Ian Welsh

The horizon is not so far as we can see, but as far as we can imagine

Week-end Wrap – Political Economy – January 25, 2026

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On January 25, 2026

16 Comments

Week-end Wrap – Political Economy – January 25, 2026

by Tony Wikrent

 

Dingbat imperialism and its malcontents

Hoodwinks and Hijinks: Trump ‘Nabs’ Greenland at Davos 

Simplicius [via Naked Capitalism 01-23-2025]

…In this case, Trump did major damage to alliances and economic ties, causing Europe and Canada—by way of Mark Carney and Macron—to announce reorientations toward China. That said, it’s still possible for the whole megillah to turn out favorably in the long term, particularly because it helps rupture NATO and the EU, which ultimately works in everyone’s favor, including the US’s. The more the transatlantic mafia and ‘deep state’ can be hobbled and undermined, the weaker the American deep state becomes, which sources much of its power, funding, and influence from the European arm of the cabal…

[TW: Besides providing this badly needed perspective on Trump versus the “Trilateral Commission” transatlantic mafia, Simplicius also provides in the article a very useful collection of Trump’s craziness this past week.]

The Strong Will Suffer What They Must — Vaclav’s Grocer and American Hubris

Seva Gunitsky, Jan 21, 2026

…The Melian Dialogue is not endorsing a timeless law of global politics. It’s showing us Athens at the precise peak of its imperial hubris: the moment when a great power becomes so convinced of its own invincibility that it can no longer perceive its limits….

Carney seems to be betting, I think correctly, that America under Trump has reached its Melian moment: maximum confidence, minimum self-knowledge….

Watching A Superpower Die By Suicide 

Garrett Graff, January 22, 2026 [Doomsday Scenario, via Naked Capitalism 01-23-2025]

The Great Greenland War — Three Possible Histories

Big Serge [via Naked Capitalism 01-22-2025]

The Bridge at the Center of the Pentagon 

Michael McNair [via Naked Capitalism 01-19-2025]

The Architect of U.S. Defense Strategy

The man setting U.S. defense strategy has already told you exactly how he thinks. He published the playbook years before taking office. And surprisingly few analysts have actually read it.

Elbridge Colby, or “Bridge” to those who know him, now serves as Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, the senior official responsible for running U.S. defense strategy.

Captain John Konrad, after spending a week inside the Pentagon, put it bluntly in his 13,000-word field report for gCaptain: “aside from Hegseth, the most powerful gravitational body in the building is Elbridge Colby.” He added that Colby’s “grand strategy remains exactly what he published in his books and interviews long before taking office. He is executing it now.”

 

Trump not violating any law

‘He who saves his Country does not violate any Law’

Trump Stuns By Saying ‘I Don’t Know’ When Asked Directly NBC’s Kristen Welker ‘Don’t You Need to Uphold the Constitution?’

Joe DePaolo, May 4th, 2025 [mediaite.com]

The University of Pennsylvania Ran a Simulation to Predict an American Civil War. It Gave the EXACT MOMENT WE ARE IN RIGHT NOW.

Shaun King, Jan 22, 2026

A Penn law center war-gamed a federal operation spiraling into state vs. federal force. Their scenario is now playing out

Expert Who Ran Simulations on ‘How Civil Wars Start’ Warns Minnesota Is Exactly What It Looks Like

Brad Reed, January 21, 2026 [CommonDreams]

Claire Finkelstein, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School, wrote in a Wednesday column published by the Guardian that she and her colleagues at the Center for Ethics and the Rule of Law (CERL) conducted a tabletop exercise in October 2024 that simulated potential outcomes if a US president were to carry out law enforcement operations similar to the ones being conducted by the Trump administration with US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers in Minnesota.

‘Absolutely Vile’: ICE Snatches Young Kids From Minnesota Schools, Sends Them to Texas

Jake Johnson, January 22, 2026 [CommonDreams]

Federal immigration agents have detained at least four children from Minnesota public schools over the past two weeks, including a 5-year-old boy and a 10-year-old girl who were both sent to Texas detention centers that have come under fire for grotesque conditions.

Trump orders active duty troops to prepare for Minnesota deployment 

[Politico, via Naked Capitalism 01-19-2025]

Why are federal agents gunning down Americans in the streets?

Noah Smith, Jan 10, 2026 [Noahpinion]

Here’s an assessment by a 25-year ICE veteran whose job was to evaluate shootings by the agency….

Here’s a video of ICE agents in Arkansas beating up an unarmed U.S. citizen. Here’s a video of ICE agents arresting two U.S. citizens in a Target. Here’s a story about a similar arrest. Here’s a video of an ICE agent brandishing a gun in the face of a protester. Here’s the story of ICE agents arresting a pastor who complained about an arrest he saw. Here’s a video of ICE agents arresting an American citizen and punching him repeatedly. Here’s a video of ICE agents threatening a bystander who complained about their reckless driving. Here’s a video of ICE agents arresting a man for yelling at them from his own front porch. Here’s a video of ICE agents making a particularly brutal arrest while pointing their weapons at unarmed civilians nearby. Here’s a story about another ICE killing, this one in Maryland, under dubious circumstances. Here’s a video of ICE agents savagely beating and arresting a legal immigrant. Here’s a video of ICE agents storming a private home without a warrant. Here’s a video of ICE agents pulling a disabled woman out of a car when she’s just trying to get to the doctor.

These are all things I noticed on X within just the last two days. There has been a pretty constant stream of these for months. Here’s a roundup of some others, by Jeremiah Johnson….

Vance Endorsed Slashing Civil Liberties Protections During Minneapolis Visit — The VP said that the executive branch should be able to issue its own warrants to enter homes.

Josh Kovensky, January 23, 2026 [Talking Points Memo]

…But Vance made another remark while in Minneapolis that has largely escaped attention.

He threw his support behind the idea that the executive branch can enter private homes as part of immigration enforcement without a warrant. It’s an argument that would transform the Fourth Amendment, which mandates that independent judges can issue warrants on the request of law enforcement.

