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Tag: Trump

  • Military feat in Venezuela amazing, says Trump

    Military feat in Venezuela amazing, says Trump

    U.S. President Donald Trump has revealed new details of the operation to capture Nicolas Maduro, which saw “many” killed, as supporters of the deposed Venezuelan president took to the streets.

    Describing the military operation as “brilliant tactically” and “complex” yesterday, the US president said “a lot of people were killed” but they were “mostly Cubans”.

    He clarified that no US military personnel were among the dead and the fatalities were “on the other side”.

    Venezuela’s military said on Saturday that no fewer than 24 Venezuelan security officers were killed in the U.S. operation.

    Cuba’s government had said on Sunday that 32 Cuban military and police officers working in Venezuela had died in the operation.

    Associated Press reported that its analysis had found that more civilians were killed in the strikes, but it was not immediately clear how many.

    “We had a lot of boots on the ground, but it was amazing. And think of it, nobody was killed,” Mr Trump said in an address to the Kennedy Centre on Tuesday.

    “And on the other side, a lot of people were killed. Unfortunately, I say that, soldiers, Cubans, mostly Cubans, but many, many killed.”

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    Trump said electricity to “almost the entire country” was cut off during the operation that involved 152 aircraft.

    He also criticised US Democrats for failing to congratulate him on the seizure of Maduro, who he described as a “bad guy”.

    “He gets up there and he tries to imitate my dance a little bit… But he’s a violent guy, and he’s killed millions of people,” he said.

    His remarks come as footage emerged of Venezuela’s interior minister Diosdado Cabello and a group of armed men shouting their support for Maduro.

    “Loyal forever, traitors never, doubting is treason,” they chanted.

    Venezuela’s attorney-general Tarek Saab said “dozens” of officials and civilians were killed, without specifying if he was talking about Venezuelans, and a team of three prosecutors would investigate the deaths.

    Saab also criticised the US’s seizure of Maduro to put him on trial for drugs and weapons charges in New York, arguing that America had no jurisdiction.

  • Trump not planning to occupy or nation-build in Venezuela – Republican U.S. lawmakers

    Trump not planning to occupy or nation-build in Venezuela – Republican U.S. lawmakers

    President Donald Trump does not plan to occupy or nation-build in Venezuela, Republican U.S. lawmakers said on Monday after attending a briefing by top officials on the administration’s policy toward the South American nation.

    “We do not have U.S. armed forces in Venezuela, and we are not occupying that country,” Republican House of Representatives Speaker Mike Johnson of Louisiana told reporters after the classified session with Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and other senior officials.

    “If anybody wants to use the term nation-building, or anything like that, it doesn’t look like anything anybody has seen under President Trump,” said Representative Brian Mast, the Republican chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

    “They are not the protracted war administration,” Mast told reporters after the briefing, which lasted more than 2-1/2 hours, when asked how he would reassure Americans they did not face another ‘endless war,’ like the 20-year conflict in Afghanistan.

    Trump sent U.S. troops into Caracas early on Saturday to seize Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, who pleaded not guilty earlier on Monday to narcotics charges.

    Maduro’s capture rattled world leaders, left officials in Caracas scrambling to regroup and angered some U.S. Democrats, who said Rubio and other Trump administration officials had lied to them by insisting they were not planning regime change in Venezuela.

    Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York, the Senate’s Democratic leader, told reporters Monday’s briefing had been extensive but posed more questions than it answered.

    “Their plan for the U.S. running Venezuela is vague, based on wishful thinking and unsatisfying,” he said.

    Schumer said he had not received assurances that Trump would not do the same thing in other countries.

    Republicans also left open that possibility. “There’s absolutely a continual plan to use the United States military to protect the homeland of the United States of America,” Mast said.

    The Senate is due to vote as soon as this week on whether to block further military action against Venezuela without congressional approval, a resolution co-sponsored by Schumer.

    Republicans insist the weekend operation did not require congressional approval because it was very short and involved “law enforcement” to bring Maduro to court in New York.

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    Members of Congress, including some Republicans as well as Democrats, have long accused presidents of seeking to sidestep the Constitution’s requirement that Congress, not the president, approve anything other than brief and limited military action needed to defend the United States.

    Republicans have defeated repeated attempts to pass similar war powers resolutions since Trump four months ago sent U.S. forces to the Caribbean, where they have been firing missiles at vessels Washington says are carrying drugs.

    Trump’s administration accuses Maduro of overseeing a cocaine-trafficking network that partnered with violent groups including Mexico’s Sinaloa and Zetas cartels, Colombia’s FARC rebels, and Venezuela’s Tren de Aragua gang.

    Maduro has long denied the allegations, saying they were a mask for imperialist designs on Venezuela’s rich oil reserves.

    Trump has made no secret of wanting to share in Venezuela’s oil riches. U.S. oil companies’ shares jumped on Monday, fueled by the prospect of access to those vast reserves.

    (Reuters/NAN)

  • Trump’s gunboat diplomacy – 2

    Trump’s gunboat diplomacy – 2

    In early February 2025, this writer wrote a piece titled: Trump’s gunboat diplomacy which raised concerns about Trump’s determination to use brute force to promote his America first policies. I wrote: “Donald Trump, the 47th President of the United States of America has mastered the act of intimidating his opponents, and so far, it appears to be working for him. Americans, non-Americans, foreign leaders, local and foreign corporations, indeed the entire world is apprehensive of what Trump might do with the enormous powers he possesses. Trump, who has vowed to make America great again, totally abjures soft power, and unabashedly is determined to use intimidation and brute force to assert his country’s supremacy and exceptionalism”.  

