THE EU HAS VOWED TO DEFEND GREENLAND TILL THE CASH IS RIGHT?...

by Michael Pascoe

Donald Trump is not just trolling on a takeover of Greenland, writes Michael Pascoe. Will it be the money or the gun … or both?

If Donald Trump offered you, say, $1,000 to become an American citizen, would you do it? 

Lots of people, millions of people, would be happy to pay that much and more for US citizenship let alone be paid, but in light of what the US has become, maybe not you. 

How about $10,000? $100,000? $1,000,000? That’s a lot of zeros. It could buy you a better-than-average house. OK, it would be in Adelaide, but it would still be better-than-average for that city. 

Maybe your citizenship simply isn’t for sale. I don’t like to think this but, at a price, I’d bet most Australians would sell. It’s like the possibly apocryphal story of George Bernard Shaw and the society lady:

Shaw: “Would you sleep with me for a million pounds?”

Woman: “Certainly.”

Shaw: “Would you sleep with me for one pound?”

Woman: “What do you think I am?”

Shaw: “Madam, we’ve already established what you are. Now we’re just haggling over the price.”

That moral issue of haggling over the price is likely to be a question sooner rather than later for Greenlanders. 

There are only about 60,000 of them. If the price of a house is a general yardstick for a large, impactful, mind-changing amount of money, 5 million kroner for every man, woman and children would do it. 

That’s about US$500,000 each, so a total cost to the US of US$30 billion, only about what we’re paying for a single nuclear-powered submarine we’re not going to get as part of AUKUS. 

To buy Greenland for US$30 billion would be an absolute steal. Trump would be pulling off the real estate deal of the century, something he’d no doubt like even more than the Nobel Peace Prize. We can only imagine how much commission he’d somehow collect.

Heck, let’s be generous and make it 10 million kroner for each Greenlander, US$60 billion all up for the US Treasury, $89 billion in our money, the price of two phantom subs. And throw in some Trump crypto for the Danish royal family as a tip. “Our” Queen Mary might get an autographed Trump bible.

Of course it’s not quite that simple a transaction or as speedy. There’s Denmark to deal with. Buying off the 6 million Danes would be more expensive, yet “buying” rather than invading Greenland is what Trump’s foreign secretary Marco Rubio has said is the main plan. 

To buy cheaply, Trump’s operatives need the Greenlanders to go ahead with achieving full independence from Denmark, something that was already on the domestic Greenland political agenda.

In normal American imperial times, that would involved generous sponsorship of local politicians and perhaps the odd unfortunate accident for any leader proving difficult. Once the Greenlanders were free of Denmark, the haggling over price could commence. 

Oh wait, they’re already doing the old American imperial thing as well as the new-old Superpower bullying. From those lefties at The Economist: ( ) 

“The CIA and the National Security Agency have also reportedly stepped up surveillance of Greenland’s independence movement, and been tasked with identifying locals sympathetic to America. The Danish government summoned American diplomats three times last year over reports of spying and running a covert influence campaign in Greenland. Denmark’s military-intelligence service raised concerns about America in its annual threat assessment last December.”

But these are not normal American imperial times. 

Trump is in a hurry. 

The worse things get for him at home, the more he’s inclined to focus abroad. It’s so much easier. 

He could look to history for inspiration. The Spanish American war, America’s last big colonial land grab, started with a mysterious explosion aboard an American ship in Havana harbour, an explosion blamed on Spain with enthusiasm for war whipped up by ratbag American press. Cue Fox News. 

(From that 1898 war, America seized the Philippines, Puerto Rico, Guam and Wake Island. While it was in the mood, it annexed Hawaii as well.)

It is not beyond the imagination of the Trump gang to have a security crisis at its existing missile security base in Greenland and thus move to “secure” the place. 

Yes, that would be the end of NATO which wouldn’t worry Trump. A win-win. 

The threat of such an action could speed up the haggling over price. If Greenlanders sensed they could be made instantly much more wealthy or simply be annexed, how many zeros was that offer again?

It is a bleak scenario, a depressing return to the international lawlessness of the 19th century when might was blatantly right, not just effectively so. 

Consider what it would be like for Australia to be in Greenland’s position, if we were smaller and closer to the US. Here’s the money or the gun. 

Life would go on much the way it does. American companies, especially those that donate to the Trump gang, would control our resources, run our most profitable businesses. Major media companies would follow the right-wing line. Chinese companies would not be welcome. Criticism of the government would be unwise. There would be American military bases. 

Like I said, life would go on much the way it does now, America already has its bases. That’s why it won’t happen, along with the fact that we are, thankfully, outside the hemisphere Trump has declared as belonging to America. We know our place. 

