The Donroe Doctrine

NY Times article photo

“We live in a world, the real world, Jake [Tapper/CNN], that is governed by strength, that is governed by force, that is governed by power. These are the iron laws of the world since the beginning
of time.” —Stephen Miller

...On Tuesday, giddy after the success of a daring weekend raid to capture the Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro, Trump’s White House put out a statement threatening Denmark, a nato ally, with military action if it did not hand over Greenland—a threat so reminiscent of Vladimir Putin’s bald demands in the run-up to his invasion of Ukraine that it had Russian officials openly cheering. In the days since, Trump has insisted that the United States simply must have the vast, sparsely populated, and resource-rich territory. Secretary of State Marco Rubio is set to meet with Denmark’s leaders next week to present terms. Seven European nations put out a joint statement condemning the threats, leading to yet another Trump statement claiming that it was the Europeans who could not be trusted to defend their fellow alliance members.

What some of Trump’s own senior officials once viewed as the delusional musings of a dilettante have now become a genuine international crisis, one that could lead—or maybe it already has led—to the effective end of nato. After this week, is there anyone who can credibly claim to be sure that the United States, under Trump, would honor the commitment to mutual defense that is the foundation of the alliance?

Greenland, it turns out, is not a punch line but a template that explains much about Trump’s foreign policy: it’s about a power-grabbing President who looks at territory on a map and says he wants to own it. Trump could not articulate a rationale for acquiring Greenland—“from a strategic standpoint, from a locational standpoint, from a geography standpoint, it’s something that we should have,” he told us—any more than he can elaborate on what his plan is for Venezuela now that he’s toppled the country’s leader and seized some of its oil. Asked by reporters from the Times, on Wednesday, why he couldn’t just settle for the terms of the existing 1951 treaty with Denmark, which grants the U.S. military nearly unlimited use of Greenland’s territory, Trump replied, “Ownership is very important.” He added, “because that’s what I feel is psychologically needed for success.” There are no limits to his global powers, Trump said, except one thing: “My own morality. My own mind. It’s the only thing that can stop me.”

In light of all of this stuff (including the ICE agent killing of Renee Nicole Good in Minneapolis this week forward one day later by new federal CBP agent shootings in Portland, Oregon), igs it hyperbolically unwarranted at this point to wonder whether Insurrection Act martial law may soon arrive?

 

Susan Glasser concludes. 

Welcome to 2026. Trump’s apologists may be right when they say that the martial bluster is no more than a bargaining tactic. It appears that’s what Maduro thought, too, right up until the moment Trump sent the Delta Force into his bedroom in the middle of the night.

ON DECK

Now running on NetFlix. A film production of the live Broadway play. Could scarcely be more timely. Brilliantly done. George Clooley!

 

His closing speech:

These instruments can teach, they can illuminate, they can even inspire, but they can do so only to the extent that humans are determined to use them to those ends. Otherwise, they're merely wires and lights in a box. 

There is a great and perhaps decisive battle to be fought against ignorance, intolerance, indifference. It's a fight for the very soul of this republic.

And so the question is a very simple one. Not what power unchecked can do. We have seen that answer. No. The question is what are you prepared to do?

The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves.

Good night and good luck. 

Selected Murrow quotes. 

 

More shortly...

Yarrow Dunham and Jacob Ward

 

I just spent the past hour and seven minutes experiencing a totally wonderful discussion. Jacob Ward interviews Yale's Yarrow Dunham. Trust me...

 

More ASAP.

R-E-S-P-E-C-T

"EVERY oil empire thinks that THIS time js going to be different"

Jacob Ward's Rip Current

    

Jacob Ward is consistently worth your time.

One of the historical conflicts Jacob cites.

 

 I think I was 10 at the time.

 

2026 INCOHERENCE AT THE U.S. STATE DEPT

 

"Stephen Miller, a top aide to President Trump, asserted on Monday that Greenland rightfully belonged to the United States and that the Trump administration could seize the semiautonomous Danish territory if it wanted.

“Nobody’s going to fight the United States militarily over the future of Greenland,” Mr. Miller told Jake Tapper, the CNN host, after being asked repeatedly whether he would rule out using military force.

