I don't think we had push back Greenland is uh you look at the people there we got tremendous uh we got Applause as we landed Donald Trump pointing to his son's reception in Greenland to claim greenlanders welcome his plan to Annex their Nation by military force if necessary he wouldn't rule it out saying there's been no push back now that's despite Greenland's prime minister saying Greenland is for greenlanders and condemnation of his remarks from leading European nations like Germany and France in a rare break with diplomacy the outgoing Secretary of State Antony blinkin is also
sounding dismissive now just breaking let me bring you some of these headlines the Kremlin has just been responding to Donald Trump's recent remarks on Greenland but also on Canada on the Arctic uh the spokesperson for the Kremlin Demitri pesc says the Arctic Falls within Russia's zone of strategic national interests uh the Kremlin thinks that this is very important for Russia's matters uh it thinks that Europe is reacting very timidly very cautiously almost in a whisper to what Donald Trump is saying and also says that Russia is watching very closely the rather dramatic development of the
situation so that is just breaking some of the words from Kremlin spokesperson uh Dimitri pesov so it's interesting because that leads into one of the things we're going to talk about with Our Guest this hour Andrew rulas is back with us a fellow with the Canadian Global Affairs Institute a retired Department of National Defense official he knows all about defense Foreign Affairs policy and he's the perfect person to answer your questions this morning so good morning Andrew and happy New Year it's nice to see you again I want to jump right into our viewers questions
because they're right in your wheelhouse and I'm going to begin with Kelly summers's question again flowing from that breaking news we just had from the Kremlin Kelly and also Stephanie have similar questions Kelly writes doesn't this make Trump just like Putin Putin wants Georgia Crimea Ukraine Trump wants Greenland Panama and Canada and if Trump uses the military then what's the difference and similarly Stephanie Brogden writing Trump statements about Canada being the 51st state and our prime minister as Governor or reminiscent of Russia's movement of Tanks toward the Ukrainian border and stating no we're not going
to attack then attacking Trump's comments have me concerned that he wouldn't hesitate to attack us so she wonders and again we can speak to this whole issue what are the chances he would attack what protections do we have do you see any Echoes and how would you answer these questions Andrew well I think they're excellent questions and they basically form the basis of an intellectual discussion which has real implications of the nature of the International System uh the Russians view the International System as do the Chinese uh very much from what's called a real politi
or real perspective that is great power politics in which military and economic power are the final Arbiters of international relations the rules-based system comes and conforms within that now the United States of course under its current president is a champion of the alternative view the liberal rules-based International order in which states do not use power to change borders and so on now with Trump he is not using that language he's using the language of real politi so he's using the similar language that as your questions uh is suggest apply to Russia as well so it
it actually actually equalizes the playing field if you will everyone's speaking from the Trump then speaking from the same language as Putin is so what are the consequences of that rhetoric let's go to questions from Stephen and Michael because again they're similar Steven Colette writes given the definition of annexing another country aren't Trump's threats tantamount Paramount or tantamount uh to a threat of War he plans to take us over but not just initially with military force so that's in relation to the economic Force he's talked about in relation to Canada and Michael sansy similarly is
economic aggression the same as military aggression by a NATO partner Andrew yeah so no I think there is a clear distinction between using economic power to influence another state even if it's an ally or not or an adversary uh as opposed to using violent military force to uh enforce your your will on the other that is a declaration of war when you use violence and and and so there is a clear distinction here so basically if we take Trump's comments at that press conference he is not threatening war against Canada he is threatening in fact
a very traditional American policy after the war of 1812 when they couldn't take Canada militarily through War they Americans have decided basically since then to let absorb Canada through economic means and there's different View on that of course but Trump is simply bringing that way back up to the front page now now as far as Greenland in Panama goes there's a potential threat of War now with Greenland he said we'll try and buy it okay first we'll try and buy it but he doesn't rule out military force so if you applied military force the Dan
said stop for sale well that becomes a declaration of war does NATO go to war against that the Washington treaty is silent about NATO Partners fighting amongst themselves we have Greece turkey as a as an example where they came close and NATO had to deliberate between the two and calm them down but there's actually no violent conflict Turks did invade Cyprus but Cypress was neutral in 1974 Andrew you mentioned NATO and the next question from Paul references NATO and something that you and I have talked about often and that's Article Five a threat against one
is a threat against all so again with the kind of rhetoric we're hearing and he is asking specifically about this uh threat of economic Force to Annex Canada is Article 5 of NATO invoked in terms of Trump's attempts to Annex Canada yeah so the North Carolina Council decides when Article 5 is is is activated they've done that once in history and that happened after the 911 attack against against the United States now that was a an act of terrorism but there was a certain an element of violence it was political violence uh directed against the
United States and the alliance activated Article 5 that's the only time that has happened um so and again there was a violent element to it and so the article um Article Five speaks and NATO's whole concept of of the defense alignment is against an attack it's usually inferred to a violent attack not an economic attack Andrew again on NATO actually uh defense ministers are meeting on Ukraine right now and I was just watching Mark rut the new head of NATO on screen wondering if he said anything about the situation one of our viewers again I'll
come back to Monica Monica Osborne wondering as cada is a member of NATO why haven't we heard from NATO on protecting us should the USA push military force upon us now not a military question at this point but should us you know exert this kind of influence from Mark rout just now nothing on Donald Trump so let's go to the first part of the question why haven't we heard from NATO on this at all well because Trump is not the president now I mean I think we have to remember protocols here which is a bit
strange actually you've got the ascendant to the presidency acting as if he is the president and the much of us running around thinking he is but he isn't and marago is not the White House so uh we have Biden is the president so NATO is not going to make responses to uh um Trump's hypothetical statements in a press conference uh in maralago when he's yet not president after January 20th if he said this after January 20th a whole bunch of official protocols would kick in and yes there would be representations all over the place on
about this final question to you this is such an interesting conversation great question from fodos seratus writing this in the face of Donald Trump's bold transactional approach to international relations Canada response has often appeared defensive with talk of retaliation could Canada adopt a similarly bold strategy for example could Canada engage more actively with global powers like Russia and China to explore new opportunities thereby Shifting the dynamic and putting Trump in a more reactive position in a real politique world we have that option however United States has the option of countering those moves and uh you
can uh you can assume uh quite with 100% certainty that the United States under the Monroe Doctrine in particular which they will not allow any other foreign power involvement in the Western Hemisphere particularly in Canada uh they would take military action before Canada was able to effectively organize an alternative defense pack let's say with Russia or China so it's it's theoretically possible but the United States would take over Canada before the ink was dry on any agreement of such a nature Andrew so wonderful to have the opportunity to tap into that wealth of knowledge you
have thank you for the time and sharing that expertise thank you for the Fantastic questions on this theme this hour much more to come and Andre rul us again thanks [Music]
