The New German Warfare State
a leading sector of the political and economic elites in Germany and the EU view the project of rampant militarization as a means to counter the massive upheavals that are threatening their power on a geopolitical, domestic, and economic level. And for this purpose, the maintenance of a major threat, of a terrifying enemy that will not go away quickly, is indispensable. If the Russian threat, in contrast, turned out to be not as serious as it is portrayed, and if Russia could be accommodated with a peace deal that includes Ukrainian neutrality, the complete system of justification for the military build-up would crumble.
Fabian Scheidler, Substack, Jan 06, 2026
How boundless militarization has become the key project of Germany and the European Union in the unfolding polycrisis.
The European Union, Britain and other European NATO members have embarked on a path of massive militarization, which in its speed and ambition is unprecedented since World War II. While most NATO members had previously been unwilling or unable to meet the goal of spending two percent of their GDP for the military, a target set in 2014, they suddenly jumped to a commitment of five per cent per year at the 2025 NATO summit, bowing to Donald Trump’s pressure. Only the Spanish government refused to comply.
What NATO, its member states and major media are not communicating is the fact that five per cent of GDP corresponds to around 50 per cent of national budgets. If states were indeed to implement their commitments, they would have to drastically reduce spending on welfare, including education and healthcare, while simultaneously swelling their national deficits. The Financial Times summed up the agenda in a March 2025 headline: ‘Europe Must Trim its Welfare State to Build a Warfare State’. In other words, the planned militarization is class war from above. Although governments have somewhat watered down their commitments, stating that only 3.5 per cent will go directly to the military while 1.5 per cent is meant to revamp infrastructures for military use, even 35 per cent of national budgets would still be a major blow for what is left of the European welfare model.
Massive cuts to public spending in order to channel the funds into the military-industrial complex are on the agenda in most European countries. The German government is among the most zealous in this respect. Finance Minister Lars Klingbeil from the Social Democratic Party (SPD) pledged to triple the military budget from 52 billion € in 2024 to an unprecedented 153 billion in 2029, while chancellor Friedrich Merz (CDU) has already announced drastic cuts in unemployment benefits to fill some of the gap. Resistance within the Bundestag is eerily feeble. The Greens have long been among the most ardent advocates of rearmament and in March 2025 they voted in favour of a constitutional amendment that has removed all budget constraints for the military and intelligence services while maintaining austerity for all other types of spending. The right-wing Alternative für Deutschland (AfD), which has been leading in some recent polls, is equally devoted to the military build-up and a cutback of the welfare state. While Die LINKE officially opposes this agenda, their representatives in the second federal chamber, the Bundesrat, have voted for the constitutional amendment, causing unrest within the party. For some observers, the lack of parliamentary opposition has brought back sinister memories of the war credits in 1914, which were unanimously approved in the Reichstag – with the votes of the SPD.
In other European countries, however, more resistance has emerged. In the UK, Keir Starmer met fierce opposition to his plans to cut welfare benefits, even within his own Labour Party, and was forced to backtrack. In France, prime minister François Bayrou was toppled by a motion of no confidence over a € 44 billion budget cut plan. In Spain, mass demonstrations against rearmament have put significant pressure on prime minister Sanchez to limit military spending.
While it remains unclear to what extent European governments will be able to push through their ‘all guns, no butter’ agenda, the onslaught on public services and the working class is ongoing and pervasive. Unbound militarization has become the key project of the European Union, which is trying to mend its fractured foundations by forging a military union.
The militarization of German society
In Germany, a wave of militarization that would have been unthinkable a few years ago is sweeping through the country, affecting schools, universities, the media, and public spaces. Tramways are painted in military camouflage. Huge advertisements for the army depict war as a great adventure that strengthens team spirit. The Bundeswehr is aggressively recruiting young people in the streets, at school, and at universities. Even minors under 18 are being recruited, in violation of the principles of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, as organizations such as Terre des Hommes point out. Youth officers are sent into classrooms where they are advertising the army in front of students who are sometimes barely 13 years old. Rather than encouraging debates about the military at school, the army is being given free rein. The administration is also planning to introduce regular civil defense drills in schools, with the explicit intention of preparing the students mentally for war.
In the media, the German public broadcaster ARD has started to promote the army and its preparations for war in its children’s program ‘9 ½’, with recommendations on how to get involved. The program does not ask any critical questions about the army, nor does it mention the fact that deployment to war zones can result in death and trauma. The same is true of the second public broadcaster, which advertises the army as a cute and charitable force of peace in its children’s program ZDFtivi.
Universities are increasingly being forced to cooperate with the military. While a few federal states still prohibit military research in public universities and around 70 universities have voluntarily committed to engage exclusively in civil research, Robert Habeck (The Greens) declared in early 2025, when he was vice chancellor, that we ‘need to rethink the strict separation of military and civilian use and development’ in academia. In Bavaria, the administration has already banned any ‘civil clauses’ in universities, eliminating the option of declining military research. Furthermore, the German Army has developed a comprehensive classified ‘Operation Plan Germany’ to subordinate civil institutions to military objectives.
These concerted efforts to create a Warfare State are not least intended to transform the attitudes of the German population, which in its majority has been skeptical of the military, and of foreign involvements in particular, for decades……………………………………………………………………………………………
The ‘rules-based international order’ and the Gaza genocide
The project of the Warfare State, and the sacrifices that the population is supposed to make for its creation, is portrayed by political leaders both in Germany and the EU as being without alternative. The argument justifying this position is based on two pillars. The first one is the claim that massive rearmament is required to defend democracy, ‘Western values’, and international law against a despotic rogue state that is willing to dismantle the ‘rules-based international order’. ……………………………………………………………………………………………….
Within Europe, German governments have particularly excelled in trampling on international law when it comes to Palestine. After the Israeli onslaught began, the German government increased its arms exports to Israel tenfold, to a total 326 million euros in 2023 alone, making it the world’s second-largest supplier of arms to Israel, behind only the US. In November 2023, when overwhelming evidence of systematic Israeli war crimes had long been available, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) declared that Israel ‘is committed to human rights and international law and acts accordingly’. Even after the International Court of Justice deemed South Africa’s genocide lawsuit against Israel to be ‘plausible’ in January 2024, the German government did not alter its stance. …………………………………
…………………. Germany has been the main force in the EU blocking all initiatives to sanction Israel for its behavior, for example by suspending the EU-Israel Association Agreement. German authorities and institutions have also engaged in suppressing freedom of speech on a scale unprecedented in recent German history, including attempts to prevent the UN Special Rapporteur on the Occupied Territories, Francesca Albanese, from speaking in Berlin……………………………………………………………………
The Russian threat
While the argument that the new arms race is about defending a rules-based international order and the inviolability of borders (which Israel violates on a daily basis) has lost credibility, and with Ukraine’s chances of winning back their territories dwindling, another narrative has emerged to justify the military build-up: the threat of a Russian invasion of NATO countries. In June 2024, German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius stated that Germany must become ‘fit for war’ because Russia will be able to invade NATO by 2029.
However, there is no indication that Russia has any intention of attacking NATO countries, let alone Germany. Even the annual US intelligence report clearly states that the Kremlin ‘is almost certainly not interested in a direct military conflict with US and NATO forces’.[10] Admiral Sir Tony Radakin, Commander-in-Chief of the British Armed Forces and anything but a Russian stooge, confirmed: ‘Vladimir Putin does not want a direct war with NATO.’ In fact, there are no plausible motives for an attack on NATO, which would plunge Russia into a devastating conflict with the most powerful military alliance in human history. Even if the Russian leadership were utterly insane and suicidal (for which there is no evidence), they would lack the means to undertake such an endeavor. For years, Russia has made only slow advances against an exhausted Ukrainian army. NATO’s military budget is still ten times larger than Russia’s, and European NATO states alone spend more than three times as much and are overwhelmingly superior to Russia militarily.
