[IntPol] The Red Line

[Starfox]

Not even a week into the new year and already Trump blew a gasket. Of course I'm talking about Venezuela. To be clear, the "target" of the operation (Maduro) is not in question here, the guy was a dictator oppressing his people and pissing off a vast number of countries, so no big loss.

However, what is problematic is the way it was done. Ignoring US law by not informing the congress of what was going to go down, ignoring international law and the UN Charter by violating the sovereignty of an independent country with a military operation to capture its head of state and then qualifying the whole operation as a police operation while the US has absolutely zero jurisdiction outside of its territorial waters to conduct policing operations. There's Interpol for that.

Of course the reaction was not long to come. An emergency meeting of the UN Security Council was called by Venezuela during which the whole operation was largely condemned, France (after having clearly stated that Maduro was a bad guy) went on to say that it wasn't an excuse to ignore laws and treaties and that some states, that have accepted the responsibilities coming with being a permanent member of the UN Security Council have too often violated the UN Charter reducing the power of the only organization that protected the world from WW3 since 1949 through dialogue and peaceful resolutions. There are only 5 permanent members in the UN Security Council, the only ones with veto power, the UK, China, Russia, France and the USA, so it's really easy to pinpoint which states the French representative was talking about.

If you want to follow the whole meeting, here it is (warning it's international diplomacy at work so take care to not fall asleep part way. That said it's an important moment for the UN as important as Khrushchev hitting his shoe on a desk way back when -- all the old timers will know what I'm talking about):

In any case, we already know that the UN is just stating facts here. The USA is safely protected by its veto power which is kind of a "out of jail" card for any bad actor. Russia has been using it a lot these past 4 years, the main reason why the UN has zero power to stop the war in Ukraine. If the UN wanted to mount a peacekeeping operation in Ukraine, Russia would veto it immediately.

But there are other tools available. Today one of these tools entered into action with a joint statement of some of the main NATO countries aimed at Washington, and it's a red line. It doesn't talk about Venezuela but it addresses a potential consequence of Venezuela considering that Trump has been very vocal and undoubtedly aggressive about "acquiring" Greenland: Joint Statement (don't worry, it's short and to the point).

Behind the veneer of diplomacy, there's a real threat in there. We are talking about some of the main powers in NATO, two of them (the only ones) having a nuclear deterrent. The message to trump is clear: if ever you try to pull off a "Venezuela" on Greenland, bad things will happen. For example the USA could lose the totality of its military bases in Europe (which would be detrimental to US security a thousand times more than getting Greenland would bring).

And yes the situation is that serious. If it was not, none of those countries would bother drawing a clear line in the sand and this line says "Greenland is off limits".

Now, the reason why all of this happens, the real reasons that Trump does not even try to disguise (which quite amused the Russian ambassador to the UN, he had a good time with that one). Trump said it himself, "We are going to run the country (Venezuela)" he said. "All the big American oil companies, the greatest in the world, will come to extract the oil and sell it to other countries"...

OK, and where will the money go? To the Venezuelan people, one can hope? I have my doubts about that.

Why does it feels like a power grab to me? Because it is. Maduro and the "police" operation was just the removal of an annoying factor preventing Trump to get what he wanted, which was grabbing the oil (the most important reserves of the planet).

Where Greenland comes into play in this picture is that Trump wants the exact same thing from there that he wanted from Venezuela... resources. He doesn't care about US security. The US doesn't need to seize Greenland to increase its security. Greenland -- as part of Denmark and therefore a NATO ally -- already stated that if the US wanted more base to increase security in the Arctic they just had to ask. But Trump doesn't want more bases and he doesn't give a crap about the security of the Arctic. Trump wants Greenland resources (rich in rare earths and minerals). Most certainly because he could then send US mining companies to extract them and sell them across the world, to the great benefit of the Greenlanders... I'm sure [sarcasm].

This is the reason why European members of NATO are drawing a clear red line. in essence the message is "we know what you're doing and if you keep doing it, there will be consequences". There shouldn't be any need for such a message but it's pretty obvious now that this US administration gives all the signs of behaving like a rogue state, ignoring all established laws and treaties when it suits them.

But Greenland is possibly not in immediate danger. Trump has other targets he wants to deal with first, mainly Panama, Cuba and maybe Mexico (why not?).

Oh, and there is a cost to that operation against Venezuela. It was accomplished in three hours, sure, but the preparation took months and keeping a whole fleet at sea is not cheap. We are looking at several hundreds millions of dollars, just so that Donald can put more money in his pocket. And who pays? The American taxpayer. If you wondered where your tax dollar is going instead of being used for, I don't know, enhancing the lives of the American people, that's where. Be sure though that you won't see a dollar from the immense wealth the operation will bring to Donald and his friends while they are "running" Venezuela and selling its oil.

A bit more about the whole crisis (this is from a lawyers channel mainly interested in the legality of things but it's interesting to follow -- the guy analyzing the situation is a former US Marine and JAG officer). The first video is particularly interesting: