Trump Avoids Drama To Focus on Foreign Imminent Threats

State of the Union addresses are usually sedate affairs, but the Supreme Court turned this year’s into must-see TV. The 6-3 decision invalidating the Liberation Day tariffs landed like a bomb last Friday. Many expected President Trump to train his ire on Chief Justice John Roberts and his colleagues on Tuesday night, especially after his post-ruling outbursts.

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What will replace the old world order?



The pivotal question of what will follow the crack-up of the liberal international order dominated the highest levels of European politics at the recent 2026 Munich Security Conference.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio gave his own forceful answer, following Vice President JD Vance’s provocative speech last year. Rubio delivered an equally spirited address that issued an ultimatum: Rationalizing collapse and weakness is no longer the policy of the United States — and it should no longer be Europe’s policy either. America has no “interest in being polite and orderly caretakers of the West’s managed decline,” he said.

Alliances should be made, renewed, or even disbanded depending on whether they help secure America’s interests in the present.

Instead, Rubio urged a reformation of the “global institutions of the old order” to defend and strengthen the key pillars of Western civilization.

The problem in Rubio’s mind was that the 20th-century web of international alliances, designed to counter the Soviets in the wake of two devastating world wars, took on a life of its own. Its keepers began putting the preservation of their supranational relations “above the vital interests of our people and our nations.”

Institutions such as the United Nations have utterly failed to protect national interests, and they simply have no answers to the most pressing problems in international affairs today. Instead, they actively encourage deindustrialization, mass migration, and shortsighted climate policies, causing a loss of confidence in the very sources that have supplied the West’s vitality for centuries.

To counter this, Rubio proposed that the U.S. partner with Europe to lead a “reinvigorated alliance … that boldly races into the future.” It will focus on “advancing our mutual interests and new frontiers, unshackling our ingenuity, our creativity, and the dynamic spirit to build a new Western century.” If the West wants to safeguard and promote its historic ways of life, then an international realignment is inescapably necessary.

The themes Rubio articulated were also the subject of this year’s “Budapest Global Dialogue,” an annual conference put on by the Hungarian Institute of International Affairs and the Observer Research Foundation. This year’s gathering focused on what HIIA President Gladden Pappin presented as the choices currently before the world: endless conflict that’s likely to spin out of control or the emergence of a foundation for long-term security, peace, and prosperity.

Keynote speakers and panelists agreed that continuing to prop up a decaying international order was not a viable option. Though necessary for its time, it is clearly inadequate in a world that looks far different from the one that featured creeping death in the form of the USSR. As Rubio recently told a gaggle of reporters before his address in Munich, “The old world is gone.” He noted that nations must re-examine their roles in our “new era in geopolitics.”

RELATED: What’s Greenland to us?

Photo by Alessandro Rampazzo/AFP via Getty Images

The urgency of this project has been amplified by the European Union’s various machinations against popular government. Its censorship machine is attempting to export the EU’s liberty-denying laws to America and other Western nations. Unsurprisingly, the problem of censorship, which has been a chief focus of Vice President Vance, took up much of the conversation of the opening-night panel.

Headlined by Sarah B. Rogers, the U.S. undersecretary of state for public diplomacy and public affairs, and Balázs Orbán, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s political director, panelists discussed the countless issues stemming from the EU’s Digital Services Act. It uses “trusted flaggers” like HateAid — an organization funded by the German government — to censor online speech, including that of Americans.

Pappin and other participants also noted the myriad problems stemming from unchecked globalization. Nations happily traded away the most basic elements of sovereignty for a mess of pottage in the form of lower prices on select goods. This was justified using free-market language, in which attaining the highest GDP possible seemingly became the summum bonum of political life. Former Trump administration official Andrew Peek termed this problem “economics without politics.”

In the United States in particular, key supply chains were mostly shipped out of the country, the folly of which was fully exposed during the COVID debacle. The U.S. essentially followed a systematic deindustrialization plan as we helped build up other countries, especially China.

China’s rise didn’t happen solely due to its sheer geographic size or population. It occurred because the Clinton administration and Western leaders decided the best way to fend it off was by inviting the Chinese into the heart of the world’s economic system. This was a catastrophic choice that helped hasten the collapse of the old order.