Vance’s remarks came in response to a question about a whistleblower disclosure to the Senate, first reported by the AP. Per the disclosure, ICE issued a memo in May arguing that immigration authorities could enter private residences absent a judicial warrant if they believe that someone with a final deportation order is inside….

Breaking the Fourth Amendment
Joyce Vance, Jan 23, 2026 [Civil Discourse]

[TW: Using a screen shot of a court warrant, and an administrative warrant, Vance explains the differences and legal implications.]

‘Dark, Bizarre Stuff’: White House Posts Deepfake Image of Arrested ICE Protester Crying

Stephen Prager, January 22, 2026 [CommonDreams]

“All of us are on full notice that this White House feels no compunction about concocting obvious lies, concedes nothing when its lies are exposed, and should be presumptively disbelieved in all matters.”

12 ways the Trump administration dismantled civil rights law and the foundations of inclusive democracy in its first year 

[The Conversation, via Naked Capitalism 01-18-2025]

The Congresswoman Criminalized for Visiting ICE Detainees

Jonathan Blitzer, January 19, 2026 [The New Yorker]

LaMonica McIver went to tour an immigration jail in her New Jersey district. Now she faces seventeen years in prison.

Senate Republicans Steamroll Democrats on Another ICE Funding Increase

[Migrant Insider, via Naked Capitalism 01-21-2025]

Documents reviewed by Migrant Insider reveal a stark disconnect between Democratic talking points and the actual appropriations tables in the bill negotiated by the Senate Appropriations Committee. While Democrats publicly touted restrictions on ICE and reduced detention capacity, the legislation actually pumps $3.84 billion into ICE custody operations — up from $3.43 billion — and boosts Enforcement and Removal Operations funding from $5.08 billion to $5.45 billion.

The $403 million mandatory funding increase for ICE jail beds represents a Republican victory that comes at a critical juncture: just days after the administration made expanding detention capacity its top immigration priority, and on the heels of widely documented enforcement operations that have terrorized immigrant communities nationwide….

Ellie Quinlan Houghtaling, January 23, 2026 [The New Republic]

Is ICE Running a Black Site in Minnesota?

Thomas Neuburger, Jan 20, 2026 [God’s Spies]

Black Sites and Black Days

Thomas Neuburger, Jan 23, 2026 [God’s Spies]

Is it really fair to call the ICE prison at the Bishop Henry Whipple Federal Building a “black site”? Let’s take a look.

FBI Agent Resigns in Protest as Trump DOJ Investigates Renee Good—Not the ICE Agent Who Killed Her

Julia Conley, January 24, 2026 [CommonDreams]

ICE Prosecutor in Dallas Runs White Supremacist X Account

[Texas Observer, via The Big Picture, January 19, 2026]

The Observer has identified the operator of “GlomarResponder,” an overtly racist social media account, as ICE Assistant Chief Counsel James Rodden, based on an overwhelming number of biographical details matched through publicly available documents, other social media activity, and courtroom observation.

Trump DOJ Uses Anti-KKK Law to Charge ICE Protesters With Felony

Schuyler Mitchell, January 23, 2026 [Mother Jones]

The Trump administration is using an anti-Ku Klux Klan law to prosecute Minnesota activists for demonstrating against ICE at a St. Paul church. On Thursday, Attorney General Pam Bondi announced that the Department of Homeland Security and the Federal Bureau of Investigation had arrested Chauntyll Allen, Nekima Levy Armstrong, and William Kelly for their alleged involvement in a January 18 anti-ICE demonstration. The three protesters were charged with conspiracy to deprive rights—a federal felony under Section 241, a Reconstruction-era statute enacted to safeguard the rights of Black Americans to vote and engage in public life amid the KKK’s racial violence.

Levy Armstrong and Allen are both prominent Black community organizers. Levy Armstrong leads the grassroots civil rights nonprofit Racial Justice Network and once served as the president of the Minneapolis chapter of the NAACP. Allen is a member of the St. Paul School Board and a founder of Black Lives Matter Twin Cities….

You’ve Heard About Who ICE Is Recruiting. The Truth Is Far Worse

[Slate, via The Big Picture, January 19, 2026]

I’m the Proof. What happens when you do minimal screening before hiring agents, arming them, and sending them into the streets? We’re all finding out.

How Donald Trump Has Transformed ICE

[The New Yorker, via The Big Picture, January 19, 2026]

A former D.H.S. oversight official on what, legally, the agency can and can’t do—and the accountability mechanisms that have been “gutted beyond recognition.”

‘Confirming Everything We Knew Already’: Docs Show Trump Admin Targeted Gaza Activists for Their Opinions

Brett Wilkins, January 23, 2026 [CommonDreams]

Trump sues JPMorgan for $5 billion, alleges the bank closed his accounts for political reasons 

[AP, via Naked Capitalism 01-23-2025]

The Last Election

Chris Hedges, Jan 19, 2026

The presidential election in 2024 may be the last free vote taken in the United States. Dictatorships only hold elections with predetermined outcomes or do not hold them at all. Trump is no exception.

The Evil Man and the Empty Congress — A psalm for the republic in extremis

Mike Brock, Jan 20, 2026 [Notes From The Circus]

…Let me be precise about what I mean. Evil, as I use the term here, is the systematic use of power to dissolve the constraints that protect human dignity and law, while demanding deference to the very crimes being committed. It is not merely selfishness, incompetence, or even cruelty. It is the deliberate subordination of other human beings to one’s own will, coupled with the insistence that this subordination is right and proper, that resistance to it is illegitimate, that the victims deserve what they receive.

By this definition, observe: A president who pardons those who attacked the Capitol on his behalf, while prosecuting those who investigated him. A president who defies court orders and dares the judiciary to stop him. A president who treats foreign policy as a vehicle for personal enrichment and grudge-settling—threatening war over Greenland, blockading Venezuela, inviting Vladimir Putin to advise on Middle East peace. A president who is 30 days late on releasing court-ordered documents and responds to the deadline by releasing one percent of the files. This is not a policy disagreement. This is the methodical dissolution of the constraints that make lawful government possible, conducted by a man who believes he is owed obedience….

