Trumpian Threat- International Brigandry, Not Peace

The entire world is in the grip of a new virus --- a mutant version of OCDS (not obsessive compulsive disorder syndrome as we know it ). In its curious new avatar it is known as the Obsessive Compulsive Donald Syndrome!

Trump ,like a fentanyl addict, is on a high in the global ‘reality mall’ land grabbing or threatening nations that oppose his marauding march.

The recent heist of the Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores is in keeping with America's dark record of similar acts of regime change through assertion of military power.To make a laundry list of nations and leaders deposed or executed over the years by the world's oldest democracy is an eye-opener.

Prominent leaders in Africa and West Asia were eliminated for daring to go against America. Muammar Gaddafi of Libya executed, Saddam Hussein of Iraq hanged, debonair Ernesto "Che" Guevara paid the price for being a Marxist revolutionary impeding U.S. interests in Latin America. "The beat",as they say, "goes on": witness Afghanistan, Venezuela, Cuba, Colombia. Trump has warned the Colombian president, Gustavo Petro, to "watch his *** ( derrière in polite terms). Who knows the POTUS(President of the United States)might be eyeing Diego Garcia next?

Not content with belonging to a continent-sized territory called the United States of America, seized from native indigenous people, Trump wants to expand his empire further. His territorial lust for Greenland shows no concern for the sovereignty of nations. Morals and scruples are piffling matters. What matters is America First and the devil takes the hindmost.

As Stephen Miller, Trump's advisor, put it bluntly: “ The real world was governed by strength, that is governed by force, that is governed by power - not treaties or mutual support". Trump is the fountainhead of this aggressive loop. With his hubris and single minded self-interest, he believes treaties are to be 'mistreated', institutions that are the underpinnings of the world order post World War Il are to be bypassed.

This is realpolitik of the worst kind. To go against a NATO member, since Greenland's foreign and security policy is still in Denmark's hands (though it was given autonomy in 1979),is to turn from a protector into a predator.

Attacking Greenland would create fractures that will weaken the vertebral column of the 76-year old military alliance and create a ferment in the Anglo-Saxon world. As part of the Monroe doctrine(now rechristened Donroe doctrine by Donald) American military stayed on in Greenland after the war to prevent Nazi Germany from getting a foothold there. President Truman had proposed buying Greenland for $100 million in 1946. Americans still maintain two military bases in Greenland.

Greenland's Prime Minister, Jens-Frederik Nielsen, bravely warned Trump to give up his "fantasies about annexation" accusing America of "completely and utterly unacceptable rhetoric, declaring: "Enough is enough". Nielsen also said at a press conference: "You cannot compare Greenland to Venezuela. We are a democratic country". Gutsy, though caught in a David vs Goliath predicament.

The Danish Prime Minister Frederiksen said that she would "do everything to fight for the fundamental democratic values and the international community we have built". They were supported by the EU asserting that it would always defend the principle of territorial integrity, when it came to a member of the 32 - member bloc.

Palpable tensions are simmering in the Arctic as US, China and Russia fight for dominance over minerals and other geopolitical assets as the ice melts in the region. China, always looking at the long cast has been building ice breaking machines. This is certainly not a diplomatic ice-breaker between America and China. President Xi Jin Ping and President Putin must be watching this NATO turmoil with a smug smirk.

Despite Trump's constant iteration of having stopped many wars, the Nobel Peace Committee has rapped him on the knuckles for almost grabbing the Peace medal from Machado, who probably gave it for currying favour with him. Alas! Peace prize can not be transferred to another person as the Nobel Committee clarified.

There's an old term," beggar thy neighbour" attributed to Adam Smith, the well-known Scottish economist, who used it in his oft-mentioned 1776 book, 'The Wealth of Nations.' He criticised advocating protectionist policies implemented through unfair trade tariffs to achieve a trade surplus. Adam Smith supported free trade.But Trump is going headlong into tariff wars with nations that do not buckle under his pressure tactics.

Trump's imperialist expansionism vis-a-vis Greenland is bound to create more than a ripple at the World Economic Forum at Davos, Switzerland. The EU is closing ranks against America's perfidy in threatening a fellow NATO member. Britain, though not in the EU, has been doing some hot foot diplomacy with leaders in Denmark and Brussels to countenance Trumpian threats with a planned strategy.

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney 's speech at WEF has been delivered with the finesse of an honest and bold global leader. In contrast Trump, at the same podium, sounds crass and full of bluster as usual.

The curious history of Donald Trump as the 45th and 47th President of the USA will certainly not be written in golden letters. Donald shouldn’t pop the bubbly too soon at his expanding empire as the looming mid term elections and the dénouements of the Epstein files still await him.

This much we have to grant D. Trump that whatever else his presidency may lack, it has been full of drama, suspense, incredulity, petulance, arrogance, bullying and coercion, greed and lexical liberties. But never boring!

Ushi Kak aka Kashpundit, an author and a columnist, writes satire generally. Views expressed are the writer's own.