In early March, US president Donald Trump upped the stakes on his previous musings about purchasing Greenland from Denmark. “We need it really for international world security,” he said in a speech to Congress. “And,” despite disinterest in the notion from Greenlanders and Danes, “I think we’re going to get it. One way or the other, we’re going to get it.”

One way: Denmark and/or Greenland agree.

The other: US military forces invade and occupy, and the US government annexes, Greenland.

Those are really the only two ways. And while Trump has a well-earned reputation as a mercurial flip-flopper, he wouldn’t keep bringing it up if he didn’t have a persistent bee in his bonnet.

The idea of acquiring Greenland isn’t fundamentally as daft as it sounds — the place is rich in natural resources and located conveniently to support the Arctic ambitions of whichever regime controls it — but absent the consent of its inhabitants, the means of acquisition are necessarily reduced to war.

And the thing about wars is that short little wars tend to turn into long big wars. I’d say “unexpectedly,” but history says to expect it.

Would Trump really pull that trigger? If so, it probably won’t be over “national security” considerations. The reasons will be domestic and rooted in the economic chaos produced by his “trade war” antics.

“If soldiers are not to cross international boundaries on missions of war,” Otto T. Mallery wrote in 1943, “goods must cross them on missions of peace.”

At some point, that quote got shortened (and misattributed to Frederic Bastiat) in the popular mind to “when goods don’t cross borders, soldiers will,” which works just as well.

The standard argument for Mallery’s point is that international trade promotes amicable ties. If 50% of your oil or 30% of your grain comes from a trading partner, going to war means supply disruptions, shortages, and high prices. War is bad for the economies of nations engaged in international trade, so they’re less likely to engage in it.

There’s a second argument, though, far more applicable to Trump in particular:

Going to TRADE war ALSO means supply disruptions, shortages, and high prices.

Supply disruptions, shortages, and high prices translate to domestic discontent.

War provides a great distraction during times of domestic discontent.

You may have noticed that Trump’s an enthusiastic trade warrior.

You’ve almost certainly begun to notice the effects of Trump’s trade war enthusiasm on your own bottom line.

If you’re not discontent, you soon will be.

At some point, Trump’s options will come down to extracting his cranium from his rectum on trade and economics, or distracting you with a war. The likelihood of the former, based on his record, looks slim.

If not Greenland, Mexico. If not Mexico, Panama. If not Panama, Canada. Heck, maybe all of them and more.

War wouldn’t make your life, or others’ lives, better, even if it made for better entertainment than The Apprentice (and what wouldn’t)?

Recommendation: Hope for the best and stock up on canned food.

Thomas L. Knapp (X: @thomaslknapp | Bluesky: @knappster.bsky.social | Mastodon: @knappster) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

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Eight decades after the “Anglosphere” powers (the US, the UK, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand) codified their World War intelligence sharing protocols in the 1946 UKUSA Agreement, the “Five Eyes” alliance — named for a  “AUS/CAN/NZ/UK/US Eyes Only” classified information designation — may finally find itself retired.

In early March, the Trump administration “paused” sharing intelligence with Ukraine, also forbidding the four other partners from passing along US-gathered intel. Rumor has it that Trump may also want the Canadian “eye” plucked out as one of his trade war tantrums. That, along with Trump’s recent “pro-Russia” lean, has the other four “eyes” considering a separate intelligence-sharing apparatus minus the US.

As an American, I’ve got limited skin in the game on the matter of whether the “Four Eyes” should continue absent US involvement … but I do think that Americans would benefit from the US regime’s withdrawal or expulsion, for several reasons.

First, the US regime massively subsidizes the other four partners. The publicly disclosed US intelligence budget exceeds $80 billion per year and likely comes to far more than that. That’s at least ten times the publicly disclosed intelligence budgets of the other four regimes combined. Even assuming those other regimes operate far more effectively and efficiently, it’s just not a very good deal.

Second, access to intelligence from other “Anglosphere” regimes feeds Washington’s bad habit of, as John Quincy Adams put it, going “abroad in search of monsters to destroy.” Those other four regimes are essentially crack dealers who service the US regime’s addiction to a globally ruinous imperial foreign policy.

Third, the arrangement has also been long-known to expose US regime secrets to foreign adversaries, going back at least as far as the 1950s, when British spy Kim Philby passed information to the Soviet Union on US plans and operations in the Korean War.

Finally, the Five Eyes arrangement empowers the domestic US surveillance state that Edward Snowden revealed to the public more than a decade ago. US intelligence operators are legally forbidden to cast their Sauron-like gaze on Americans. They ignore that prohibition themselves … likely with quite a bit of help from the signals intelligence the other four “eyes” provide.

US withdrawal from the Five Eyes, or better yet its complete dissolution, wouldn’t cure the above diseases, but it would reduce the inflammation and ease the symptoms, while leaving all four regimes free to share information at need rather than wholesale.

Thomas L. Knapp (X: @thomaslknapp | Bluesky: @knappster.bsky.social | Mastodon: @knappster) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

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It happens twice a year, every year. I complain about it — often to you! — twice a year, every year. It’s the semi-annual switch between “Standard Time” and “Daylight Saving Time.”

Fall back! Spring forward! In most of the United States, we just did the latter. Again.

The clock on my desktop computer and the clock in my brain are announcing two different times, an hour apart, and my body just doesn’t want to accept the differential.

As usual, that makes me grumpy.  But I’m one of those lucky people for whom grumpiness is pretty much the maximum negative side effect.

I work from home, and  in theory I set my own schedule. In theory, I could just ignore the fake time change. The various things I do would look like they were an hour “off”  to the world, if the world watched me closely, but it doesn’t watch me closely and there aren’t any damsels in distress, tied to tracks and counting down to meetings with trains that I mustn’t be late to interrupt or anything like that.

In fact, ignoring the switches between “Standard Time” and “Daylight Saving Time” would impact even my boring, semi-house-bound, life.

I’m married. I’ve got kids. I’ve got friends and co-workers. I occasionally, grudgingly, shop offline at physical stores with set hours of business. I’ve even been known to visit a bar now and again. Ignoring the fake time changes would put me out of phase with all those people and things. It would disrupt morning coffee with my wife, screw up planned interactions with my kids, get me to stores, happy hours, and medical appointments early or late, etc. So I grimace and comply.

Others have it far worse. Every year, tens of commuters die in excess car accidents because the fake time changes throw people off their bodies’ preferred adherence to circadian rhythms. Others show up late or tired to work, reducing productivity to the tune of billions of dollars.

If a natural disaster or terror attack had that kind of impact, Congress would pass yet another disastrous and ineffectual version of the USA PATRIOT Act and social media would provide a whole new category of “never forget” memes.

The Daylight Saving Time scheme isn’t a natural disaster, but it is a century old semi-annual terror attack.  Congress and the president COULD address this particular attack effectually, by picking a single version of time (“Standard” or “Daylight Saving”) to stick to year-round.

A month before his second inauguration as president, Donald Trump promised his party would use its “best efforts” to eliminate the fake time changes:  “Daylight Saving Time is inconvenient, and very costly to our Nation.”

Now in office, he’s unwilling to address it after all, calling it a “fifty-fifty issue …. I assume people would like to have more light later, but some people want to have more light earlier because they don’t want to take their kids to school in the dark.”

So much for strong-man “leadership,” I guess.

Thomas L. Knapp (X: @thomaslknapp | Bluesky: @knappster.bsky.social | Mastodon: @knappster) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

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