First, let us address those who made this moment possible.

The anti-anti-Trump intellectuals. The contrarians and self-appointed heterodox thinkers who could not bring themselves to support Trump, but who found the alarm of his critics unseemly. The real threat, they insisted, was the overreaction itself. They positioned themselves as the adults in the room while the rest of us succumbed to panic…

Here is what I maintained for years, and what I will now state plainly: the obsessive fixation on leftist excess functioned as a form of cognitive capture. It rendered an entire class of otherwise intelligent people incapable of perceiving threats originating in their own ideological vicinity. They became so convinced that the republic faced imminent danger from campus speech codes and diversity initiatives that they looked upon an actual authoritarian—a man who had already attempted to overturn an election—and concluded he represented the lesser evil.

This is the precise error made by German conservatives in the early 1930s, who persuaded themselves that the Austrian corporal was a manageable risk compared to the Bolshevik menace. I do not make this comparison for rhetorical effect. I make it because the structural logic is identical….

The financial class, which assured us that Trump represented the superior outcome for capitalism and markets. They were explicitly and repeatedly warned that this man was unstable, authoritarian, and constitutionally incapable of the restraint that global economic leadership requires. And they made their calculation: yes, but the regulatory burden. Yes, but the tax implications….

The technocratic establishment—the consultant class, the pollsters, the professional Democrats who have made careers of cautious positioning. They have no theory of the moment. They have tactics designed for a political context that no longer exists. They are preparing for an election in 2026 as though elections, conducted fairly and counted honestly, remain a reliable mechanism for the transfer of power….

To the Citizen—and I use that word with the weight it deserves—I hope you understand that this falls to you now.

The institutions have failed. I have just spent considerable effort documenting the various ways in which people who should have known better did not act as though they knew better. The cavalry is not coming. There is no adult in the room who will fix this while you go about your life. The room is full of adults, and they have failed.

Which means the republic is counting on you to keep her….

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A Message To Commenters

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On January 25, 2026

8 Comments

I’d like to apologize. I’ve been lax about letting thru comments with ad-homs. Please attack people’s arguments and not them. I will be more strict about this, starting immediately.

I value my regular commenters. Most of you say smart and interesting things. Please do me the favor of avoiding ad-homs. I don’t want to not approve comments which are otherwise good because they have a sentence or two attacking another commenter.

If you’re a regular commenter, feel free to email with your preference of:

1) just not letting your posts with ad-homs thru; or,

2) deleting the ad-hom parts and letting the rest thru.

Make sure to include the name you comment under if it’s not the same as the name on your email.

ianatfdl-at-gmail-dot-com

Open Thread

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On January 24, 2026

23 Comments

Use to discuss topics unrelated to recent posts.

There Is Only One Fast Route Back After Trump

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On January 24, 2026

27 Comments

Trump’s administration is routinely ignoring court orders. It’s often refusing to let attorney’s see clients. It’s not respecting Miranda rights. It claims the right to enter homes without warrants and routinely searches without cause. It’s violating habeas corpus every day. ICE and the border patrol (the border patrol is often lumped in with ICE, but many of the worst abuses have been theirs) are brownshirts or Gestapo, whichever analogy you prefer.

The Supreme Court has let most of Trump’s crimes thru, and Trump has massively increased in his wealth in just one year of the Presidency. Trump routinely blackmails Americans, forcing them to do what he wants or he’ll use the power of the Presidency against them

The rule of law is broken in the US. Law is not just about following the letter, though that level is broken, it’s about intent. The fourth amendment is a dead letter in America. Let’s be clear, it’s been in danger for a long time. The exception to the 4th amendment allowing warrentless searches within 100 miles of the border, which pre-dates Trump, was obviously bullshit and meant that two-thirds of the American population is subject to warrantless searches.

The rule of law’s obvious break-down began with pardoning Nixon. When Iran-Contra happened, the people involved had mostly worked for Nixon. They were not indicted. When Bush lied the country into war with Iraq his administration was full of men who had been with Nixon and involved in Iran Contra.

Biden pardoned his own son, an act of sickening nepotism which in a functioning country would lead to him being removed from office before his term end.

On the non-governmental side the crimes of the rich are almost never prosecuted. There was vast fraud leading up to the financial crisis, and no one was indicted for it. After the financial crisis banks systematically used fake signatures on documents containing fake information to foreclose on homes they had not right to. This was not just allowed, but encouraged by government.

The rich and powerful are almost immune to the force of law, but all along the effective rights of ordinary citizens have been under assault. Most people accused of a crime don’t get a trial and they are told that if they insist on one, rather than taking a plea bargain, they will spend much more time in prison. Mandatory sentencing laws have removed most of judge’s discretion and power has moved towards prosecutors. Step by step Mirana rights have been weakened by the Supreme Court. Warrants are often served without knocking, in violent fashion, and we all know that cops lie routinely on the stand and under oath.

Many of the worst abuses started overseas. Detainees were tortured, they couldn’t see lawyers, they have no rights. Thomas Neuburger makes the case that there is now a black site in Minnesota. What starts overseas eventually comes home.

The US is an oligarchy. An oligarchy where there is no rule of law if someone powerful enough wants to break the law.

There is only one road back from this.Mass prosecutions, starting at the top, with Trump and Vance and the cabinet members and family members who engaged in corruption like Jared Kushner and going right down to every ICE brownshirt who violated citizens rights and every prosecutor who went along. Every violation of rights, every major corrupt action.

Of course this means first that the Supreme Court and other parts of the judiciary which aided and abetted by ignoring clear constitutional directives need to be impeached and removed and if possible then themselves tried for crimes. Clearly draconian laws like the one allowing warrantless searches within 100 miles of the border must be repealed.

I don’t pretend that this suggestion is easy or likely. I think the odds of it happening are tiny. But it’s what’s necessary if the Bill of Rights, the Constitution and common law protections for for ordinary people are to mean anything. And it MUST include the powerful. If it’s just a few ex ICE agents getting their knuckles rapped it will mean nothing.

