(This article was written by Adelle Nazarian, and appeared in NEWSMAX. Saudi Arabia a Fluent Capital, Logistics, and Economic Force | Newsmax.com)

There is a moment in every serious relationship when both parties stop performing for the crowd and begin speaking honestly to each other. The posturing fades, grudges lose their power. What remains is a clear recognition of interests, limits, and long-term intent.

That’s where the relationship between the United States and Saudi Arabia now stands.

The emerging $1 trillion economic framework between Washington and Riyadh is neither a romantic gesture nor an attempt to rehabilitate reputations or rewrite history. It’s far more durable and consequential. It reflects two systems which have grown tired of caricature and chosen instead to deal in leverage, capital, and reality.

In geopolitics, as in markets, maturity reveals itself not through rhetoric but through aligned incentives.

For Washington, the logic is straightforward. Supply chains are fragile, energy markets remain volatile, and strategic competition with China demands partners that possess not only capital, but scale and long-term ambition.

Saudi Arabia is no longer content to be flattened into a single storyline or reduced to legacy labels. It’s asserting itself as a global capital allocator, a logistics hub, and an economic force fluent in the language of the modern world.

This is not a return to old habits; it’s a recalibration. And it is unfolding in plain sight — on balance sheets, in infrastructure, and increasingly in public life.

The current U.S.-Saudi economic deepening is not about ideological conformity or symbolic alignment. It’s about interdependence. American innovation and institutional depth are converging with Saudi capital, infrastructure, and long-term planning. The result is not dependency, but durability.

If the trade framework represents the architecture of this new phase, then Riyadh Season represents its proof of execution.

Often dismissed as spectacle, Riyadh Season — which began in October and will go through March 2026 — is better understood as a live demonstration; an operational stress test of openness, investability, and global integration. The festival draws millions of visitors, hosts international concerts, sporting events, and cultural exhibitions, and transforms the Saudi capital into a functioning crossroads of commerce and culture.

This is not window dressing. It’s signaling.

That signal is inseparable from its leadership. His Excellency Turki Al-Sheikh transformed Riyadh Season from an idea into a global benchmark, proving that Saudi ambition paired with execution can reshape an entire industry. With instinct for scale and precision for delivery, he has made entertainment not just a spectacle, but a strategic language through which Saudi Arabia speaks confidently to the world.

Saudi Arabia welcomed more than 27 million international tourists in 2023, a sharp increase from pre-pandemic levels. The expatriate population now exceeds 13 million, including a growing cohort of Western professionals who are not merely visiting, but relocating.

Tourism is projected to contribute 10% of GDP by 2030, while the entertainment sector alone is expected to surpass $23 billion annually within the decade. These are not abstract ambitions; they are measurable shifts backed by capital, regulatory reform, and execution.

Crucially, Riyadh Season is not about Westernization. It’s about global legibility.

Saudi Arabia is not abandoning its identity; it’s translating it into a language that global investors, talent, and institutions can understand. This is something the United States can certainly appreciate. Mixed-gender public spaces, global brands, English as a working business language, and reforms improving foreign ownership and dispute resolution are not ideological concessions. They are economic enablers.

This evolution did not occur in a vacuum, nor is it naïve about global scrutiny. Saudi Arabia understands that headlines linger, particularly those shaped by moments that once dominated international discourse. But the Kingdom has chosen not to remain trapped in a single narrative frame. Instead, it’s moving forward through performance rather than protest, delivery rather than defensiveness. In geopolitics, relevance is earned through outcomes.

Riyadh Season also serves as the cultural gateway to a broader transformation embodied by projects such as NEOM — a large-scale experiment in urban design, clean energy, advanced manufacturing, and logistics. Together, they form a continuum under Vision 2030, which has already seen hundreds of billions committed across infrastructure, technology, and human capital.

For the United States, this matters. The partnership offers access to capital at scale, a stable anchor in a volatile region, and a counterpart willing to engage without illusions.

Saudi Arabia is not asking to be understood as a Western democracy; it’s asking to be recognized as a serious actor operating in the world as it exists.

Riyadh Season is not a party. It’s a message. And the message is that Saudi Arabia is no longer asking the world to imagine its future. It’s inviting the world to participate.

Adelle Nazarian is a Senior Fellow at the Gold Institute for International Strategy, a Washington D.C. based foreign policy and defense think tank.

