Nicolas

I just got off the phone with someone who works in defense policy in Washington. What they told me should end every "Trump is reckless" argument permanently. "Every single president since Clinton received the same intelligence briefing on Iran's nuclear timeline. Every single one was told the window was closing. Every single one chose to kick it down the road because the political cost of acting was higher than the political cost of waiting." Trump got the same briefing. 60kg of 90% enriched uranium. 4 weeks to breakout. Material for 2 bombs. He chose to act knowing it would tank his approval to 35%. He chose to act knowing his own base would split. He chose to act knowing NATO allies would refuse to help. He chose to act knowing gas prices would spike. A senior analyst I know at a major think tank put it this way: "The difference between Trump and every president before him isn't intelligence. They all had the same data. The difference is courage." Read that again. Every president had the same file on their desk. Only one opened it and did something. I'll keep you updated. Turn on notifications. 🚨

Paper recomendado y muy basado

What is the purpose of Trump's tactics in Greenland? TLDR - Europe is too bureaucratic to actually make big changes on their own. Someone has to shake up the snow globe to get them to act. Trump, is again, using a madman facade to make the US look fickle in order to nudge Europe to spend more on defense (including North America) like he did with Zelensky/Ukraine. How would this actually happen? Make U.S. support feel conditional If allies believe “the U.S. might not reliably carry this,” they’re more likely to (a) spend more, (b) commit multi-year Ukraine aid, and (c) build the missing “enablers” Europe often leans on the U.S. for (ISR/intel, air/missile defense integration, logistics, etc.). The goal is to shift costs and political ownership onto Europe. Because of a similarly chaotic meeting with Zelensky, Europe is already ramping defense spending—EU member states have massively ramped up defense spending ( now >€375B [~2% of GDP]). Use “controlled chaos” to accelerate European action on Ukraine specifically European military to Ukraine was small to offset a U.S. halt, with only a few billion in spending (vs $100bn for the US). Now we see Europe trying to fill gaps: Reuters reported an EU plan announced Jan 14th to split €90B in support (€30B budget, €60B military)—explicitly pushing procurement via EU/EFTA suppliers. This is Europe's war. It's time for them to chip in. Push Europe into “doing the hard stuff,” not just writing checks Reuters also reported that after Washington suspended intelligence sharing in March 2025 (to pressure Kyiv in talks), Macron said France is now providing a large share of intelligence support. Whether or not you buy Macron’s exact rationale, the direction is the point: get Europeans to cover functions they historically outsourced to the U.S. Greenland is similar to Ukraine in that regard - basically, “you fund the backyard; we’ll maintain the security umbrella, but you have pay/produce more.” Again, my basic theory is that Trump (unlike other politicians) doesn't actually care how others perceive him and his actions are generally leveraging this for the strategic interests of the US - especially when it comes to geopolitics. I also assume his decisions are made after long discussions with his staff and these seemingly random actions are intentional. I also know there is a ton of back channel communication going on that keeps things from boiling over. This may be too charitable but seeing the noise and then the outcomes 2-3m later (ex. VZ, Panama, Iran) has given me confidence in this right way of assessing geopolitics in the age of Trump. I also think the "Trump is retarded - he's going to blow up NATO" takes are just a bunch of mid-wits who aren't thinking critically and have a very 1-dimensional view of the administration. Ignore them.

You can't make this up: Google now has a literal line item in their quarterly reports called "European Commission fines." $10.5 BILLION as of September 30th. The EU has become so heavily regulated that fines are a "normal" line item now. What is happening in Europe?

In which 48 tells the “denounce and condemn” crowd they can shove it. Perfectly done.

Alex Jones says he’s worried about Candace Owens and that she’s playing it fast and loose with the facts. He says he’s coming out with a report to debunk Candace’s latest conspiracy theory around the assassination of Charlie Kirk, which involves — without evidence — a congressman from Nevada, Erika Kirk, a Daily Wire staffer, and Charlie Kirk’s head of security meeting at a U.S. military base the day before Charlie Kirk was assassinated.