In this video, I discuss Ukraine's role in European security and why Ukraine is an attractive alliance partner for European countries concerned about the potential loss of the United States as a security partner. Watch the video on the website, or read the transcript below. Best, Anders * * * ### _Transcript:_ With all the turmoil about NATO's future, it's important we have a conversation about the role of Ukraine in European security. In many ways, Ukraine will be key if European NATO countries want to continue deterring Russia from aggression, especially if the United States withdraws from the alliance. So let's talk about it. In discussions about the war in Ukraine and what European security will look like after the war, there's sometimes a tendency in the West to see Ukraine as a burden. Ukraine is described as someone who needs our assistance during the war, and then after the war they will need our security guarantees so they can stay safe and prevent another Russian attack. In that view, Ukraine is seen as someone who consumes resources from Western Europe rather than someone who gives something back. That perspective is problematic because it overlooks how important Ukraine actually is for European security, and it also gives a misleading impression of the military strength of the different countries in Europe. It suggests that Western Europe is stronger than Ukraine in military terms, and that's not true. So what I want to do here is go through why Ukraine is so important for European security. I'll focus on two aspects: military strength and geography. First, military strength. Many people have a misconception about why the Russians are struggling to make progress on the front line in eastern Ukraine. They think it's because Russia is weak, and therefore see the stalemate as evidence that Russia isn't as strong as sometimes described. That perception is wrong. The reason Russia is struggling to make progress is not that Russia is weak, but that Ukraine is very strong. Russia has the biggest army in Europe, but Ukraine has the second biggest. What’s happening in eastern Ukraine is a war between the two largest armies in Europe. It's important that Western Europe doesn't fool itself into thinking our armies would perform better than the Ukrainians are doing, because that's not true. The Ukrainian army is much bigger than the German, French, or British armies. It's a huge army, and it's combat proven. They have expertise and doctrine for modern drone warfare at a level we simply do not. So, if the United States is withdrawing from European security and Europe is losing the strongest military power in NATO, it's almost self-evident that we need to look around our neighborhood to see what other great military powers we could potentially ally with. Ukraine is an obvious choice. When the threat is the largest army in Europe, we need the second largest army on our side. Ukraine is a huge military power, and that's exactly who we need to be allied with right now. Second, geography. Ukraine is next to Russia and has a long land border with it, so being allied with Ukraine pushes the front line eastward, which is beneficial. But to fully understand why Ukraine's geography matters, we need to consider Belarus and the role it would play in a war over the Baltic states. When people talk about a potential war between NATO and Russia, the Baltic scenario often comes up—an attack on Estonia, Latvia, or Lithuania. If you look at the map, the land border between the Baltic states and Russia is not very long; the land border with Belarus is much longer. So a Russian attack on the Baltic states would almost inevitably have to go through Belarus. This includes fighting in the so-called Suwałki Gap between Belarus and Kaliningrad. That gap is often seen as the place where Russian forces would try to cut off the Baltic states from reinforcements by severing the land border between Poland and Lithuania. In an age of maritime drones, it might be very difficult to use maritime transport across the Baltic Sea, so the Suwałki Gap is extremely important for the Baltic states' defense. From NATO's perspective, the last thing we want is for Russian and Belarusian forces to be allowed to concentrate on Belarus's western and northwestern borders. What we want is for them to have to spread out their forces because they'll be facing threats from many directions, so they'll have fewer forces available for an attack on the Baltic states and the Suwałki corridor. This is where Ukraine comes in: Ukraine covers the entire southern border of Belarus. If you count Ukraine as part of the Western alliance, Belarus is almost surrounded by Western forces. The only safe border Belarus would have is the border to Russia in the east. If we want to pull Russian and Belarusian forces away from a front line between Belarus and the Baltic states, Ukraine has the near-perfect location to achieve that. If you look at this through the eyes of a Russian military planner preparing an attack on the Baltic states, they might view NATO forces in the area as something they could handle, because NATO doesn't have much forward presence there and Russia could probably mobilize faster. However, the presence of Europe's second-largest army standing on Belarus's southern border, allied with the people you're trying to attack, would seriously complicate their planning and could be a deal breaker. So Ukraine is vital for European NATO states' ability to deter Russia from aggression and potentially win a war. We need to elevate the discussion from how the coalition of the willing can provide security guarantees to Ukraine into more of a discussion about building a real mutual defense alliance with