Precedents have been set for over 50 years now that the powerful can get away with doing almost anything awful to ordinary people.

End those precedents with a new one that they can’t, or lose all of your actual rights.

All rights come only from power. If you cannot enforce your rights you have them only if those with more power than you want you to. Every right that you allow someone else to lose, because you aren’t in the group losing rights, you will eventually lose.

More than anything else except stopping American participation in genocide, if I were American this would be my priority. Not even the economy is as is important, because without functioning and fair rule of law nothing else can or will work. If America, internally, is 100% “the strong do as they will, and the weak suffer as they must” everyone in the US who isn’t an oligarch is cooked and even if the rich don’t realize it, so is America as a nation.

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Understanding the Competent Concierge: Canada’s Prime Minister Mark Carney

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On January 22, 2026

47 Comments

Carney gave an important speech yesterday, which you can read here. That lead to a lot of people praising him for his honesty in noting that the rules-based order was accepted by developed nations because they benefited from it, even though everyone knew it was bullshit: if you weren’t in the club, the rules didn’t apply to you. And even if you were in the club, the rules didn’t always apply to you, but most of them did and overall the benefits outweighed the costs, at least as far as our ruling class was concerned.

Carney points out that this deal has been violated in a rupture. The old world order is dead. People who say that it died in Gaza are WRONG. Mass murder of brown people in a non-developed country is acceptable to the rules based order. (It would not be acceptable in South Korea or Japan.)

But there’s something very important in Carney’s speech: he brags about having dropped taxes and that’s a clue.

Carney is clear eyed and honest enough to recognize the hypocrisy of the old system. He was a participant, but he was one of the rare powerful participants who was able to function and realize some of the injustices of the old system. He knew it was bullshit. Most people need to entirely believe in a system, they can’t handle the moral dissonance. To Carney the trade off was worth if it you were part of the Global North, and he was willing to live with that and participate in it.

Now long before Carney was Prime Minister I had criticized him. As a central banker he blew two housing bubbles, one in Canada and one in Britain, which massively hurt ordinary people and he bailed out bankers and rich people during the financial collapse. In fact, his performance in Canada was abysmal, in that it set up a new housing bubble basically immediately.

But housing bubbles are good for rich people. They get the benefits, not the costs.

And that’s the key to understanding Carney. He’s not a left winger. He’s not a post war liberal. He’s a neoliberal technocrat, and the job of neoliberal technocrats is to keep making the rich richer. It really is almost that simple and if you use that as your guide to their actions you’ll be right most of the time.

Let’s go back to those taxes. One of Carney’s goals is to reindustrialize Canada. It’s a real goal, he’s taking action on it, spending money on it and cutting deals pursuing it. But low corporate taxes and low marginal top individual tax rates undercuts that goal. The higher corporate taxes are the more it makes sense to reinvest earnings in production. If top individual rates are low, the rich want money cashed out thru stock buybacks (which should be illegal if you want industrial growth, because they too encourage wasting money that could be reinvested in production) or dividends.

You should also have high capital gains taxes on short term gains. Ninety percent if cashed out under five years, dropping 10% a year after that is a good benchmark, with exceptions for primary residences and a few other niche cases. Again, you want people investing for the long term, and this also cuts out a lot of the bullshit that happens due to stock options.

So if Carney’s only goal was re-industrializtion, and he was method-agnostic, not an ideologue, he would raise certain taxes rather than lowering them.

But he didn’t do that, because Carney, like most politicians and senior technocrats in our system, is a concierge for the rich. His job is to make them better off. They don’t want to be annexed by the US or to have to live in fear of a fickle US changing deals at a whim. But they still want to be super rich. In the old world order that meant having access to the US, because US returns were outsized compared to non-US returns. Every elite in every other country wanted access to US financial markets. But that access is not worth the price any more.

What makes Carney different from most current elite concierges is that he is actually competent, not a worthless courtier, and that he’s able to see the hypocrisies of the system. He’s self-aware.

I supported Carney in the last election and I still support him because while he’s far from what I want, he’s at least doing some of the right things. Enough of the right things to be worth supporting. That doesn’t mean I like him, or even think he’s a good person. He isn’t. But he’s competent and has enough guts to move away from the US. While he does so he’s making a lot of compromises like joining the Board of Peace. That’s an evil act and I’m sure he knows it is, being clear eyed, but it’s a minor evil act because Canada doesn’t have a potential veto on how Palestinians are treated.

I wish he was better and my support is very conditional. Perhaps I’m not as pure as I should be. Feel free to flay me in the comments. But a man who helps break up the American Empire, and that’s what Carney is doing by being the first to make a real break with the US and with his speech calling for the middle powers to abandon America, is doing enough to make it over to the “on the balance, more good than evil” book in my mind. Now if he had a veto on Gaza the way an American President does, it’d be different.

He doesn’t and he’s helping destroy the old world order while being by far and away the best current option for Canada.

We need better if we’re ever going to move back to a truly good economy in western countries or a more good than evil world order. Carney’s still a concierge for the rich. But in helping protect Canada’s rich, he’s helping destroy the American Empire and that will be good for billions of people, including Palestinians, and he’s protecting Canada from America and some of what he’s doing will be good for ordinary people.

Even if Carney’s motives for helping destroy the old order are crass, the fact that he’s doing so is enough for me.

 

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Carney’s Speech Transcript + Comments: Time For the Truth & For the Middle Powers To Align

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On January 21, 2026

48 Comments

I think this is worth posting in full. Once again Carney and Canada are moving faster than any of America’s vassals, which is fascinating because Canada is the most vulnerable to the US of all the vassals. But then, that’s why, plus some luck.

Carney was the UK’s and Canada’s central banker. He did a terrible job, blowing two housing bubbles. I backed him in the last election because he was saying the right things, and the alternative was a Trump style conservative with a room temperature IQ who would spread wide for Trump.

