Thanks to Trump’s administration, the US could soon have to fight wars to get things that, just a few weeks ago, were there for the asking, says professor Timothy Snyder of Yale University
www.theguardian.com
This was news to me, I had no idea that the USA had fallen so far behind in supplying ice breaker ships, on the grounds that global warming was a 'hoax'... how ideology can cause such nuttiness..
(from this article. . ) TWO ice breaker ships!!!. even Australia has one, and it has no ice at all!! South Africa has one, a beauty, too, and no ice , they have to travel a 1000 klms to ice... and the USA has only 2... astonishing stuff.. all this hoo haaa about Greenland, while mucking about with only 2 icebreaker ships is absurd..
"The US has fallen well behind its allies and its rivals in the Arctic, in part because members of Vance’s political party
denied for decades the reality of global warming, which has made it hard for the US navy to persuade Congress of the need to commission icebreaker ships. The US only has two functional Arctic icebreakers; the Biden administration was intending
to cooperate with Canada, which has some, and with Finland, which builds lots, in order to compete with Russia,
which has the most.
That common plan
would have allowed the US to surpass Russia in icebreaking capacity. This is one of countless examples of how cooperation with Nato allies benefits the US.
It is not clear what will happen with that arrangement now that Trump and Vance define Canada, like Denmark, as a rival or even as an enemy. Presumably it will break down, leaving Russia dominant.