    I also wrote: “History will record his era, as the return of gunboat diplomacy, in foreign relations.” Last weekend, Trump raised the bar of his gunboat diplomacy. He ordered the USA military forces in collaboration with the intelligence agencies to invade Venezuela, abduct President Nicolas Maduro, and his wife Cilia Flores, and forcefully transported them to New York, were they are now facing trial for alleged narco-terrorism conspiracy, cocaine importation conspiracy, possession of machine guns and destructive devices and conspiracy to possess machine guns and destructive devices. In that same article, this writer expressed concern when Trump showed willingness to deal with Maduro, despite the flawed election which got him re-elected to power last year.

    To the shock of the international community, Trump’s army went into Venezuela and according to some international media reports, within 30 minutes abducted President Maduro and his wife, and flew them out of the country. Clearly, while Maduro, according to international observers, did not win the 2024 election, there is no legal basis in international law, for the unilateral action President Trump took last weekend. It was simply a case of ‘might is right’. To show that he has no pretences, Trump threatened vice president, Delcy Rodriguez, who has been sworn in as acting president of Venezuela, that unless she moves in a certain acceptable direction, she would suffer worse fate than Maduro.

    The acting president in her first speech had decried the abduction of president Maduro and demanded a proof of life of Maduro from America. Sitting in front of the country’s heads of security agencies, she talked tough against Trump and his invasion. She said: “What is being done to Venezuela is an atrocity that violates international law. History and justice will make the extremists who promoted this armed aggression pay.” She asserted: “There is only one president in Venezuela and his name is Nicolas Maduro.”

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    But after Trump threatened her with a fate worse than Maduro, she appeared conciliatory in her social media commentary. She wrote about a “cooperative agenda” even as she had asserted that the oil resource of Venezuela was the reason for the invasion of her country by America. President Trump and his supporters, including Vice President JD Vance, didn’t make any pretence about the intention to grab the Venezuelan oil resources, albeit they try to justify it. They claim that they intend to get back what was taken from American companies some 20 years ago.

    But in an article in the Caracas Chronicle, Marcus Golding, argued that the 1976 takeover or nationalization of the Venezuelan oil industry was never a theft, as the foreign oil companies, were duly compensated. The article, titled: The theft that never was: inside Venezuela’s 1976 Oil takeover, chronicles how the nationalization process ran. Of course, for Trump and his associates, those arguments do not hold water, as they have shown determination to run Venezuela as a surrogate country. This position is reflected in the argument by Stephen Miller, a White House Adviser.

    For Miller, the expropriated American oil industry assets are now used to fund terrorism and drug trafficking. The deputy chief of staff for policy and homeland security wrote that the Venezuelan expropriation represents the “largest recorded theft of American wealth and property”. He further said: “These pillaged assets were then used to fund terrorism and flood our streets with killers, mercenaries and drugs.” No doubt, that mind-set reflects what the majority of Trump’s team believe, and they use such argument to justify the invasion of Venezuela and the forceful seizure and transport of the former president to face trial in New York.     

    While President Maduro was a dictator, who made mockery of democracy in his country, the question will linger whether that record can justify the action President Trump of America took last weekend? Even more worrisome, is what impact the unilateral military action would have on the rest of the world order? Trump’s re-envisioning of the world order, will reverberate well in Russia and China, which have similar tendencies within its area of geopolitical influence. Indeed, it would encourage Russia, seeking to regain as much of its Soviet era influences in the region, as is possible.

    Ordinarily, last weekend’s action by Trump should deprive America of any moral authority to mediate fairly, the Russia-Ukraine war, which is centred around similar geopolitical assertion of ‘might is right’. Indeed, Ukraine should henceforth understand why Trump is urging them to give up territory, in order to find peace with Russia. When Trump keeps saying that if he was president five years ago, the war would never had started, he may actually mean that he would never have given Ukraine the impetus to wish to join NATO, or assert itself in a way, to anger dictator, Vladimir Putin, to attack the country.

    As many have argued, China too would see the action in Venezuela as more justification to wish to annex Taiwan which it claims is part of its territory, since 1945. The huge military arsenal China is building may eventually be put to test to assert its control of Taiwan. Again, USA which by the Taiwan Relations Act (TRA) has the “mandate to make available to Taiwan such defence articles and defence services in such quantity as may be necessary to enable Taiwan to maintain a sufficient self-defence capability” may no longer have the moral right to obey the provision of the act, should China seek to test its military might against Taiwan.

    Even far flung countries like Nigeria, must worry at the rise and display of hegemonic power by Trump. The bombing of the bandits and terrorists in Sokoto, shows the long arm of Trump’s gunboat diplomacy. Pete Hegseth, America’s defence secretary, or secretary of war, asserted this rising gunboat diplomacy, when he said on Venezuela: “It means we set the terms. President Trump sets the terms”. He furthered: “It means the drugs stop flowing, it means the oil that was taken from us is returned, ultimately, and that criminals are not sent to the United States.”

    As I wish my readers, a prosperous 2026, I urge our political leaders not to give Trump any reason, to play his war games, in out dear country.  

  • Venezuela isn’t Panama – No matter how much Trump wishes it were

    Venezuela isn’t Panama – No matter how much Trump wishes it were

    • By Bobby Ghosh

    The last time an American president ordered troops to snatch a Latin American strongman, I was a young journalist half a world away, watching grainy footage of Operation Just Cause on a bulky television set. The 1989 invasion of Panama, which resulted in the capture and eventual trial of Manuel Noriega on drug trafficking charges, is remembered in Washington as a model intervention: quick, decisive, and blessedly free of the quagmire that would come to define American military adventures in the decades that followed.

    It’s no surprise, then, that the architects of President Trump’s “large-scale strike” on Venezuela are inviting comparisons to Panama. The framing is almost identical: a corrupt narco-dictator, a surgical operation, an extraction to face American justice. On Saturday morning, as smoke rose over Caracas and Venezuelans ran through darkened streets, Trump hailed what he called a “brilliant operation” with “great, great troops.” Nicolás Maduro and his wife, he announced, had been captured and flown out of the country.