It looks like Greenland will have to decide it’s place. The final word goes to Financial Times columnist Edward Luce:

if you think Trump is just trolling on Greenland, book yourself a holiday in Caracas.

https://michaelwest.com.au/how-much-would-you-sell-your-country-for/

READ FROM TOP.

YOURDEMOCRACY.NET RECORDS HISTORY AS IT SHOULD BE — NOT AS THE WESTERN MEDIA WRONGLY REPORTS IT — SINCE 2005.

         Gus Leonisky

         POLITICAL CARTOONIST SINCE 1951.

The Real Story Behind the Russia–Ukraine War—and What Happens Next

DAVID STOCKMAN.    INTERNATIONAL MAN

Notwithstanding the historic fluidity of borders, there is no case whatsoever that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 was “unprovoked” and unrelated to NATO’s own transparent provocations in the region.

The details are arrayed below, but the larger issue needs be addressed first.

Namely, is there any reason to believe that Russia is an expansionist power looking to gobble up neighbors which were not integral parts of its own historic evolution, as is the case with Ukraine?

After all, if despite Rubio’s treachery President Trump does manage to strike a Ukraine peace and partition deal with Putin you can be sure that the neocons will come charging in with a false Munich appeasement analogy.

The answer, however, is a resounding no!

Our firm rebuke of the hoary Munich analogy as it has been falsely applied to Putin is based on what might be called the double-digit rule. To wit, the true expansionary hegemons of modern history have spent huge parts of their GDP on defense because that’s what it takes to support the military infrastructure and logistics required for invasion and occupation of foreign lands.

For instance, here are the figures for military spending by Nazi Germany from 1935–1944 expressed as a percent of GDP. This is what an aggressive hegemon looks like in the ramp-up to war: German military spending had already reach 23% of GDP, even before its invasion of Poland in September 1939 and its subsequent commencement of actual military campaigns of invasion and occupation.

Not surprisingly, the same kind of claim on resources occurred when the United States took it upon itself to counter the aggression of Germany and Japan on a global basis. By 1944 defense spending was equal to 40% of America’s GDP, and would have totaled more than $2 trillion per year in present day dollars of purchasing power.

Military Spending As A Percent Of GDP In Nazi Germany

• 1935: 8%.
• 1936: 13%.
• 1937: 13%.
• 1938: 17%.
• 1939: 23%.
• 1940: 38%.
• 1941: 47%.
• 1942: 55%.
• 1943: 61%.
• 1944: 75%

By contrast, during the final year before Washington/NATO triggered the Ukraine proxy war in February 2022, the Russian military budget was $65 billion, which amounted to just 3.5% of its GDP.

Moreover, the prior years showed no build-up of the kind that has always accompanied historic aggressors. For the period 1992 to 2022, for instance, the average military spending by Russia was 3.8% of GDP– with a minimum of 2.7% in 1998 and a maximum of 5.4% in 2016.

Needless to say, you don’t invade the Baltics or Poland—to say nothing of Germany, France, the Benelux and crossing the English Channel—on 3.5% of GDP! Not even remotely.

Since full scale war broke out in 2022 Russian military spending has increased significantly to 6% of GDP, but all of that is being consumed by the Demolition Derby in Ukraine—barely 100 miles from its own border.

That is, even at 6% of GDP Russia has not yet been able to subdue its own historic borderlands. So if Russia self-evidently does not have the economic and military capacity to conquer its non-Ukrainian neighbors in its own region, let alone Europe proper, what is the war really about?

In short, it is rooted in territorial disputes and civil strife in lands which have been vassals or integral parts of greater Russia for several centuries. As indicated, Ukraine actually means “borderlands” in the Russian language, connoting stateless areas that were first assembled into a coherent polity by Lenin, Stalin and Khrushchev by force of arms after 1920.

In fact, prior to the communist takeover of Russia, no country that even faintly resembled today’s Ukrainian borders had ever existed. So what NATO’s proxy war actually amounts to is an insensible attempt to enforce the dead hand of the Soviet presidium, as we amplify below.

For avoidance of doubt here are sequential maps that tell the story, and which make mincemeat of the Washington/NATO sanctity of borders malarkey. The first of these is a 220-year-old map from 1800, where the yellow area depicts the approximate territory of the five regions—Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhia plus Crimea—that will be allowed to go their own way, including back to Mother Russia, if the key ingredients of the Donald’s 28-point peace place can be resurrected.

As it has happened, these regions have voted overwhelmingly during referendums in 2023 and 2014, respectively, to separate from Ukraine in favor of affiliation with Russia.

