If you have any semblance of love for food, you have probably heard of Danish pastries. The modern leadership of the free world isn’t unlike those buttery treats. Bavarian ancestry repackaged as something else. Flaky, with intentional browning, falls apart as soon as you touch it, and you never know how much of a mess it will make.
Stop me if you think you’ve heard this one before, German origin man with serious superiority complex, gains popularity targeting societal decay and then threatens Europe with war. I suppose, it would be unfair to the tyrants of the world to say that we have it worse than their subjects, but being a European leader in 2026 is certainly not an enviable prospect. With the assumed threat of Russia to the East and US demands for Greenland, it is hard to imagine a peaceful night’s sleep would have graced EU leaders in the past few months.
The illegal kidnapping and then what can only be described as the colonization of Venezuela followed by immediate threats to Denmark must have only driven the nail further, and some nail it must be to get Mr. Starmer riled up. Declaring a UK response in the event of a US invasion is ludicrous and laughable from a military point of view. One might be tempted to ask, respond with what? The carriers that avoid water like a rabid man or the US supplied F-35s which they don’t have enough of to begin with? However, if one chose to set aside their amusement, a sobering reality makes itself known.
It is said if you tie an Elephant with a thin chain in its younger days, where it can’t break the chain, it grows up thinking it can’t snap that chain at all. However, what is not said is that it also runs the risk of that Elephant accidentally finding out that it can. USA, under Trump is that Elephant. Not that USA was ever ignorant of its potential, but it certainly was not as openly myopic, nor as virtually belligerent as it is today. US realizes that it is the unequivocal power center for NATO and NATO subscribes to their protection. However, it is also true that despite US Superiority, NATO sans US isn’t entirely helpless. Meaning even if the substantial defense infrastructure provided by US is somehow disabled, getting into EU will be no less difficult than it was on D-Day and back then the UK was helping.
But all that is idealism and elementary flights of fancy marred by whimsy and subjectivity. Regardless of the whims that float in the Oval-office, the Pentagon isn’t devoid of wit and any policy demand made at Washington can be accommodated by the US joint forces and enabled by the technology that costs an arm and a leg, every time an American without insurance hurts their arm OR a leg. That provides us with a complex tapestry of eventualities.
It is plain to see that Greenland is not the object of US insecurity but its ambition, which is evidently, now running amok. NATO membership already allows US to build and maintain military bases and defence assets. Patriots and THAAD line almost all of strategic routes and the arctic is a virtual minefield of interception corridors, including Greenland.
So, what has changed?
The move to take Maduro was tantamount to a hasty attempt of a checkmate by a hot-headed novice. Though not devoid of merit, going straight for a piece as a way for a quick win, might throw the other player off, inflict some damage, on account of them not expecting such brashness, but more often than not, it ends in mounting losses to oneself.
Venezuela was an event that will echo over months, if not years and decades. Beijing has been trying to get a hold over Taiwan the way POTUS tried to grab the pope’s hand. But unlike then, the only one who could have smacked Beijing’s advance on Taipei is now, itself morally compromised and not in any position to dissuade a Chinese invasion of Taiwan. Moreover, Ukraine has been a clear lesson against depending on US for direct intervention against a nuclear armed belligerent and Taiwan does not have the land connectivity that can be used to sustain another protracted war of attrition against America’s adversaries.
One thing is for certain, the American system has adapted to the whimsy of Trump, and is accommodating behind the scenes. US can no longer afford the deniability of its activities, so it has apparently resorted to subjecting the world to the unhinged ramblings of bald men doing their best impression of Lex Luthor, while proclaiming how the US military might, gives them the right to control the hemisphere even at the expense of other’s liberty and sovereignty, concepts on which, ironically, US itself was founded. One can’t however, judge these people. Afterall, when in Rome…
It is however, undeniably clear that despite his affinity to claim credit for stopping wars world over and coveting the Nobel, either by dotage or by design, the leader of the free world has all but given up on being the fireman, and has resigned to handling only the arson side of his duties as the President of the United States. Be it the seizure of a Russian oil tanker eliciting a response from Moscow with a potential for escalation or bullying his own allies, it can be said that Mr. President’s ear no longer hurts, going by the way he is motivated now, to shoot himself in the foot.
Well, while many are of the opinion that there is an economic world war raging around us, courtesy Washington and Beijing, it can’t be ignored that philosophers and policy makers, more often than not, are and have always been the tense type. But if one has had the pleasure of encountering the average American troll online, one may still take solace in knowing that even in these trying times, there are those in the US who have not lost their taste for the fruits and nuts of Washington.