    But Venezuela is not Panama. And if the Trump Administration believes it can replicate the success of Just Cause, it is setting itself up for a rude awakening.

    Start with the most obvious difference: geography and American presence. When George H.W. Bush ordered the invasion of Panama, the United States had more than 10,000 troops already stationed there. The headquarters of Southern Command sat on Panamanian soil. American forces didn’t need to project power across the Caribbean; they were already in place, ready to guarantee a transition of government and install Guillermo Endara as president. They could—and did—dismantle the Panama Defense Forces entirely.

    Venezuela presents an entirely different challenge. The USS Gerald R. Ford and the Iwo Jima Amphibious Ready Group may be imposing vessels, but they are floating offshore, not embedded in the country. A smash-and-grab operation can remove a head of state. It cannot, by itself, govern a nation of some 28 million people.

    Then there is the matter of what, exactly, replaces Maduro. Panama was a small country that had been, since its founding, effectively under American tutelage. Venezuela has its own complex political ecosystem, one that does not simply default to the opposition the moment the strongman is removed. The Bolivarian Armed Forces—the FANB—remain intact. Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino López has already called for a “massive deployment” of military forces to resist foreign troops. Vice President Delcy Rodríguez is demanding proof of life and insisting the government will not yield.

    The FANB is not the Panama Defense Forces. It has been systematically restructured under both Chávez and Maduro to “coup-proof” it—fragmenting command and control, fomenting internal competition based on political loyalty, and purging any officers who seemed to pose a threat to the political status quo. Those who weren’t dismissed were jailed or forced into exile. The bonds between civilian authorities and the military are cemented by the profits of illicit economies that enrich both corrupt government officials and senior officers. They are complicit together, and they know it.

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    We have seen this movie before. In 2019, the Trump Administration threw its weight behind Juan Guaidó, expecting that a display of American resolve would fracture the regime. It didn’t. The military held. Officers understood that a move against Maduro without clear guarantees of immunity meant risking imprisonment, torture, confiscation of assets, and the ill-treatment of their families. Nothing about Saturday’s operation changes that calculus. The U.S. raid may have removed a head of state, but it cannot offer the FANB’s senior leadership a credible path to safety—and without that, it’s hard to see why they would cooperate with a transition rather than fight to prevent one.

    There is also the matter of oil. Panama had the canal; Venezuela has the largest proven oil reserves in the world. Maduro’s government was quick to accuse Washington of seeking to seize these resources – a charge that will resonate across Latin America and beyond, regardless of its accuracy. Cuba’s Miguel Díaz-Canel has denounced the attack as “criminal.” Colombia’s Gustavo Petro is deploying forces to the border in anticipation of refugees. China, which has invested billions in Venezuela and counts Caracas as a strategic partner, will not view American intervention with equanimity.

    None of this is to say that Maduro deserved to remain in power. He almost certainly did not win the July 2024 election, and his government’s human rights record is abysmal. The question is not whether he was a legitimate leader—it’s whether this operation will produce a better outcome for Venezuelans, or merely a more chaotic one.

    The Trump Administration has pointedly avoided saying whether it sought congressional authorization for the strike. That silence speaks volumes. So does the absence of any articulated plan for what comes next. Maria Corina Machado, the opposition leader in exile, has vocally supported the American pressure campaign. But supporting airstrikes from abroad is rather different from governing a fractured country from Caracas.

    I covered Iraq for years, and I learned this lesson there: removing a dictator is the simple part. The hard work—the work that determines whether an intervention succeeds or fails—comes afterward. It requires not just military force but diplomatic engagement, regional buy-in, and a plan for political transition that accounts for the interests of those who held power under the old regime. Operation Iraqi Freedom, despite its name, delivered precious little freedom to Iraqis precisely because the Bush Administration believed that toppling Saddam Hussein was the main event rather than the opening act.

    The early hours after Maduro’s capture suggest the Trump Administration has not absorbed this lesson. There are airstrikes and declarations of victory, but no evident plan for the day after. The FANB remains in place. The government is calling for resistance. Regional allies are divided or hostile. Mexico’s left-wing government has condemned the operation, saying any form of military action “seriously jeopardizes regional stability.”

    Argentina’s Javier Milei may have posted “Freedom lives” on social media, but freedom in Venezuela will require more than a catchy slogan. It will require the painstaking, unglamorous work of building a legitimate government in a country whose institutions have been hollowed out by decades of authoritarianism.

    That work cannot be accomplished from the deck of an aircraft carrier. And it certainly cannot be accomplished by an Administration that believes removing one man from power is the same as changing a nation’s fate.

    ·           This article was first published in www.time.com

  • Europe’s three ring circus

    Europe’s three ring circus

    • By Jonathan Sweet and Mark Toth

    Chasing peace in Ukraine has become a three-ring circus. In ring number one is Team Trump, trying to foist an untenable plan on Ukraine.

    In ring two is the European-led coalition of the willing. Yet, beyond photo ops, this coalition is not doing enough to change Russian President Vladimir Putin’s cost calculus.

    Part of the problem is how peace is defined. For Putin, it’s no more resistance from Ukraine. For Zelensky, it’s no more Russian forces in Ukraine. And for Trump – it’s the pursuit of “economic opportunities,” and that means Russia and Ukraine are not killing one another.

    Ring three? The Kremlin.

    Russian circuses are globally renowned. Grand illusions and deceptions are at the core of magic performances.

    Putin isn’t negotiating in his ring. Instead, he is maintaining a maximalist position and demanding Ukraine’s capitulation. all the while creating division between the US and NATO. It’s working. And Republican Thomas Massie (R-KY) is his latest useful idiot.