Given that the Russian threat to NATO is clearly greatly exaggerated, even in the eyes of Western intelligence, the question arises as to why the German government, along with other European leaders, continues to circulate the narrative of an impending invasion. The question becomes even more pertinent given that the EU and its most powerful member states are actively undermining serious peace negotiations, thus increasing the risk of a major confrontation with Russia. The proposal to send NATO troops to Ukraine in the wake of a possible ceasefire, for example, increases the incentives for Russia to continue fighting, since preventing NATO troops from being deployed to Ukraine was a key motive for starting the war in the first place. While the EU should have a clear interest in extinguishing the fire on its doorstep, it continues to pour more oil on it, compromising its own security interests as well as Ukraine’s. What is driving this seemingly irrational behavior?
The geopolitical upheaval and the ‘international division of humanity’
A possible answer to this puzzle is that a leading sector of the political and economic elites in Germany and the EU view the project of rampant militarization as a means to counter the massive upheavals that are threatening their power on a geopolitical, domestic, and economic level. And for this purpose, the maintenance of a major threat, of a terrifying enemy that will not go away quickly, is indispensable. If the Russian threat, in contrast, turned out to be not as serious as it is portrayed, and if Russia could be accommodated with a peace deal that includes Ukrainian neutrality, the complete system of justification for the military build-up would crumble.
To consider this argument more carefully, we need to take a closer look at the historical context. Geopolitically, the West is losing its dominant position in the world-system that it has occupied for centuries, a process that has triggered severe turbulence and fractures within the Western bloc. The US is deploying all possible strategies to regain its once hegemonic position, not hesitating to throw the EU under the bus if necessary. . After the Biden administration’s strategy of weakening Russia through the Ukraine war failed, driving Russia in the arms of Beijing, the Trump administration has been desperately trying to pull out of Ukraine in order to pivot to Asia and contain its main rival China. For this reason, the US is attempting to shift the financial burden of the war to Europe.
For European governments, and the German administration in particular, which have been following US instructions to the letter while subordinating their own interests, this U-turn has provoked considerable chaos and confusion. First of all, they had bowed to US pressure to cut all ties with Russia. While this did nothing to end the Ukraine war, it caused severe economic pain, especially to Germany. …………………………………………………………………………………………………
Despite the rivalry and in-fighting among Western nations, the new wave of militarization has at least one common geopolitical denominator: the maintenance of what Vijay Prashad has called the ‘international division of humanity’. The capitalist world-system has been based for centuries on the dominance of white Western nations over the peoples of the Global South through colonization and neocolonial rule. This order is threatened by the rise of the Global South and the BRICS, and Germany, much like other European powers, is not willing to let the ‘darker nations’ have an equal say in world affairs and give up its own privileged position among the top predators of the food chain. Given that the economic leverage and the soft power of Germany are in decline, its leaders seem to believe that they can reverse trends by increased militarization.
Economic decay and remilitarization
On the economic and domestic level, Germany has become, like many other Western countries, a society in decline. …………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….
If the program was indeed about restarting the national economy by creating domestic demand the question arises as to why German governments, as in other Western countries, have been and still are so unwilling to spend more money on education, healthcare, and other public services, which would create domestic demand much more effectively. The March 2025 constitutional amendment gets to the heart of this paradox: While maintaining austerity for society at large, it has enabled limitless spending and borrowing for the military and the deep state.
……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. With ideological coherence in the West crumbling, the War State can provide a sense of direction and unity among the governing elites. Moreover, the threat of an overwhelming enemy, whether real or fictitious, allows the imposition of a state of exception on society as a whole.
……………………………………. the latent or manifest state of war is a perfect means of distracting an increasingly skeptical population from considering the systemic root causes of the deepening polycrisis. Whether it is inequality or climate chaos, the logic of war calls on us to put these issues aside in order to defend Western civilization against the Saurons and Voldemorts of the barbaric East.
………………………. war seems to be the only remaining option for a body politic that has no answers for anything, whether it is mass poverty, climate chaos, popular anger, or geopolitical challenges. While it is often said that politics is about the solution of problems, the War State project is about distracting from all real problems by hypnotizing the public and focusing its attention on an external threat.
………………………………………………………………………………………………… Welfare, not warfare
The convergence of movements around the issue of peace will play a key role in determining whether the race to the abyss can be stopped. The attacks on welfare in order to finance the arms build-up have already incited mass popular resistance in countries like Britain, Spain, France, and Italy. While the German peace movements are still historically weak due to internal splits, a series of major demonstrations this autumn, both on the issues of Gaza and Ukraine, might indicate a turning point. Stopping the military build-up and the new bloc confrontation is a key issue for the left in Europe, as all possible progressive achievements in terms of workers’ rights, democracy, and environmental justice would be wiped out if EU leaders get their way with the War State agenda. After all, it’s about welfare, not warfare, today more than ever. https://fabianscheidler.substack.com/p/the-new-german-warfare-state
Marco Rubio, Senate Complicity, and the Open Return of Empire.
SCHEERPOST, January 8, 2026, By Joshua Scheer
The Oil Belongs to the United States?
Let’s begin—and end—with the thought that says everything about this moment: the oil belongs to the United States. It is a sentence so brazen, so logically bankrupt, that it barely disguises what U.S. policy toward Venezuela has become—a naked assertion of imperial entitlement dressed up as democracy promotion.
That logic was laid bare in a briefing delivered by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who reportedly told senators: “We are going to take between 30 and 50 million barrels of oil. We’re going to sell it in the marketplace at market rates, not at the discounts Venezuela was getting.”
There it is.
Not liberation.
Not humanitarian concern.
Not international law.
Oil.
The Washington Post, in what can only be described as a puff piece for a war manager, crowned Rubio with a new title: “Viceroy of Venezuela.” The paper framed his role as his “most challenging yet,” admiring his command of details and his long-standing obsession with regime change in Caracas. What it did not seriously grapple with is the obvious question: since when does the United States appoint viceroys over sovereign nations in the 21st century?
An Insane Plan, Stated Out Loud
Democrats who attended classified briefings were far less impressed. Common Dreams captured the mood bluntly with its headline: “‘This Is an Insane Plan’: Democrats Fume After Briefing on Trump Plot to Steal Venezuela’s Oil.” After the session, Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) told reporters, “We learned a lot. I’m glad we had the briefing. But this is going to be a very rough ride for the United States.”
A rough ride—for whom? Venezuelans already crushed by sanctions? U.S. soldiers deployed without debate? Or lawmakers forced to defend the indefensible?
Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) put it plainly: “We are four months into a sustained military operation. More than 200 ‘enemies’ have been killed. American troops have been injured. We have U.S. forces arranged around Venezuela. Yet neither the House nor the Senate have been willing to hold a single public hearing.”…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..
The question is why the president believes he has the authority to invade another country in the first place……………………..
Meanwhile, the answers—when they come—are evasive. Trump officials insist there are “no troops in Venezuela,” even as lawmakers describe sustained military operations and U.S. forces encircling the country. The contradictions pile up. The machine keeps moving.
Let’s be honest about what this is. The United States has run countless coups—successful and failed—across Latin America, including in Venezuela. What makes this moment different is not its morality, but its openness. This is not covert. This is not deniable. This is empire, stated plainly.
The Election Myth
Much is made—by Rubio and his allies—of a coming “transition” leading to free and fair elections, possibly headed by opposition figure María Corina Machado. But this talking point deserves scrutiny. Free elections are invoked ritualistically, even as economic strangulation, military pressure, and foreign interference define the political terrain.
Around the world, elections are shaped—often decisively—by outside investment, coercion, and information warfare. Venezuela is no exception. To pretend otherwise is political theater, not analysis.
A Viceroy, With Bipartisan Applause
Perhaps most disturbing is that Rubio’s ascent has not been rejected across party lines……………………
Ending Where We Began
The oil belongs to the United States. That is the assumption driving this policy. Strip away the rhetoric, the briefings, the editorials, and the bipartisan niceties, and what remains is an imperial presidency asserting control over another nation’s resources.
If democracy means anything, it cannot coexist with viceroys, resource seizures, and wars conducted without public consent. The question is no longer what is happening in Venezuela. It is whether anyone in Washington is willing to stop it.