Ukraine. Ukraine is never going to be a NATO member because that requires unanimity and it's not there. So that's not going to happen. But we need to build something else that covers more or less the same. We can copy the same treaty, give it a different name, and call it the new European Defense Alliance. We need to discuss how Ukraine can support us, not just how we can support them. Security goes both ways. We might deploy forces to Ukraine as part of security guarantees so Russia won't attack again, but Ukraine could also deploy troops to, for example, the Baltic states. We could have a Ukrainian division in Lithuania. The point is, for our security, we need to formalize this alliance with Ukraine. At a time when the Americans are becoming unreliable as a security guarantee, Ukraine is an absolutely necessary partner. A third point in Ukraine's favor is determination. In addition to a huge army and important military geography, Ukrainians have extraordinary determination to fight Russia. You won't find anyone in the world with greater determination to stand up to Russian aggression, and that's important because it means Ukraine will be reliable. We can trust they'll be ready to fight if needed, and that political determination is not something we can take for granted with all the other NATO countries right now. I'll end it here. If you found the video helpful or informative, give it a like. If you want access to bonus videos and want to support the channel, you can subscribe to my newsletter at www.logicofwar.com. Thank you very much for watching, and I will see you again next time.

🇬🇪🇭🇺Hungary under Orbán shows that a heavily rigged electoral system can still be contested. Georgian opposition is right to study it. But the comparison only holds if you understand precisely how different the Georgian reality is. 1/11...

<p>In this video, I give a rather pessimistic status on the peace talks. Despite Trump's attempts at brokering a deal, almost no progress has been made.</p><p>Watch the video <a href="https://www.logicofwar.com/how-are-the-peace-talks-going/" rel="noreferrer">on the website</a> or read the transcript below.</p><p>Best,<br />Anders</p><figure class="kg-card kg-image-card"><a href="https://www.logicofwar.com/how-are-the-peace-talks-going/"><img src="https://www.logicofwar.com/content/images/2026/02/Sk--rmbillede-2026-02-06-kl.-23.24.18.png" class="kg-image" alt="" loading="lazy" width="1470" height="832" srcset="https://www.logicofwar.com/content/images/size/w600/2026/02/Sk--rmbillede-2026-02-06-kl.-23.24.18.png 600w, https://www.logicofwar.com/content/images/size/w1000/2026/02/Sk--rmbillede-2026-02-06-kl.-23.24.18.png 1000w, https://www.logicofwar.com/content/images/2026/02/Sk--rmbillede-2026-02-06-kl.-23.24.18.png 1470w" /></a></figure><hr /><h3 id="transcript"><em>Transcript:</em></h3><p>This week, there was another round of negotiations between Russia and Ukraine about a peace deal, and unsurprisingly, it ended without visible progress. A deal was made about the exchange of prisoners of war, but it's quite normal that they do that as a kind of good faith gesture when they have negotiations.</p><p>What I want to do in this video is to give an update on the ongoing negotiations. It's difficult for most people to keep track of all the different messages, and when you follow the news, it can be very hard to get a clear idea of how close we actually are to peace. So let's talk about it.</p><p>The big picture is quite simple. Despite the fact that Donald Trump has now, for over a year, tried to broker a peace deal, there's been almost no movement. The positions of both Russia and Ukraine are almost unchanged. There have been small movements on both sides, but in the big picture, the two sides don't seem much closer to each other now than they were when Donald Trump came into office.</p><p>The way we can see that is that there is almost no movement when the Russians and the Ukrainians express their positions. They are saying the same things that they've been saying all along. They still express the same requirements for a peace settlement. And we're not seeing signs that, if we follow their messages, that they are particularly preparing the public or the military or the political elites for the necessity to make compromises on some of those demands that they are making.</p><p>The reason it's so confusing to follow the peace negotiations is that when the two sides talk about talks, not about their demands, but how they see the negotiations, then what they will be expressing that things are going great. They say that they have had great discussions and much progress has been made. There is no final deals yet, but the talks themselves are going well. This has been the message from the Russians, from the Ukrainians, and also from the Americans.</p><p>So, if you follow the talk about the talks, you might get the impression that there is a lot of progress and that we could be very close to a breakthrough in the negotiations. But if you follow the conversation about the kinds of concessions that either side is willing to make or that they expect the other side to make, it's pretty clear that there is almost no movement at all.</p><p>It's been said many times that the reason that they do that is because both Russia and Ukraine are eager to give the Americans the impression that they are very willing to engage in peace talks, but that the obstacle to peace is the other side. Because both sides want Donald Trump to get angry at the other side and to do something to punish them so that they will fall into line.