    On Wednesday, Massie introduced a bill in the House to terminate US membership in NATO – the defensive Transatlantic alliance the US help found in 1949. He incredulously argues that “NATO is a Cold War relic.”

    Really?

    What world is he living in?

    Per the 2025 Reagan National Defense Survey, 68 percent of Americans support the NATO alliance.

    As negotiators gather in Kyiv, US Republicans close ranks around a hard-edged peace framework, European capitals prepare security guarantees – and Moscow escalates militarily to shape the talks.

    Russia and China pose as great of a threat to our way of life as Nazi Germany and Japan did in 1941. Yet, Massie’s reaction to that is to stand down. Arguably an even greater threat given that both are nuclear powers.

    Too many in Washington are disconnected from the reality of growing – certainly not diminishing – threats from Moscow and Beijing and their Arsenals of Evil allies.

    Ring one

    US President Donald Trump, as a ringmaster, is quixotic. Seemingly, he believes the US is only a business deal or two away from striking a long-lasting peace deal with Putin. Or at least that is what his son-in-law Jared Kushner and special envoy to Russia Steve Witkoff are peddling to Trump. Yet dollar bills won’t stop bullets.

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    To get there faster, he’s installed an allegorical guillotine in his ring. Either President Volodymyr Zelensky yields to Trump’s demands over ceding the Donbas or Ukraine potentially faces execution in the form of an end to US intel, weapons and munitions. Unless, of course, Europe gets in the way.

    As we observed during our weekly Tuesday War & Politics 24 show hosted by Daniel Tkiie and Sofiia Nazarenko – it’s on YouTube first and then dubbed for over-the-air broadcast on Kanal 24 in Ukraine – Trump wants it badly.

    Yet what Trump wants – and just as importantly the price that he is willing to pay for it – is bad for Ukraine and it is bad for the security of Europe.

    Ceding the Donbas to Putin – as Trump is demanding – would be (as we have often said) akin to Ukraine committing national suicide. It would also mean the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) withdrawing from its fortress in the Donbas and its critical defensive beltlines holding back the Russian horde.

    Abandoning these beltlines would endanger Kyiv and Ukraine’s strategic port city of Odesa on the Black Sea. Losing the latter would imperil Kyiv’s economy which depends in part on grain exports as one of the world’s largest food baskets.

    To best understand its strategic value, consider what it has cost Russia trying to capture it militarily. According to the Institute for the Study of War, “Russian forces have seized roughly 4,669 square kilometers since Jan. 1, 2025.”

    They’ve incurred 391,270 casualties or as the ISW calculates, “83 [dead or wounded] per square kilometer.” Essentially, Putin’s false lauding of Russian advances in eastern Ukraine – claims Team Trump appears to buy – are still only at a “footpace.”

    Forcing Ukraine to give Putin at the negotiating table what his armies cannot take on the battlefield would be madness. It would also be proof positive that Washington learned nothing from British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain’s appeasement of Hitler.

    Sacrificing Ukraine’s security because of Team Trump’s haste to start striking business deals in Russia would prove just as fleeting over time as Chamberlain’s sacrifice of Czechoslovakia. As we warned last week in Kyiv Post, Putin isn’t interested in Witkoff and Kushner’s business deals. He wants Ukraine and he aims to destroy NATO.

    Republican Don Bacon (R-NE) understands what’s at stake. He said on X, “I totally disagree with President Trump asking Ukraine to give up additional territory for a peace deal. This rewards the invader and does nothing to guarantee peace in years to come. This is appeasement. This is not Reagan, but it is Chamberlain.”

    Not only that – Trump 47 is completely ignoring the law Trump 45 signed in 2017 that mandated the US would “never recognize the illegal annexation of Crimea by the Government of the Russian Federation or the separation of any portion of Ukrainian territory through the use of military force.”

    Congress in general is pushing back as well. As we highlighted in Monday’s’ INTREP360 Intelligence Report,, the bipartisan 2026 National Defense Authorization Act stipulates that US troops in Europe levels cannot permanently drop below 76,000 and it provides $400 million in symbolic aid to Ukraine over the next two years.

    Ring two

    Ring two – the center ring in a circus – is likely where the war in Ukraine gets decided. Europe’s long-term security is in Putin’s crosshairs depending on the outcome.

    Indeed, as German Chancellor Friedrich Merz warned on Sunday after meeting with Zelensky, British Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer and French President Emmanuel Macron in London, that “Ukraine’s fate is Europe’s fate.”

    Zelensky is the main act. However, what is missing is a ringmaster willing to step up to the plate and lead Europe’s collective response. Not just to Trump. But to Putin and his Kremlin cronies such as Kirill Dmtriev as well.

    Photo ops are not going to stop Putin’s war against Ukraine. Nor will they prevent Trump from bullying Zelensky into a bad deal.

    Despite the European bravado in London, Claire Gatinois and Philippe Ricard reporting for Le Monde, assess that Europe is choosing “a muted response toward the US” and shying away from a direct confrontation with Trump. Zelensky did his best to remind Europe’s E3 powers that collectively they do “have a lot of cards to play.”

    The problem is that Europe is feckless when it comes to playing them. Macron talks a grandiose game – in October he hyped SkyShield as a European way of defending “Ukrainian airspace from Russian drones and missiles” – yet nothing ever gets done that will truly change Putin’s cost calculus to force him to end the war.

    They are also failing to stop Trump from giving new cards to Putin every time Kushner and Witkoff hit a negotiating wall with Putin. Merz, Starmer and Macron could counter Team Trump’s overtures to Russia by immediately handing Ukraine its own new cards – SkyShield, Taurus missiles, air defense batteries, etc. – but the leadership and boldness to do so is lacking in London, Paris and Berlin. They are still afraid to swim alone in the deep end.

