.r.t. Greenland, I’m updating further away from
Trump’s policies/actions are at least partially aimed at pursuing the national interests of the US (albeit possibly in a very misguided/incompetent way)
and further in favor of both
Trump has gone insane,
and/or Trump is intentionally acting on behalf of Putin.
I’d like to find more/better sources of evidence about “what is the US executive branch optimizing for?”; curious to hear suggestions.
(Also, to Americans: How high/low salience is the issue in the US? Also: curious to read your analysis of your chief executive’s behavior.)
The US under Trump 2.0 has a new national security concept which understands the world in terms of great powers and their regions of influence. The USA’s region is the entire western hemisphere and that’s where Greenland is (along with Canada and Venezuela), and the new America will not allow anything in the western hemisphere to be governed from outside the hemisphere. Instead they want to use Greenland however they see fit, e.g. as a base for continental missile defense.
They do not say this openly, but the European Union, I believe, is not regarded as a great power, but as a construct of America’s erstwhile liberal empire. The implication is that the nations of Europe will individually end up as satellites of one great power or another (e.g. China, Russia, post-liberal America, or an emergent indigenous European power), or perhaps as non-aligned.
This insouciant territorial claim on Greenland is the flipside of the way in which America is reevaluating its relationship with all other nations on a bilateral basis. Countries which were used to being treated as equals and partners, at least publicly, now find themselves just another entry in a list of new tariffs, and the target of impulsive hostile declarations by Trump and his allies like Vance and Musk.
This does imply that insofar as the norms of the “rules-based order” depended on American backing to have any effect, they are headed for an irrelevance similar to that of the League of Nations in the 1930s. Anything in international relations that depends on America or routes through America will be shaped by mercurial mercantile realpolitik, or whatever the new principles are.
The one complication in this picture is that liberalism still has a big domestic constituency in America, and has a chance of ruling the country again. If the liberals regain power in America, they will be able to rebuild ties with liberals in Canada, the EU, and elsewhere, and reconstitute a version of liberal internationalism at least among themselves, if not for the whole globe.
Interesting. Thanks. How did you arrive at the above picture? Any sources of information you’d recommend in particular?
I read and watch a lot of political content (too much), and I participate in forums on both sides of American politics. That’s the closest I can give to a method. I also have a sporadic geopolitics blog.
Qualitatively, discussions re: Greenland look a lot like discussions re: North Korea did back in his first term. People thought he had lost his mind and was going to start a nuclear war, but tensions actually ended up calming down—arguably more than usual—after the initial surge.
Partisanism aside, and whether or not people like it or consider it the optimal way to get what he wants, this just looks to be the way that he negotiates. If you’re looking for reassurance, I’ve seen this news cycle quite a few times before during a Trump presidency, and things tended to turn out alright the other times.