Now, China is by far the world leader in many positive economic indicators. The country is also looking to become the world’s first electrostate, adding another gigawatt of capacity to its grid every year.

Meanwhile, the United States is facing mounting problems with our electric grid, which will be further exacerbated by the construction of data centers and older plants going offline. No nuclear power plants were built in the U.S. between 1996 and 2016. Additionally, as noted in a Department of Energy report last year, utopian green energy mandates have helped bring the U.S. closer to the brink of a full-blown energy crisis.

RELATED: America won’t beat China without Alaska

Photo by Simon Bruty/Anychance/Getty Images

Though the conference featured discussions on other pivotal topics — especially the promise and peril of artificial general intelligence — there wasn’t a dedicated panel on immigration. But that didn’t stop speakers from addressing the topic. Alexandre del Valle, a professor at France’s IPAG, called mass Islamic immigration to Europe a long-term bomb. And in a keynote address that served as a campaign speech of sorts, Hungarian Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Péter Szijjártó celebrated the fact that illegal migration to Hungary is nonexistent.

Szijjártó also devoted time to underscoring the stakes of the upcoming Hungarian parliamentary elections. The April 12 contest will feature a rather personal battle between current Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and Péter Magyar, who resigned from Fidesz in 2024 and then joined TISZA, the Respect and Freedom Party. The campaign billboards and posters I saw plastered around Budapest, which were nearly all pro-Orbán, showed Magyar gladly acquiescing to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s insistence to send Hungarian armaments to Ukraine.

Fidesz is asking voters if they want to keep Orbán’s government in power or elect those who would sacrifice the country’s blood and treasure in war. President Trump clearly wants the former. During Rubio’s trip to Budapest after his Munich speech, he said that the American president is “deeply committed” to Orbán’s victory in April.

As the Trump administration sees it, the path forward is clear: maintaining alliances when political goals and traditions are shared, as is the case between Hungary and the United States. And as Rubio was careful to point out in Munich, when alliances become strained, renewal through strategic thinking that connects means and ends is essential. One such example is Elbridge Colby’s recent discussion of the creation of NATO 3.0, in which U.S. allies bear more of the financial burden.

What won’t work, however, is elevating prudential considerations to the level of principle, as world leaders and bureaucrats have done far too often in recent decades. They have frozen in amber the specific circumstances of the second half of the 20th century, thinking that those paradigms must forever dictate how nations should act. But as Dhruva Jaishankar, the executive director of the Observer Research Foundation America, pointed out, the ballroom in which the 2026 Budapest Global Dialogue was held was built in 1896. Five international orders have come and gone in that time.

Contrary to the Anne Applebaums of our foreign policy elite class, who have helped drive the West into a ditch, the Nazis aren’t marching just over the horizon, and Vladimir Putin isn’t the reincarnation of Adolf Hitler. Alliances should be made, renewed, or even disbanded depending on whether they help secure America’s interests in the present. As Daniel J. Mahoney is fond of saying, it isn’t always Munich 1938. Serious leaders acknowledge current realities and marry their rhetoric to actions that will lead to peace, prosperity, and the good of the West — and the good of America above all.

Editor’s note: A version of this article appeared originally at the American Mind.

Hillary Clinton fumes as Czech politician calls out her Trump derangement syndrome



Former presidential candidate Hillary Clinton continued her failed campaign against President Donald Trump during a Munich Security Conference discussion on Saturday, characterizing him as a betrayer and destroyer.

After one of Clinton's more loveless Valentine's Day rants, an official from the Czech Republic highlighted her Trump derangement syndrome and defended the president, stressing that the man whom Clinton so despises is a "reaction" to the extremism and failures that preceded his rise to power.

'Can I please finish my points?'

When asked whether America's shifting relationship with international law "brings a new rift within the West," Clinton — a champion of the Iraq War and other foreign entanglements that proved ruinous — attacked Trump's efforts to broker an end to the Ukraine-Russia war, calling his position toward Kyiv "disgraceful" and claiming the embattled nation, which hasn't had presidential elections for nearly seven years, is "fighting for our democracy and our values of freedom and civilization on the front lines."