There will be no shortage of briefings, no shortage of troubled statements, no shortage of bipartisan praise offered while the machinery of empire grinds forward. What is missing is friction—public, sustained, and impossible to ignore. Strikes, protests, calls to Congress—whatever it takes to break the insulation that allows empire to operate without consequence.
Empires do not end because their administrators lose confidence. They end when wars become politically unmanageable, when secrecy is shattered by demand, when hearings are forced, funding is contested, and silence is withdrawn.
History will not ask whether Marco Rubio was well briefed or whether senators expressed concern in private. It will ask who normalized this—and who refused to. On that question, quiet complicity will count as an answer. https://scheerpost.com/2026/01/08/marco-rubio-senate-complicity-and-the-open-return-of-empire/
Senate rejects Trump’s military threats against Venezuela with war powers vote
The Associated Press, LIVE 5 WCSC, Thu, 08 Jan 2026
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Senate advanced a resolution Thursday that would limit President Donald Trump’s ability to conduct further attacks against Venezuela, sounding a note of disapproval for his expanding ambitions in the Western Hemisphere.
Democrats and five Republicans voted to advance the war powers resolution on a 52-47 vote and ensure a vote next week on final passage. It has virtually no chance of becoming law because Trump would have to sign it if it were to pass the Republican-controlled House. Still, it was a significant gesture that showed unease among some Republicans after the U.S. military seized Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro in a surprise nighttime raid over the weekend.
Trump’s administration is now seeking to control Venezuela’s oil resources and its government, but the war powers resolution would require congressional approval for any further attacks on the South American country.
“To me, this is all about going forward,” said Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley, one of the five Republican votes. “If the president should determine, ‘You know what? I need to put troops on the ground of Venezuela.’ I think that would require Congress to weigh in.”
The other Republicans who backed the resolution were Sens. Rand Paul of Kentucky, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Susan Collins of Maine and Todd Young of Indiana.
Trump reacted to their votes by saying on social media that they “should never be elected to office again” and that the vote “greatly hampers American Self Defense and National Security.”
Democrats had failed to pass several such resolutions in the months that Trump escalated his campaign against Venezuela. But lawmakers argued now that Trump has captured Maduro and set his sights to other conquests such as Greenland, the vote presents Congress with an opportunity.
“This wasn’t just a procedural vote. It’s a clear rejection of the idea that one person can unilaterally send American sons and daughters into harm’s way without Congress, without debate,” said Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer of New York.
Lawmakers’ response to the Venezuela operation
Republican leaders have said they had no advance notification of the raid early morning Saturday to seize Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, but mostly expressed satisfaction this week as top administration officials provided classified briefings on the operation.
Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., who forced the vote on the resolution, said he believes many Republicans were caught off guard by the outcome. He said that Trump’s recent comments to The New York Times suggesting U.S. oversight in Venezuela could last for years — combined with details revealed in the classified briefings — prompted some lawmakers to conclude that “this is too big to let a president do it without Congress.”
The administration has used an evolving set of legal justifications for the monthslong campaign in Central and South America, from destroying alleged drug boats under authorizations for the global fight against terrorism to seizing Maduro in what was ostensibly a law enforcement operation to put him on trial in the United States.
Republican leaders have backed Trump…………………………
The rarely enforced War Powers Act
Trump criticized the Senate vote as “impeding the President’s Authority as Commander in Chief” under the Constitution.
Presidents of both parties have long argued the War Powers Act infringes on their authority. Passed in 1973 in the aftermath of the Vietnam War — and over the veto of Republican President Richard Nixon — it has never succeeded in directly forcing a president to halt military action.
Congress declares war while the president serves as commander in chief, according to the Constitution. But lawmakers have not formally declared war since World War II, granting presidents broad latitude to act unilaterally. The law requires presidents to notify Congress within 48 hours of deploying forces and to end military action within 60 to 90 days absent authorization — limits that presidents of both parties have routinely stretched. https://www.live5news.com/2026/01/08/senate-advances-resolution-limit-trumps-war-powers-after-venezuela-raid/
Hiroshima, Nagasaki urge Japanese government to uphold non-nuclear principles
10-Jan-2026 CGTN. https://news.cgtn.com/news/2026-01-10/Hiroshima-Nagasaki-call-on-Japan-to-uphold-non-nuclear-principles-1JOBGW72YxO/p.html
The city assemblies of Hiroshima and Nagasaki have adopted statements urging the Japanese government to adhere to the country’s Three Non-Nuclear Principles, Kyodo News reported.
The Hiroshima City Assembly unanimously adopted its statement on Friday, pointing out that the ruling party’s attempt to revise the non-nuclear principles has caused concern, and strongly urging the Japanese government to take the feelings of people in the atomic-bombed cities seriously and to uphold the Three Non-Nuclear Principles, the report said.
The Nagasaki City Assembly passed its statement on Thursday by a majority vote, noting that successive Japanese governments have regarded the Three Non-Nuclear Principles as a national policy. It said the ruling party’s intended revision of the principles while amending the country’s security documents is totally unacceptable.
On August 6 and 9, 1945, in an effort to force Japan, which had launched a war of aggression, to surrender as soon as possible, the U.S. military dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, respectively. The Three Non-Nuclear Principles – not possessing, not producing, and not allowing the introduction of nuclear weapons into Japanese territory – were first declared by then-Japanese Prime Minister Eisaku Sato in 1967 and formally adopted by parliament in 1971, establishing them as Japan’s basic nuclear policy. The National Security Strategy, one of the three documents approved by the Cabinet in 2022, states, “The basic policy of adhering to the Three Non-Nuclear Principles will remain unchanged in the future.”
Japanese media have previously reported that Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi is considering reviewing the third of the Three Non-Nuclear Principles, which prohibits nuclear weapons from entering Japan’s territory, when updating related documents.
Chris Hedges: Grand Illusion
Gangster states have no need of diplomacy. Trump and Rubio, for this reason, have gutted the State Department, along with other forms of “soft” power that achieve influence without resorting to force, including the U.S. role in the United Nations
By Chris Hedges , ScheerPost
“We live in a world in which you can talk all you want about international niceties and everything else, but we live in a world, in the real world, Jake, that is governed by strength, that is governed by force, that is governed by power. These are the iron laws of the world that have existed since the beginning of time.” — Stephen Miller to Jake Tapper on CNN, Jan. 5, 2026.
“He who would live must fight. He who does not wish to fight in this world, where permanent struggle is the law of life, has not the right to exist. Such a saying may sound hard; but, after all, that’s how it is.” — Adolf Hitler in Mein Kampf
“The Fascist State expresses the will to exercise power and to command. Here the Roman tradition is embodied in a conception of strength. Imperial power, as understood by the Fascist doctrine, is not only territorial, or military, or commercial; it is also spiritual and ethical… Fascism sees in the imperialistic spirit — i.e., in the tendency of nations to expand — a manifestation of their vitality.” — Benito Mussolini in The Doctrine of Fascism
ll empires, when they are dying, worship the idol of war. War will save the empire. War will resurrect past glory. War will teach an unruly world to obey. But those who bow down before the idol of war, blinded by hypermasculinity and hubris, are unaware that while idols begin by calling for the sacrifice of others, they end by demanding self-sacrifice. Ekpyrosis, the inevitable conflagration that destroys the world according to the ancient Stoics, is part of the cyclical nature of time. There is no escape. Fortuna. There is a time for individual death. There is a time for collective death. In the end, with weary citizens yearning for extinction, empires light their own funeral pyre.
Our high priests of war, Donald Trump, Marco Rubio, Pete Hegseth, Stephen Miller and the Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Dan “Razin” Caine, are no different from the fools and charlatans who snuffed out empires of the past — the haughty leaders of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the militarists in imperial Germany and the hapless court of Tsarist Russia in World War I. They were followed by the fascists in Italy under Benito Mussolini, Germany under Adolf Hitler and the military rulers of imperial Japan in World War II.
These political entities committed collective suicide.
They drank the same fatal elixir Miller and those in the Trump White House imbibe. They too tried to use industrial violence to reshape the universe. They too considered themselves to be omnipotent. They too saw themselves in the face of the idol of war. They too demanded to be obeyed and worshiped.