    Instead, Europe is focused on pushing its counter-peace proposal. In theory, it is a welcomed counterproposal. It reconfirms Ukraine’s sovereignty. It deletes Washington’s proviso that NATO won’t expand. It maintains a sizable Ukrainian army – capped at 800,000 or roughly just slightly smaller than its present size.

    It also rejects Kyiv ceding territory not occupied by Russia. Plus, it leaves a narrow pathway for Ukraine at some further point to join NATO negating any current or future Russian say in who can or cannot join the Transatlantic alliance.

    Nonetheless, it lacks teeth. Putin is not going to agree to any of that, especially while Team Trump is saying he doesn’t have to. Hence the need to act alone – Putin does not respect this “coalition of the willing,” and won’t until they draw blood.

    Thus, unless Europe immediately puts skin in the game – e.g., SkyShield – they are simply – in reality – acquiescing to Trump. Even worse, acquiescing to Trump means Europe is on a glidepath to acquiesce to Putin’s maximalist demands.

    If they do, Europe is potentially tying its own hangman’s noose around their neck. Notably, as we pointed out here on Monday, Sergey Karaganov, the head of Russia’s Council to Foreign and Defense Policy, declared last week that: “We are at war with Europe, not with the miserable, pitiful, misled Ukraine.”

    Europe should listen. Russia is not mincing words.

    Ring three

    This ring – the Kremlin’s ring – is the most straightforward. And yet, paradoxically, it is also the most deceptive.

    Essentially, Putin has built it with smoke and mirrors. He is projecting a false sense of strength that betrays his military and economic reality. He is writing checks neither his military nor economy can cash – speed is the essence, and he has President Trump putting his foot down on the gas pedal.

    His armies in Ukraine still only advance at a foot’s pace and only after sustaining unsustainable losses. Despite General Valery Gerasimov, the chief of Russia’s general staff, telling Putin in late that Russian forces had taken control of Kupiansk in late November – a Ukrainian town near the border with Russia in the northeast – the AFU has now encircled Russian troops after cutting their supply lines.

    It is also clear that Russia never fully took the city. Putin needed a public relations win in Moscow to impress Kushner and Witkoff and Gerasimov gave him a fake talking point that apparently Team Trump swallowed without counsel from their own military advisors, intelligence analysts, and career diplomats.

    Plus, significantly, as the Institute for the Study of War observed: “Russia’s [military and economic] resources are not endless, as Putin is trying to assert.” Despite maintaining his maximalist negotiating position with Trump, Putin is leading a country that is severely weakened and facing difficult choices going forward. As retired Army Lieutenant General Ben Hodges suggested, Ukraine struck a third Russian shadow fleet oil tanker this week in the Black Sea to add to Moscow’s economic woes.

    For now, however, Putin can avoid making them so long as Team Trump keeps capitulating to him. Every time Putin says no, Trump eventually gives Putin another concession and/or goes on the attack against Zelensky as he did Wednesday.

    This time it was questioning whether Ukraine is a democracy – one of Putin’s main talking points – and calling for Ukraine to hold elections despite its constitution banning them under Article 83 during states of emergency or martial law.

    For now, Putin is content to be his own ringmaster telling his audience to look everywhere else but the reality of his failing ‘special military operation.’

    If Trump can finally see that, then he can put an end to the killing he claims to want to stop. But not by capitulating to Putin. The killing stops when Russia stops attacking. Trump can achieve that by backing Ukraine to the hilt to force Moscow to a real negotiating table that is not part of a circus act.

    Unfortunately, Trump is not there yet. Instead of pressuring Russia – the aggressor – he continues to punish Ukraine for defending itself against an illegal Russian invasion.

    Putin has long desired to get rid of Zelensky. He believes – as likely Trump does too – the easiest way of doing that is for Ukraine to hold elections and that a war-weary country will oust him from office.

    To that end, Zelensky’s decision to explore a referendum not just about elections but over ceding Ukrainian territory – most notably its Fortress Donbas that strategically guards Kyiv and Odesa – is a wise counter to Putin’s gamesmanship.

    It is up to Ukrainians do decide both issues. But as this three-ring circus soon stretches into a fifth year comes Feb. 23rd, we will leave you this thought. Why does Putin want Zelensky gone?

    It certainly is not because he believes it is good for Ukraine. Rather, he knows it would be good for Russia.

    Why give Putin what he wants? As is, he has taken far too much treasure and blood from Ukraine.

    ·           This article was originally published in www.kyivpost.com

  • Venezuela attack: Trump destroys world order

    Venezuela attack: Trump destroys world order

    Yesterday was seismically significant as President Donald Trump ordered United States Special Forces nighttime operation to seize Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro and his wife. They have been flown to the US to be tried, according to the US attorney general, Pam Bondi, in US courts. Charges had previously been filed against Mr Maduro in the US in 2020. The bombing of Iran last year, the airstrike on Nigeria last Christmas, the abduction of Mr Maduro, and the torrent of threats Mr Trump issued against US traditional allies and foes alike are all indications of the upending of the rules-based global order in favour of a power-based world order. Long after the Peace of Westphalia in the 17th century had established the concept of sovereignty, among other variables, as the foundation of global peace and stability, the world order was nevertheless repeatedly broken at least four times in the past two centuries. Each time the order was broken, war followed. Mr Trump is about rounding up his first year in office; by the time he is through, it is uncertain what would be left of the global order, or how long it would take for the consequences of his disruptions and dictatorship to manifest.