The moderator of the Rockefeller Foundation-backed panel discussion, Bronwen Maddox, director of Chatham House, pressed Clinton further on whether she thinks Trump "has destroyed the West."

Clinton — the point woman on the Obama administration's "reset" policy with Russia — enthusiastically responded, "He has betrayed the West. He's betrayed human values. He's betrayed the NATO Charter, the Atlantic Charter, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights."

RELATED: How Hillary Clinton turned empathy into a political cudgel

Photo by Johannes Simon/Getty Images

Asked by Maddox whether he agreed with Clinton's assessment, Czech Republic Deputy Prime Minister Petr Macinka made clear that his outlook isn't colored by the same personal animus.

Macinka, a right-wing populist, turned to Clinton and said, "First, I think you really don't like him."

"You know that is absolutely true!" Clinton responded. "Not only do I not like him, I don't like him because of what he's doing to the United States and the world, and I think you should take a hard look at it if you think that there is something good that will come out of that."

'Too far from reality.'

Macinka proceeded to note that Trump and his actions in America are a "reaction" to "policies that really went too far — too far from the regular people, too far from reality."

Despite multiple interruptions from Clinton, the Czech suggested Trump rose in reaction to cancel culture, the "woke revolution," the "gender revolution," and climate alarmism.

"Which gender [revolution]?" Clinton interrupted. "Women having their rights?"

After clarifying that he was referring to the incursion of radical gender ideology into the mainstream and anticipating another interruption, Macinka said, "Can I please finish my points? I'm sorry that it makes you nervous. I'm really sorry for that."

While audience members booed, Clinton said, "Doesn't make me nervous. It makes me very, very unhappy."

Macinka proceeded to point out that Ukraine is not fighting for a collective freedom and future but its own, then cast doubt on the supposed beneficence of those in the West trying to help out Kyiv.

While Clinton was attacking him in Germany on Saturday, Trump reshared a Feb. 5 message from Steve Witkoff, his special envoy for peace missions, which noted that "delegations from the United States, Ukraine, and Russia agreed to exchange 314 prisoners — the first such exchange in five months. This outcome was achieved from peace talks that have been detailed and productive."

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Nukes by the numbers: A problem we can’t wish away



Last year, the Defense Intelligence Agency concluded that Russia and China increasingly lean on nuclear weapons to pursue their national interests. Together, they could surpass the U.S. strategic nuclear force in numbers, creating a multiple-challenger problem and raising the risk of coordination between adversaries.

Put plainly: The nuclear balance is moving against the United States.

The DIA projects more than missiles and warheads. It predicts that China will deploy 60 fractional-orbit bombardment systems by 2035 — systems designed to complicate warning and response.

Start with Russia. The DIA projects a force of 400 land-based intercontinental ballistic missiles. Fifty would be Sarmats, each reportedly capable of carrying up to 20 high-yield warheads — about 1,000 warheads. The remaining 350 would be Yars missiles, with roughly four medium-yield warheads each — about 1,400 more. That puts Russia at roughly 2,400 warheads on land-based ICBMs alone.

Russia’s sea-based force adds more. The Bulava submarine-launched ballistic missile reportedly carries six warheads. Under the DIA’s forecast, that comes to about 1,152 additional warheads, pushing the combined ICBM/SLBM total to roughly 3,552. Russian strategic bombers can carry still more — around 1,000 warheads on air-launched systems.

That implies a Russian long-range strategic force as high as 4,552 warheads — far above the 2010 New START ceiling.

China’s trajectory looks even more unsettling. The DIA now projects 700 Chinese ICBMs by 2035, a striking revision given the agency’s history of underestimating Beijing’s growth. China reportedly produces 50 to 75 ICBMs per year. With roughly 400 already fielded, an additional 300 by 2035 are well within reach even at a slower production rate.

Warhead potential varies by missile type. The DF-31A can carry three re-entry vehicles. The DF-41 can reportedly carry up to 10 warheads. Depending on the mix, China could field anywhere from roughly 2,100 to 7,000 ICBM warheads.