Destruction to them is creation. Dissent is sedition. The world is one-dimensional. The strong versus the weak. Only our nation is great. Other nations, even allies, are dismissed with contempt.
These architects of imperial folly are buffoons and killer clowns. They are ridiculed and hated by those rooted in a reality-based world. They are followed slavishly by the desperate and the disenfranchised. The simplicity of the message is its appeal. A magic incantation will bring back the lost world, the golden age, however mythic. Reality is viewed exclusively through the lens of ultranationalism. The flip side of ultranationalism is racism.
“The nationalist is by definition an ignoramus,” wrote Yugoslav-Serbian novelist Danilo Kiš. “Nationalism is the line of least resistance, the easy way. The nationalist is untroubled, he knows or thinks he knows what his values are, his, that’s to say national, that’s to say the values of the nation he belongs to, ethical and political; he is not interested in others, they are no concern of his, hell — it’s other people (other nations, other tribes). They don’t even need investigating. The nationalist sees other people in his own image — as nationalists.”
These stunted human beings are unable to read others. They threaten. They terrorize. They kill. The art of power politics between nations or individuals is far beyond their tiny imaginations. They lack the intelligence — emotional and intellectual — to cope with the complex, ever-shifting sands of old and new alliances. They cannot see themselves as the world sees them.
Diplomacy is often a dark and deceptive art. It is by its nature manipulative. But it requires an understanding of other cultures and traditions. It requires getting inside the heads of adversaries and allies. For Trump and his minions, this is an impossibility.
Skillful diplomats, such as Prince Klemens von Metternich, the Austrian Empire’s foreign minister who dominated European politics after the defeat of Napoleon, do so by crafting agreements and treaties such as the Concert of Europe and the Congress of Vienna. Metternich, no friend of liberalism, adroitly kept Europe stable until the revolutions of 1848…………………………………………………………………………………………………………….
Gangster states have no need of diplomacy. Trump and Rubio, for this reason, have gutted the State Department, along with other forms of “soft” power that achieve influence without resorting to force, including the U.S. role in the United Nations, the U.S. Agency of International Development, the U.S. Institute for Peace — renamed Donald J. Trump Institute of Peace after most of the board and staff were fired — and Voice of America.
Diplomats in gangster states are reduced to the role of errand boys. Hitler’s Foreign Minister, Joachim von Ribbentrop, whose primary experience in foreign affairs before 1933 was selling fake German champagne in Britain, appointed party hacks from the SA or Brownshirts — the paramilitary wing of the party — to diplomatic posts abroad. Benito Mussolini’s Foreign Minister was his son-in-law, Galeazzo Ciano. Mussolini — who believed that “war is to man what maternity is to woman” — later executed Ciano for disloyalty. Trump’s Special Envoy to the Middle East, Steven Charles Witkoff, is a real estate developer, often accompanied on diplomatic missions by Trump’s feckless son-in-law Jared Kushner.
The Italian philosopher Benedetto Croce quipped that fascism had created a fourth form of government, “onagrocracy,” a government by braying asses, to add to Aristotle’s traditional triumvirate of tyranny, oligarchy and democracy.
Our ruling class, Democrats and Republicans, piece by piece, dismantled democracy. In Germany and Italy, the constitutional state, as well, collapsed long before the arrival of fascism. Trump, who is the symptom, not the disease, inherited the corpse. He is making good use of it. https://scheerpost.com/2026/01/09/chris-hedges-grand-illusion/
British and European leaders have shown themselves weak and complicit in the kidnapping of Maduro.
Ian Proud, Jan 08, 2026, https://thepeacemonger.substack.com/p/british-and-european-leaders-have?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=3221990&post_id=183823495&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=1ise1&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email
The US attack on the Venezuelan capital of Caracas and kidnapping of President Maduro and his wife was illegal under international law. British and European leaders tacitly supporting US actions through silence is weak and will damage further their reputations in the developing world.
The UN Charter was agreed in 1945 to ensure that countries no longer interfered in the sovereign affairs of other countries. Of course, that legal basis was built on shaky foundations, as the outline of post-war borders was complex and in many parts of the world disputed, including in Europe. The Second World War ended at a time when Britain and other European nations were accelerating their departure from colonialism, creating wholly new sovereign states based on former colonial boundaries.
The UN charter didn’t and does not try to rewrite the map of the world. Nor does it seek to impose a template for how countries are governed. The countries of the world continue to be led by a mix of monarchies, democracies and autocracies in many shapes and sizes.
No country has a right to impose its will or preferred mode of governance on another country, however dysfunctional that country may be. In the case of Venezuela, few would argue that it is a democracy in the purest sense, despite the holding of elections. That some countries consider prior Venezuelan elections to have been rigged is immaterial under the UN Charter. No third country can interfere violently in the affairs of another state, even if that state appears a violent dictatorship.
I personally do regard Nicolas Maduro as, at the very least, an authoritarian leader who is predisposed to undemocratic and repressive means to govern his people. But I could say the same about countless other countries, not only in Latin America but in Africa, the middle east and Asia.
Europe itself, while governed by seemingly democratic systems, has stood accused by the US in this past year of being anti-democratic by stifling free speech and choreographing the appearance of democracy with the help of a compliant media. The institutions of Europe are by design anti-democratic, as citizens do not have the opportunity directly to choose any of the six so-called Presidents in charge, nor their unelected aides-de-camp, however they are called.
So, love him or, in many liberal cases, loathe him, western leaders aren’t given a say under international law about whether Nicolas Maduro is the rightful leader of Venezuela.
In the case of the US, that country has justifiable concerns about the flood of drugs channelled through Venezuela that reach its shores and ruin the lives of people addicted to substance misuse. This is undoubtedly a legitimate national security interest for the Americans and gives them the right to act to prevent these hostile acts, including, should they choose, through the use of force. Without getting into the wider debate about US attacks on alleged drug boats, those actions, nevertheless, are still governed by international human rights law.
They do not give the USA the right forcibly to depose a serving President, however unpalatable a character he may be.
That UK and European leaders have tacitly, though their silence of US actions, come out in support of the overthrow of Maduro speaks more of international relations, not international law.
They have set themselves up as judge and jury from affair, on the basis that they agree with the US assessment that Maduro is the wrong sort of leader for Venezuela. For all the pontification about letting Venezuelan people decide, Euro-elites aren’t bright enough to realise that they are aiding and abetting Donald Trump in making a choice on Venezuela’s behalf.
This theatre played out vividly at the UN Security Council on Monday 5 January in which the various European states represented at the table, one by one, refused even to mention the actions of the US in overthrowing Maduro in their statements. Echoing Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s refusal to denounce US actions, the UK’s Representative at the table, James Kariuki, who unfortunately I know of old, stuck to remarking on the undemocratic nature of Nicolas Maduro, the need for a transition to democracy and to abide by international law. And nothing else.
No mention of the fact that US actions were in breach of international law. No mention of the unilateral military attack by the US on Venezuela’s capital nor the kidnapping of Maduro. Simply, Maduro is bad, too bad, let’s find someone new to replace him, of whom, implicitly, we approve.
Every other European state at the table, including Greece, France, Latvia and Denmark, offered a slightly longer-winded version of the same position. The Danes were a little more nuanced, given their not misplaced fear, that they may be next, if America decides to make a move to annex Greenland illegally.
And therein the root cause of the British and European positioning. European foreign policy appears to rest almost entirely on a desire not to offend President Trump.
In London, Riga, Paris and Copenhagen, leaders still cling to the hope that President Trump will, through flattery, still support their efforts to maintain a proxy war in Ukraine.
That if they refuse to denounce him over Venezuela, he might eventually come round again to the idea of regime change in Moscow, through a war in Ukraine that leaders continue to fantasise is winnable when all the evidence suggests otherwise.
So, the requirements of international law have become entirely incidental to the foreign policy imperative of defeating President Putin and, hopefully, perhaps, seeing him, cuffed and blindfolded, whisked off in a US military helicopter to a kangaroo court in New York. Everything else, including the requirements of the UN Charter, is simply inconvenient detail.
Yet, ultimately, Britain and Europe remain weak and unable substantively to influence President Trump’s actions, rendering them weak and as passengers on a runaway US train as it relates to Ukraine policy.
