24 Jan

America at War

“America is at war with the world…, and the world has caught on.” – The Lonely Realist

If you’ve been avoiding the news – as many are apt to do these days –, you may be unaware of the extent to which America is waging wars and exploiting its substantial military and economic advantages. America’s antagonists include almost every other nation in the world as well as targeted foreign and domestic industries. Achievement of Trump 2.0 goals has required offensive (and not merely defensive) deployment of American armed forces…, though (as TLR has highlighted) only when doing so doesn’t risk escalation or retaliation. As a transactional complement to the deployment of America’s military, Trump 2.0 has been making overt threats, offering potential benefits, and utilizing aggressive economic leverage to pressure its adversaries to follow its directives demands. These tactics, previously viewed naively with disbelief during 2025, now are recognized as marking the end of Pax Americana and an abandonment of America’s global leadership role. Trump 2.0’s America First policies mean that America now will be going it alone. It will have no need for allies or treaty obligations perceived as inconsistent with its goals. And it will wage war against any nation that does not support its policies – allies included.

America’s deployment of its military, its panoply of threats against former allies, and its imposition of punitive economic sanctions and tariffs provide ready examples of Trump America’s application of hegemonic power. America has threatened the annexation of Greenland, Canada and Panama, imposed sanctions and punitive tariffs on countries that have failed to accede to the President’s demands (e.g., India and Brazil) and threatened the same against allies (e.g., Denmark, Norway, Sweden, France, Germany, the UK, Netherlands and Finland), waged war on nations that have defied Presidential decrees (notably Venezuela and Iran), and leveraged economic concessions from virtually every other sovereign nation (other than China, which holds a rare earths’ “Trump card”), as well as from industries, both domestic and foreign. Trump 2.0 has been successful in leveraging America’s advantages because America has the armaments and economic muscle to impose its will. The Trump Administration has demonstrated that “might indeed makes right” by employing the tools of a new “Trump Doctrine” that sets a more aggressive global agenda than the hemispheric “Donroe Doctrine” – that is, the so-called “Trump Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine” – described in America’s recently released National Security Strategy.

In retrospect, 2025’s renaming of America’s Department of Defense as the Department of War was no mere hyperbolic semantic exercise. It was a repudiation of multilateralism and a declaration of America’s intent to use its military and economic supremacy to achieve America First goals. After all, America has the world’s most advanced military machine and its largest and most dynamic economy, one that is minimally dependent on imports. This enables it to use punishing tariffs as negotiating tools to achieve concessions advantages.

The efficacy of the Trump Doctrine – and of the President’s “Art of the Deal” strategy of threat/adjustment/retraction/negotiation – is exemplified by the tactics used to pressure Denmark to cede parts of Greenland to American autonomy. Although President Trump often presents America’s demands in caricaturist terms, the meaning of last week’s note to Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre of Norway demanding (under threat of invasion) that America “have Complete and Total Control of Greenland” was clear and starkly adversarial…, until it was not.

Blowback from European leaders (together with threats of economic retaliation) led the President, as expected, to adjust/retract/negotiate. According to some, however, the European response elicited another Presidential “TACO moment,” a mischaracterization of President Trump’s Greenland tactic. Unsurprisingly, after speaking with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte, the President asserted that Denmark and its European allies had agreed to a “framework” deal that would resolve America’s claims (something that commentators have described as “sort of a notion…, that can be made into a concept…, and perhaps later be turned into an idea”). “In return,” the President announced, he had dropped his threat of invasion and of tariffs on the eight European nations that had opposed his demands. As TLR’s Cassandra has observed, “the President’s tactics will be successful. He will get whatever he wants – a free military and economic hand to do as he pleases in Greenland…, together with Trumpian drama that is distracting, provocative and disruptive. While President Trump is pressuring Europe from the West, Europe is being gravely threatened by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in the East. The EU cannot address, yet alone survive, both threats. European nations are keenly aware of their weakness. Even if NATO could successfully defend Ukraine without American support, Europe cannot simultaneously counter American aggression against Greenland. The outcome is predetermined…, and President Trump has been performance-playing accordingly. An American-led NATO contingent will build and staff bases in Greenland while America’s military will build and staff widespread autonomous-forever “Golden Dome” bases, with American-backed companies taking the lead in developing Greenland’s strategic resources. However, if the President truly wants to force a land sale, there will be a land sale.”

The current Greenland pseudo-conflict marks the first anniversary of President Trump’s “Art of the Deal” approach to geopolitics. It is the foreign policy capstone on Trump 2.0 military and economic actions in and around Venezuela, the President’s on-again, off-again sanctions, tariffs and tariff declarations, the Administration’s successful efforts to devalue the Dollar, President Trump’s depredations of European culture and governance, and America’s retreat from its NATO obligations, as well as a wide variety of additional Trumpian disruptions. When added to the Biden Administration’s weaponization of the Dollar, the risks allure of investing in America, accumulating Dollars, and buying U.S. Treasury securities are being “trumped,” with a resulting erosion of faith in the American Dollar, the SWIFT system, and U.S. sovereign debt. Should America’s reliability as a strategic partner and safe haven continue to wane, foreign nations and their investors will turn more heavily to alternatives, including to Dollar and Treasury substitutes. Trump 2.0 recognizes the risks, but what will the President do to reverse the trend? With gold and silver reaching ever-higher heights and with America facing an increasing threat of lower U.S. Treasury demand, President Trump this week vowed “big retaliation” against any European country that accelerates sales of U.S. Treasuries. Further Trump disruptions – additional warfare – accordingly can be expected in the second year of Trump 2.0.

Finally (from a good friend)