    Mr Trump may be picking on small and less powerful nations incapable of retaliating against the US, but by balkanising the world into two camps, pro-US and anti-US, and by first alienating his allies before taking on his enemies, the American president may be setting the stage for his country’s isolation and vulnerability. The US may have the most powerful military in the world at the moment, but until it is truly tested by near equals, no one can say whether the US military is as invincible as Mr Trump has repeatedly boasted. Until Russia took on Ukraine in 2022, few expected that even with external help Kiev could last for as much as it has done, one month shy of four years. Russia has so far failed to expand its sphere of influence, and if peace is finally brokered, it will have gained only a little territory at the cost of over 300,000 men. China is not content to maintain its huge and expanding zone of economic influence. If it makes a bid for Taiwan, there are no indications it would not be a very costly misadventure.

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    The Saturday morning attack on the Venezuelan capital, Caracas, lasted barely 30 minutes before the country’s leadership was decapitated. No one is sure whether the US would make no other move, as Secretary of State Marco Rubio promised, or whether the ease with which the abduction took place would tempt Mr Trump into something more far-reaching and catastrophic. However, the attack followed months of sabre rattling as the American president baited President Maduro, and weeks of gunboat diplomacy that effectively shut-in an already distressed Venezuela in a crippling economic blockade. Back in 2020, in the Southern District of New York, Mr Maduro had been indicted in a US federal court on charges that included narco-terrorism and possession of weapons against the US. Additional charges might now be included in a fresh indictment. Like Panama’s Manuel Noriega who was also seized exactly 35 years ago during the presidency of George H. Bush, it is clear that no one can save Mr Maduro: he will face the charges, and he will get a guilty verdict, for the US had expended so much resources in abducting him.

    But the unlawful arrest and trial of Mr Maduro is the smallest of the world’s headaches. Since the advent of President Trump, and for the past one year, the United Nations (UN) has been shunted aside, forced to reenact the dying throes of the League of Nations, its voice reduced to little more than whispers. And when it manages to speak loudly, it sermonises. It will get worse in the months and years ahead. The US under Mr Trump has forsaken soft power in favour of brute force. Unopposed, its enemies and friends alike cowering before it, the sole surviving superpower will flaunt its wealth and throw its power in everyone’s face. It may in the short term limit himself to taking on less powerful and non-nuclear countries, but ultimately it will look for formidable opponents. President Trump has no sense of history, nor even studied history, and has paid little attention to the principles that undergird the rules-based order he is dismantling. So his instincts, short attention span, and what a psychologist called his malignant narcissism, will conjure the deadly spasms the world must experience in the years ahead.

    But overall, Mr Trump is a historical accident. Men like him have ruled empires, destroyed empires, and reshaped the world in ways neither they nor their successors, nor the rest of the region which they dominated, anticipated. For instance, the Assyrian Empire which peaked between 10th to 7th centuries BCE under rulers like Assurmasirpal II, Tiglath-Pilesar III, Sennacherib, Esarhaddon, and Ashurbanipal may have collapsed as a direct consequence of a 60-year megadrought experienced in the 6th century BCE, but it took only three months for Babylon to overrun it and sack Nineveh, the capital, because the empire had become weakened by a combination of many factors. Take a roll call of powerful empires and kingdoms, and observe the eerie parallel with Mr Trump’s shallow understanding of power, regional and global dynamics, and the internal factors that conduce to or corrode state power. It will be evident that the empires of the Romans, Mongols, Babylonians, Chaldeans, Persians, and the Greeks tell cautionary tales. But it takes a leader schooled in the art and dynamics of power to safeguard an empire. Mr Trump is not adept or schooled. It is a matter of time before the world and circumstances take on the might of the US.

    Most condemnations of the abduction of Mr Maduro will be tame, for the prevailing unipolar world cannot withstand Mr Trump’s destructive projection of power. Nigeria was fortunate to get away with a face-saving joint attack on terrorists targets in the Tangaza forests of Sokoto State last Christmas. Had the US decided to go it alone, Nigeria would have been powerless to raise a finger. Even the Nigerian promoters of religious hegemony and ethnic exceptionalism as well as sponsors of terrorism had suddenly become deathly quiet. Had Nigeria united behind its leaders and managed its differences well, no outsider could attack. Had Venezuela united behind its controversial and flawed leader, the US would have thought twice before embarking on the crude and insane colonial exploitation it has embarked upon.

    In the end, the ultimate consequence of the demolition of a rules-based global order is the rekindling of global arms race. Small and medium level countries will from now onwards strive to develop weapons capable of projecting power on such a scale that even the big powers would think twice about meddling in their affairs. North Korea did it, and has been left alone. Iran needed brilliant and circumspect leaders to do it, but it made a lot of noise, threatened genocide against Israel, and showed itself to be a regional nuisance. It will need time and perhaps change in leadership and ideology to be able to achieve military self-sufficiency and political latitude. Other ambitious countries will quietly take the lessons of history made possible in real time by the US to rearm. In the end, like every era when the world order was undermined, war will be inevitable.

  • Professor Bolaji Akinyemi and Trump’s wake-up call

    Professor Bolaji Akinyemi and Trump’s wake-up call

    Whatever may be President Donald Trump‘s motives for his strongly expressed desire to intervene militarily in Nigeria’s protracted insecurity conundrum or his distorted reading of the pattern and character of insurgent bloodshed in the country, the United States’ precision drone strikes against terrorist bases in Sokoto, Northwest Nigeria, on Christmas Eve, cannot be described as unjustified.

    The insurgency has become an existential threat to the Nigerian state. It has grown ever increasingly more protracted over nearly two decades, with the glaring incapacitation of the Nigerian state to effectively check the menace. Unacceptably large numbers of citizens across ethno-regional, religious, gender and age categories have continued to be murdered on an industrial scale, even though allegations of targeted killing campaigns to eliminate Christians because of their faith are entirely misbegotten.

