Rupture (January 23, 2026)
Welcome to Home & Away. We will begin with Greenland, admittedly a territory I did not anticipate starting off my newsletter. But, if nothing else, we should have learned over the past year that assumptions can be dangerous. So, Greenland it is. The Board of Peace (spoiler alert: I harbor profound doubts as to its ability to perform its declared mission, its membership, its leadership, and its funding structure) will have to wait until next week.
Let me just posit up front that President Trump has a point when he talks up Greenland’s growing strategic importance and economic potential. That Greenland’s strategic value in no small part stems from a phenomenon – climate change – that this administration denies is ironic. But I will return to the issue at hand.
Where this president does not have a valid point, though, is in demanding that the United States can only protect these valid interests by acquiring this territory. This belief – call it the Real Estate Doctrine– has no basis in history. We have deterred conflict in Europe and Asia without owning countries to which we have commitments; what has been required is capability, credibility, and cooperation. And even the much-in-favor Monroe Doctrine has largely worked without this country owning any other country in the region.
The good news is that the president blinked soon after touching down in Davos, taking the use of military force, i.e., invasion, and tariffs off the table. He seems to have realized the Europeans were serious about defending the territory, and the last thing he needed or his MAGA base wanted was an actual conflict. Europe also made clear its willingness to push back on the threatened tariffs and on financing U.S. debt. In short, what appeared to be a cheap and easy win suddenly appeared to be anything but. What we have instead is a framework that will provide specified sovereign-like rights for U.S. military bases in Greenland along with mechanisms for economic development and revenue sharing and commitments limiting Russian and Chinese access.
The tragedy is all this could and should have been negotiated without the drama and breakage. The existing 1951 agreement allowed the United States to do what it deemed necessary in the defense realm, and an economic arrangement could easily have been tacked on. Considerable damage to NATO and to transatlantic relations has needlessly been done. Those who claim that Trump does what he does only to set up a compromise overlook the costs of the process when it involves erstwhile friends who will remember being treated as enemies.
What motivated Trump to go about this as he did remains (as is often the case with him) a mystery. He has long viewed allies with disdain, seeing them as freeloaders who take economic advantage of us. His administration has also launched a culture war against Europe, much in the way it has done against universities and elites in this country.
There are two other possible explanations. Trump appears to see acquiring territory as a legacy builder that would place him in the pantheon of those presidents he judges to have been great. And I cannot rule out retribution given his obsession with the Nobel Peace Prize and anger over not having received it.
Making it all worse was Trump’s long, rambling, and indulgent speech delivered to the global good and great. It was filled with exaggerations and falsehoods, insults and threats, and more than a few strange detours and digressions. He confused Iceland with Greenland multiple times. The speech disparaged European leaders and Europe’s sacrifices and contributions to the common defense. (“We’ve helped them for so many years, we’ve never gotten anything.”) There was no mention of NATO invoking Article 5 in the aftermath of 9/11, and no mention of the more than 700 European soldiers who died alongside Americans in Afghanistan.
Trump was not content to target foreigners. He repeatedly criticized his predecessor. He also went after the Chairman of the Federal Reserve, a man he appointed. He announced his intention to prosecute individuals for rigging the 2020 election even though there is no evidence it was rigged. What came to mind was the title of the 1958 novel by Eugene Burdick and William Lederer, The Ugly American.
One last point. The speech was isolationist as well as unilateralist. “What does the United States get out of all of this work, all of this money – other than death, destruction, and massive amounts of cash going to people who don’t appreciate what we do? They don’t appreciate what we do. I’m talking about NATO, I’m talking about Europe. They have to work on Ukraine, we don’t. The United States is very far away. We have a big, beautiful ocean separating us. We have nothing to do with it.”
Such thinking ignores the lessons of history, from World War II and the Cold War to 9/11, Covid-19, and climate change. The Atlantic and Pacific oceans are decidedly not moats. Growing disorder in other regions can and will affect U.S. prosperity and security alike. The United States may choose not to engage the world but the world will find us all the same.
The bottom line? Yes, the immediate crisis over Greenland seems to have been resolved for now. But no one should think we are where we were. The crude effort to coerce Greenland and Denmark, the unwillingness to pressure Russia and back Ukraine, the prolific use of tariffs, the schizophrenic approach to China, the emerging blend of unilateralism and isolationism, the focus on the Western Hemisphere, widespread economic nationalism, the deterioration of American democracy, the attacks on the independence of the Federal Reserve – all have come together to reinforce doubts in Europe and beyond as to whether the United States can be relied upon.
Uh Oh Canada
For these reasons, the most important speech delivered at the Davos enclave was not that of Trump but rather Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney.
