this post was submitted on 19 Jan 2026
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Bulletins and International News Discussion from January 19th to January 25th, 2026 - Squaring the Arctic Circle
(hexbear.net)
Image is of a harbor in Tasiilak, Greenland.
NATO infighting? You love to see it, folks.
The latest incident of America's satrapies becoming increasingly unhappy about their mandated kowtowing involves, of all places, Greenland. As I'm sure most people here are aware, Greenland is an autonomous territory of Denmark with a degree of geopolitical and economic importance - the former due to its proximity to Russia, and the latter due to the proven and potential reserves of minerals that could be mined there. It's also been an odd fascination of Trump during his reign, now culminating in outright demands.
Trump has called for negotiations with Denmark to purchase Greenland, justifying this by stating that it would be safer from Russia and China under America's protection. Apparently, Norway's decision to not give him the Nobel Peace Prize further inflamed him (not that the Norweigan government decides who receives the prizes). He has also said that countries that do not allow him to make the decision - which not only includes Denmark, but also other European countries - will suffer increased tariffs by June, and that he has not ruled out a military solution.
This threat has led to much internal bickering inside the West, with European leaders stating they will not give in to Trump's demands, and even sending small numbers of troops to Greenland. The most bizarre part of this whole affair is that the US already basically has total military access and control over Greenland anyway, and has since the 1950s, when they signed an agreement with Denmark. There are already several US military facilities on Greenland, and B-52 bombers have famously flown in the vicinity of the island (and crashed into it with nuclear bombs in tow, in fact). Therefore, this whole event - in line with his all-performance, little-results presidency so far - seems to be largely about the theatrics of forcing the Europeans to continue to submit to his whims. I would not be surprised if they ultimately do sign a very imbalanced deal, though - the current European leadership is bound too tightly to the US to put up even half-hearted resistance.
This is all simultaneously occurring alongside the Canadian Prime Minister's visit to China in which longstanding sore spots in their bilateral relationship are being addressed, with China reducing tariffs on Canadian canola oilseeds, and Canada reducing tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles, as well as currency swaps between their central banks, among many other things. It seems no accident that Canada's reconsideration of their relationship with China is occurring as Trump has made remarks about turning Canada into the next US state, as well as the demand for the renegotiation of the USMCA.
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The Zionist Entity's Genocide of Palestine
Sources on the fighting in Palestine against the temporary Zionist entity. In general, CW for footage of battles, explosions, dead people, and so on:
UNRWA reports on Israel's destruction and siege of Gaza and the West Bank.
English-language Palestinian Marxist-Leninist twitter account. Alt here.
English-language twitter account that collates news.
Arab-language twitter account with videos and images of fighting.
English-language (with some Arab retweets) Twitter account based in Lebanon. - Telegram is @IbnRiad.
English-language Palestinian Twitter account which reports on news from the Resistance Axis. - Telegram is @EyesOnSouth.
English-language Twitter account in the same group as the previous two. - Telegram here.
Mirrors of Telegram channels that have been erased by Zionist censorship.
Russia-Ukraine Conflict
Examples of Ukrainian Nazis and fascists
Examples of racism/euro-centrism during the Russia-Ukraine conflict
Sources:
Defense Politics Asia's youtube channel and their map. Their youtube channel has substantially diminished in quality but the map is still useful.
Moon of Alabama, which tends to have interesting analysis. Avoid the comment section.
Understanding War and the Saker: reactionary sources that have occasional insights on the war.
Alexander Mercouris, who does daily videos on the conflict. While he is a reactionary and surrounds himself with likeminded people, his daily update videos are relatively brainworm-free and good if you don't want to follow Russian telegram channels to get news. He also co-hosts The Duran, which is more explicitly conservative, racist, sexist, transphobic, anti-communist, etc when guests are invited on, but is just about tolerable when it's just the two of them if you want a little more analysis.