Carney spends much of his time in this speech pointing out that the old order was full of hypocrisy. He should know, he had to say all the mealy mouthed lies, you can’t have the jobs he had otherwise. But he didn’t have to say this now, he didn’t have to point this out, he could have just moved to the fact that there’s a rupture.

His point is that the old world provided a lot of benefits to many nations like Canada and Europe, and even though everyone knew it was in many ways unjust, if the price of admission was hypocrisy, then so be it. But that world is dead, the benefits are gone and we don’t have to pretend it wasn’t in some ways awful. We also shouldn’t pretend that world is coming back or that the benefits of that world some nations received can be regained by appeasing Trump and America.

As for Carney’s plan, it’s simple: the middle powers should ally with each other so they can’t be pushed around. In other words, don’t just switch vassalage over to China. But certainly do cut deals with China.

Carney’s Speech

Every day we are reminded that we live in an era of great power rivalry. That the rules-based order is fading. That the strong do what they can, and the weak suffer what they must.

This aphorism of Thucydides is presented as inevitable — the natural logic of international relations reasserting itself. And faced with this logic, there is a strong tendency for countries to go along to get along. To accommodate. To avoid trouble. To hope that compliance will buy safety.

It won’t.

So, what are our options?

In 1978, the Czech dissident Václav Havel wrote an essay called The Power of the Powerless. In it, he asked a simple question: how did the communist system sustain itself?

His answer began with a greengrocer. Every morning, this shopkeeper places a sign in his window: “Workers of the world, unite!” He does not believe it. No one believes it. But he places the sign anyway — to avoid trouble, to signal compliance, to get along. And because every shopkeeper on every street does the same, the system persists.

Not through violence alone, but through the participation of ordinary people in rituals they privately know to be false.

Havel called this “living within a lie.” The system’s power comes not from its truth but from everyone’s willingness to perform as if it were true. And its fragility comes from the same source: when even one person stops performing — when the greengrocer removes his sign — the illusion begins to crack.

It is time for companies and countries to take their signs down. For decades, countries like Canada prospered under what we called the rules-based international order. We joined its institutions, praised its principles, and benefited from its predictability. We could pursue values-based foreign policies under its protection.

We knew the story of the international rules-based order was partially false. That the strongest would exempt themselves when convenient. That trade rules were enforced asymmetrically. And that international law applied with varying rigour depending on the identity of the accused or the victim.

This fiction was useful, and American hegemony, in particular, helped provide public goods: open sea lanes, a stable financial system, collective security, and support for frameworks for resolving disputes.

So, we placed the sign in the window. We participated in the rituals. And largely avoided calling out the gaps between rhetoric and reality. This bargain no longer works. Let me be direct: we are in the midst of a rupture, not a transition. Over the past two decades, a series of crises in finance, health, energy, and geopolitics laid bare the risks of extreme global integration.

More recently, great powers began using economic integration as weapons. Tariffs as leverage. Financial infrastructure as coercion. Supply chains as vulnerabilities to be exploited. You cannot “live within the lie” of mutual benefit through integration when integration becomes the source of your subordination. The multilateral institutions on which middle powers relied— the WTO, the UN, the COP—the architecture of collective problem solving — are greatly diminished.

As a result, many countries are drawing the same conclusions. They must develop greater strategic autonomy: in energy, food, critical minerals, in finance, and supply chains. This impulse is understandable. A country that cannot feed itself, fuel itself, or defend itself has few options. When the rules no longer protect you, you must protect yourself. But let us be clear-eyed about where this leads. A world of fortresses will be poorer, more fragile, and less sustainable.

And there is another truth: if great powers abandon even the pretense of rules and values for the unhindered pursuit of their power and interests, the gains from ‘transactionalism’ become harder to replicate. Hegemons cannot continually monetize their relationships. Allies will diversify to hedge against uncertainty. Buy insurance. Increase options. This rebuilds sovereignty— sovereignty which was once grounded in rules—but which will be increasingly anchored in the ability to withstand pressure.

This classic risk management comes at a price. But that cost of strategic autonomy, of sovereignty, can also be shared. Collective investments in resilience are cheaper than everyone building their own fortress. Shared standards reduce fragmentation. Complementarities are positive sum.

The question for middle powers, like Canada, is not whether to adapt to this new reality. We must. The question is whether we adapt by simply building higher walls — or whether we can do something more ambitious.

Canada was amongst the first to hear the wake-up call, leading us to fundamentally shift our strategic posture. Canadians know that our old, comfortable assumption that our geography and alliance memberships automatically conferred prosperity and security is no longer valid.

Our new approach rests on what Alexander Stubb has termed ‘values-based realism’ — or, to put it another way, we aim to be principled and pragmatic. Principled in our commitment to fundamental values: sovereignty and territorial integrity, the prohibition of the use of force except when consistent with the UN Charter, respect for human rights. Pragmatic in recognizing that progress is often incremental, that interests diverge, that not every partner shares our values.

We are engaging broadly, strategically, with open eyes. We actively take on the world as it is, not wait for the world as we wish it to be. Canada is calibrating our relationships, so their depth reflects our values. We are prioritizing broad engagement to maximize our influence, given the fluidity of the world, the risks that this poses, and the stakes for what comes next. We are no longer relying on just the strength of our values, but also on the value of our strength.

We are building that strength at home. Since my government took office, we have cut taxes on incomes, capital gains and business investment, we have removed all federal barriers to inter-provincial trade, and we are fast-tracking a trillion dollars of investment in energy, AI, critical minerals, new trade corridors, and beyond. We are doubling our defence spending by 2030 and are doing so in ways that builds our domestic industries.

We are rapidly diversifying abroad. We have agreed a comprehensive strategic partnership with the European Union, including joining SAFE, Europe’s defense procurement arrangements. We have signed twelve other trade and security deals on four continents in the last six months. In the past few days, we have concluded new strategic partnerships with China and Qatar. We are negotiating free trade pacts with India, ASEAN, Thailand, Philippines, Mercosur.