(This article was written by Hermann Terscht and appeared in the El Debate. Hermann Tertsch – España | Thank you to Donald Trump!)

The social democratic media chorus in Spain launched from the outset to condemn the US military action that has brought about the liberation of our compatriots

Yesterday the Spaniards set foot on Spanish soil, kidnapped for one or more years in Nicolás Maduro’s dungeons until the day before. The first thing that all the Spanish authorities should have done, from King Felipe VI to the all-meaning tiny minister Albares, is to have thanked the president of the United States, Donald Trump, for having taken them out of the sordid pit in which the hitmen of the miserable drug trafficking and socialist dictatorship had put them. ally, partner and accomplice of the Spanish government of Pedro Sánchez and the Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party (PSOE). They also had to express their gratitude to the thousands of U.S. soldiers, police and members of the DEA who risked their lives and participated in the search and capture with great success of the leader of the criminal gang that has kidnapped the Spaniards and for 25 years the entire Venezuelan nation.

What has happened in Spain, however, has been something very different from what common sense and decency recommended to us and should fill us with shame. We have seen how the head of the government, Pedro Sánchez, and then unfortunately also King Felipe spoke of our compatriots “held” in Venezuela under the Maduro dictatorship and freed by Trump. You are “held back” by a traffic jam, a flight delay, or bad weather on a trip. The Spaniards were imprisoned, kidnapped without any defense or guarantee in torture prisons. Euphemisms become worse enemies of truth than lies. And if there is one thing that Donald Trump is hated so much for in progressivism and this reign of euphemism and hypocrisy that is social democratic Europe, it is because, in addition to his will to act to create a new favorable reality for his homeland and his compatriots, there are his direct and implacable ways of saying things.

The social democratic media chorus in Spain launched from the first moment to condemn the US military action that has brought about the liberation of our compatriots. And we have reached the paroxysm of vileness with very serious insults to Venezuelans for rejoicing that Donald Trump, yes, Donald Trump and the U.S. Army, have given the initial resounding blow to begin the dismantling of the dictatorship that has tortured and murdered without pause and flooded all of Venezuela with pain and misery for a quarter of a century. “Fascist worm” is what one of the doctors of the television Chekist left calls the large colony of Venezuelan exiles in Spain, only part of the more than eight million spread around the world, fleeing the curse of socialism and organized crime. You know, the victims of socialism have no right to complain.

Stalin sent to the Gulag anyone who complained about the quality of soup in the army and Kim Jong-un executed anyone who did not applaud his tyrant enough. The Spanish public television RTVE, which competes in vileness with the television stations of Cuba or Venezuela, already dedicates practically the entire day to political propaganda programs that demonize, criminalize, defame and target all those who do not applaud the criminal and corrupt socialist government. Venezuelans are guilty, like Cubans, of not enjoying the criminal regimes that crush them, but that pay well to Spanish socialists and communists who choose talk show hosts.

The European authorities who have been waiting for decades for evolution in the socialist dictatorships of Latin America, and who therefore finance the communist mafia in Cuba and financed Nicaragua and Venezuela, have now been a week since Maduro’s capture and consider it intolerable that we do not already have an exquisite transition towards the most perfect democracy. The transition to democracy began when María Corina Machado designed with her people a formula to go despite all the impediments to elections under the dictatorship, make a prodigious mobilization and guarantee, in a miraculous operation, the possession of the electoral records. Since then, no one can doubt that criminals are criminals, usurpers are usurpers and drug traffickers cannot hide behind a presidential institution.

But the world remained the same until Trump confirmed what was already true in his first term: that Venezuela with drug traffickers, money laundering, Chinese agents, Russian military, Islamist militants of Hezbollah and the Iranian guard, plus all the mercenaries of the worst kind, posed a threat to the security of the United States. And that is infecting the entire subcontinent from its total command in Cuba with Mexico, Colombia and Brazil as very dangerous exponents. Thanks to this, democracy and freedom will return, not tomorrow or the day after, to Venezuela. Delcy Rodríguez, with the gun to her temple of all the positions that await her in New York, if she does not serve as a submissive in charge of disarming her comrades, will open all the necessary resources for the United States to control and put an end to those omnipresent mafias in the structures of the State and outside them.

And the heroic María Corina and the democrats will begin to have their legitimate role as protagonists of the political life and future of Venezuela when the enemies of everything they mean do not have the capacity to set the country on fire. What is Trump interested in about oil? Thank goodness. That way neither the Chinese, the Russians nor the Iranians will have it and it will serve, as has happened in the past, for Americans and Venezuelans to make Venezuela a prosperous, rich and happy country.