The DIA also forecasts 132 Chinese SLBMs by 2035: 72 JL-3 missiles and 60 additional missiles for three new Type 096 ballistic-missile submarines. If the JL-3 carries three warheads, that yields 216 SLBM warheads. If the new SLBM carries at least six, that adds 360 more. In that scenario, China fields about 576 SLBM warheads — bringing the total for Chinese ICBMs and SLBMs to roughly 2,616 to 7,616 warheads.

The DIA projects more than missiles and warheads. It predicts that China will deploy 60 fractional-orbit bombardment systems by 2035 — systems designed to complicate warning and response. It also anticipates roughly 4,000 hypersonic weapons, many of which can evade current defenses and approach from unpredictable trajectories. Some could potentially carry nuclear payloads. China also produces hypersonic vehicles at scale and at far lower cost than the U.S.

North Korea compounds the problem. The DIA forecasts that Pyongyang could field about 50 ICBMs. That adds a third nuclear challenger and increases the risk of coordination among Russia, China, and North Korea during a crisis.

RELATED: How the military is computing the killing chain

Photo by John Harrelson/Getty Images

No quick fixes

Now consider the United States. The modernization plan centers on 400 Sentinel ICBMs deployed in existing silos through roughly 2045, with 400 warheads but potentially 800 to 1,200 in an upload scenario. At sea, the U.S. plans 12 Columbia-class submarines, each with 16 missiles. If each missile carries up to eight warheads, the fleet could carry 1,536 warheads. Combined, that produces 2,736 fast-flying warheads in a maximum-load scenario.

The bomber leg adds more, at least on paper. A force of B-52s and B-21s carrying cruise missiles and gravity bombs could add up to roughly 720 additional warheads, pushing a hypothetical total to about 3,456 strategic long-range warheads. That number may exceed the available warheads in the stockpile and planned cruise-missile inventories, but it illustrates the upper bound of what current plans could support.

Even that maximum posture faces a timing problem. Triad experts estimate that the United States would need at least four years to upload an expanded warhead force. Against a potential Russian and Chinese deployed force with more than 11,000 long-range warheads, the U.S. could face a numerical disadvantage of at least 3-1. More importantly, in this scenario the United States would already sit at its build limits: Sentinel and D-5 capacities would be maxed out.

We could add more bombers, but those aircraft also support critical conventional missions that few allies can perform. Current plans call for 100 B-21s, with growing support for 150 to 200. Additional ICBMs, submarines, or bombers would arrive late — often after 2040. The U.S. has 50 additional, currently empty ICBM silos that could help, but the vulnerability window could still remain open for years.

Time to build — again

Some argue that raw warhead counts do not matter. That view may comfort American planners, but it does not necessarily describe how adversaries think. Arms control — from SALT to New START — rested on the premise that limits matter and that verification matters. President Reagan captured the logic: “Trust but verify.”

If numbers never mattered, verification never would have.

History also suggests that superiority can translate into leverage. President Kennedy believed nuclear advantage helped the United States stare down the Soviets during the Cuban Missile Crisis. He reportedly called the newly deployed Minuteman force “my ace in the hole.” He similarly saw the Polaris submarine force as insurance against Soviet pressure during the Berlin crisis.

None of this replaces sound diplomacy. Military strength without strategy becomes bluster. Diplomacy without credible force becomes impotent. Henry Kissinger made that point repeatedly, and it remains true in a nuclear age.

If the 2023 Strategic Posture Commission is correct that Russia and China practice nuclear blackmail and coercion, the United States cannot assume shared premises about deterrence, arms control, or restraint.

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Manuel Mazzanti/NurPhoto via Getty Images

Consider the recent arms-control record. Under the Moscow and New START agreements, the U.S. and Russia reduced deployed strategic warheads by roughly 4,500 each, bringing the total to roughly 1,700 to 1,800. Russia may have sought to keep U.S. deployed forces below 2,000 for roughly two decades while it modernized, recovered economically, and positioned itself for a new era of confrontation.

If China and Russia achieve meaningful numerical superiority, they may gain coercive leverage that changes behavior across regions. At the same time, abolition advocates urge the United States to abandon deterrence and extended deterrence, leaving America's forces below those of its adversaries. That would signal weakness to NATO and Indo-Pacific allies, undermining confidence and pushing some to consider their own nuclear options.