Reportedly written by Carney himself, the speech was steeped in realism, both as to the state of world order and how small and medium powers, such as Canada, must adapt. Early on he made his basic point, one that provides the title for this week’s newsletter: “We are in the midst of a rupture, not a transition…Canadians know that our old comfortable assumptions that our geography and alliance memberships automatically conferred prosperity and security – that assumption is no longer valid…Nostalgia is not a strategy.”
Carney was no less direct as to what Canada needed to do: “When the rules no longer protect you, you must protect yourself. Allies will diversify to hedge against uncertainty. And we are no longer just relying on the strength of our values, but also the value of our strength…To help solve global problems, we’re pursuing variable geometry, in other words, different coalitions for different issues based on common values and interests. This is not naive multilateralism, nor is it relying on their institutions. It’s building coalitions that work – issues by issue, with partners who share enough common ground to act together. The middle powers must act together, because if we’re not at the table, we’re on the menu.”
There is much talk of regime change within countries such as Venezuela, Iran, and Cuba, but the most fundamental form of regime change taking place is at the international level. A post-American world is fast emerging, one brought about in large part by the United States taking the lead in dismantling the international order that this country built and underwrote and that served this country and the world well for eight decades. It is being carried out in a manner reminiscent of two characters in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby: “They were careless people, Tom and Daisy — they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness or whatever it was that held them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made…” All of which, I am sad to say, applies to this president and his administration—and to their many enablers in the Republican-controlled Congress, the Supreme Court, and throughout American society.
ICE Capades
The debate over ICE, like most debates nowadays, is sharply polarized. On one side there is the administration’s position that we see manifested in Minneapolis, namely, the need for an aggressive force that enjoys a broad mandate to deport hundreds of thousands of men, women, and children with few constraints on how it goes about fulfilling it.
On the other is one embraced not just by progressives but increasingly others calling for the abolition of ICE. The problem with this stance is that it offers no means for dealing with those who are here illegally... and reinforces the impression that Democrats remain unserious about supporting a policy in which the federal government controls the country’s borders.
So let me suggest a middle ground: An ICE that is of law enforcement and not paramilitary, is better vetted and trained, wears no masks but does wear body-cams, and is accountable. And that operates within, rather than around, the 4th Amendment that is meant to protect individuals against unreasonable searches and seizures.
Beyond the many difficult issues buried in what I just advocated for is one more: the to-be-determined matter of who and what ICE ought to be focusing on. The issue is not whether those with criminal records ought to be deported; they should. But much less clear is whether ICE ought to be going after those who came here legally under the previous administration but have had their temporary legal status revoked by the current one. Or those who have been here for years, paying taxes and abiding by the law, who are now unable to normalize their status. (See this New York Times article for some useful background). The right response is not to maintain sanctuary cities, which will only result in a loss of needed federal funding, but to push in Congress, the courts, and in the political arena for a narrower focus and greater professionalism for ICE.
Gridiron
What is arguably the best football weekend of the year did not disappoint. Four professional and one college (in many ways equally professional) games are now in the history books.
I was sorry to see the Buffalo Bills lose to the Denver Broncos; I thought this was their year given the fall of the Kansas City Chiefs. But the great Bills quarterback Josh Allen chose a bad day to have what was for him a bad game. It somehow brings to mind what the then Israeli Foreign Minister Abba Eban once said about the Palestinians, that they never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity. Well, the Bills missed their opportunity, although how firing their otherwise successful head coach will help down the road is not obvious. It is also not clear how much the Broncos will benefit from winning as they lost their starting quarterback Bo Nix to a season-ending injury in the process.
Seattle crushed the much-injured San Francisco 49ers. All things being equal, better to lose by a blowout than to feel like you blew a game you could and should have won. (If you doubt this, just ask Josh Allen). The Chicago Bears lost to the LA Rams in another great game; the pass by Bears quarterback Caleb Willilams that tied and extended the game into overtime was one for the ages. The New England Patriots managed to beat the Houston Texans, although it would be more accurate to say the Texans and CJ Stroud, their tentative, he-who-hesitates-is-lost, quarterback, pretty much lost the game on their own. All of which brings us to this Sunday, when we should have two good games to watch: New England-Denver followed by Rams-Seahawks.
At the college level, Indiana completed the greatest turnaround in the history of college sports, going from a perennial loser to undefeated national champion. They did it without highly-recruited stars. Kudos and more to their coach Curt Cignetti. Indiana is a good example of a team in which the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. The opposite may well be true of the school they beat, Miami, which was arguably the more athletic team (one filled with several top NFL draft choices), but which made too many mistakes when the margin for doing so was small.
Stormy Weather
We will have either two feet or two inches of snow Sunday and Monday. All I can say is it must be great to be a weatherman. Public fascination is near unlimited. If you get it right, bragging rights are yours. And if not, there seems to be little penalty. Good work if you can get it. That said, I suggest you all stay inside as much as you can, stay warm, and stay safe if things turn out to be as bad as some predict.
