Why is Trump so focused on Greenland and Panama?

If you have played the board game RISK, then you understand.

Right or wrong, there is a geopolitical school of thought that follows the logic of my highlighted RISK board.

In the classic board game, a frequently winning strategy is to control North America, (and South America when you are strong enough to take it), and then to build your forces internally. You then sit back and watch the other 4 or 5 players slaughter each other from Britain to Kamchatka while they are trying to conquer all of Eurasia.

Sometimes Oceania can hold out, but it usually falls to whoever controls Eurasia. South America and Africa are "spoils zones" that fall to the last 2 players. But a strong plan is to hold North America, build your forces, and wait for the other players that are spread across Eurasia to weaken and destroy one another in constant battle. That's in the board game of Risk, when the players are rolling dice and moving little plastic armies from country to country.

In the real world, North America, dominated by the USA, is nearly resource independent. It had defensible external and internal borders. Profitable sea trade can be conducted with countries on the other continents when conditions are favorable, but when the War Zone erupts in conflict, as it does a few times every century, North America can just lay back and wait. It's large enough to form its own internal trading bloc, and has enough natural resources to be self sufficient.

In a recent interview with Megyn Kelly, Secretary of State Marco Rubio declared the era of the unipolar world to be over.

“So it’s not normal for the world to simply have a unipolar power. That was not — that was an anomaly. It was a product of the end of the Cold War, but eventually you were going to reach back to a point where you had a multipolar world, multi-great powers in different parts of the planet. We face that now with China and to some extent Russia, and then you have rogue states like Iran and North Korea you have to deal with.”

This pronouncement is critical to understanding President Trump's thinking. According to my interpretation of Rubio, and by extension Trump, America is no longer going to force our version of democracy on the world, while striving to be the global hegemon. We’ll “deal with” opposing powers and rogue states when we have to, but, left unstated, we’re going to allow Russia, Ukraine and Europe to work out their own problems without American “help” or interference.

This new policy was made even more clear in recent European speeches by Secretary of Defense Hegseth and Vice President Vance. We'll trade with all comers when the conditions are favorable, but Uncle Sam is getting out of the White Knight business. No more rushing around the globe trying to solve everybody's problems with military force. It’s counterproductive, and frankly, we can’t afford it.

In the words of John Quincy Adams, America should tend to its own affairs and lead by example. JQA’s “Monsters to Destroy” Speech, Full Text

"On July 4, 1821, John Quincy Adams delivered the most-remembered speech of his career. The oration’s resounding climax included several famous lines – that America 'goes not abroad in search of monsters to destroy,' for example, and that an America that aspired to world leadership, even in the name of noble ideas, would be led astray: 'She might become the dictatress of the world. She would be no longer the ruler of her own spirit.' Even as American foreign policy has warped in many of the ways Adams foresaw, it has been unable to bury his powerful words."

I agree completely. In this context, what I think of as President Trump’s North American “Risk” strategy makes good sense. We should maintain a blue-water navy to defend our interests abroad, but we should quit actively searching for monsters to destroy. We should lead the world by our successful example, and not by threats, coercion, bullets and bombs.

A “Risk” of this strategy is that eventually one ruler might gain control of all of Eurasia, eclipsing American power. It’s never happened before in all recorded history, but it’s possible. This was the early-20th-Century vision of English geo-politician Halford Mackinder, and it’s why Eastern Europe and Ukraine are considered such key terrain.

This is a “Risk” President Trump is willing to take. History shows that Eurasia can never be dominated by one power for long. Eventually the “players” will go to war with one another again. And in any case, North America, (dominated by the USA), can succeed on its own, and by trading with others when the conditions are mutually favorable.

But let’s quit building enormous (and enormously expensive) armies to sally forth around the globe on monster-slaying expeditions of choice.

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