Those who ask for full sovereignty and full democracy today and now in Venezuela have not asked for it in 25 years. They were not in a hurry. Thanks to María Corina Machado and thanks to Donald Trump, Venezuela will be democratic much sooner than those arrogant European politicians who are destroying democracies in their own countries with increasing censorship and social engineering believe.

The good news is that, apart from Trump in the US, there are many forces in the West determined to end the euphemisms and moral misery of cowardice. Thus, Vox has just denounced Rodríguez Zapatero in the National Court for his collaboration with Maduro’s criminal regime. And Zapatero’s victims have begun to speak. Soon we will have, apart from the cases that are already being investigated in the United States, documents and evidence of all the links of corruption and complicity between that gang of murderers in Caracas and the organized crime gang that governs in Spain.

Very good things are happening. And we have Donald Trump to thank. The criminal regime of Islamist clerics in Tehran may also fall these days. Also with a lot of help from Israel and Trump. It’s a good start to 2026. Just seeing the faces, the cries and the tears of the Spanish leftist scoundrel confirms it.

Hermann Terscht is a Distinguished Fellow at the Gold Institute for International Strategy, a Washington D.C. based foreign policy and defense think tank.

(This article was written by Adelle Nazarian and appeared in The Western Journal. When Rumor Becomes a Death Sentence: Bangladesh’s Crisis and the Test for Democratic Leadership)

The fatal beating, lynching, and burning of Bangladeshi Hindu Dipu Chandra Das, followed days later by the mob killing of fellow Hindu Amrit Mondal, was not spontaneous violence. It was a failure of the state: clear, deliberate, and lethal.

Dipu was a 25-year-old garment worker, a husband, a father, and the sole provider for his family, including two elderly parents, one disabled. Above all, he was a Hindu in a Muslim-majority country, a member of a vulnerable minority. His life mattered. And the state failed him.

On December 18, a rumor spread that Dipu had spoken negatively about Islam. There is no verified evidence that he did. What is verified is that he begged the police for protection and was instead handed over to an Islamist mob.

He was beaten to death, stripped naked, tied to a tree, and burned along the Dhaka-Mymensingh highway, in full public view. This did not happen despite the police. It happened because they allowed it.

The mob killed Dipu because they did not need proof. That is the danger of blasphemy-driven violence: When rumor replaces evidence, fear replaces law.

Dipu Chandra Das, a hindu, was brutaIIy lynch*d and burnt aIive in Bangladesh.

Dipu Chandra Das was a young garment factory worker who lived in the area as a tenant. He was accused of blasphemy and tied to a tree where they bur*t him to dea*h.

No formal case has been… pic.twitter.com/lfqxzHyW8c

— Shubham Sharma (@Shubham_fd) December 19, 2025

Days later, Amrit Mondal was beaten to death. Authorities rushed to downplay communal motives, but pattern matters more than intent. Two Hindu men. Two public killings. Two mobs. Two state failures.

That is not a coincidence. It is a trajectory.

There is no confirmed evidence that Dipu’s and Amrit’s killers were formal members of a single political organization, and that distinction matters legally.

But it does not erase reality. Both killings bear the hallmarks of Islamist mob violence: the weaponization of accusation, the targeting of minorities, and the social permission to kill without consequence.

This is how plausible deniability works. Leaders remain insulated while mobs do the dirty work.

Bangladesh has seen this before. In 1971, at least 2.8 million Hindus were massacred by the Pakistani Army and allied Islamist forces in less than a year.

That trauma never fully healed. It merely went dormant, resurfacing whenever political authority weakens and extremist actors sense opportunity.

In 2022, the U.S. Congress introduced House Resolution 1430, “Recognizing the Bangladesh Genocide of 1971,” a resolution seeking to formally recognize those atrocities as genocide and crimes against humanity. The effort that stalled legislatively, even as international genocide scholars officially affirmed that designation in 2023. That opportunity is now visible.

The return of Tarique Rahman of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party after roughly 16 years in exile is not a neutral political development. It signals the reactivation of old power networks at a moment of institutional fragility.

His arrival ahead of the upcoming elections coincides not with stabilization, but with a surge in street-level intimidation, communal violence, and state paralysis. And it brings with it the likelihood that Bangladesh will soon be run by the radical Jamaat-e-Islami, which means no minorities will be safe.

