So President Trump has finally dialled down his insane rhetoric on Greenland, first promising he would not use military force to seize the Danish overseas territory – which is generous of him – and later vowing not to raise tariffs further on his European allies.
But if Keir Starmer – who didn’t show up to Trump’s incoherent, hectoring address this week – and other Western leaders think the Presidential change of heart heralds ‘peace in our time’, then they need their heads examined.
Canadian premier Mark Carney put it best at Davos when he said Trump’s chaotic second term has ushered in a ‘new world order’. No longer can the great democracies rely on frayed Cold War allegiances, treaties or even Starmer’s beloved ‘international law’.
The world is febrile, red in tooth and claw, and – as Nato countries have learnt by now – Trump is a fundamentally unreliable individual for whom the rules-based order isn’t worth a damn.
Just look at how, Greenland aside, geopolitics remain in turmoil. Multiple crises are swirling – of which any could explode overnight.
War in Ukraine continues to rage: Trump’s hollow claim that an end to the conflict ‘is coming very soon’ should be taken with a large pinch of salt given his previous empty promises and multiple false dawns on the steppes.
Meanwhile, though thousands of protesters have been murdered by the security forces in Iran, the mullahs’ ugly regime, though unsteady, seems to be holding firm. Some have suggested that Trump’s Greenland adventurism may have been a smokescreen to conceal his true purpose: an American bombing campaign to topple the Ayatollah once and for all. This would be disastrous for regional and global stability.
Danish soldiers take part in an Arctic endurance exercise on Greenland after Mr Trump’s threat
After his sensational Venezuela coup earlier this month – yet another new flashpoint – the ageing President has evidently convinced himself that overwhelming American force is the answer to all the world’s problems. But even Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, no one’s idea of a dove, has pleaded with Trump not to think naively that one bombing raid would solve the Iran problem for good. Instead, it would sink America into the soggiest of quagmires.
Then there’s Trump’s so-called Board Of Peace, first mooted to oversee the reconstruction of Gaza following two years of conflict, but which now appears – on the surface at least – to be a serious attempt to rival the United Nations as a global diplomatic framework under Trump’s lifelong authority.
The Board Of Peace, as it stands, is a serious threat to Britain’s status as a permanent member of the UN Security Council. Any attempt to undermine the primacy of the UN sidelines us on the global stage – not that Trump will care.
The sight of the smirking President taking to the stage this week alongside some of the world’s most unscrupulous leaders – grubby post-Soviet dictators, ghoulish representatives from the Islamist autocracies of Saudi Arabia and Qatar – further suggests the Board’s definition of ‘peace’ may be sharply different from our own.
Britain’s refusal – for now – to join this motley crew has been spun as being due to concerns surrounding Vladimir Putin’s involvement in it, or the rumoured $1billion cost.
But it is far more likely to be an attempt to stand up for the UN and thus for our own national interest.
One thing is clear. In this new world order, strength is the only currency. And that should chill the European ‘powers’ – Britain most of all.
The threat of invasion no longer hangs over Nuuk – for now
The President with the founding charter of his ‘Board of Peace’
As the hoary Roman proverb has it: if you want peace, prepare for war. Never more than this week have our defences seemed so enfeebled. We have fallen alarmingly short on military spending over four decades, with our armed forces – once the terror of the world – being gutted and slashed since the end of the Cold War.
Rather than steeling ourselves for the worst, we have grown lazy and fat, assuring ourselves of the US military backstop and the flimsy authority of international agreements to fund absurdly over-generous welfare states.
If the Greenland crisis teaches us anything, it must be that the age of complacency is over. Europe can no longer rely on America to defend it – or even to be its friend – and the patient must now swallow an acrid dose of realism. As America’s Secretary Of War – a fresh and telling Trump coinage – Pete Hegseth made clear last year, Washington ‘will no longer tolerate an imbalanced relationship’ with its allies. In other words, render unto Caesar whatever he demands.
The question facing the ‘middle powers’, as Mark Carney called them this week – among them Germany, Britain and Carney’s native Canada – is how to respond. His conclusion was accurate: it’s better to have a seat at the table than be on the menu.
But re-arming, especially in Britain, will not be easy – nor cheap. Our armed forces have more than halved in personnel since 1989 to just 70,000 troops. Labour’s suggestion that the age of reservists could be increased to 65 is more Dad’s Army than serious military strategy.
We need to move production of our military arsenal in-house – fast. In a world in which our allies in the morning can become our enemies by dusk, we cannot rely on anyone else to produce our artillery shells, guns, drones, ammunition and vehicles.
The particular British problem is that producing the steel and ammonia needed for artillery is incredibly energy intensive. The demented drive towards Net Zero under Tory and Labour governments has left us shockingly incapable of scaling up production in any meaningful way.
Solar and wind may play a part in powering a few lightbulbs, but they can’t – and never will – run heavy industry. If Starmer’s administration is serious about defence, as it endlessly claims, it must start by ditching Net Zero and – even if only for armaments – sparking up our coal or gas-fired furnaces once again. We have plenty of both.
Starmer must stand up to the Net Zero zealots and make the case for bolstering UK defences
That, of course, would be anathema to environmentalists – many of them in government, where the eco-zealot Ed Miliband now holds so much sway that insiders are even mooting him for a second terrifying tilt at No 10.
But ordinary Brits tend to be more sensible than the politicians who purport to lead them – and the man or woman in the street recognises what needs to be done in our tumultuous world.
This is not about turning our backs on international collaboration. If anything, beefing up our defences will manifestly make us a more attractive partner to the transactional Trump, strengthening our historic security ties and cultural links, which he – half-British himself and an ardent royalist – truly cherishes.
No doubt we will, too, remain a close collaborator on intelligence and nuclear deterrents with Uncle Sam.
Re-arming is like insuring your house: you hope you’ll never use it but you’re grateful you have it when the fire starts. Even Neville Chamberlain, scorned by history for appeasing Hitler during the 1930s, prepared his country for war, building Spitfires and radar stations.
Churchill himself later admitted that Chamberlain’s policy was vital to winning the conflict.
Like Chamberlain, the awkward, bespectacled Starmer is not a martial man. But in a world being convulsed and shattered by a madman, he has no choice – and must summon the courage.
Mark Almond is Director of the Crisis Research Institute, Oxford.