On matters of national security
International Security includes military and diplomatic measures that nations and international organizations ‒ such as the United Nations and NATO ‒ take to ensure their safety and security.
Amid continued threats by Trump to annex Greenland, the territory of Denmark, a fellow NATO member, multiple outlets report Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden and Canada are sending troops to Greenland.
The deployment is not meant to spark a confrontation against the US, but a measure to ensure the common security interests of all NATO partners.
Around 4:40 a.m. on Jan. 6, just a few days after the US capture of Venezuela’s president, Nicolás Maduro, armed men intercepted a bus carrying civilians and several policemen on the main highway near Tibú, a town on the Colombian side of the border with Venezuela. They ordered passengers to hand over their phones for inspection, and then proceeded to kidnap five police officers.
The assailants were members of the National Liberation Army, or E.L.N., a Colombian guerrilla group that started off mounting a leftist insurgency in the 1960s but has since expanded into criminal enterprises. As many as half of its roughly 6,300 fighters are now based in Venezuela, where they have, at least until this month, enjoyed an alliance of mutual convenience with the government.
Continue reading “Something is brewing along the Colombia‒Venezuela border”
US Secretary of War Hegseth announced Monday January 12, 2026 that Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence chatbot Grok will be integrated into Pentagon classified systems and will join Google’s generative AI engine in operating within the Pentagon’s infrastructure.
The current administration’s aggressive embrace of developing AI technology contrasts sharply with former President Joe Biden administration’s cautious approach, which emphasized safeguards and responsible-use guidelines.
Continue reading “Pentagon is integrating Grok AI into classified networks”
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.
Continue reading “Chatham House Director warns ‘This does mark the end of the Western alliance’”
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 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.
Continue reading “Europe is entering a new state of alert in the face of US hostility”
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.
Continue reading “Atomic arms control could collapse if Ukraine suffers unjust peace”
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.
Continue reading “EU Defence Commissioner calls for permanent 100,000-strong all-European military”
“The shadow of the interventionist eagle looms over everyone equally. We urge you to put aside these differences.”
– Nestor Gregorio Vera
The leader of the largest dissident branch of the former Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) guerrilla group called on other rebel groups to come together to fight US interventionism in the region.
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.