</p><p>One interesting development over the last couple of months is that increasingly, the two sides are beginning to give the impression that a deal has actually already been made. So there is a nuance there. It's not just that they are willing to engage in talks, but a deal is actually almost made, and it only needs to be finalized.</p><p>We've seen that from the Ukrainians and the Americans who have been talking a lot about how they are 95% done with a peace deal. There's only one topic that's not entirely decided, where discussions are still ongoing, but that's the only one. And then they are very close. And that one topic is territory. Specifically, it's the territory of the Donbas region, where there is disagreement about where the future border should be. Should it be where the current frontline is? Or does Ukraine need to withdraw and cede some more territory to Russia?</p><p>And then in parallel to this, there has been another discussion about security guarantees. And that deal is also more or less finalized. It's ready to be signed. That's been the message from the Ukrainians. It just needs the Americans and the European countries in the so-called coalition of the willing to sign this paper. And then it's done.</p><p>So there's not actually one agreement anymore. There are two. It's two different agreements, but they are both almost done. They just need to be finalized and signed into action by the relevant parties.</p><p>From the Russian perspective, we've seen similar rhetoric being used, but in a different way. They refer to the understandings that were reached at the Anchorage Summit and how they should be the foundation for any future talks. The Anchorage Summit was the meeting between Trump and Putin in Alaska back in August. At the time, it was frankly not clear that they had reached any meaningful understandings about anything. In fact, the summit itself seemed quite a disappointment for Trump. He did not seem impressed with the results he was able to get with Putin. But now the Russians are talking about this meeting as if some kind of protocol was agreed upon between Trump and Putin and how that is the foundation for future talks.</p><p>So it's a fascinating situation where both sides keep referring to agreements that they've allegedly made with the United States in meetings where the other side was not present. And now the other side just has to accept that this is the established fact because it's already been agreed upon with the Americans.</p><p>It's hard to say exactly what has and has not been agreed upon with Americans. But it's interesting that things have moved from the two sides wanting to appear eager for negotiations and open to all the ideas that Trump might have to now increasingly, they seem to be trying to catch the Americans and to tie them down into positions that align with their own. Both sides are trying to spin the narrative so that instead of it being up to them to deliver something to these negotiations, now it's up to the Americans to uphold their part of agreements that were already made.</p><p>If we take the claims one by one, it's clear that they don't holp up. Let's first begin with the Russian claim that Trump and Putin reached some sort of agreement in Alaska. It's obviously a silly claim because Ukraine was not present at that meeting, and so many things have happened since then. The European countries have stepped up to support Ukraine and provided more financial aid so Ukraine can continue the fight, for example.</p><p>It's possible that Trump and Putin reached some kind of agreement about something back in August, but that would then have been the foundation for the 28-point plan that the Americans presented to Ukraine back in November. And this 28-point plan did not gain any traction at all. It was rejected, and it was clearly not a path forward. And therefore, when the Russians insist that discussions with Trump from six months ago need to be the foundation now, despite this already being tried and clearly being an unrealistic path forward, then basically that's the same as rejecting any path forward.</p><p>And on the Ukrainian side, the interesting claim is that there is not single agreement about peace anymore. Instead, it's now been split into two separate agreements. One is about peace with Russia, and the other is about security guarantees. And the latter is an agreement with the Western countries, and it doesn't really influence Russia at all.</p><p>On the one hand, if you have sympathy for Ukraine, you can understand this viewpoint that Russia should not have influence over Ukraine's future alliances or the kinds of security arrangements that Ukraine can make with Western countries. But at the same time, I also think it's rather silly to pretend that you can separate these two issues, because the question about security guarantees is one of the fundamental reasons why Russia is waging the war in Ukraine in the first place. Russia wants political control over all of Ukraine, and that means that Ukraine can't have security guarantees that prevent Russia from having that influence.</p><p>So Ukraine's claim that the only unfinished question is territory, is just not accurate. The Ukrainians have just taken all the other questions that are important to Russia and decided that Russia does not get to have influence on them. And that's how they get down to the claim that there is only one discussion point left. But of course, Russia is not going to accept that.</p><p>About the question of territory, I think there are many misunderstandings, and I want to address that. To suggest that this is merely a final issue that needs solving is a massive understatement. It's a huge issue with immense disagreement. And it's almost impossible to see how either side could compromise on their positions.