    Emboldened by the obvious fragility and inefficacy of state response to their treasonous challenge since 2009, the terrorist groups have continued to mushroom as the criminal non-state actors gnaw at the sinews of Nigeria’s sovereignty with blood-curdling relish. To invoke sovereign pride in rejecting external military aid to curb terrorism running rampant would be to court national suicide. Nigeria, analysts point out, has in the past offered military assistance to sovereignty-challenged polities within and beyond Africa, and there is no shame in accepting such support in our own hour of vulnerability.

    The problem has been the gung-ho, paternalistic and starkly contemptuous terms in which President Trump has framed his country’s interventionist intent, not to talk of its divisive religious characterisation of the crisis, which has considerable potential to complicate and worsen an already parlous situation. Trump’s initial response was to threaten that his military would intervene ‘guns blazing’ in a ‘now disgraced country’ in defence of ‘our cherished Christians’.

    Luckily, the American leader’s dramatics was aimed at his domestic evangelical base. In reality, America’s Christmas Eve military strike in Sokoto was undertaken in coordination with the Nigerian military and with the cooperation and support of the Nigerian State. However, Trump did not indicate this collaboration in his social media post on the strike, leaving it to his Secretary of Defence, Pete Hesgeth and the US Africa Command to inform the world that the strike was coordinated with Nigeria.

    It is exactly the undisguised disdain, contempt and disgust exhibited by Trump and some other far right ideologues across the West towards Africa; an attitude partly rooted in unabashed racism, that raises troubling questions about the safety and security of vulnerable countries like Nigeria or South Africa, both atrociously and unfairly traduced by Trump, in a world that, more than ever before, approximates a feral jungle.

    Right before our eyes, underdog Ukraine is about to lose prime territory and resources to a rampantly aggressive Russia, even though the West, in my view, shares responsibility for provoking Putin’s military adventurism in what he arguably considers his country’s ‘sphere of influence’. With her profusion of raw materials, natural resources and rare earth minerals endowment, how safe or secure will Nigeria be in a world in which might is increasingly equivalent to right and hideous predators are free to feast on the meek sheep and lambs even as the rest of the world mind their business unconcerned?

    Concerns like this make even more relevant eminent political scientist and statesman, Professor Bolaji Akinyemi’s impassioned advocacy for the acquisition of nuclear capability as an unavoidable policy imperative for Nigeria in his 2016 Convocation Lecture at the University of Ibadan. Let me repeat here a quote from that lecture, which I cited last week: “As shown in table 14 (The World Factbook), as of 2015, the GDP per capita of Nigeria was $6,100.00, India was $6,200.00, and Pakistan was $5,000.00. The three countries were within the same range. Yet, Pakistan and India are nuclear powers with an incredible underbelly of poverty…

    “Nigeria will not secure respect from the world, the kind of respect extended to Pakistan or India or even North Korea, which has a per capita income of only $1,800 but has a nuclear programme. At the moment, no country will speak to India or Pakistan or even North Korea the way Nigeria is spoken to or spoken about.” This is surely not a question of misguided patriotism or nationalism on the part of Professor Akinyemi. Those who perceive the proposition as another exhibition of the ‘leisure of the theory class’ (apologies to Billy Dudley), will refer to the level of corruption, poor governance records or high poverty rates as obstacles to any credible nuclear aspiration by Nigeria.

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    But those countries which possess nuclear capability today did not wait to overcome the eternal challenges of corruption, good governance deficits or poverty and inequality before acquiring what amounts to military insurance to minimise external threats to their sovereign integrity. Even the most advanced among them still grapple with problems of considerable corruption in their private and public sectors; institutional autonomy and governance quality in the US in recent times, for instance, has hardly risen above third-world standards, and the level of poverty remains indefensible relative to the capacity of their productive forces to generate a volume of wealth unprecedented in human history.

    In any case, a country must first of all continue to exist as a viable entity before it can meaningfully fight corruption, alleviate poverty or improve its quality of governance. This column had described Trump’s contemptuous attitude toward Nigeria as a wake-up call on the political class across party lines to remove the sources of the country’s weakness and impotence in the global community. These include internal partisan fractiousness often actuated by gross material acquisition rather than ennobling philosophical differences; endemic corruption; wasteful and unethical governance across partisan lines, and mass discontent arising from embedded poverty and inequality.

    Apart from utilising the opportunities of the democratic space to address these challenges within the context of competitive party politics, Professor Akinyemi also stresses the imperative of pursuing nuclear capability at least as a medium- to- long term strategic objective. In his words, “Nuclear weapons create an aura of their own which no wealth can create. I was a student of international relations in the United States in the 1960s when China was spoken of with such contempt and derision. The day China performed its nuclear test, the tone changed overnight to one of awe and respect and yet China, at that time, had a per capita income of only $103.00.”

    •Concluded

  • Trump threatens further strikes if ISIS attack persists

    Trump threatens further strikes if ISIS attack persists

    United States President Donald Trump has warned that American forces will carry out additional military strikes if Islamic State (ISIS) terrorists continue attacks against Christians in Nigeria.

    Trump said he personally authorised recent airstrikes against ISIS fighters operating in Nigeria’s North-West, describing the operation as decisive and deadly.

    The U.S. president made the disclosure on Thursday via his Truth Social account, where he confirmed that American forces launched what he called “numerous perfect strikes” on ISIS elements in the region.

    “Tonight, at my direction as Commander in Chief, the United States launched a powerful and deadly strike against ISIS terrorist scum in Northwest Nigeria, who have been targeting and viciously killing, primarily, innocent Christians, at levels not seen for many years, and even centuries,” Trump wrote.

    He explained that the strikes followed earlier warnings issued to the terrorist group, stressing that the United States would not tolerate continued violence against Christians.

    “I have previously warned these terrorists that if they did not stop the slaughtering of Christians, there would be hell to pay, and tonight, there was,” he said.

    Trump added that the operation was carried out with precision by the U.S. Department of War, reaffirming Washington’s commitment to fighting radical Islamic terrorism.