Collectively, the five regions were historically known as the aforementioned Novorossiya or “New Russia” and had been acquired by Russian rulers, including Catherine the Great between 1734 and 1791.

The red markings within the yellow areas of the map designate the year of Russian acquisition. Self-evidently, therefore, the Russian Empire had gradually gained control over this vast area north of the Black Sea before the end of the 18th century. To that end, it had signed peace treaties with the Cossack Hetmanate (1734) and with the Ottoman Empire at the conclusion of the various Russo-Turkish Wars of that era.

Pursuant to this expansion drive – which included massive Russian investment and the in-migration of large Russian populations to the region – Russia established the “Novorossiysk Governaorate” in 1764. The latter was originally to be named after the Empress Catherine, but she decreed that it should be called “New Russia” instead.

The Provinces Of Ukraine Slated For Partition By The Trump Plan Were Part Of Russia Before The US Constitution Was Even Written....

Completing the assemblage of New Russia, Catherine forcefully liquidated its aforementioned century-long Cossack ally known as the Zaporizhian Sich (present day Zaporizhia) in 1775 and annexed its territory to Novorossiya, thus eliminating the independent rule of the Ukrainian Cossacks. Later in 1783 she acquired Crimea from the Turks, which was also added to Novorossiya, as shown in yellow area of the map above.

During this formative period, the infamous shadow ruler under Catherine, Prince Grigori Potemkin, directed the sweeping settlement and Russification of these lands. Effectively, Catherine had granted him the powers of an absolute ruler over the area from 1774 onward.

The spirit and importance of “New Russia” at this time is aptly captured by the historian Willard Sunderland,

“The old steppe was Asian and stateless; the current one was state-determined and claimed for European-Russian civilization. The world of comparison was now even more obviously that of the Western empires. Consequently, it was all the more clear that the Russian empire merited its own “New Russia” to go along with everyone else’s New Spain, New France and New England. The adoption of the name of New Russia was in fact the most powerful statement imaginable of Russia’s national coming of age.

In fact, the passage of time solidified the borders of Novorossiya even more completely. One century later the light-yellow area of the 1897 map below gave an unmistakable message: To wit, in the late Russian Empire there was no doubt as to the paternity of the lands adjacent to the Azov Sea and the Black Sea: They were now part of the 125 years-old “New Russia”.

SEE MAP

After the Russian Revolution, of course, the pieces and parts in this region of the old Czarist Empire were bundled-up into a convenient administrative entity by the new red rulers of Moscow, who christened it the “Ukrainian SSR” (Soviet Socialist Republic). In a like manner, they created similar administrative entities in Belorussia, Georgia, Moldavia, Turkmenistan etc.—ultimately confecting 15 such faux “republics”.

During the course of this communist state-building, here is how and when these brutal tyrants attached each piece of today’s Ukrainian map to the territories acquired or seized by the Russian Czars over 1654-1917 (yellow area):

• The old Novorossiya of the Donbas and Black Sea rim was added to the Ukraine SSR by Lenin in 1922.
• The western territory around Lviv that been known as Little Poland and Galicia were captured by Stalin in 1939 and thereafter when he and Hitler carved up Poland.
• Upon the death of the bloody Stalin in 1954, Khrushchev made a deal with his Presidium allies to transfer Crimea from the Russian SSR to the Ukrainian SSR in return for their support in the battle for succession.

In a word, Ukraine is the bastard spawn of communist blood and iron. Yet during the last decade the Washington and the NATO warhawks have spent upwards of $300 billion to ensure that the handiwork of autocratic Czars and Commissars remains intact into the 21st century and presumably beyond.

It is ironic, therefore, that the historically illiterate Donald Trump has the good sense to dispense with one of the stupidest crusades that the War Party on the Potomac has yet concocted. So doing, he would enable the failed handiwork of communist tyrants to be made right with history—an outcome that can now happen if and only if the Donald gets the Rubio digression back on track.

Modern Ukraine: Born In Communist Blood and Iron

SEE MAP

Of course, had the above-mentioned 20th century communist trio been noble benefactors of mankind, perhaps their subsequent map-making handiwork and reassignment of Novorossiya to Ukraine might have been justified. Under this benign counterfactual, they would have presumably combined peoples of like ethnic, linguistic, religious and politico-cultural history into a cohesive natural polity and state. That is, a nation worth perpetuating, defending and perhaps even dying for.

Alas, the reason that Trump is right to attempt to end this bloody catastrophe via partition is that the very opposite was true. From 1922 to 1991 modern Ukraine was held together by the monopoly on violence of its brutally totalitarian rulers. And that became more than evident when the Kremlin temporarily lost control of Ukraine during the military battles of World War II. During that especially bloody interlude, the communist administrative entity called Ukraine came apart at the seams.