The remarks were part of a vocal push by Mr. Miller, long a powerful behind-the-scenes player in Trump administration policy, to justify American imperialism and a vision for a new world order in which the United States could freely overthrow national governments and take foreign territory and resources so long as it was in the national interest.

“We live in a world, in the real world, Jake, that is governed by strength, that is governed by force, that is governed by power,” he said. “These are the iron laws of the world since the beginning of time.”"

That is not the U.S. I have been a part of for 80 years.

January 6th, 2021 

"The Donroe Doctrine"

Annexation of Venezuela

    

    

@RadioFreeTom

Maybe Russia and China Should Sit This One Out


Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping are just shocked—
shocked!—by the American attack on Venezuela.

President Donald Trump has launched not a splendid little war, but perhaps a splendid little operation in Venezuela. He has captured a dictator and removed him from power. So far, Trump seems to have executed a bad idea well: The military operation, dubbed “Operation Absolute Resolve,” seems to have been flawless. The strategic wisdom, however, is deeply questionable. And the legal basis, as offered by the president and his team, is absurd. Some Americans, and some U.S. allies, are appalled.

Russia and China claim to be appalled, too, but to use a classic diplomatic expression, the leaders in Beijing and Moscow should be invited, with all due respect, to shut their traps.

“We firmly call on the U.S. leadership to reconsider this position,” the Russian foreign ministry said this morning, “and release the lawfully elected president of a sovereign country and his wife.” The Russians then shamelessly turned all the sanctimony knobs to supernova levels: “Venezuela must be guaranteed the right to determine its own future without destructive external interference, particularly of a military nature.”

You don’t say…

The more stinging irony here is that Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping probably approved these public statements with a chuckle. The United States has now given Russia, China, and anyone else who wants to give it a try a road map for invading countries and capturing leaders who displease them, with a lawlessness that by comparison makes the 2003 invasion of Iraq seem as lawyered up as a bank merger...

Tom Nichols, PhD writes for The Atlantic. He is a Professor Emeritua of the U.S. Naval War College.

 

UPDATE

 

RICK WILSON CHIMES IN

 

...Here’s the part the MAGA fireworks brigade doesn’t understand: Snatching the bad guy is the easy part. The hard part is what happens next: when the cameras leave, when the speeches fade, and when reality shows up with the butcher’s bill. And this is where the danger starts, because the Trump administration is built to win news cycles, not outcomes. Regime change doesn’t work if you’re not offering something better. And a nation in Trump’s name and image isn’t selling anything that works... 

 Yeah...

 

In a telephone interview this morning, President Donald Trump issued a not-so-veiled threat against the new Venezuelan leader, Delcy Rodríguez, saying that “if she doesn’t do what’s right, she is going to pay a very big price, probably bigger than Maduro,” referring to Nicolás Maduro, now residing in a New York City jail cell. Trump made clear that he would not stand for Rodríguez’s defiant rejection of the armed U.S. intervention that resulted in Maduro’s capture.

During our call, Trump, who had just arrived at his golf club in West Palm Beach, was in evident good spirits, and reaffirmed to me that Venezuela may not be the last country subject to American intervention. “We do need Greenland, absolutely,” he said, describing the island—a part of Denmark, a NATO ally—as “surrounded by Russian and Chinese ships.” And in discussing Venezuela’s future, he signaled a clear shift away from his previous distaste for regime change and nation building, rejecting the concerns of many in his MAGA base. “You know, rebuilding there and regime change, anything you want to call it, is better than what you have right now. Can’t get any worse,” he said.

The severe tone he took with Rodríguez contrasted with the praise he had offered her yesterday, hours after U.S.-military forces attacked Caracas and captured Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, for criminal prosecution. Trump said in a news conference after the attack that Rodríguez had privately indicated a willingness to work with the United States, which Trump declared would temporarily “run” her country.
“She’s essentially willing to do what we think is necessary to make Venezuela great again,” he said yesterday.

Rodríguez rejected that suggestion moments later, declaring that the country is “ready to defend our natural resources” and that the nation’s defense counsel remained prepared to carry out the policies of Maduro, whose return she demanded. “We shall never be a colony ever again,” she said…

What a total mess.