America is in an unstable position, and it is striking out to play strong. From the Biden administration sponsoring genocide to Trump smashing and grabbing all over the world, the signs of an empire in decline are there.
The threats against Greenland are to distract from domestic scandals and to entertain a sick old man. The Pax Americana promised by each new president is merely a war abroad to prevent one at home. From Johnson to Bush, presidents have sometimes used the big stick to smash foreigners on the head for their oil, or their politics, or their mere existence.
The government are amateurs falling over themselves to please a 79-year-old man, the military is increasingly used to quell public disquiet, and the secret police abduct people at will. This sounds like the last days of the Ottomans or the fall of the Shah, but it is the United States of America.
Trump has tried to extract mineral deals from Ukraine to pay for US arms that were already paid for by the war debts incurred by Ukraine. He has attacked Venezuela to open their oil reserves and end nationalisation. And now he comes for Greenland.
My bet is that he saw how big it looks on the Mercator maps and decided that he needs it, and I know that I am right. That is how pathetically low the bar is: a senile buddy of Epstein looking at the map and ordering his toy soldiers around.
Only the soldiers are real, and they will kill you for oil. So, take this old man with an inflated sense of ego, tell him that he basically is the United States, that he’s all over the Epstein files, and you get a recipe for imperial disaster. Either to avoid impeachment after the midterms, or to distract from the recent release of files, something is getting blown up.
There is plenty of precedent for the US attacking its enemies for oil, but it seems like the prospect of Greenlandic oil might be too much for the US to turn down.
US intervention has already placed the supermassive US oil conglomerates in reach of another market, and it has demonstrated that global politics is about power over precedent. This is not new; it is not some breaking story.
America is a superpower from a by-gone era when the Soviet Union counter-balanced power to make a tense and brittle peace, but now there is no unified bloc to oppose it either martially or economically.
America must have enemies to defeat, a villain to unite against, or merely something to stand firmly in the way of. As the EU has grown and strengthened, the US bridled at the thought of the bloc becoming big enough to be competitor in any field.
The US has benefited greatly from their military presence in Europe under the guises of NATO. The US gladly poured troops into Europe for nearly 50 years during the cold war, and in doing so established vast intelligence networks that still penetrate the deepest levels of the governments of their allies. With friends like this, you don’t need enemies.
And now, Greenland is in the crosshairs. An autonomous region of the Kingdom of Denmark, Greenland has for decades been home to US troops. In 1951, the Denmark and the US signed a treaty allowing the US unlimited military access to the island and today is believed to house part of the US ballistic missile early warning systems.
If the US wanted to take Greenland, it would only need to start building the troop numbers there to the point where the US is in charge, or at least de facto in charge. But DJT wants to own the island outright, saying that he gets the instinct from his days as a developer and alleged child abuser in New York, where he met his close friend, disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein.
Surely there is no connection between all the recent airstrikes and kidnappings and Trump being named in the Epstein files more than any other US politician. Trump has made remarks on owning Greenland on and off since his first term came to an acrimonious end, but his recent posture on owning Greenland is a far cry from anything he has said to allies so far.
He has mused about leaving NATO, ignoring an invocation of article 5 if Russia is the aggressor, but he has never talked openly about owning the sovereign territory of another member. To then put military action on the table and to send his VP on a PR tour of the island is utterly insane, but that is the point.
The US would promptly be kicked out of NATO, G7, G20, and just about every NATO country where they have troops, thus reducing any ability to deploy to the middle east quickly. It would be diplomatic suicide at a time when the US is losing ground to China in every field, so it could be perfect for Trump, on mature reflection.
The Greenland obsession is one of many he is possessed by, but it is proof of the rot both in his mind and in the US psyche. The dying urge of an empire is to fight and kill so you are seen to be a threat, now do we see it with America. These are death throes, not a battle cry. As the scandals build so too will the violence, as we have seen in the recent weeks. Hopefully it is not an omen of what is to come.