Simplicius, who publishes on Substack. Like others, his political analysis should be soundly ignored, but his knowledge of weaponry and military strategy is generally quite good.
On the ground: Patrick Lancaster, an independent and very good journalist reporting in the warzone on the separatists' side.
Unedited videos of Russian/Ukrainian press conferences and speeches.
Pro-Russian Telegram Channels:
Again, CW for anti-LGBT and racist, sexist, etc speech, as well as combat footage.
https://t.me/aleksandr_skif ~ DPR's former Defense Minister and Colonel in the DPR's forces. Russian language.
https://t.me/Slavyangrad ~ A few different pro-Russian people gather frequent content for this channel (~100 posts per day), some socialist, but all socially reactionary. If you can only tolerate using one Russian telegram channel, I would recommend this one.
https://t.me/s/levigodman ~ Does daily update posts.
https://t.me/patricklancasternewstoday ~ Patrick Lancaster's telegram channel.
https://t.me/gonzowarr ~ A big Russian commentator.
https://t.me/rybar ~ One of, if not the, biggest Russian telegram channels focussing on the war out there. Actually quite balanced, maybe even pessimistic about Russia. Produces interesting and useful maps.
https://t.me/epoddubny ~ Russian language.
https://t.me/boris_rozhin ~ Russian language.
https://t.me/mod_russia_en ~ Russian Ministry of Defense. Does daily, if rather bland updates on the number of Ukrainians killed, etc. The figures appear to be approximately accurate; if you want, reduce all numbers by 25% as a 'propaganda tax', if you don't believe them. Does not cover everything, for obvious reasons, and virtually never details Russian losses.
https://t.me/UkraineHumanRightsAbuses ~ Pro-Russian, documents abuses that Ukraine commits.
Pro-Ukraine Telegram Channels:
Almost every Western media outlet.
https://discord.gg/projectowl ~ Pro-Ukrainian OSINT Discord.
https://t.me/ice_inii ~ Alleged Ukrainian account with a rather cynical take on the entire thing.
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Lmao
What's the point of this over an aircraft carrier? I see zero point. All this for 128 Mk 41 VLS, 12 CPS/LRHW/Dark Eagle hypersonic weapons, and some razzle dazzle lasers and sci-fi railgun. A pointless vessel, a colosal waste of resources. It probably won't ever get built.
Just for context, a singular cruise missile (Tomahawk, JASSM/LRASM) usually has a 700-1000lb warhead. The Trump battleship can only carry 128 of these. That's 128 000lbs of ordinance at best downrange before it goes winchester and has to be reloaded with more missiles. Realistically much less, considering some of that VLS will be saved for air defence. The first ever F-35C combat action of a singular squadron, a fraction of a carrier's air wing, delivered over 70 000lbs of ordinance in a couple of hours. And crucially, unlike a cruise missile, you can reuse an aircraft.
CPS is different because that's an ability to hit and hold at risk time sensitive targets at very long ranges, significantly further than a carrier's air wing even with refueling, and gets to the target much, much faster than an aircraft... But these are exotic weapons designed to hold a few key targets at risk, a single shot costs over 40 million dollars. And a single battleship gives you 12 shots... The math is not working out here for a more mainline capability.
Also why does any of this need to be on a surface vessel instead of a guided missile submarine?
I have significant doubts about the effectiveness of the lasers and railguns... They don't exist yet. Lasers for point defence instead of CIWS and Rolling Airframe Missiles can work, and there's some interesting stuff high velocity projectiles can do in air defence, including shooting down ballistic missiles/hypersonic weapons. But these are all hypothetical capabilities, not currently existing ones.
As I've said before, if people want the US to lose an upcoming war in the pacific, they would encourage them to build this piece of bloated ballast, plus huge amounts of one way attack drones.
There is a pro-US guy, who has basically said that the US navy tricked him by calling it a battleship, and that it will get reduced in size once he can't do anything to stop it. The navy has supposedly wanted midsize missile boats for a few decades, and they see this as their one chance to build it.