To help solve global problems, we are pursuing variable geometry— different coalitions for different issues, based on values and interests. On Ukraine, we are a core member of the Coalition of the Willing and one of the largest per-capita contributors to its defence and security. On Arctic sovereignty, we stand firmly with Greenland and Denmark and fully support their unique right to determine Greenland’s future.

Our commitment to Article 5 is unwavering. We are working with our NATO allies (including the Nordic Baltic 8) to further secure the alliance’s northern and western flanks, including through unprecedented investments in over-the-horizon radar, submarines, aircraft, and boots on the ground.

On plurilateral trade, we are championing efforts to build a bridge between the Trans-Pacific Partnership and the European Union, creating a new trading block of 1.5 billion people. On critical minerals, we are forming buyer’s clubs anchored in the G7 so that the world can diversify away from concentrated supply. On AI, we are cooperating with like-minded democracies to ensure we will not ultimately be forced to choose between hegemons and hyperscalers.

This is not naive multilateralism. Nor is it relying on diminished institutions. It is building the coalitions that work, issue by issue, with partners who share enough common ground to act together. In some cases, this will be the vast majority of nations. And it is creating a dense web of connections across trade, investment, culture on which we can draw for future challenges and opportunities. Middle powers must act together because if you are not at the table, you are on the menu. Great powers can afford to go it alone. They have the market size, the military capacity, the leverage to dictate terms. Middle powers do not.

But when we only negotiate bilaterally with a hegemon, we negotiate from weakness. We accept what is offered. We compete with each other to be the most accommodating. This is not sovereignty. It is the performance of sovereignty while accepting subordination.

In a world of great power rivalry, the countries in between have a choice: to compete with each other for favour or to combine to create a third path with impact. We should not allow the rise of hard power to blind us to the fact that the power of legitimacy, integrity, and rules will remain strong — if we choose to wield it together.

Which brings me back to Havel. What would it mean for middle powers to “live in truth”?

It means naming reality. Stop invoking the “rules-based international order” as though it still functions as advertised. Call the system what it is: a period where the most powerful pursue their interests using economic integration as a weapon of coercion.

It means acting consistently. Apply the same standards to allies and rivals. When middle powers criticize economic intimidation from one direction but stay silent when it comes from another, we are keeping the sign in the window.

It means building what we claim to believe in. Rather than waiting for the hegemon to restore an order it is dismantling, create institutions and agreements that function as described. And it means reducing the leverage that enables coercion.

Building a strong domestic economy should always be every government’s priority. Diversification internationally is not just economic prudence; it is the material foundation for honest foreign policy. Countries earn the right to principled stands by reducing their vulnerability to retaliation.

Canada has what the world wants. We are an energy superpower. We hold vast reserves of critical minerals. We have the most educated population in the world. Our pension funds are amongst the world’s largest and most sophisticated investors. We have capital, talent, and a government with the immense fiscal capacity to act decisively. And we have the values to which many others aspire.

Canada is a pluralistic society that works. Our public square is loud, diverse, and free. Canadians remain committed to sustainability. We are a stable, reliable partner—in a world that is anything but—a partner that builds and values relationships for the long term.

Canada has something else: a recognition of what is happening and a determination to act accordingly. We understand that this rupture calls for more than adaptation. It calls for honesty about the world as it is.

We are taking the sign out of the window. The old order is not coming back. We should not mourn it. Nostalgia is not a strategy. But from the fracture, we can build something better, stronger, and more just. This is the task of the middle powers, who have the most to lose from a world of fortresses and the most to gain from a world of genuine cooperation.

The powerful have their power. But we have something too — the capacity to stop pretending, to name reality, to build our strength at home, and to act together. That is Canada’s path. We choose it openly and confidently. And it is a path wide open to any country willing to take it with us.

European Leaders Realize They’ve Put Themselves In A Vise

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On January 20, 2026

26 Comments

It seems that EU leaders have realized that the US can squeeze them, not just with tariffs, but with natural gas supplies. It used to be that Europe got most of its natural gas from Russia, till the pipelines were blown up, probably by the US. Now they pay much more to get shipped LNG from America.

Trump has hit European countries who oppose him annexing Greenland with increased tariffs. That’s not a big deal, but an LNG squeeze would be. It’s not that Europe wouldn’t be able to get enough LNG, if it wasn’t sold to them directly, they’d get it indirectly, just as they have continued to get a lot of Russian hydcrocarbons, but they’d pay more and energy prices are squeezing European (German) industry to death.

At the end of the day Ukraine is not a member of NATO or the EU. Denmark belongs to both. For Ukraine and the US, the Euros submitted to de-industrialization. They also sent almost all their weapons and ammo to Ukraine, and are damn near disarmed.

This policy is essentially hysterical, based on cold War trauma and driven hard by various Eastern Europeans and the Baltics.

But the situation the EU finds itself in is fundamentally simple. They’re de-industrializing. France is losing its overseas vassals, and with them cheap resources. They can’t get cheap resources from Russia and the expensive resources from America are controlled by a hostile and untrustworthy power whom it is impossible to cut a deal with. Say what you will about Russia, but they keep their deals and even after everything has happened if they were to agree to sell to Europe, they’d keep the deal.

Now I want to be very clear about the stakes here. Europe has no resources at scale other than farm goods to sell to the world. It has a very high population for its land mass, and its industry is legacy industry. When you look at tech lead lists, the EU as a whole is not even in the top four. (China, America, Japan, South Korea.)

To put it simply if they mishandle this the European standard of living is likely to crash by half in twenty years. 

A deal must be cut with both China and Russia. Of the two Russia is more important. This is currently impossible because the Eastern EU nations will not allow it and the way the EU system is set up they have enough power to stop it from happening.

At the same time they are essentially welfare recipients, receiving stipends from Germany and France, who are the two real EU powers. Most of them should never have been allowed into the EU in the first place, especially the Baltics, who are undefendable and offer nothing.