Unfortunately, countries across the developing world – including the Latin American countries at the Security Council who to varying degrees denounced the US move – will have been shocked by the position Britain and Europe has taken. That their leaders are clinging on vicariously to a western hegemon, in which the US acts as global policemen, and they stand back, aghast, while offering obsequious applause.
The main beneficiary of this will, of course, be China and to some extent Russia who have progressively railed against western dominance through alternative global political fora for dialogue and mutually beneficial cooperation. I should think the queue of countries lining up to join BRICS will grow longer after this illegal US attack on Venezuela.
Nuclear Power: Private Sector -Question for UK government
Question for Department for Energy Security and Net Zero
UIN HL13206, tabled on 18 December 2025
Lord Spellar: To ask His Majesty’s Government when they intend to publish a new framework for a private sector route to market for advanced nuclear
technologies.
Lord Vallance: The government will provide a framework that
will set out a pathway for privately led advanced nuclear projects, this framework will be published early this year.
Hansard 6th Jan 2026 https://questions-statements.parliament.uk/written-questions/detail/2025-12-18/HL13206
Delcy Rodríguez swears to uphold sovereignty of the nation as acting president of Venezuela
Rodríguez promised to respect the constitution and uphold national sovereignty following the US attack on Venezuela, which left more than 80 people dead and resulted in the kidnapping of President Nicolás Maduro and his wife.
January 08, 2026 by Pablo Meriguet, https://peoplesdispatch.org/2026/01/08/delcy-rodriguez-swears-to-uphold-sovereignty-of-the-nation-as-acting-president-of-venezuela/
On January 5, Delcy Rodríguez assumed the presidency of Venezuela. The former vice president swore before parliament that she would uphold the constitution and the sovereignty of the nation after the US attack on January 3, in which the US military took President Nicolás Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores prisoner.
The president of the National Assembly, Jorge Rodríguez, urged the president to protect Venezuela “for her honor, for the people of Venezuela, for the example of the Liberators of America to zealously guard our sacred territory.”
Delcy Rodríguez stated that she accepted the task under very difficult circumstances, but that she would not rest until Venezuela was a free, sovereign, and independent nation. “I come with pain for the suffering that has been caused to the Venezuelan people after an illegitimate military aggression against our homeland. [There are] two heroes whom we have as hostages in the United States of America: President Nicolás Maduro and the first combatant of this country, Cilia Flores,” she told Venezuelan parliamentarians.
Rodríguez also promised to ensure an administration that guarantees peace for Venezuelans: “[We will build] a government that provides social happiness, political stability, and political security. [I ask all sectors of Venezuelan society to] move Venezuela forward in these terrible times of threat to the stability and peace of the nation.”
Although Rodríguez initially stated in a Council of Ministers meeting that Venezuela has only one president, Nicolás Maduro, a Supreme Court ruling ordered the vice president to assume the office of president to avoid a power vacuum.
The weight of the most dangerous presidency on the planet
Rodríguez has insisted in her recent speeches that her administration does not imply a break with the Chavista process. In this regard, she has taken every opportunity to demand Maduro’s release and condemn the US military attack. On January 6, Rodríguez declared seven days of national mourning for the death of the “young martyrs” who “gave their lives defending Venezuela and President Nicolás Maduro.”
However, Rodríguez has now inherited an extremely difficult task while in the crosshairs of the most powerful army in the world. Trump himself demanded “full access” to natural resources, while warning of new attacks: “If [the new government] doesn’t behave, we will launch a second attack.”
Trump also stated that major US oil companies will begin operating in Venezuela and that, in addition to making significant profits, they will have to rebuild the South American country’s oil industry.
It is not yet clear what agreements Rodríguez has reached with a US administration that has demonstrated its military power and whose pressure on Caracas has reached levels of violence never before seen against Venezuela.
In this regard, with the threat of more deadly attacks on one hand, a virtually devastated air defense system on the other, and the top leader of Chavismo under arrest, Rodríguez does not have much room for maneuver or negotiation.
Hence, Trump has assured that Venezuela will deliver between 30 and 50 million barrels of oil (worth USD 2.8 billion) in the coming months, and news about the negotiations was confirmed by Venezuelan state oil company PDVSA on Wednesday, January 8.
However, it appears that the Trump administration also recognizes, for the time being, Chavismo as the primary national actor with whom it can negotiate and achieve its geopolitical and economic objectives. Trump has publicly rejected María Corina Machado as the new leader of Venezuela and the idea that elections should be called immediately.
But it is still too early to draw conclusions in a situation that remains unclear amid the dust of missiles, gunfire, and collapsed buildings following the January 3 attack. What is certain is that communication channels have not been closed, nor have the agreements that, it seems, will continue to be made to avoid a new military scenario.
DePetris’ Trump foreign policy accomplishments more dubious than prideful
Walt Zlotow… West Suburban Peace Coalition Glen Ellyn IL 3 Jan 26
In his Chicago Tribune foreign policy commentary ‘The foreign policy moves Donald Trump got right this year’, Daniel DePetris largely ignores reality.
He praises Trump for brokering the November 10 ceasefire agreement in Gaza without mentioning that for nearly 10 months Trump provided Israel with billions in weapons to complete the obliteration of Gaza’s 139 square miles. With over 100,000 dead and the remaining 2,200,000 Palestinians facing death from forced starvation and withdrawal of medicine, the world rightly calls Israeli US policy a genocide. So yes, DePetris is correct to call Trump’s slowing down Israel’s ferocious genocide thru ceasefire “preferable” to its continuance. But pretending Trump is simply a neutral peace broker of the US enabled Israeli genocide is deplorable.
DePetris is also correct to praise Trump for seeking to broker an end to the Russo Ukraine war. But in claiming the biggest obstacle with Trump’s diplomacy is Trump’s “wild inconsistency”, DePetris misses a far greater obstacle: Russia and Ukraine’s diametrically opposed and irreconcilable goals to end the war. That makes Trump’s sincere efforts at peace daunting, if not impossible. At this stage, it is nowhere near an accomplishment.
DePetris whiffs on his third claimed Trump foreign policy accomplishment, the overthrow of the Syrian Bashar Assad regime, replaced by former al-Qaeda terrorist Ahmad al-Sharaa.
DePetris, like Trump, rehabilitates a US enemy dedicated to killing Americans in Iraq in his previous life. Why? Because al-Sharaa deposed the hated Assad whom the US sought to oust since the 2011 Syrian civil war to remove one of Israel’s regional enemies. This had nothing to do with uplifting the Syrian people. Indeed, the billions in weapons America poured into the Syrian civil war was responsible for much of the hundreds of thousands of deaths DePetris attributes solely to Assad. With the secular Assad gone, Syria’s Christians, Alawites, and others not part of al Sharaa’s extremist religious base are suffering horribly. Their fate was never a concern of Trump and his champion DePetris who view the destabilization of Syria as a US win for expanded Israeli Middle East hegemony.
Chicago Tribune’s readers deserve more than a sanitized view of Trump’s machinations in Gaza, Ukraine and Syria. They deserve the truth.
Venezuela declares state of emergency, calls for international solidarity
January 4, 2026, https://gpja.org.nz/2026/01/04/venezuela-declares-state-of-emergency-calls-for-international-solidarity/
Editor’s note: The following is the official communiqué issued by the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela on January 3, 2026, in response to U.S. military strikes on Caracas and surrounding areas. President Trump announced the operation on social media early Saturday morning, claiming the capture of President Nicolás Maduro. International reactions have been swift, with Russia, Iran, China, Cuba, Colombia, Chile, Mexico, Brazil, and Belarus condemning the strikes. UN special rapporteur Ben Saul called it “illegal aggression” and an “illegal abduction.” Venezuela has requested an emergency UN Security Council meeting.
COMMUNIQUÉ
BOLIVARIAN REPUBLIC OF VENEZUELA
The Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela rejects, condemns, and denounces to the international community the grave military aggression perpetrated by the current government of the United States of America against Venezuelan territory and population in civilian and military localities of the city of Caracas, capital of the Republic, and the states of Miranda, Aragua, and La Guaira.