That outcome would be bitterly ironic. Many critics predicted that pushing European allies to spend more would weaken the alliance. In reality, a stronger NATO — anchored by U.S. power and reinforced by allied conventional buildup — raises the cost of aggression and reduces the risk of miscalculation.

The enemy always gets a vote. Our adversaries have cast theirs. They treat nuclear force not simply as a deterrent, but as a tool of coercion and a shield for aggression — an adjunct to the unrestricted warfare the U.S. now faces.

Because nuclear weapons underpin America’s deterrent strength and provide the umbrella under which U.S. military and diplomatic power operate, the United States must complete — and expand — its nuclear modernization plans. That effort should include credible theater and tactical nuclear capabilities as well as strategic systems. These forces function as a firewall against coercion and attack.

No substitute exists, regardless of how strongly abolition advocates wish otherwise.

Editor’s note: This article was originally published by RealClearDefense and made available via RealClearWire.

America Needs a New START? Our Enemies Never Stopped.

To the shock, horror, and dismay of onlookers around the world, the New START treaty expired on Thursday. U.N. secretary-general António Guterres called it "a grave moment for international peace and security" and lamented that, "for the first time in more than half a century, we face a world without any binding limits on the [American and Russian] strategic nuclear arsenals." Nuclear disarmament advocates and their media supporters fear the onset of an arms race and global thermonuclear war.

The post America Needs a New START? Our Enemies Never Stopped. appeared first on .

America won’t beat China without Alaska



America’s past energy weakness wasn't accidental. It was a result of misguided political pressure.

While Washington politicians congratulated themselves on “green leadership,” they systematically strangled the most energy‑rich state in the nation: Alaska. The result has been higher costs, increased foreign dependence, and a national security posture that makes our adversaries smile.

Alaska proves what Washington refuses to admit: You can develop resources responsibly, or you outsource damage to others.

Revitalizing the Alaskan oil industry is the key to reversing these costly mistakes.

The Trans‑Alaska Pipeline System was built after the 1973 Arab oil embargo made the danger of foreign dependence painfully clear. Authorized by Congress and completed in 1977, the 800‑mile pipeline has moved more than 17 billion barrels of oil to U.S. markets.

At its peak, TAPS delivered over 2 million barrels per day, dramatically reducing reliance on OPEC and reinforcing American energy security. It funded public services, created tens of thousands of jobs, and helped stabilize global markets — all while operating under some of the toughest environmental standards in the world.

The truth about foreign energy dependence

The United States still imports billions of barrels of oil every year. Roughly 20%of our petroleum needs are met by foreign suppliers. While Canada and Mexico are reliable partners, global pricing and supply remain hostage to instability in the Middle East and geopolitical maneuvering by OPEC+.

This instability is the cost of blocking domestic development. If America won’t produce energy, others will — often with weaker labor laws, worse environmental practices, and profits flowing to regimes aligned against U.S. interests.

Environmental activism does not stop the demand, but it does decrease American leverage.

In Alaska, the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge Coastal Plain alone holds an estimated 7.7 billion barrels of recoverable oil, with total North Slope reserves exceeding 10 billion barrels. Development could deliver up to 1.2 million barrels per day at peak production — enough to materially offset foreign imports and extend the life of TAPS.

This untapped potential is why restrictions on Alaska energy development were so destructive. They ignored economic reality and national defense in favor of ideology.

Recent deregulatory efforts show the correct path forward: Open ANWR and the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska, streamline permitting, modernize infrastructure, expand offshore access, and invest in liquid natural gas for both domestic use and exports to allies.

Cheap energy is a conservative value

Affordable energy lowers grocery bills, keeps manufacturing competitive, restrains inflation, and allows young families to build lives without fleeing high‑cost states. It is no coincidence that states with affordable energy policies attract investment and jobs while those with ideological energy policies hemorrhage both.

Alaska understands this reality very well. In a cold, remote state, energy reliability is not optional. That same realism should guide national policy.

Natural gas, large‑scale hydro, clean coal, and next‑generation nuclear are the way forward. They don’t collapse during cold snaps. They don’t require permanent subsidies. And they work at scale.