Even if the BNP gains ground, Tarique Rahman’s leadership from exile leaves him ill-positioned to govern or unify the country.

That weakness creates an opening for Jamaat-e-Islami to gain outsized influence through coalition politics, advancing Islamist priorities without winning outright.

The danger is not a sudden takeover, but the quiet erosion of Bangladesh’s secular foundations from within the government.

Fear is the factor that shapes elections in fragile democracies. When minorities are publicly brutalized, and the state hesitates, a message is sent about who is protected and who is expendable.

For India, this is not merely a human-rights crisis. It is a strategic warning. Bangladesh sits on India’s eastern flank, and when the rule of law collapses there, India feels it first through instability, radicalization, and refugee pressure.

Anti-Hindu violence in Bangladesh does not exist in isolation. It feeds directly into India’s internal security calculus, particularly in border regions already vulnerable to extremist Islamist influence.

For years, New Delhi invested heavily in a stable, secular Bangladesh as a regional partner, one that stood in contrast to Pakistan’s chronic instability and Afghanistan’s descent into Islamist rule.

The ousting of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina placed that assumption in jeopardy. What India is now witnessing is not simply a political transition, but the early signs of a dangerous drift toward religious majoritarianism, institutional erosion, and extremist accommodation.

In a recent interview with New India Abroad, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina underscored why her leadership had helped make Bangladesh a more stable and prosperous nation.

Reflecting on her departure amid escalating unrest, she stated, “My instinct has always been to protect our country and our citizens, and it was not an easy decision to leave while my country erupted into lawlessness. I regret that I was compelled to leave, but it was a decision I took to minimize any further loss of life, and to ensure the safety of people around me.”

She went on to outline the conditions necessary for her return, emphasizing that legitimacy must rest on law, not force.

“For me to return, Bangladesh must restore constitutional governance and the rule of law,” she wrote. “This means lifting the unlawful ban on the Awami League, releasing political prisoners detained on fabricated charges, and holding genuinely free elections. You cannot claim democratic legitimacy while banning the party elected nine times by the people.”

The killings of Dipu Chandra Das and Amrit Mondal are not isolated crimes. They are indicators. With elections approaching and authority fragmented, Islamist street power is testing how far it can go. And the answer they are giving is far enough.

That erosion of trust places responsibility on the United States as well. On Dec. 28, the U.S. State Department issued a statement condemning the killings and urging Bangladesh to protect religious minorities and uphold the rule of law.

The statement was necessary. It was correct. And it now requires tangible follow-through.

For generations, America has claimed the mantle of democracy, pluralism, and freedom of belief. Those ideals only retain meaning when defended under pressure. Jamaat-e-Islami and groups associated with them must be actioned accordingly.

Instability does not begin with coups or wars, but with the normalization of violence against the defenseless.

When mobs replace courts, democracy becomes theater. When the state fails to protect its weakest citizens, it signals to extremists that the cost of violence is low.

These were not random deaths. They were warnings.

India is watching because it must. The United States is watching because it still has the capacity and the responsibility to stand for justice at a moment when the meaning of human rights is being challenged and steadily eroded.

Adelle Nazarian is a Senior Fellow at the Gold Institute for International Strategy, a Washington D.C. based foreign policy and defense think tank.

Tanzania map

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(This article was written by Adelle Nazarian and appeared in The Western Journal. The Bondi Beach Hanukkah Massacre and the Islamist Blind Spot the West Refuses to Confront)