This act constitutes a flagrant violation of the United Nations Charter, particularly its Articles 1 and 2, which enshrine respect for sovereignty, the legal equality of states, and the prohibition of the use of force. Such aggression threatens international peace and stability, specifically in Latin America and the Caribbean, and gravely endangers the lives of millions of people.
The objective of this attack is none other than to seize Venezuela’s strategic resources, in particular its oil and minerals, attempting to forcibly break the political independence of the nation. They shall not succeed. After more than two hundred years of independence, the people and their legitimate government remain steadfast in defense of sovereignty and the inalienable right to decide their own destiny. The attempt to impose a colonial war to destroy the republican form of government and force a “regime change,” in alliance with the fascist oligarchy, will fail as all previous attempts have.
Since 1811, Venezuela has confronted and defeated empires. When in 1902 foreign powers bombarded our coasts, President Cipriano Castro proclaimed: “The insolent foot of the foreigner has profaned the sacred soil of the Homeland.” Today, with the spirit of Bolívar, Miranda, and our liberators, the Venezuelan people rise once again to defend their independence against imperial aggression.
To the Streets, People
The Bolivarian government calls upon all social and political forces of the country to activate mobilization plans and repudiate this imperialist attack. The people of Venezuela and its Bolivarian National Armed Forces, in perfect popular-military-police fusion, are deployed to guarantee sovereignty and peace.
Simultaneously, Bolivarian Peace Diplomacy will submit the corresponding denunciations before the United Nations Security Council, the Secretary-General of said organization, CELAC, and the NAM, demanding condemnation and accountability from the United States government.
President Nicolás Maduro has directed all national defense plans to be implemented at the appropriate time and under appropriate circumstances, in strict adherence to the provisions of the Constitution of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, the Organic Law on States of Exception, and the Organic Law on National Security.
In this regard, President Nicolás Maduro has signed and ordered the implementation of the Decree declaring a State of External Commotion throughout the national territory, to protect the rights of the population, the full functioning of republican institutions, and to immediately transition to armed struggle. The entire country must activate to defeat this imperialist aggression.
Likewise, he has ordered the immediate deployment of the Command for the Comprehensive Defense of the Nation and the Comprehensive Defense Directional Organs in all states and municipalities of the country.
In strict adherence to Article 51 of the United Nations Charter, Venezuela reserves the right to exercise legitimate defense to protect its people, its territory, and its independence. We call upon the peoples and governments of Latin America, the Caribbean, and the world to mobilize in active solidarity against this imperial aggression.
As Supreme Commander Hugo Chávez Frías stated, “In the face of any circumstance of new difficulties, however great they may be, the response of all patriots… is unity, struggle, battle, and victory.”
Caracas, January 3, 2026
WE’LL CONTROL THE OIL! — TRUMP BOASTS AFTER SECRET RAID AS WASHINGTON POST CHEERS ARREST.
“we went from the world cop to the world bully in less than one year. There is no reason for us to be at war with Venezuela.”
January 3, 2026 , By Joshua Scheer, https://scheerpost.com/2026/01/03/well-control-the-oil-trump-boasts-after-secret-raid-as-washington-post-cheers-arrest/
In a reprehensible editorial, The Washington Post praised the capture of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, calling the U.S.-led operation as “Justice in Venezuela” saying it was “one of the boldest moves by a president in recent years” and a tactical success. According to reports, the mission in Caracas involved airstrikes followed by a Delta Force operation that apprehended Maduro and his wife, who have been extradited to the U.S. to face charges including narcoterrorism, weapons violations, and drug crimes—all with no American casualties. The editorial argued that removing Maduro would weaken the influence of authoritarian allies such as Russia, China, Cuba, and Iran in the region and send a strong message to other dictators.
The piece also noted that the next challenge is ensuring stability and a democratic transition in Venezuela, highlighting opposition leader María Corina Machado and her “Freedom Manifesto” as a potential path forward. At the same time, the editorial acknowledged the uncertainty of outcomes, warning that a power vacuum or a new authoritarian leader could emerge if a clear transition plan is not implemented.
Machado was quoted as saying the opposition is “prepared to take power,” though no specifics regarding a transition plan have been released.
Nobel Peace Prize laureate Machado, who has been in hiding since Maduro’s disputed reelection in July 2024, said in a post on X that opposition candidate Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia, whom the opposition says won the vote, “must immediately assume his constitutional mandate” as president. and that “Venezuelans, the hour of freedom has arrived.”
Not everyone welcomed the operation. Rep. Jim Himes of Connecticut, a Democratic member of the House Intelligence Committee, criticized the attack and said Secretary of State Marco Rubio had “repeatedly denied to Congress” that the administration intended to “force regime change in Venezuela.” Himes added, “Maduro is an illegitimate ruler, but I have seen no evidence that his presidency poses a threat that would justify military action without Congressional authorization, nor have I heard a strategy for the day after and how we will prevent Venezuela from descending into chaos.”
Others highlight the split between the GOP and the Democrats.
“Nicolás Maduro wasn’t just an illegitimate dictator; he also ran a vast drug‑trafficking operation,” tweeted Sen. Tom Cotton, defending the mission and saying he commends Trump and U.S. forces.
The split was evident at first with Utah Senator Mike Lee. Notably, the Republican initially seemed critical of the action being taken without congressional authorization.
“I look forward to learning what, if anything, might constitutionally justify this action in the absence of a declaration of war or authorization for the use of military force,” Lee posted on X.
However, Lee later followed up, saying he had spoken by phone with Rubio and was now comfortable with the administration’s authority to take action. Because the administration is framing this not as a war but as a police action to arrest a fugitive, Lee said he believes it would be permissible under the president’s current authority. I wonder we have heard that term police action before?
From the Democratic side, the sentiment was nearly unanimous.
“Without authorization from Congress … Trump just launched an unjustified, illegal strike on Venezuela,” Democratic Rep. Jim McGovern wrote on social media, highlighting a lack of legislative approval.
“Second unjustified war in my life time,” Arizona Democratic Sen. Ruben Gallego, on X shortly after 3 a.m. Saturday. “This war is illegal, it’s embarrassing that we went from the world cop to the world bully in less than one year. There is no reason for us to be at war with Venezuela.”
Sen Andy Kim writing on X: “Secretaries Rubio and Hegseth looked every Senator in the eye a few weeks ago and said this wasn’t about regime change. I didn’t trust them then and we see now that they blatantly lied to Congress.”
Others Democrats, including Rep. Yvette Clarke and Rep. Rashida Tlaib, called the operation “unconstitutional,” “un‑American,” and a “direct threat to our democracy,” arguing that the administration bypassed Congress.
The president spoke about a great many things, including taking over the country, which again would fall in line with the concept of the historic police action that took place in Southeast Asia. As Gallego said, this may be the second illegal war in our lifetime; it is certainly not the only two that the United States has been involved in.
As Trump said, he’s not afraid of putting boots on the ground.
Trump had the gall to say today that his administration will make the people of Venezuela “rich, independent, and safe.” But he doesn’t mean most people—the poor and working-class citizens whom the socialist government represents. He means the oligarchs: the wealthy and powerful few. Trump is clearly the leader of the oligarchs, so this isn’t surprising—yet it is still deeply sickening.
Of course, this feels a lot like George W. Bush’s horrific war in Iraq, which was more about the pride of a leader whose father couldn’t topple Saddam Hussein. In this case, it seems driven by Rubio’s long-standing fantasy of a life in Cuba, surrounded by the wealth of oligarchs—something his family could have aspired to. Now, he is helping push a new Monroe Doctrine and supporting the rise of right-wing forces in Latin America.
Regarding oil, many in 2003 foolishly claimed that oil profits would cover the costs of the Iraq War. In the lead-up to the invasion, U.S. officials expressed strong confidence that Iraq could finance its own reconstruction, largely through its vast oil reserves and other national assets. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld emphasized that American taxpayers would not be the primary source of funding, pointing instead to Iraq’s own resources and potential international contributions. Similarly, Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz assured Congress that Iraq could fund its recovery “relatively soon,” citing the wealth of the Iraqi people. Kenneth Pollack, a former National Security Council official, dismissed the idea of massive U.S. expenditures as “unimaginable,” suggesting that even tens of billions of dollars in spending would be “highly unlikely.” These statements collectively painted a picture of Iraq as a “very wealthy country,” with officials expressing little doubt that it could largely finance the reconstruction of its own nation.