A country that depends on foreign energy can be easily manipulated and destabilized. A country that exports energy sets its own terms.

Alaska’s location makes it a critical asset. LNG exports from Alaska strengthen allies while undercutting Russian influence and Chinese leverage. Continuing to restrain the state’s energy potential does nothing but weaken America and strengthen our rivals.

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Photo by Leon Neal/Getty Images

The choice in front of us

Critics repeat the same tired scare tactics, but reality tells a different story.

Wildlife adapted around the Trans‑Alaska Pipeline. Fisheries can easily coexist with modern development. Today’s monitoring, engineering, and land management dramatically exceed anything available a generation ago.

Alaska proves what Washington refuses to admit: You can develop resources responsibly, or you outsource damage to others.

America can keep pretending that energy comes from press releases and foreign tankers, or we can reclaim the proven model that once made it strong: Produce at home under American rules, for American families.

The path to energy independence doesn’t run through climate conferences or regulatory delay. It runs through Alaska.

Tomahawks look tough. Grid disruption actually wins.



As President Trump proposes a ceasefire-in-place to stop the meat grinder in Ukraine, Vladimir Putin appears to be doing what he does best: stalling. With the U.S. busy juggling Iran, Venezuela, and even Greenland, Putin likely figures he can drag this war out long enough to wear Ukraine down and force a surrender through attrition.

Meanwhile Volodymyr Zelenskyy is brooding over not getting Tomahawk cruise missiles — weapons that could strike deep inside Russia.

The goal is irritation, disruption, and humiliation — repeated so often that people start cursing the Kremlin for creating this mess.

But instead of fixating on Tomahawks, Zelenskyy should look at the position Putin is now in. It has a historical parallel worth taking seriously.

Putin resembles Czar Nicholas II in 1917.

In both cases, Russian treasure has poured into a black hole while generals kept ordering “meat attacks” that chewed through manpower by the hundreds of thousands. In 1917, the loss of blood and money turned the nobility against the czar and set the stage for the Kerensky Revolution.

Putin’s oligarchs now sit where the czar’s nobility once sat: close enough to power to profit and close enough to disaster to panic.

Ukraine should exploit that.

A weapon of mass disruption

The goal shouldn’t be a dramatic strike that makes Russians rally around “Mother Russia.” A Tomahawk barrage would do exactly that. It would unify the country behind Putin and hand him the cleanest propaganda gift imaginable.

Ukraine needs something else: a way to transfer the misery and frustration of war to the Russian public — especially in Moscow and other major cities — without creating a patriotic surge.

Russia’s population is insulated by propaganda. Ukraine should attack the insulation, not the borders.

Winter brings slower movement and fewer offensives. That gives Ukraine an opening to run a low-cost, high-annoyance campaign modeled on a little-remembered British operation from World War II.

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Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

The British Royal Navy called it Operation Outward. Today strategists would call it a “cost-imposing” campaign: something cheap to launch that forces the enemy to spend far more to stop it.

The Royal Navy released nearly 100,000 weather balloons. About half carried incendiary bomblets. The rest dragged long wire strands designed to short out power lines and cause disruption across the German electrical grid. German forces had to waste time and resources trying to counter a swarm of cheap devices drifting across their territory.

Because winds in the northern hemisphere generally move west to east, the Germans couldn’t retaliate in kind.

(The Japanese later tried something similar against the United States with the Fu-Go balloons, launching roughly 9,300 of them toward the U.S. and Canada. They forced America to divert resources even though the overall damage remained limited.)

Ukraine’s geography makes this concept even more attractive. Ukraine sits southwest of Russia. That means a balloon campaign drifting into western Russia would give Moscow no easy, low-cost way to respond with the same trick.

And unlike the World War II version, Ukraine wouldn’t need incendiaries. The point isn’t to burn Russian cities or kill civilians. The last thing Ukraine needs is to create martyrs and rally Russians around Putin.

The goal is irritation, disruption, and humiliation — repeated so often that people start cursing the Kremlin for creating this mess.

The cost math

Peter Rosato of Kaymont Consolidated Industries, a major weather balloon manufacturer, estimates that an eight-foot diameter balloon costs about $5 to $7. A hydrogen generator could inflate them for only pennies more.