As always, some links to click on. And feel free to share Home & Away.
Richard Haass in the news
Friday, January 16: Bloomberg Markets on Greenland.
Sunday, January 18: CNN GPS on Greenland, Europe, and NATO.
Wednesday, January 21: NPR on World Economic Forum.
Wednesday, January 21: CNBC on Greenland.
Wednesday, January 21: MS NOW on Greenland.
Thursday, January 22: ABC News on Board of Peace.
Thursday, January 22: Katie Couric on Davos.
Thursday, January 22: Jamie’s List on Trump’s First Year.
Let me suggest that cruelty or fake World order governed by Opinions and Private judgement of the US President will be marked with instability not progress. US do not have the Power to control the World in the face of BRICS! They may have the power to DISTRUCT it but people do not succumb to fear where I live. US can hardly run a military operation in Iran nowadays even with Israeli help without bumping into resistance from both the whole region and BRICS.
Trump lives in an illusion he believes in and he is not going to make any progress for US and the collective West with his approach to foreign democracies and economic claims over Greenland, Ukraine, etc. counties. On the contrary he will restructure Global order in a way that may not benefit US; i.e. US will end up worst off than the current Global Configuration!
- Viktor HADJIEV
1. Globalization has failed the West and the U.S.
Has certainly not failed, but has been an important step to revive 3rd world countries without raping them. Go see A Beautiful Mind and try to get the point this time.
It has also been an important factor when it comes to making technology affordable and to distributing both technology and access to knowledge.
2. America First as a new model
The whole concept of “America First” is nationalistic propaganda and an old tune used by so many dubious and mostly failed leaders before.
America’s strength has always been negotiating and compromising, which has led to getting goods cheaper and to either selling or producing efficiently. Believing that you can force producers to only buy “American” and thereby make goods cheaper is such nonsense. If it were cheaper to get raw materials and produce at home in the first place, it would have happened — but it’s not.
So there will be a price increase in everything, which only the well-off can afford, and the some 5–6 percent unemployed you hope to get those jobs will only get minimum salary and will not be able to afford the new prices.
Meanwhile, the rest of the world will retaliate to the new order and make new and more deals around the U.S. Just listen to the Canadian Prime Minister talking about this — and this is happening all around the world. The U.S. is being ignored, U.S. goods are being boycotted and taken off the shelves, and the new “order” will be American alone… very much alone and much more expensive.
3. U.S. economic optimism and growth forecasts:
Yawn… pretty much NOTHING he and the Trump administration have predicted so far has come true. It’s just words and propaganda. What does the administration do when they don’t like the statistics? They fire the statistics chief and either come up with their own numbers or don’t show anything at all.
4. Tariffs and industrial policy as strategic tools:
Tariffs have always been a way for a country to protect certain industries or products, but the way Trump — or should I say TACO — does it is just ridiculous.
Instead of targeting industries or products, he just throws out overall percentages on everything, only to take it back again or use it as punishment for not kneeling or obeying his commands. That’s not how world trade works, and the U.S. will be punished for this.
Admittedly, Europe and Asia have been taken by surprise by this, but every country is now busy doing two things: negotiating trade deals with others than the U.S. and building factories to avoid purchasing goods from the U.S.
This will take a bit of time, and meanwhile countries will pretend to bend to Trump’s wishes — but not for very long, and only until they are ready to do this without the U.S.
A good example is the arms industry. Every country in Europe is building arms factories to avoid purchasing these from the U.S. in the future, and orders already made are being stalled.
5. Confronting the status quo at Davos:
Actually, few cared what Trump and Lutnick had to say. To claim there is a new “sheriff in town” for capitalism is laughable, as the U.S. hasn’t had “capitalism” for many, many years. You think you have, but you really don’t — and you will never revert back.
It’s just word blabber, like when Trump thinks Greenland is Iceland.
6. Controversial elements:
It’s all too late for that. The U.S. and Trump have already shown they can’t be trusted in what they say or do, so few really care — and that’s why you see the ridicule.
“The West,” including Asia, is preparing a life without a trusted partner, but it’s really nothing new. Just watch Trump’s latest comments on NATO involvement in Afghanistan and how he belittled everyone. If the U.S. is aiming to create mistrust and disgust, they have certainly succeeded. We value the lesson, but it’s going to be an expensive lesson for the U.S.
All in all, it was a tour de pathetic that leaves the clear message that life goes on without the U.S., and that the U.S. — again — can’t be trusted.
Good luck with your tourist industry or all your industry. You think you can prosper by only cutting hair on each other, but you will learn that the world really doesn’t care for long what the U.S. does or doesn’t do, as they have found other partners — and you will be the reason for making countries like China much stronger.