</p><p>The thing to understand about territory in the Donbas region is that we're not just talking about territory or even the people who live there. We're also talking about military fortifications. What the Russians are demanding is for Ukraine to abandon their best and most fortified defensive positions, to hand them over to the Russians, let the Russians cross those fortifications without a fight, bring their entire army across, and then trust that the Russians will not continue to attack afterwards. It's just not going to happen.</p><p>The reality is that there is much talk about security guarantees for Ukraine right now, but those fortifications in the Donbas are Ukraine's best security guarantee. It will take the Russians half a million more casualties to get through those fortifications. And that is a much more reliable security guarantee than any promises that Donald Trump or the coalition of the willing might make to Ukraine.</p><p>So Ukraine is not going to compromise on this issue. They're not going to hand over their best defensive lines to the Russians without a fight because that would be suicide.</p><p>So overall, I think the negotiations are going very poorly. There is little reason for any kind of optimism about solutions to be found anytime soon. The two sides are trying in different creative ways to reframe their positions to give the impression of progress that is in their favor. But in reality, they haven't really moved at all.</p><p>So I think it's fair to say that Donald Trump's attempts at peace have been a failure so far. The things he's been doing have not substantially moved the conflict closer to an ending. And when you see the political spectacle on the news and there's talk about peace and peace talks again, be aware that this is not a productive process. There is no reason to be particularly optimistic about anything that's coming out of it, even though the representatives of all the different sides will all be saying that the talks are going great. This is part of the tactics of negotiations right now, and the reality is that the talks are not going great.</p><p>So unfortunately, I think we should be prepared for the fact that these talks are going to continue without any meaningful results. And in the meantime, the war will continue until one of the two sides becomes so weak that they have no alternative to give in to the demands of the other side.</p><p>Before I finish, I just want to make a quick announcement. My last video here on the channel was about Trump and Greenland. Since then, the threat of an American invasion of Greenland seems to have somewhat faded. I made a video about it and why it ended as it did. But I did not put it here on YouTube. I placed it on my website, www.logicowar.com. It's not behind a paywall. So if you want to see it, you can click on <a href="https://www.logicofwar.com/why-trump-retreated-on-greenland/" rel="noreferrer">the link</a> that I'm going to put in the video description.</p><p>And with that, I will end it here. If you found the video helpful or informative, then please give it a like. And also remember to subscribe to the channel and click the bell icon to get notifications when I upload new videos. Thank you very much for watching, and I will see you again next time.</p>

In this video, I discuss the preliminary resolution of the Greenland crisis and why Trump decided to step back from his maximalist demands of owning Greenland. This crisis serves as a good example of how even small states can apply military force to deter great powers from aggression. Watch the video on the website or read the transcript below. Best, Anders * * * ### _Transcript:_ Hi. It looks like the Greenland Crisis is over. I've been thinking about how I should cover it, because I made a YouTube video on the Greenland Crisis, and it got quite a lot of attention, and I think many people would be curious to hear my take on how we ended up where we did. But I think my next video on YouTube is going to be about something else. So what I'm going to do that is I'm going to put this video out here on my website, and I'm going to do it without the paywall. That way people can watch it who don't usually subscribe, and maybe people can also get an idea about what it is I'm talking about, when I say that you can get access to bonus videos by subscribing here on logicofwar.com. But I think what happened was quite clearly that Donald Trump gave up. In the case of Greenland, he climbed down the tree and he found a way out of this crisis. There is now a lot of talk about how there are negotiations and Donald Trump got some kind of diplomatic victory by getting some concessions from NATO and from Denmark. I don't really see that. I mean, there is no deal right now, and it's quite unclear exactly what the talks with Rutte actually meant, aside from them agreeing that there will be talks. So, the agreement is essentially that there will be talks about a potential future agreement. What it looks like now is that the agreement between Denmark and the United States from 1951, which gave the United States very, very extensive access to Greenland, might be reopened and there might be room for some adjustments to it. But at the same time, it's also clear that we're not at all at the point where the United States is going to own Greenland or anything like it. And it's quite difficult to see actually how much more they could get than what is already in the existing agreement. So, I think it looks like Donald Trump is doing his best to sell the status quo as a victory. The art of the deal! And how did we end up there? The way I see it, Denmark and the European countries did a couple of things. First, all the time during