The defiance against America that has consumed Canadian life for over a year now has finally spread to the rest of the West. The message of Prime Minister Mark Carney’s speech at Davos last month — that of a “rupture in the world order” — was not new for Canadians. Just after his election in April, Mr. Carney declared that “our old relationship with the United States, a relationship based on steadily increasing integration, is over.” At Davos, the moment caught up with him, and with Canada.

Throughout last year, the consensus among many European policymakers in the face of Donald Trump’s bombast was to wait out the nonsense and appease when possible. Mr. Carney’s speech arrived at the exact point at which that position proved untenable: Mr. Trump’s intensifying threats to forcibly annex Greenland, not to mention his insults to NATO troops who fought and died alongside U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan. “They stayed a little back, little off the front lines” is a statement that will be remembered in Europe alongside “Ich bin ein Berliner” and “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall” as a presidential remark that embodies the American spirit of its moment. Suddenly, Mr. Trump’s mindless drive toward territorial expansion and his desire to humiliate and degrade were impossible to ignore. For Canada, though, America’s disrespect and intimidation are now standard issue. The U.S. ambassador to Canada, Pete Hoekstra, seems to have been installed primarily as an insult engine, tasked mainly with belittling his hosts wherever and wherever possible. (His advice to Canadians upset by Mr. Trump’s remarks that Canada should be the 51st American state: “Move on.”) Recent revelations that U.S. officials have been meeting with Albertan separatists have indicated that the Trump administration may not have given up on the idea of Canada’s dissolution. Threatening one’s neighbors, as Canada has learned the hard way over the last year, is a hallmark of autocracy-minded leaders.

… American aggression and American decline are of a piece. As Mr. Carney has announced a slew of measures aimed at boosting Canada’s electric vehicle industry, nobody has argued for a moment that American equivalents could compete. By ending E.V. tax credits, Mr. Trump may have all but ensured that the American electric vehicle will one day be a thing of the past. America has decided not to compete. It would rather pose. If you are integrating yourself into the American sphere of influence, or whatever Mr. Trump’s national security apparatus calls it, you are integrating yourself into antiquity — or worse.

At the same time, America is becoming synonymous with dangerous randomness. The constitutional system is in collapse. The legislative branch, made up of both Democrats and Republicans, is missing in action. The Supreme Court debates the legal equivalent of how many angels can fit on the head of a pin, while the legal order that has held the country together for 250 years sputters toward an ignominious end. Nobody knows what America is anymore — not Americans, not their enemies, not their friends…The West is feeling its betrayal turn into rage. The world is waking up to both its vulnerability and its value. But better late than never: We’re all Canadian now.

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/06/opinion/canada-america-anger-carney.html?unlocked_article_code=1.KFA.R4KP.rY_jJZQArPek&smid=nytcore-ios-share

Vladimir Putin’s promised “weeklong” pause in strikes on Ukraine’s power plants lasted just four days; will the Russian thugocrat pay any price for yet again breaking his word? President Donald Trump announced from the Oval Office last Thursday that Putin had agreed to the pause as a humanitarian gesture amid a brutally cold winter. Supposedly, Moscow (suddenly) didn’t want to wage war on civilians.

Yet Tuesday’s barrage of 450 drones and 70 missiles, Russia’s largest such assault in nearly four years of war, aimed at the very infrastructure Vlad had claimed he wouldn’t target. Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky called this exactly what it is: “Moscow is choosing terror and escalation,” not peace. Putin broke his word to Trump, ruthlessly attacking civilians one day ahead of planned US-brokered negotiations in Abu Dhabi; will our president just take it?

… When will the president show some rage at Putin’s nonstop lies and broken promises?…Months of jawboning (and feeding Putin’s ego by doing face-to-face talks) hasn’t gotten the monster of Moscow to budge an inch; Russia’s still bent on total conquest no matter how long, or how much blood on both sides, it takes.

… Since Vlad keeps spitting on carrots, Trump’s people should be hitting him with lots of sticks: Get Kyiv more offensive as well as defensive capabilities; squeeze Moscow’s energy industry as hard as it’s hitting Ukraine’s. Putin’s plainly laughing at Trump’s weak-seeming will; time to teach him what “peace through strength” really means.

https://nypost.com/2026/02/03/opinion/its-time-to-hit-lying-putin-with-lots-of-sticks/

Donald Trump has provoked outrage among British MPs and veterans after claiming Nato troops stayed away from the frontline in Afghanistan. The US president made his comments in an interview with Fox News in which he reiterated his suggestion that Nato would not support the US if asked.

His remarks drew condemnation from across the political spectrum, with critics pointing to the 457 British deaths in Afghanistan and highlighting Trump’s avoidance of military service in Vietnam. A total of 3,486 Nato troops died in the 20-year conflict, of which 2,461 were US service personnel. Canada suffered 165 deaths, including civilians. Denmark, which has been at loggerheads with the US over Trump’s designs on Greenland, had 44 combat deaths in Afghanistan, the most per capita outside the US.

In the interview with Fox News, Trump said: “We’ve never needed them. They’ll say they sent some troops to Afghanistan … and they did, they stayed a little back, a little off the frontlines.” Calvin Bailey, a Labour MP and former RAF officer who served alongside US special operations units in Afghanistan, said Trump’s claim “bears no resemblance to the reality experienced by those of us who served there”. The Conservative MP Ben Obese-Jecty, who served in Afghanistan as a captain in the Royal Yorkshire Regiment, said it was “sad to see our nation’s sacrifice, and that of our Nato partners, held so cheaply by the president of the United States”.

…Stephen Stewart, a former soldier and an author and journalist, said: “Trump’s comments are as offensive as they are inaccurate. It’s hugely ironic that someone who allegedly dodged the draft for the Vietnam war should make such a disgraceful statement…The Liberal Democrat leader, Ed Davey, said on X: “Trump avoided military service 5 times. How dare he question their sacrifice. Farage and all the others still fawning over Trump should be ashamed.”

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/jan/23/donald-trump-outrage-nato-troops-avoided-afghanistan-frontline?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other