I doubt any of the people actually pulling the strings are planning for this to ever be built in its current form.
That would just be DDG(X) then, which this is said to replace. So they're just going to shuffle around the name?
No, like the boat itself is going to get redesigned after trump leaves.
The American laser weapon program was/is predicated on significant advances in laser related materials science (like the already failed railgun program) that don’t appear to have materialized yet (like the already failed railgun program).
China's (actually existing) rough equivalent, the Type 055 cruiser, costs less than $1 billion each, for another reference point.
And each one has almost as many VLS cells as this boondoggle.
This sort of thing is why I'm surprised the US hasn't gone to full scale war with China yet, or why I won't be if they do in the next couple of years. China hasn't caught up in sheer numbers of military equipment yet but they have in tech, and they far surpass the US ability to both produce and build military equipment. So not only could they build 20 ships for the price of one, they actually have the manufacturing capacity to do it, or the ability to create the manufacturing capabilities if they don't.
The window is closing, fast. The only thing the US has is it's military power projection. All other US power comes from that. The petrodollar exists because they US will destroy anyone who doesn't participate in it. Currently, China still has to play ball. In 10 years they won't. In 5 years they maybe won't. If the US doesn't act now there won't be a chance to act later.
Probably.
I'm not saying China will definitely use military force projection to decouple from US dollar hegemony but they currently don't even really have that option. Soon, they will. They can build that option and they are building that option. It's impossible for the US to keep up with the pace at which China is building that option and once China has caught up or even surpassed, there's no going back.
Of course the way the world typically goes, they'll get close to breaking themselves and their allies fully free from US global hegemony and then they'll somehow stumble into some turbolib leader who signs their military over to the US in the name of "global cooperation" or something equally ridiculous and it'll all be for nothing as the US immediately uses that power to completely subjugate China but ... I can hope at least.
The US is trying to collapse China's access to oil first.
This is evident by all the attempts at regime change or increasing instability in potential energy suppliers. Russia, Iran, and Venezuela have all been selected as targets for destabilization in order of how long the state department thought their success would take.
Had these all been successful, it would be extremely easy to block off China's ability to import. Use the US's massive navy and comprador governments in the region to wall off the South China Sea and strait of Malaca.
If Russia, Iran, and Venezuela fell today, the military operation against China would begin tomorrow, likely by stationing nukes or long range ballistic missles in Taiwan; forcing them to "be the aggressor" and trigger an excuse to get the public on board with blockading its largest trading partner.
China foresaw this happening and tried to circumvent it in a number of ways. Most directly, making any blockade incredibly costly in terms of materiel by gearing the PLA-N towards area denial. Then reducing their industrial capacity's reliance on oil imports by massively investing in solar, hydro, and nuclear. Obviously, an encirclement would affect more than energy imports. The BRI directly counters this threat. China attempted to build freight infrastructure to the sea through Myanmar to work around the Strait of Malaca chokepoint and spread the US Navy very thin. But ongoing warfare has been remarkably successful at keeping Myanmar too unstable for development, which is why the US doesn't feel the need to put their foot on the scale too much. It doesn't think any faction willing to blindly shoot their own feet to spite China will be the clear victor.
The clock is ticking on any strategic advantage over China and the US's ability to enforce a blockade. Its manufacturing capacity is only growing. Its naval power is only growing. Its energy production is increasingly domestic. And its soft power and trade ties are only strengthening.
If the US strikes any time after 2028, it will be seen even by its allies as a loser not worth supporting. At which point, China will dump its vast USD supplies on the global south to kill off the petrodollar, secure natural resources, strengthen geopolitical ties, and reduce America's ability to money print their way through a massive war.
I’m imagining he wants gold finishes and mahogany for the decking
As a former CBO employee, I can say that they are very very far removed from the ins and outs of the Pentagon and this is at best a very rough estimate