Germany and France need to decide what to do to save themselves. If that means changing the EU or leaving it and forming a new association that’s what they need to do. They need to re-arm with their own weapon stack, not American weapons, and in the meantime they should probably buy Chinese weapons, but to do so they’d have to leave NATO or kick the US out of it, which, again, they’re going to need to do anyway, because, as the line goes, “the threat is inside the house.”

If they don’t sort this out and soon, they will suffer a catastrophic loss of standard of living. If that happens they face internal revolution.

The current EU leadership is some of the most pathetic in the world. Trained and raised as American vassals they just cannot understand that the world has changed. It’s not just Trump, Biden was draining them dry too, his administration was just smart enough to, as it were, “boil the frog.”

While the EU still has an industrial base it needs to act to save that base.

As for current tactics, what should be done is simple enough. Counter-tariffs make no sense. Break the DMCA and go after American internet and tech companies which make vast amounts of money in the EU. Force Ireland to cooperate. Let people break the digital locks on American tech, and give them right of repair. If it goes far enough break patents and start producing in the EU. (The US broke Germany’s chemical patents in WWI and basically US chemical industry is based on those broken patents.)

The other step is to stop EU money from flowing into America and force EU wealth to be used inside the EU to create industry and improve tech. The EU sends vast amounts of investment money to the US. Stop that, repatriate as much as possible and get to work with real industrial policy. This will hurt Trump’s real base, the oligarchs, and help Europe.

Europe must end its US vassalage and cut deals with its “enemies” because the US is a greater threat than China or Russia. And if the Eastern EU states aren’t willing to go along with this, cut them loose. They offer very little and are a drain on the actual productive parts of Europe. (Not just Germany and France, but Italy, the Nordics and the low countries.)

The Euros don’t have a lot of time to deal with this, there in severe decline that will end in, not just disaster, but catastrophe.

(And no, I don’t think they’ll do most of this, but there’s value in laying it out.)

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Week-end Wrap – Political Economy – January 18, 2026

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On January 18, 2026

18 Comments

Week-end Wrap – Political Economy – January 18, 2026

by Tony Wikrent

Dingbat imperialism and its malcontents

Dingbat Imperialism, the Lowest Stage of Capitalism

John Ganz, Jan 13, 2026 [Unpopular Front]

Germany planning ‘Arctic Sentry’ Nato mission to protect Greenland 

[Telegraph, via Naked Capitalism 01-13-2025]

Tech billionaires behind Greenland bid want to build ‘freedom cities’ 

[Responsible Statecraft, via Naked Capitalism 01-13-2025]

The Oligarchs Pushing for Conquest in Greenland

Casey Michel, January 13, 2026 [The New Republic]

Trump’s fixation on filching the island territory from Denmark may seem like the demented ravings of a mad king. But to a cohort of plutocrat weirdos, it makes perfect sense.

Trump not violating any law

‘He who saves his Country does not violate any Law’

Trump Stuns By Saying ‘I Don’t Know’ When Asked Directly NBC’s Kristen Welker ‘Don’t You Need to Uphold the Constitution?’

Joe DePaolo, May 4th, 2025 [mediaite.com]

How Trump gave the green light for the killing of protestors. 

[Borderland Talk with Jenn Budd, via Naked Capitalism 01-12-2025]

…I will argue to my dying day that he did not see her or her wife as an actual physical threat in that moment, but someone who should be taught a lesson. This analysis is based in my experience as a former agent, and teaching lessons to people who do not respect our authority is rampant in ICE, Border Patrol and CBP. Watch HBO’s Critical Incident to see all three agencies teach Anastasio Hernandez-Rojas this lesson….

But in October, things changed.

ICE shot at protestor Marimar Martinez hitting her five times on October 4, 2025. Now, Renee Good is dead. What changed? Why has ICE started shooting at people trying to warn the community of their presence when they did not before?

What changed is that ICE and other agencies performing civil immigration enforcement were given a directive from the President of the United States to label them as “domestic terrorists.” On September 25, 2025, before the Martinez shooting, Trump issued an executive order titled, “Countering Domestic Terrorism and Political Violence.” This EO changed the definition of who is considered by federal agents to be a “domestic terrorist” to include:

  • anti-Americanism
  • anti-capitalism
  • anti-Christianity
  • support for the overthrow of the United States Government
  • extremism on migration
  • extremism on race
  • extremism on gender
  • hostility towards those who hold traditional American views on family
  • hostility towards those who hold traditional American views on religion, and
  • hostility towards those who hold traditional American views on morality.

To be fair, people like Marimar and Renee who maintain what the right-wing and this administration considers “extremism on migration” have been considered “domestic terrorists” for quite some time now. But they were not given the green light to kill them until the administration officially designated them as ‘domestic terrorists” in the executive order….

The Machinery of Terror

Chris Hedges, Jan 11, 2026

The Trump administration is consolidating the familiar machinery of terror of all authoritarian states. We must resist now. If we wait, it will be too late.

I have seen the masked goons who terrorize our streets before. I saw them during the “Dirty War” in Argentina, where 30,000 men, women and children were “disappeared” by the military junta. Victims were held in secret prisons, savagely tortured and murdered. To this day, many families do not know the fate of their loved ones.

I saw them in El Salvador, when death squads were killing 800 people a month. I saw them in Guatemala under the dictatorship of José Efraín Ríos Montt. I saw them in Augusto Pinochet’s Chile and in Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. I saw them in Iran under the rule of the ayatollahs where I was arrested and jailed twice and once deported in handcuffs. I saw them in Hafez al-Assad’s Syria. I saw them in Bosnia, where Muslims were herded into concentration camps, executed and buried in mass graves.

I know these goons. I have been a prisoner in their jails and spent hours in their interrogation rooms. I have been beaten by them. I have been deported, and in several cases banned, from their countries. I know what is coming….

[X-Twitter, via Naked Capitalism 01-13-2025]

https://x.com/sandibachom/status/2010874067419873362

 

Exclusive: Secret ICE Programs Revealed 

Ken Klippenstein [via Naked Capitalism 01-15-2025]

Important.