this, they kept the diplomatic track open. We saw that first with the Danish and the Greenlandic foreign ministers going to Washington, D.C. for negotiations with Marco Rubio and J.D. Vance, and them agreeing to set down this high-level working group that would be working to see if they could find solutions to these things. That is actually the working group, which ended up being sort of the final agreement, namely that this working group will continue to work to figure out if there are ways out And also by keeping Mark Rutte in the loop and giving him this position as a kind of broker between Denmark and the United States. It was quite clear that he was supposed to be in Davos and do the talks with Donald Trump on behalf of the Danish government. The Danish government deliberately chose not to be present in Davos in any way, shape, or form to give Rutte room for diplomatic maneuver. So, the diplomatic track was kept open. But at the same time, we also saw the Danes and the European countries, broadly speaking, but especially, of course, Denmark, actually demonstrating how military deterrence works when you are a small state that wants to deter a bigger state from doing something. The way you do that is that you make sure that to achieve the military goals, the great power would have to use more resources or political capital than they are willing to invest in the project. So it's going to be more complicated than the benefit of going through with this military intervention. Donald Trump was threatening military invasion. That was quite clear. He was talking about it, and said "we can't rule it out." It came in the context of what happened in Venezuela. Denmark showed that they would be ready to fight this out. It's afterwards come out that the Danish soldiers in Greenland actually did have orders to use lethal force against an American invasion. That's the level we were at. They had the ammunition and were prepared for any such things. It was not considered likely that this would happen. But if it did, the orders were there about how they should behave. What this did was that it propelled this discussion about a military invasion of Greenland to the top of the agenda in the United States. And since this was a very unpopular idea in the United States, what happened was that this created a political pressure on Donald Trump to take the idea of a military invasion off the table. It seems quite clear that different politicians in the United States, probably spearheaded by J.D. Vance and Marco Rubio, pushed on Donald Trump to take this off the table, to say, "we can't do this. The political consequences of going through with an invasion of Greenland will just be too massive." One of the mistakes people often make when they consider powerful figures such as Donald Trump or Putin, for that matter, is they assume that these people are omnipotent. They can do whatever they want without any checks and balances. And that's just not true. It's not true for Donald Trump. It's also not true for Putin. There are many things Putin cannot do because he has to maintain political legitimacy. And if he does certain things that will undermine his legitimacy, and it will be politically dangerous for him. They have a certain amount of political capital that they can invest in things that might be unpopular, and they can sway public opinion or do unpopular things. But they also rely on being seen as the force that actually has the political legitimacy to make decisions. Especially Donald Trump is in a position right now where he is facing elections. There are the midterm elections coming up. He's facing increasing political opposition inside the United States, and he has to think carefully about how he uses the political capital he has to make sure that he can achieve the goals and not to spend that capital on unpopular things that don't really bring him closer to the bigger political goals he has for the United States. It's clear that invading Greenland would just be stupid use of political capital. And that's why we saw him ultimately give up on this idea of a military invasion. I think that's when he came out with tariff threats. At least that's how I interpreted it when I saw him coming out on social media with these ideas about a big tariffs on those countries that had sent soldiers to Greenland. It seemed clear that, OK, we are at a point now where we are probably no longer talking about a military invasion, and that now we are talking about a trade war. Because this is this is a tool that probably still Donald Trump had at his disposal. But the reaction from Europe, when especially the Germans and the French started talking about what they call the economic bazooka, which is basically the European Union's anti-coercion instrument, that opens a toolbox of all kinds of things that the European Union can do in response to economic coercion, and when it became clear that this would be the response, then that triggered a reaction on the stock markets. We saw red numbers everywhere on the stock market. And it just became clear to Donald Trump that also the economic consequences of doing this would be too big and that the European countries are not going to be bullied on this question. And again, the issue of Greenland was just not worth the political and in this case also monetary capital that would have to be spent on a trade war with the entirety of the European Union. So, we saw Trump stepping down, giving up on his threats, just as he has done in other cases with China, with Brazil, and other countries that actually stand up to him and don't submit to the threats, but actually say, okay, we're fine. Let's do a trade war, if that's what you want. In those