On the parallels between Iraq and Venezuela, I’ll leave this to former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, as quoted in Ron Suskind’s book about Paul O’Neill. Advocating “going after Saddam” during the January 30 meeting, Rumsfeld said, according to O’Neill:
“Imagine what the region would look like without Saddam and with a regime that’s aligned with U.S. interests. It would change everything in the region and beyond. It would demonstrate what U.S. policy is all about”
Exactly, Donald—the empire was always the goal. The idea of democracy was just a shield to make us seem less evil than those who came before, especially our original colonial parent the English. But now the veil is off: we are brazenly invading countries and claiming what belongs to them as our own. I’ve written before—may the empire end, hopefully peacefully, though most likely it will not.
However, in another display of both war talk and regime change, the president said he’s not afraid of boots on the ground, since they have already been there. So if the people of Venezuela resist, as they have promised, and your justification for a fugitive is now gone, what will you do? Ironically, this is from The Washington Post, but as a member of Congress once told me, you need to read the paper daily to know what the CIA and the policy establishment think.
About oil, the war, and the current situation. As of now Chevron is currently the only global oil company with access to Venezuela’s vast reserves.
As Bloomberg’s Kevin Crowley noted last month, the company occupies a unique position: it has faced criticism in the U.S. for continuing to operate in the country, while some members of Venezuela’s ruling party view it as a symbol of American imperialism. Chevron has been able to maintain its presence thanks to special licenses that allow it to operate despite U.S. sanctions.
Venezuela once played a central role in global oil markets, supplying the U.S. with large volumes of crude and standing as an oil powerhouse. Today, however, it accounts for less than 1% of global oil supplies—less than fellow OPEC member Libya.
However, don’t expect a rapid recovery in Venezuelan oil production—whether or not the U.S. is heavily involved. History shows that violent regime changes rarely encourage inward investment. Fourteen years after Muammar Qaddafi’s removal, Libya’s oil production remains about 25% below its pre-war level. In Iraq, where the U.S. had a major administrative role after toppling Saddam Hussein, it took 12 years for oil production to return to pre-war levels—and much of the new production came from Chinese companies rather than U.S. firms.
Trump said today that “we will control those Venezuelan oil fields.” Let’s see, sir. It’s not nearly as easy as you think. Based on the history of wars that involve oil.
More notes from the presidents speech
Rubio discussed today why Congress was not informed, claiming that this was not a war but rather a Justice Department arrest, and that the individual in question is a fugitive of American justice.
He described the situation as a “president of action,” saying, “I don’t know how we haven’t figured this out. Marco, we have figured it out. The president is a man of action, and he—and this neocon-aligned regime—need to go. Sadly with The Washington Post pushing its editorial agenda, alternative media is essential, because the mainstream press is controlled by you and your oligarch allies. Of course so is social media and almost everything else, I would hope—but not hold my breath—that the same Democrats who are criticizing today’s events would also ensure we have a free and fair media. Yet many in this Congress supported President Biden when he pushed for the forced sale of TikTok to Larry Ellison, so…
Keep hope alive
WHAT CHAOS WILL TRUMP UNLEASH IN 2026?
The evidence of 2025 suggests a president who is alternately reckless and bored
Seymour Hersh, Jan 03, 2026
One of my favorite anecdotes occurred sometime after 9/11 when Tony Blair, the prime minister of Great Britain, joined in with America’s declaration of war against terrorism. The brilliant playwright Harold Pinter, who would be a bitter and prolific critic of the ensuing war, was invited to respond before the House of Commons. He began his talk with a tale from British history during a wave of terror in Ireland.
“There’s an old story about Oliver Cromwell. After he had taken the town of Drogheda, the citizens were brought to the main square. Cromwell announced to his lieutenants: ‘Right! Kill all the women and rape all the men.’ One of his aides said: ‘Excuse me, General. Isn’t it the other way around?’ A voice from the crowd called out: ‘Mr. Cromwell knows what he is doing!’”
In Pinter’s telling, the voice of support from the crowd was Blair’s. Today it could and would come from the lips of Vance, Bondi, Hegseth, or Noem. Never has a modern American president been surrounded by such self-important sycophants and a Republican-led Congress with little gumption. Trump’s lack of interest in nonmilitary briefing papers and his obsession with social and political gossip has moved from information known by a few to standard operating procedure………………….(Subscribers only) https://seymourhersh.substack.com/p/what-chaos-will-trump-unleash-in?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=1377040&post_id=183249150&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=ln98x&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email
Chris Hedges: Decline and Fall
We live in an eerily similar historical moment. Britain, within 12 years of Kipling’s lament, was plunged into the collective suicide of World War I, a conflict that took the lives of over a million British and Commonwealth troops and doomed the British Empire.
Donald Trump boasts that he will be the “fertilization president.” American couples — meaning white couples — will be given incentives by his administration to have more children to counter declining birth rates.
December 29, 2025 , By Chris Hedges , ScheerPost, https://scheerpost.com/2025/12/29/chris-hedges-decline-and-fall/
At the start of the 20th century, the British Empire was, like our own, in terminal decline. Sixty percent of Englishmen were physically unfit for military service, as are 77 percent of American youth. The Liberal Party, like the Democratic Party, while it acknowledged the need for reform, did little to address the economic and social inequalities that saw the working class condemned to live in substandard housing, breathe polluted air, be denied basic sanitation and health care and forced to work in punishing and poorly paid jobs.
The Tory government, in response, formed an Inter-Departmental Committee on Physical Deterioration to examine the “deterioration of certain classes of the population,” meaning, of course, the urban poor. It became known as the report on “the degeneracy of our race.” Analogies were swiftly drawn, with much accuracy, with the decadence and degeneracy of the late Roman Empire.
Rudyard Kipling, who romanticized and mythologized the British Empire and its military, in his 1902 poem “The Islanders,” warned the British that they had grown complacent and flaccid from hubris, indolence and privilege. They were unprepared to sustain the Empire. He despaired of the loss of martial spirit by the “sons of the sheltered city — unmade, unhandled, unmeet,” and called for mandatory conscription. He excoriated the British military for its increasing reliance on mercenaries and colonial troops, “the men who could shoot and ride,” just as mercenaries and militias increasingly augment American forces overseas.
Kipling damned the British public for its preoccupation with “trinkets” and spectator sports, including “the flannel fools at the wicket or the muddied oafs at the goals,” athletes whom he believed should have been fighting in the war in South Africa. He foresaw in the succession of British military disasters during the South African Boer War, which had recently ended, the impending loss of British global dominance, much as the two decades of military fiascos in the Middle East have eroded U.S. hegemony.
The preoccupation with physical decline, also interpreted as moral decline, is what led Secretary of War Pete Hegseth to decry “fat generals,” and order women in the military to meet the “highest male standards” for physical fitness. It is what is behind his “Warrior Ethos Tasking,” plans to enhance physical fitness, grooming standards and military readiness.
We live in an eerily similar historical moment. Britain, within 12 years of Kipling’s lament, was plunged into the collective suicide of World War I, a conflict that took the lives of over a million British and Commonwealth troops and doomed the British Empire.
H.G. Wells, who anticipated trench warfare, tanks and machine guns, was one of the very few to see where Britain was headed. In 1908, he wrote “The War in the Air.” He warned that future wars would not be limited to antagonistic nation-states but would become global. These wars, as was true in the 1935 Italian invasion of Ethiopia, the Spanish Civil War and World War II, would carry out the indiscriminate aerial bombardment of civilians. He also foresaw in “The World Set Free,” the dropping of atomic bombs.
Nearly one third of the population in Edwardian England endured abject poverty. The cause, as Seebohm Rowntree noted in his study of the slums, was not, as conservatives claimed, alcoholism, laziness, a lack of initiative or responsibility by the poor, but because “the wages paid for unskilled labour in York are insufficient to provide food, shelter, and clothing adequate to maintain a family of moderate size in a state of bare physical efficiency.”