‘ELITE’: The Palantir App ICE Uses to Find Neighborhoods to Raid 

[404 Media, via Naked Capitalism 01-17-2025]

“Stupod B*tch”: GoFundMe for Minnesota ICE Agent Is Chilling 

[New Republic, via Naked Capitalism 01-13-2025]

US Border Agents Intentionally Stepped in Front of Moving Vehicles to Justify Shooting at Them 

[Nation, via Naked Capitalism 01-13-2025]

Enforcement Regime 

Michale Macher, Phenomenal World, via Naked Capitalism 01-12-2025]

How a 40-second encounter led an ICE agent to shoot and kill a Twin Cities resident 

[Minnesota Star Tribune, via Naked Capitalism 01-12-2025]

[NC: Comprehensive report and not a good one for ICE.]

 

[X-Twitter, via Naked Capitalism 01-12-2025]

GarrisonLovely
@GarrisonLovely
.
@Palantirtech

cofounder Joe Lonsdale just endorsed apartheid South Africa and Rhodesia and said the US should move toward their model of open white supremacy.

My final message before I’m on an FBI watchlist: Palantir, Epstein, & The New York Times 

Juan Sebastian Pinto [a former Palantir employee, via Naked Capitalism 01-12-2025]

Strategic Political Economy

China curbs high-frequency trading to de-risk markets 

[Asia Times, via Naked Capitalism 01-17-2025]

[TW: Worth noting to show, yes, it is possible to actually regulate financial markets.]

Global power shift

[X-Twitter, via Naked Capitalism 01-17-2025]

 

x

Seyed M. Marandi: Violent Riots & a Massive War Coming

Glenn Diesen [YouTube, via Naked Capitalism 01-13-2025]

‘Kill Switch’—Iran Shuts Down Starlink Internet For First Time

Zak Doffman, Jan 12, 2026 [Forbes]

We have not seen this before. Iran’s digital blackout has now deployed military jammers, reportedly supplied by Russia, to shut down access to Starlink Internet. This is a game-changer for the Plan-B connectivity frequently used by protesters and anti-regime activists when ordinary access to the internet is stopped..

“Despite reports that tens of thousands of Starlink units are operating inside Iran,” says Iran Wire, “the blackout has also reached satellite connections.” It is reported that about 30 per cent of Starlink’s uplink and downlink traffic was (initially) disrupted,” quickly rising “to more than 80 per cent” within hours.

The CIA/Mossad Operation to Spark a Color Revolution in Iran has Failed 

Larry Johnson [via Naked Capitalism 01-12-2025]

The “Trump Doctrine” Is Shaped By Elbridge Colby’s “Strategy Of Denial” 

Andrew Korybko [via Naked Capitalism 01-12-2025]

Trump Declares National Emergency to Protect Stolen Venezuela Funds 

[Antiwar, via Naked Capitalism 01-12-2025]

Venezuela Raid – Aftermath 

[Black Mountain Analysis, via Naked Capitalism 01-12-2025]

Felonomics

1 Year Into Trump 2.0, the Social Security Administration Is in Disarray

Martin Burns and Mary Liz Burns, Jan 16, 2026 [Common Dreams]

They’re not capitalists — they’re predatory criminals

Regulators say DoorDash and Uber Eats chiseled NYC delivery workers out of $550M in tips

[Gothamistvia Naked Capitalism 01-15-2025]

Information age dystopia / surveillance state

LAWYER: Cops Have a NEW “Social Score” to Label You a Threat 

[Hampton Law, YouTube, via Naked Capitalism 01-13-2025]

[NC: Usefully tells you which settings to disable/enable on your iPhone or Android to reduce data extraction. Even though I had told my tech woman to do that, she had missed some. Surprised it does not recommend turning off WiFi save when you specifically want to use it (yours truly is perfectly happy to pay for connectivity for the sake of my privacy, which I infer is a outlier practice). My ride share app asks I turn on WiFi to facilitate geolocation, which despite GPS, is pretty poor otherwise. I prefer to type in my pickup.]

De-Banked 

Scott Ritter [via Naked Capitalism 01-15-2025]

[Ritter’s accounts zeroed out without explanation.]

Climate and environmental crises

Ocean Temperatures Just Hit a Dire New Record 

[Scientific American, via Naked Capitalism 01-13-2025]

World’s richest 1% have already used fair share of emissions for 2026, says Oxfam 

[The Guardian, via Naked Capitalism 01-12-2025]

Democrats’ political malpractice

Do the Democrats Have the Guts to Outflank Trump on Defense Industry Looting? 

Les Leopold, Jan 13, 2026 [Wall Street’s War on Workers]

Monopoly Round-Up: Why Did Trump Just Attack the Fed and Corporate America? 

Matt Stoller, Jan 12, 2026 [BIG]

Resistance

What to Do If ICE Shows Up: Know Your Rights

Kim Wehle, Jan 11, 2026 [Zeteo]

Here are five guidelines for how to respond if US federal immigration agents stop, approach you, or knock at your door.

1. If ICE stops or intimidates you, do not precipitously flee

2. If detained (even temporarily), you can stay silent

3. ICE can make certain arrests without a warrant, but it cannot search your home without either a judicial warrant or your consent

4. If detained, you can ask the ICE agent to identify themselves

5. You can hire a lawyer after an arrest, but whether you can immediately call one depends on state law….

Here’s How You Can Challenge Wage Garnishment for Defaulted Student Loans

[Truthout, via Naked Capitalism 01-12-2025]

Civic republicanism

Mere Anarchy 

Aurelien [via Naked Capitalism 01-15-2025]

Last week, I suggested that these days governments and the private sector were increasingly following a policy of nihilistic destruction, which was the logical, if uncomfortable, outcome of the kind of apocalyptic individualism now rampant everywhere after the unchallenged triumph of Liberal ideas.

I think that case is sufficiently well established, and this week I want to look in more detail at specific areas where this is happening, or has even happened, and consider what some of the practical consequences may be. They are all logically deducible from the ultra-individualist, almost autistic, mindset that Liberalism at its worst entails, and it may be worth saying just a word about that first….

 

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