cases he actually tends to stand down. And that's what he did here as well. He found an off-ramp. That off-ramp was that he said, okay, let's go along with this negotiation where it's very unclear that the United States is going to get anything that they did not already have, but he can sell it to the media as saying that "it's the art of the deal. I'm a genius because now I got the Danes to finally look at these things" or what have you. He's clearly just trying to sell the status quo as a victory. But I think the most interesting thing of all this is that it shows how small states can use military deterrence to deter great powers from military action. I think it's a textbook example of that: That those Danes sent to Greenland actually were enough to trigger the political reaction inside the United States that made it clear that the political consequences of this were just bigger than the advantage of going forward. So those were my thoughts on Greenland. And I really hope that this is going to be the end of this because, as I said, it's a stupid crisis. Unfortunately, Donald Trump is famous for changing his mind sometimes. But I hope that this was it with Greenland and that now something will come out of this working group so we won't have to deal with this again for the rest of his presidency. All right, enough for now. See you next time. Bye.

In this video, I talk about the American attack on Venezuela and what it says about the state of the world. Honestly, it’s a pretty depressing picture, where American imperialism seems to be something we need to get used to. Watch the video on the website or read the transcript below. Best, Anders * * * ### _Transcript:_ The United States has attacked Venezuela and removed President Maduro. In this video, I want to share a few high-level thoughts about what it means and what it says about the world. So, let's talk about it. The situation in Venezuela is still developing and we don't know how things are going to unfold. It can go in many different directions, so there is a lot of uncertainty. What I want to do here is to share some initial reactions to what we saw happening and what it means. First, I think it's necessary to acknowledge how well executed this military operation was. It was a very big operation. It involved many aircraft, ships, intelligence on the ground, and it all worked out very well. They went in, they took President Maduro and his wife, and they got out again, and the Americans did not take a single casualty. That is extremely impressive. I think it's questionable whether any other military in the world could have done the same as what the Americans did here. So, on the tactical and operational side, this was very well executed and clearly planned out very well. At the strategic and political side, I think things are more murky. Frankly, it's not quite clear what the plan is from here. Donald Trump says that now the United States is going to be running Venezuela for the coming period of time and that they are going to come in with American oil companies and take more or less control of the Venezuelan economy. But how they're planning on doing that is very unclear, especially because it does not seem that the United States is planning on having a military presence in Venezuela. So apparently, they are going to be running the country without actually being in the country. And that is probably not going to work. So while on the tactical and operational side, it seems that there was a very good and clear planning process and very strong execution of the mission to capture Maduro, then on the strategic level, it's less obvious that there is a plan, and it will be interesting to see how this is going to unfold. If we look at it from a broader perspective, I think we're seeing a continuation of three trends that have been observable for some time. The first is that the United States is withdrawing from the rest of the world, and they are focusing on what they call the Western Hemisphere. This is also defined in the new national security strategy that I made a video about a little while ago. The Trump administration sees North and South America as the important sphere of influence for the United States, and they see that the United States should be the dominating great power there. Trump is already now talking about doing the same in other countries that they did in Venezuela. He's hinting at military operations in Mexico, Cuba, and Colombia. And on social media, high-level MAGA profiles are publishing maps that show Greenland as soon to be part of the United States. So increasingly, it seems clear that the Trump administration has an imperialistic agenda that they are trying to push. They have big plans for both territorial conquest and power projection in what they see as their legitimate sphere of influence. Needless to say, this is a very different direction for US foreign politics from what it used to be. And I think, quite frankly, it's a development that most people had not predicted just a year ago when Trump came into office. At that time, what was more discussed was American isolationism. But now we're actually talking about American imperialism. So that's a very significant change in tone. I think it's questionable whether this is going to work for Trump. First, there is a significant risk of what can be called imperial overstretch, where they just take on too much because they assume that it will be easy and that everything is going to go as smoothly as it did to remove Maduro. But then afterwards, it turns out that things are actually more complicated and the United States can end up in situations that are similar to what we saw in Iraq and Afghanistan, because the