Everything is connected
Geopolitical strategies, capabilities, and interactions focusing on how these dynamics influence security, relations, and Canadian interests.
“This is tyranny,” Keith Ellison, Minnesota’s attorney general, told me. “There is no other way to put it. We’re all shocked by it. Nobody ever thought America would look like this. We now don’t have to speculate as to what American fascism looks like. It’s right outside the door.”
Source:
NYT: In Minneapolis, I Glimpsed a Civil War https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/19/opinion/trump-minneapolis-ice.html?unlocked_article_code=1.FlA.h9nY.5zovniwEgSkO&smid=url-share
NBC News is reporting that Trump is increasingly complaining to aides about Canada’s vulnerability to adversaries in the Arctic.
As Trump works toward annexing Greenland, he has intensified his criticism of what he sees as Canada’s similar inability to defend its borders against any encroachment from Russia or China.
Continue reading “Trump is again fixated with Canada’s Arctic”
Greenland is not a marginal issue for Europeans. Threats against it cut to the heart of the idea of Europe, of sovereignty, international law and trust. Key European leaders recently stressed they are united in their position that it is up to Denmark and Greenland to decide their own fate — and no one else. The potential for a crisis is real, and what is most confounding is that this would be a crisis that is entirely unnecessary and easily avoidable.
Threatening to annex territory belonging to a NATO ally strikes at the very foundation of the alliance. NATO is not merely a military grouping; it is a community of liberal democracies that has endured precisely because its members trust — and do not threaten — one another. They consult, negotiate and resolve disputes peacefully. This shared political culture is not a luxury — it is NATO’s greatest strategic asset. It sets us apart from those that depend on threats and tricks to keep their “friends” together.
Continue reading “An attack on Greenland “would make America weaker, not safer””
Canada has drawn up plans to send a contingent of soldiers to Greenland for military exercises with other NATO allies in the face of threats from the US president to annex the semi-autonomous island controlled by Denmark.
Two senior government officials told The Globe and Mail that the Canadian Armed Forces is awaiting final political approval from Prime Minister Mark Carney before the soldiers are flown to Greenland.
In separate reporting, two senior Canadian officials told CBC News that a set of contingency plans were drawn up last week and presented to the federal government.
US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on Sunday, January 18, 2026, defended the president’s calls for the US to take over Greenland amid concerns from European allies that an annexation would destroy NATO relations.
The president’s intensifying focus on Canada behind closed doors, whose relationship with the US has been deeply strained since he came into office, comes as he transforms some of his longtime criticisms of America’s neighbours in the Western Hemisphere into actions aimed at expanding US power in the region.
Protecting Canada’s northern border is a key part of Trump and his top aides’ vision of “solidifying” the Western Hemisphere, as one of the US officials put it. As the Americans see it, the acquisition of Greenland would also benefit Canada.
Continue reading “US increasingly focused on Canada to ensuring American dominance in the Arctic”
The US Department of War has ordered some 1,500 active-duty soldiers to prepare for a possible deployment to Minnesota, US defence officials told The Washington Post on Saturday, January 18, 2026.
The soldiers are from two infantry battalions with the Army’s 11th Airborne Division, based in Alaska and specializes in cold-weather operations.
Continue reading “Pentagon ordered 1,500 soldiers to prepare for a possible deployment to Minnesota”
Alan Jones, a former Assistant Director of Operations for the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) discusses the threats Canada faces, intelligence sharing, and whether or not the US poses a threat to Canada now and the extent to which that might affect intelligence sharing between Canada and the US.
Greenland, Iran, Russia, Ukraine, Venezuela ‒ In a wide-ranging conversation with DW Washington Bureau Chief Ines Pohl, retired US General Ben Hodges offers a blunt and deeply critical assessment of the US’ current foreign and security policy.
Hodges warns of serious damage to NATO, questions the lack of long-term strategy behind recent military actions, and explains why Ukraine is far from losing — and why that still matters for Europe’s security.