Using the British model, the balloon could carry a simple ballast mechanism that slowly lowers it while trailing a long tether: roughly 700 feet of hemp cord, tied to a thinner steel wire around 300 feet long. That wire drags across power infrastructure and can short out lines, forcing repairs and outages.

The British saw real success disrupting the German electrical grid. They also forced the Nazis to waste valuable fighter flight hours trying to shoot down balloons — an expensive response to a cheap threat.

Ukraine could buy 100,000 balloons at roughly $5 each and — even after adding wire and other components — build a unit for under $1 million.

Unlike the British, Ukraine also wouldn’t need the same complex altitude-control system used to guide balloons across the English Channel, France, and the Low Countries into Germany. A long, contiguous border allows Ukrainian launches to drift into Russian territory without the same navigation demands.

To improve the results, Ukraine could tweak the design. A better unreeling mechanism might outperform a simple trailing wire. A Ukrainian electrical grid specialist and a meteorologist familiar with conditions in the northeastern border region near Shostka could help optimize launch times for maximum impact.

Make it a war Russians can’t ignore

This isn’t just disruption. It’s information warfare.

The point is not only to knock out power lines but to make the disruption visible — balloons everywhere across western Russia, especially near Moscow — as proof that Putin cannot protect his own people from the consequences of his war.

Modern realities require modern execution. Ukraine couldn’t run this from fixed-launch sites. Russian reconnaissance drones would find them, and artillery or kamikaze drones would destroy them.

The operation would need to move.

A vehicle-borne launch system makes the most sense: military trucks large enough to carry inflated eight-foot balloons, gas tanks, uninflated balloons, payloads, communications gear, a generator, and basic workshop tools.

And for safety, Ukraine would likely need to use helium instead of hydrogen. Hydrogen is cheaper, but the risk of accidental detonation inside a truck is too high.

RELATED: The fastest way to stop Iran’s killers ... without firing a single shot

Antonina Satrevica / Getty Images

Night launches would also matter. To avoid detection, the trucks and equipment would need to be compatible with night-vision operations.

Now picture the outcome.

Imagine 1,000 yellow-and-blue balloons drifting into Russia every day, dragging wires across electrical lines.

Imagine the manpower, equipment, and aircraft Russia would have to divert from the front to hunt them down — at night — every night — for the next hundred nights.

And for the final touch, imagine the optics when Russian crews find one of these balloons in daylight, wires draped across a shorted power line, with a huge portrait of Vladimir Putin half-naked on a horse and the Russian phrase for “I did that!”

That kind of mockery lands differently when you’re freezing in the dark because of Putin’s war.

Ukraine doesn’t need Tomahawks to hit Russia where it hurts. It needs a cheap, persistent campaign that turns irritation into anger — and turns anger into political pressure on the regime that started this catastrophe.

​'I don't think that's relevant': American tennis star shuts down reporters fishing for anti-Trump answers​



A 24-year-old professional tennis player reminded reporters that politics has nothing to do with her sport.

Amanda Anisimova, born in New Jersey to Russian immigrants, is the No.4-ranked player in the Women's Tennis Association, just behind fellow American Coco Gauff.

'I don't think that's relevant.'

After a straight-set victory in the second round of the Australian Open, the American spoke to members of the media in Melbourne, Australia.

Lodged between questions regarding her recent performance was an oddly political query about how it feels to be representing America.

"I've been asking a lot of the American players just how it feels to play under the American flag right now. And I'm curious how you feel," a male reporter asked, using significant vocal fry.

Anisimova did not take the bait, replying, "I was born in America, so I'm always proud to represent my country. And yeah, a lot of us are doing really well, and it's great to see a lot of, you know, great athletes on the women's side, on the men's side."

Anisimova was likely referring to the current success her compatriots are having on the tour. Americans hold three of the top six positions in the women's tennis rankings currently, with several more in the top 30.

"I feel like we're all doing a great job representing ourselves," Anisimova added.

However the reporter wasn't ready to let the topic die just yet.