    “The Department of War executed numerous perfect strikes, as only the United States is capable of doing. Under my leadership, our country will not allow radical Islamic terrorism to prosper,” he stated.

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    In a Christmas message underscoring his warning, Trump said further military action would follow if the killings persist.

    “May God bless our military, and Merry Christmas to all, including the dead terrorists—of which there will be many more if their slaughter of Christians continues,” he added.

    Reacting to the development, U.S. Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth said the operation sent a strong signal to ISIS while acknowledging Nigeria’s cooperation.

    “The President was clear last month: the killing of innocent Christians in Nigeria (and elsewhere) must end,” Hegseth wrote on X. “The @DeptofWar is always ready, so ISIS found out tonight—on Christmas. Grateful for Nigerian government support and cooperation. Merry Christmas!”

    Meanwhile, the United States Africa Command (AFRICOM) confirmed that several ISIS fighters were killed during the operation in Sokoto State.

    “At the direction of the President of the United States and the Secretary of War, and in coordination with Nigerian authorities, U.S. Africa Command conducted strikes against ISIS terrorists in Nigeria on Dec. 25, 2025, in Sokoto State,” AFRICOM said in a statement posted on X.

    The development signals a significant escalation of U.S. military action against ISIS-linked groups operating in Nigeria, amid growing cooperation between American forces and Nigerian security agencies.

  • Trump’s new envoy vows to make Greenland part of the U.S.

    Trump’s new envoy vows to make Greenland part of the U.S.

    United States President Donald Trump has angered Denmark by appointing a special envoy to Greenland, a territory he has previously said he wants the United States to annexe.

    Responding to a question from the BBC concerning the new position of Jeff Landry, the Republican governor of Louisiana, Trump claimed the U.S. needed Greenland for “national protection and simply that “we have to have it”.

    According to the President, Landry would “lead the charge” as a special envoy to Greenland, which is a semi-autonomous part of the Kingdom of Denmark.

    Unsurprisingly, the move has enraged Copenhagen.

    Greenland’s prime minister said the island must “decide our own future” and its “territorial integrity must be respected,” the BBC quoted him as saying.

    Landry wrote in a post on X that it was an honour to serve in a “volunteer position to make Greenland a part of the U.S.”.

    Trump has recently revived his ever-growing interest in Greenland, referring to its strategic location and mineral wealth.

    Trump has since refused to rule out the use of force to gain control of Greenland, a stance that has shocked Denmark, which has long viewed itself as a close U.S. ally through NATO.

    “We’ll have to work that out,” Trump added. “We need Greenland for national security, not minerals.”

    Greenland is home to approximately 57,000 people and has had extensive self-government since 1979, however, defence and foreign policy remain in Danish hands.

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    Even though most citizens favour a future independence from Denmark, polls suggest an overwhelming opposition to becoming part of the US.

    Lars Lokke Rasmussen, Denmark’s Foreign Minister, described the appointment of Landry as “deeply upsetting” and warned Washington to respect Danish sovereignty.

    He told Danish broadcaster TV2: “As long as we have a kingdom consisting of Denmark, the Faroe Islands and Greenland, we cannot accept actions that undermine our territorial integrity.”

    Greenland’s Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen said the territory is open to cooperation with the US, but only if based on mutual respect.

    “The appointment of a special envoy does not change anything for us. We decide our own future. Greenland belongs to Greenlanders, and territorial integrity must be respected,” he said.

    Ursula von der Leyen, the EU Commission President, has shared her support for Greenland on social media, writing on X that the EU stand in “full solidarity with Denmark and the people of Greenland”.

  • Trump recalls U.S. envoys from Nigeria, 29 other countries

    Trump recalls U.S. envoys from Nigeria, 29 other countries

    In moves to reshape the United States (U.S.) diplomatic posture abroad, the President Donald Trump administration has recalled 30 career diplomats from ambassadorial and other senior embassy posts.

    The recalled envoys are to be replaced with personnel deemed fully supportive of Trump’s “America first” priorities.

    The chiefs of mission in about 29 countries, including Ambassador to Nigeria, Richard Mills, were informed last week that their tenures would end in January, according to two state department officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal personnel moves.

    The ambassadors, who had had taken up their posts under the Joe Biden administration, had survived an initial purge in the early months of Trump’s second term that targeted mainly political appointees.

    But that That changed on Wednesday when they began to receive notices from officials in Washington DC about their imminent departures, according to UK Guardian.

    The State Department officials said those affected by the shake-up are not losing their foreign service jobs, but will be returning to Washington for other assignments should they wish to take them.

    Africa is most affected by the removals, with ambassadors from 13 countries being removed.

    The affected African nations include: Burundi, Cameroon, Cape Verde, Gabon, Cote d’Ivoire, Madagascar, Mauritius, Niger, Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal, Somalia, and Uganda.

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    Next is the Asia-Pacific region, with ambassadorial changes coming to six countries, including Fiji, Laos, the Marshall Islands, Papua New Guinea, the Philippines, and Vietnam.

    Four countries in Europe (Armenia, North Macedonia, Montenegro, and Slovakia) are affected; as are two each in the Middle East (Algeria and Egypt); South Asia (Nepal and Sri Lanka); and the western hemisphere (Guatemala and Suriname).

    Trump has sought to place loyalists in senior roles since starting his second term after encountering resistance during his first term advancing his foreign policy priorities within the U.S. national security establishment.

    Jeanne Shaheen, ranking Democrat on the U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, assailed the Republican administration’s removal of the diplomats while about 80 ambassadorial posts remain vacant.

    “President Trump is giving away U.S. leadership to China and Russia by removing qualified career Ambassadors who serve faithfully no matter who’s in power,” Shaheen posted on X.

    “This makes America less safe, less strong and less prosperous.”