easy part is removing the previous leader of the country. The hard part is dealing with the turmoil that comes after. So imperial overstretch is one constraint that Trump might run into. Another obstacle is that it's not clear to me whether this imperial project has popular support in the United States. I doubt it. First, there is a very large group of Americans who actually liked the old United States, where they stood for things like freedom, democracy, international law, and human rights. They don't like the direction that their country is going because they feel that it's against the values that America is supposed to stand for. And in addition to that, there is also a very large group of Trump voters who actually voted for him because they believed that what he stood for was American isolationism. They liked the idea that America would not be involved in all kinds of foreign conflicts, but would focus on spending the resources at home and building the American base, and that this is what "America First" meant. They will obviously be disappointed to learn that "America First" apparently means that they will not get out of foreign conflicts, but will instead get involved in a range of new wars in Latin America. So, I think Trump's imperialistic project might run into some domestic opposition in the United States, because this is actually something that can unite large parts of both sides of the political spectrum. Because the United States does not have a history of aggressive imperialism as the national narrative that unites the people. This is the case in Russia, for example, and that's why this kind of project sort of works for Putin. But it will take something special to create that type of public narrative in the United States. It's not just going to come out of nowhere. So that was the first major trend that I think the attack on Venezuela signifies. The second one is what we can call the lawlessness of the American political system. The attack on Venezuela was against international law. That's quite clear. In fact, pretty much everything the United States has been doing in terms of Venezuela over the last half year or so has been illegal. It's been illegal to attack drug boats with missiles. It's been illegal to blockade Venezuela. And this attack and the removal of President Maduro are also against international law. Unfortunately, we live in a time when international law is threatened, but I still think it's worth mentioning. But perhaps even more significant, the attack on Venezuela was against American law. It was against U.S. federal law for Donald Trump to do this without congressional approval. This is not something that the American president can just do. The American president has the authority to do certain things, such as initiate self-defense, for example, without congressional approval, and then he can get that approval afterward. But this was a planned attack that was intended for regime change in a foreign country, which is an act of aggression that the U.S. president is not allowed to do without congressional approval. Yet Donald Trump just did it anyway. So, we're seeing a clear trend where the checks and balances on the US president are falling apart. And increasingly, Donald Trump just does whatever he wants without any checks and balances. And he's committing the US military to war without actually asking anyone for approval. So, the United States is moving in a direction of a more personalistic foreign policy that really depends on the mood of the president. And with Trump, that obviously adds a lot of unpredictability in what we can expect. The last trend I want to emphasize is the fact that perhaps we need to stop talking about great power competition. This has been the kind of mantra in international relations discussions for quite a while that we have great powers in constant competition with each other. However, increasingly, it appears that the three biggest great powers are actually just dividing the world among themselves. The United States is to dominate the Western Hemisphere. China will take East Asia and Russia can dominate Europe. It seems that this is the direction that things are moving: away from constant competition between the great powers and toward an understanding between them about dividing the world into spheres of influence. And if you happen then to live in a country that is in one of these regions and you don't want to be ruled by an imperial great power, then you'd better start thinking about what you're going to do about it. So, those were my initial thoughts about the American attack on Venezuela and the arrest of President Maduro. Even though Maduro was, in every respect, a terrible person and a dictator, and it's good he's gone, I think it's an extremely worrying development. But at the same time, it's also not really something new. It's more an expression of trends that we have been observing for a while in terms of the United States embarking on not American isolationism, but rather actual American imperialism. And also that Trump is increasingly performing foreign policy without any checks and balances or required approval from other institutions in the United States. And that all this points to a future where China, Russia, and the United States seem willing to simply divide the world among them instead of pursuing great power competition as we've been used to thinking about it. Okay, I will end it here. If you found the video helpful or informative, then please give it a like. And if you want to support the channel and get access to bonus videos, you can subscribe to my newsletter on www.logicofwar.com. Thank you very much for watching, and I will see you again next time.