That is, local Ukrainian nationalists joined Hitler’s Wehrmacht in its depredations against Jews, Poles, Roma and Russians when it first swept through the country from the west on its way to Stalingrad; and then, in turn, the Russian populations from the Donbas and south campaigned with the Red Army during its vengeance-wreaking return from the east after winning the bloody 1943 battle of Stalingrad that turned the course of WWII.

Not surprisingly, therefore, virtually from the minute it came out from under the communist yoke when the Soviet Union was swept into the dustbin of history in 1991, Ukraine has been engulfed in political and actual civil war. The elections which did occur were essentially 50/50 at the national level but reflected dueling 80/20 vote breakouts within the regions. That is, the Ukrainian nationalist candidates tended to get vote margins of 80% + in the West/Central areas, while Russian-sympathizing candidates got similar pluralities in the mainly Russian-speaking East and South.

This pattern transpired because once the iron-hand of totalitarian rule ended in 1991, the deep and historically rooted conflict between Ukrainian nationalism, language and politics of the central and western regions of the country and the Russian language and historical religious and political affinities of the Donbas and south came rushing to the surface.

Accordingly, so-called democracy barely survived these contests until February 2014 when one of Washington’s “color revolutions” finally “succeeded”. That is to say, the Washington fomented and financed nationalist-led coupe d état ended the fragile post-communist equilibrium.

That’s the true meaning of the Maidan coup. It ended the tenuous cohesion that kept the artificial state of Ukraine intact for barely two decades after the Soviet demise. So save for Washington’s destructive intervention, the partition of a communist-confected state that had never been built to last would have materialized all on its own–perhaps like in Czechoslovakia—-and likely sooner than later.

At the end of the day, therefore, the necessary impending partition of the rogue state of Ukraine is not a case at all of legitimate sovereign borders being violated. Nor does it involve an assault on the hypocritical notion of a “rules-based international order” that has not actually ever existed and which, instead, has been a cover for Washington’s global hegemony all along.

But the lessons are nonetheless profound. History accumulates and eventually leads to destructive, but wholly unnecessary outcomes.

That is the case today with the utterly foolish action of Washington during the 1990s and 2000s to bring former Warsaw Pact Nations, and even breakaway Soviet Republics into a NATO alliance whose mission was over and done in 1991.

It should have been dismantled then and there. When the old Soviet monster with its 50,000 tanks and 7,000 nuclear warheads disappeared into the dustbin of history, there was no longer a threat to the east. There was no “front line” to defend.

At that point Washington should have and easily could have led the world to disarmament and to a revival of the lasting peace that had disappeared in the “Guns of August” in 1914.

But now the NATO section 5 mutual defense commitment to these 31 nations is equivalent to a stupid charity that the nearly bankrupt Federal government cannot afford in any case.

There is absolutely nothing in it for the enhancement of America’s homeland security, and huge incentives for the politicians of these nations to caterwaul against Russia rather than seek peaceful accommodation.

So here is the historic moment before us: The Donald now needs o tell Rubio in no uncertain terms to take a hike and then return to the essence of the 28-point plan and agree with Putin to a partition of Ukraine.

So doing, he would not only end the utter stupidity of NATO’s proxy war on Russia, but in the process accomplish something more of literally epic proportions: Namely,the defenestration of the neocons, official Washington, NATO, the rules based international order and all the other globalist humbug that has saddled America with $1.5 trillion per year Warfare State and Global Empire that it cannot afford and doesn’t need.

Editor’s Note: If the history laid out above makes anything clear, it’s that the real danger to America rarely comes from distant, shifting borders—but from the misguided ambitions of those who gamble with our future in the name of “global leadership.”

As Washington sleepwalks deeper into conflicts that have nothing to do with genuine US security, the stakes for ordinary Americans grow higher by the day.

That’s why now is the moment to get informed, not after the next crisis erupts.

Legendary investor Doug Casey has issued a stark warning about what he believes may be the most dangerous event of the 21st century—an event set in motion by the very forces discussed in this article. His special report explains what’s coming, why it matters, and how you can prepare before it’s too late.

If you want to understand the real risks ahead—and what they could mean for your freedom, finances and future—you can access Doug’s urgent video report here.

https://www.activistpost.com/the-real-story-behind-the-russia-ukraine-war-and-what-happens-next/

READ FROM TOP.

YOURDEMOCRACY.NET RECORDS HISTORY AS IT SHOULD BE — NOT AS THE WESTERN MEDIA WRONGLY REPORTS IT — SINCE 2005.

         Gus Leonisky

         POLITICAL CARTOONIST SINCE 1951.