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"Sorry. Um, just to clarify a little," the man continued. "I mean, sort of in the context of the last year of everything that's been happening in the U.S., does that complicate that feeling at all?"

Anisimova seemed to think the follow-up question was unworthy of an answer.

"I don't think that's relevant," she said with a smirk.

Fans who watched the press conference on YouTube sided unanimously with the young star and pointed out that the press conference culminated with yet another political question. In fact, it was nearly identical to the first.

"America is a, you know, divided place at the moment, euphemistically," another male reporter prefaced. "Do you ever find it difficult or distracting to play under the American flag at the moment?"

Anisimova again brushed the question off.

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Photo by Albert Perez/Getty Images

"I mean, I'm not planning to, you know, switch my nationality or represent a different country. I was born there, so it's not something that comes to my mind."

Women's tennis can be strangely political at times.

In fact, the WTA does not showcase the flag of its ranked players if they are from Russia. This includes world No.1 Aryna Sabalenka and No. 7 Mirra Andreeva. Three more Russians in the top 50 do not have Russian flags on their official WTA profiles either.

The same does not apply to Ukrainian athletes, as No. 20 Marta Kostyuk and No. 28 Dayana Yastremska have their flag proudly next to their names.

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Glenn Beck: Trump’s tariffs and Greenland push have a hidden meaning — and it’s bigger than you realize



President Donald Trump has recently intensified his push to acquire Greenland for U.S. national security reasons, refusing to rule out military force or economic coercion, including tariffs on Denmark and European allies. The U.S. will get control of Greenland "one way or the other,” he told reporters on Air Force One on January 11.

Yesterday at a White House news conference, when asked how far he would go to obtain the ice-covered island, he cryptically replied, "You'll find out."

His determination to acquire Greenland has sparked significant backlash, including strong rejections from Denmark's and Greenland's leaders. Many call it a power-grab that will strain NATO ties and potentially ignite a war.

But Glenn Beck says we have to be smart about the way we think about this. “If you know anything about Donald Trump, he's been against war his whole life,” he says.

Trump’s latest moves, he argues, don’t indicate a desire for war; they indicate a desire to survive an inevitable one.

“What he's acting like is a man who believes the world is dying anyway. The old world is dying and that it's better to break it deliberately and ... grab the wreckage than inherit it by surprise and have to be fighting for the scraps,” he explains, reminding that history repeatedly shows that “only the disruptors ... have a chance of saving their nation.”

Glenn echoes Trump’s words that Denmark “cannot be responsible for the security of the northern hemisphere,” especially against the threat of Russia and China.

“The Danes and the EU are not going to be the ones that prevent war or protect the northern hemisphere. It must be the United States, so we must have control of Greenland,” he says, displaying a map of the country that highlights its strategic location in the Arctic.

Because it straddles the GIUK Gap (Greenland-Iceland-U.K.) between North America and Europe, Greenland is vital for monitoring Russian and Chinese submarines and missiles, providing early warning against attacks on the U.S., controlling access to emerging northern shipping routes, and securing the northern approaches to North America.

For these reasons, the United States has been expressing interest in controlling Greenland since the 1950s, says Glenn, but President Trump — in light of the swelling threat of China and Russia and the weakening of NATO — is actually trying to make it happen.

But this need for hemispheric control extends beyond Greenland.

Glenn suspects that Trump’s tariffs weren’t just economic tools but deliberate “stress tests” on allies and potential partners. By applying pressure equally, even on NATO members like Denmark or close neighbors like Canada, Trump forces the world to answer: Who stands with the West, and who is drifting toward adversaries like China?

Glenn plays recent clips of Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney boasting about exporting massive LNG shipments to Asia — “By 2030, Canada will produce 50 million tons of LNG each year, all of which will be destined for Asian markets” — as an example of how tariffs have forced nations to show their true colors.

People might not like Trump’s tariffs or his push for Greenland, but they’re failing to see the big picture.

“The president sees war, and he's preparing for it,” says Glenn.

To hear more of Glenn’s commentary and predictions, watch the video above.

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Denmark Doesn’t Deserve Greenland

There is no reason for Denmark to retain control of Greenland since it has failed to exploit its strategic mineral resources and was unable to protect it from Germany in WWII.