Editorial: What more will 2026 bring!?
We’re only weeks into a new year and it already looks like it will be far more uncertain than the last!
Already, we can legitimately worry that the United States will invade a second country, but this time part of a European and NATO ally.
The current era of political instability is sure to continue for some time and it’s impossible to say how the world will look when it all calms down. The US is acting like a rogue state, acting without regard for international law and serving its own interests only through military and economic force. It look like the end of the American empire. Empires tend to last around 250 years and the US is 248 years old. The US has many of the symptoms of late stage empire including an overextended military, small military campaigns, huge indebtedness, culture wars and printing money.
The US used to be the guarantor of international law and a stable world order, although obviously it didn’t always act entirely in keeping with those principles either. Now it’s leaving dozens of international organisations, acting without talking to its allies and has become a destabilising force across the world.
It’s battling with China for economic hegemony while it should be working in tandem with it. Russia must be delighted - the US is now weakening its long-established relationships with Western allies and acting unilaterally.
After it’s unlawful incursion into Venezuela and seizing of President Maduro, Trump this week described himself as the “Acting President of Venezuela”.
Now the focus is turning swiftly to Greenland, an autonomous territory of the Kingdom of Denmark. Denmark, of course, are part of the EU and NATO.
It’s now a real possibility that the US will seek to coerce its way into taking over the sovereign territory of an ally - mind boggling. Things are changing so quickly that it’s easy to miss all the insane things going on.
For example, the US Department of Labor this week posted the following message on social media: “One Homeland. One People. One Heritage. Remember who are, American.”
It directly echoes or perhaps even references: “Ein Volk, ein Reich, ein Führer” (One People, One Country, One Leader) - one of the central Nazi slogans about national unity. The US of course has always been an incredible mix of ethnicities and backgrounds and native Americans are arguably the true ‘Americans’. Bizarre.
On Tuesday Greenland's Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen reiterated Greenland's commitment to Denmark. “We face a geopolitical crisis, and if we have to choose between the US and Denmark here and now, then we choose Denmark,” he said in Copenhagen. “West and united in the Kingdom of Denmark.”
Greenlandic and Danish foreign ministers will meet US Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio in Washington. Danish Foreign Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen sought the talks in Washington. Good luck to them.