Geopolitics | NatSec.ca

Chatham House Director warns ‘This does mark the end of the Western alliance’

Bronwen Maddox, Director and Chief Executive of the Chatham House international affairs think-tank, gave her annual lecture at the institution’s London headquarters on January 13, 2026, said, ‘We have had from President Trump what amounts to a revolution. He has given the US a radically new role in the world and – at the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence – a role that rejects the principles on which the US was founded: that government should be accountable to the people.’

Maddox added, ‘Most profound, we have had the rejection of principles of international law that the US helped forge – even if it often declined to apply those to itself. Venezuela brandished that rejection to the world, followed by the President’s intention to acquire Greenland.

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US senators introduce bill to prevent the US military from occupying or annexing NATO territories, including Greenland

The bipartisan legislation would prohibit the Pentagon and the US State Department from using funds appropriated by Congress to “blockade, occupy, annex, conduct military operations against, or otherwise assert control” over the territory of a NATO member state.

The legislation from senator Jeanne Shaheen, the top Democrat on the Senate foreign relations committee, and Republican senator Lisa Murkowski comes as lawmakers in both parties have expressed alarm over President Donald Trump’s renewed interest in acquiring Greenland after the US recently captured Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro.

Trump on Sunday said the US would have the Danish territory “one way or the other”.

Source:

Financial Times: US Senate introduces bill to stop military from occupying NATO territories https://www.ft.com/content/c8b309a0-d214-4bb7-9630-bfcaa91925a3

Europe is entering a new state of alert in the face of US hostility

Europe has entered a new state of alert in the face of US open hostility in areas that go beyond simple economic and technological competition and touch the deepest core of strategic and security issues.

A day after US military and civilian forces staged an illegal incursion into Venezuela, during which President Nicolás Maduro was kidnapped and captured and transported to New York City, Trump asserted that his country needs Greenland — an autonomous territory belonging to Denmark, a member of NATO.

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Atomic arms control could collapse if Ukraine suffers unjust peace

Andreas Umland, an analyst at the Stockholm Center for Eastern European Studies, warned that if Russia emerges from the war with Ukraine with territorial gains, atomic proliferation could accelerate worldwide.

“Countries will learn that nuclear weapons secure victories, while Ukraine’s disarmament led to devastating losses,” he said.

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EU Defence Commissioner calls for permanent 100,000-strong all-European military

EU Defence Commissioner Andrius Kubilius is calling on the European Union to establish a standing military force of 100,000 troops and overhaul the defence decision processes. He also believes the U.K. should become part of this.

Faced with Russian aggression and the US shifting its focus away from Europe, along with threatening Greenland, the Defence Commissioner argued for a “big bang” approach to re-imagining Europe’s common defence.

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Trump is reshaping Canada-US relations, the Canadian economy, and Canada’s engagement with the world

Canada enters 2026 at what Prime Minister Mark Carney has rightly called a “hinge moment.” Canada’s long-standing relationship with the US, based on ever-increasing economic integration and a rock-solid security partnership, is history.

Ongoing trade uncertainty will weigh on the Canadian economy, and the US administration will wield unilateral military and economic power in the Western Hemisphere. Canada’s efforts to diversify its trade and strategic relationships will face powerful headwinds.

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Americans are throwing their weight around the Western Hemisphere and want rivals China and Russia out

If the Trump administration continues to move in this direction, the global situation is more likely to descend into chaos or conflict than to achieve stable equilibrium.

Time:

The message is clear: Washington will throw its weight around in the Western Hemisphere and it wants rivals located elsewhere, China and Russia especially, out—or at least out of critical sectors. It’s a doctrine elaborated clearly in an otherwise muddled national security strategy. In a nod to old-school gunboat diplomacy, it rests on threats and acts of violence. At least part of the point of the smash-and-grab operation in Venezuela was to display raw military power.

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Jason Stanley: Canada is a free democracy, one that embraces diversity and tolerance. America is not your friend.

The U.S. has been veering toward fascism for some time. That is why my family and I decided to leave for Canada last March: Canada is a diverse and healthy democracy. Yet in my short time here, I have observed an alarming level of naïveté about what is happening south of the border.
It seems many Canadians have simply not adjusted to the fact that they live next to a fascist state whose president has imperial designs on Canada.
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DeepSeek AI is popular in China, Belarus, Cuba, Russia, Syria, Iran and much of the Global South

DeepSeek benefited from being open, free, and strategically distributed in regions often excluded from the first wave of AI adoption. This dynamic also highlights how open‑source AI can function as a geopolitical instrument, extending Chinese influence in areas where Western platforms cannot easily operate.

China’s artificial intelligence start-up Deepseek has quickly gained market share in many developing nations, surpassing US models that are popular in the West.

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Trump: “My own morality. My own mind. It’s the only thing that can stop me.”

Trump declared on Wednesday evening that his power as commander in chief is constrained only by his “own morality,” brushing aside international law and other checks on his ability to use military might to strike, invade or coerce nations around the world.
Asked in a wide-ranging interview with The New York Times if there were any limits on his global powers, Mr. Trump said: “Yeah, there is one thing. My own morality. My own mind. It’s the only thing that can stop me.”
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