The U.S. has one of the highest rates of poverty among Western industrialized nations, estimated by many economists at far above the official figure of 10.6 percent. In real terms, some 41 percent of Americans are poor or low-income, with 67 percent living paycheck to paycheck.
British eugenicists from the Galton Laboratory for National Eugenics — which was funded by Sir Francis Galton, who coined the term “eugenics” — advocated “positive eugenics,” the “improvement” of the race by encouraging those deemed superior — always white members of the middle and upper classes — to have large families. “Negative eugenics” was advocated to limit the number of children born to those deemed “unfit.” This would be achieved through sterilization and the separation of genders.
Winston Churchill, who was home secretary in the liberal government of H.H. Asquith in 1910-11, backed the forced sterilization of the “feeble minded,” calling them a “national and race danger” and “the source from which the stream of madness is fed.”
The Trump White House, led by Stephen Miller, is intent on carrying out a similar culling of American society. Those endowed with “negative” hereditary traits — based usually on race — are condemned as human contaminants that an army of masked Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents are terrorizing, incarcerating and purging from society.
Miller, in emails leaked in 2019, lauds the 1973 novel “The Camp of the Saints,” written by Jean Raspail. It chronicles a flotilla of South Asian people who invade France and destroy Western civilization. The immigrants, who the Trump administration are now hunting down, are described as “kinky-haired, swarthy-skinned, long-despised phantoms” and “teeming ants toiling for the white man’s comfort.” The South Asian mobs are “grotesque little beggars from the streets of Calcutta,” led by a feces-eating “gigantic Hindu” known as “the turd eater.”
This, in its most scurrilous form, is the thesis of the “Great Replacement” theory, the belief that the white races in Europe and North America are being “replaced” by “lesser breeds of the earth.”
Donald Trump boasts that he will be the “fertilization president.” American couples — meaning white couples — will be given incentives by his administration to have more children to counter declining birth rates. In the vernacular of the right wing, those who promote this updated version of “positive eugenics” are known as “pronatalists.” The Trump administration will also reduce refugees admitted to the United States next year to the token level of 7,500, with most of these spots filled by white South Africans.
Trump’s allies in Big Tech are busy creating the fertility infrastructure to conceive children with “positive” hereditary traits. Sam Altman, who has been awarded a one-year military contract worth $200 million from the Trump administration, has invested in technology to allow parents to gene edit their children before conception to produce “designer babies.”
Peter Thiel, the co-founder of Palantir, which is facilitating the Trump administration’s mass deportation efforts, has backed an embryo screening company called Orchid Health. Orchid promises to help parents design “healthy” children through embryo testing and selection technology. Elon Musk, a fervent pronatalist and believer in the Great Replacement theory, is reportedly a client of the startup. The goal is to empower parents to screen embryos for IQ and select “their children’s intelligence before birth,” as the Wall Street Journal notes.
We are making the same self-defeating mistakes made by the British political class that oversaw the decline of the British Empire and orchestrated the suicidal folly of World War I. We blame the poor for their own impoverishment. We believe in the superiority of the white race over other races, crushing the plethora of voices, cultures and experiences that create a dynamic society. We seek to counter injustices, along with economic and social inequality, with hypermasculinity, militarism and force, which accelerates the internal decay and propels us toward a disastrous global war, perhaps, in our case, with China.
Wells scoffed at the idiocy of an entitled ruling class that was unable to analyze or address the social problems it had created. He excoriated the British political elite for its ignorance and ineptitude. They had vulgarized democracy, he wrote, with their racism, hypernationalism and simplistic cliché-ridden public discourse, stoked by a sensationalist tabloid press.
When a crisis came, Wells warned, these mandarins, like our own, would set the funeral pyre of empire alight.
Energy bills to rise on New Year’s Day ‘to fund nuclear in England’
31st December 2025, By Xander Elliards, Content editor
ENERGY bills are set for a slight rise on New Year’s Day as the price cap
increase comes into effect. The 0.2% uplift to Ofgem’s energy price cap
will see an average overall bill of £1758 a year for the average household in England, Wales and Scotland remaining on a standard variable tariff, up
from the current £1755.
While only a small increase, it is £190 higher
than the £1568 average bill in place in July 2024 – when Labour came to
power pledging to cut costs by £300 a year. Regulator Ofgem said
Thursday’s increase in the cap, which was announced in November, was
being driven by the funding of nuclear power projects and discounts to some
households’ winter bills. This included funding the Government’s
Sizewell C nuclear power plant in Suffolk – with an average of £1 added
to each household’s energy bills per month for the duration of the £38
billion construction.
The National 31st Dec 2025,
https://www.thenational.scot/news/25732168.energy-bills-rise-new-years-day-to-fund-nuclear-england/
U.S. Plans Largest Nuclear Power Program Since the 1970s
How many reactors will $80 billion buy?
Chief executives of investor-owned utilities know that if they were to propose committing to similar projects on the same commercial terms, they’d be sacked on the spot. As a result, the private sector in the United States has been unwilling to take on the financial risk inherent in building new reactors.
Ed Crooks, IEEESpectrum,17 Dec 2025
The United States aims to embark on its most active new nuclear construction program since the 1970s. In its most high-dollar nuclear deal yet, the Trump administration in October launched a partnership to build at least $80 billion worth of new, large-scale nuclear reactors, and chose Westinghouse Electric Company and its co-owners, Brookfield Asset Management and Cameco, for the job.
The money will support the construction of AP1000s, a type of pressurized water reactor developed by Westinghouse that can generate about 1,110 megawatts of electric power. These are the same reactors as units 3 and 4 at the Vogtle nuclear plant in Georgia, which wrapped up seven years behind schedule in 2023 and 2024 and cost more than twice as much as expected—about $35 billion for the pair. Along the way, Westinghouse, based in Cranberry Township, Penn., filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.
Chief executives of investor-owned utilities know that if they were to propose committing to similar projects on the same commercial terms, they’d be sacked on the spot. As a result, the private sector in the United States has been unwilling to take on the financial risk inherent in building new reactors.
The $80 billion deal with the federal government represents the U.S. nuclear industry’s best opportunity in a generation for a large-scale construction program. But ambition doesn’t guarantee successful execution. The delays and cost overruns that dogged the Vogtle project present real threats for the next wave of reactors……………………………………………………………………………………..
One of Trump’s orders included a series of provisions intended to help build the U.S. nuclear workforce, but it’s clear that that will be a challenge. The momentum gained in training skilled workers during the construction at Vogtle is already dissipating. Without other active new reactor projects to move on to immediately in the United States, many of the people who worked there have likely gone into other sectors, such as liquified natural gas (LNG) plants………………………………………………………………………………………………….
the plans that have been announced so far pale in comparison to the Trump administration’s nuclear ambitions. Earlier this year, Trump set a goal of adding a whopping 300 gigawatts of nuclear capacity by 2050, up from a little under 100 GW today. That would mean much stronger growth than is currently projected in Wood Mackenzie’s forecasts, which show a near-doubling of U.S. nuclear generation capacity to about 190 GW in 2050.
The main driver behind the Trump administration’s interest in nuclear is its ambitions for artificial intelligence. Chris Wright, the U.S. energy secretary, has described the race to develop advanced AI as the Manhattan Project of our times, critical to national security, and dependent upon a steep increase in electricity generation. Speaking to the Council on Foreign Relations in September, Wright promised: “We’re doing everything we can to make it easy to build power generation and data centers in our country.”
One of the hallmarks of the Trump administration has been its readiness to intervene in markets to pursue its policy goals. Its nuclear strategy exemplifies that approach.In many ways, the Trump administration is acting like an energy company: using its financial strength and its convening power to put together a deal that covers the entire nuclear value chain.
Throughout the history of nuclear power, the industry has worked closely with governments. But the federal government effectively taking a commercial position in the development of new reactors would be a first for the United States…………………………………………..https://spectrum.ieee.org/80-billion-us-nuclear-power
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