Bondi Beach should have been a place of light.
On that warm December evening, Jews gathered along Sydney’s shoreline for Chanukah by the Sea, a public Hanukkah celebration marked by prayer, music, and remembrance. Children clutched candles. Rabbis offered blessings. Holocaust survivors stood as living witnesses to resilience.
What followed was not merely an act of violence, but a devastating failure of imagination by Western security establishments that still refuse to confront how transnational Islamist networks radicalize across borders, cultures, and identities. The accused attackers are a father and son of Indian Muslim origin, now central to Australia’s most serious anti-Semitic terror investigation.
They did not emerge from a vacuum. They were not driven by poverty, exclusion, or race. They were animated by ideology, shaped by networks, and enabled by a long-standing Western reluctance to interrogate so-called “non-violent” Islamist movements that repeatedly appear upstream of jihadist violence. Authorities allege the Bondi Beach massacre was inspired by ISIS ideology.
The symbolism alone — targeting Jews during Chanukah by the Sea — leaves little doubt about motive. Yet focusing exclusively on ISIS branding offers a comforting but incomplete explanation. It allows policymakers to treat such attacks as sudden eruptions, rather than the end result of a long radicalization process. The more difficult question remains unanswered: How do individuals living for decades in liberal democracies come to see mass murder as a religious duty?
The answer lies not only with designated terrorist organizations, but with the ideological ecosystems that normalize absolutism, grievance, and separation from pluralistic society long before violence occurs. These environments rarely make headlines, because they operate below the threshold of criminality. But they matter. And they recur.
One such movement, consistently overlooked by Western governments, is Tablighi Jamaat.
Tablighi Jamaat presents itself as a quietist Islamic missionary movement devoted to personal piety. It is not formally designated a terrorist organization, and its defenders lean heavily on that distinction. Yet counterterrorism history tells a far more troubling story. Tablighi Jamaat is not banned in Australia or the West. But legality does not negate ideological influence.
During the height of ISIS recruitment between 2014 and 2019, intelligence services across Europe, South Asia, and Southeast Asia documented disproportionate numbers of ISIS recruits who had passed through Tablighi Jamaat environments. This was not because the movement openly endorsed violence — it did not — but because it created ideological and social conditions that jihadist recruiters knew how to exploit.
Tablighi Jamaat promotes rigid Deobandi interpretations of Islam, rejection of Western civic identity, withdrawal from pluralistic society, and deference to insular religious authority over secular law.
That worldview does not pull the trigger, but it conditions the mind for those who will. It is the difference between radicalization as an event and radicalization as a process.
Understanding that process requires acknowledging the movement’s undeniable global reach.
Tablighi Jamaat was founded in 1926 in the Mewat region of India (then British India), near Delhi, by Maulana Muhammad Ilyas Kandhlawi, a Deobandi Islamic scholar.
TJ’s operational leadership consolidated over time in Pakistan, with vast infrastructure in Bangladesh and entrenched presences across Europe, Australia, North America, and Africa. Its global nerve center at Raiwind, Pakistan, and its massive annual gatherings, some drawing millions, provide unparalleled reach, anonymity, and mobility.
The movement recruits across race and ethnicity, including Western converts, making it uniquely effective inside diaspora communities.
In Bangladesh, this ecosystem is further reinforced by the presence of Jamaat-e-Islami, a political Islamist movement that has long shaped religious discourse and activism, creating ideological adjacency between missionary revivalism and overtly political Islamism. This transnational structure is precisely why jihadist groups have long viewed Tablighi Jamaat spaces as ideal recruiting pools. The West’s persistent error has been to equate “non-violent” with “non-threatening.” History has repeatedly proven otherwise.
The Bondi Beach massacre also shatters another comforting illusion: that Islamist extremism is confined to certain nationalities or conflict zones.
Indian Islamism or Islamism originating in the West, particularly currents influenced by Salafi ideology, has long intersected with Pakistani and Bangladeshi networks through movements like Tablighi Jamaat.
These ideological pipelines do not stop at borders, nor do they dissolve when individuals migrate to Western democracies. Treating radicalization as geographically contained is not merely inaccurate; it is dangerous.
This is not an indictment of India, Muslims, or immigration. It is an indictment of ideological denial; the belief that Islamist extremism announces itself only at the moment of violence, rather than developing quietly over years.
One constant runs through these movements, regardless of geography: anti-Semitism. It is not incidental — it is doctrinal.
Across ISIS, al-Qaida, Hamas, and their ideological feeders, Jews are framed not as political adversaries, but as cosmic enemies. That framing allows ordinary men — fathers, sons, neighbors — to rationalize slaughter as a sacred duty.
Western societies often misdiagnose anti-Semitic jihad as “foreign conflicts spilling over.” In reality, anti-Semitism is the emotional accelerant of global jihad.
Bondi Beach was not random. Chanukah by the Sea was chosen deliberately.
Australia, like the United States and much of Europe, has relied on an outdated counterterrorism framework that draws a bright line between “violent extremists” and “non-violent Islamists.”
That line exists largely to avoid political discomfort, not because it reflects reality.
Non-violent Islamist movements shape identity, grievance, and loyalty. Violent groups merely harvest what has already been planted.
Until Western governments are willing to scrutinize transnational missionary networks, track ideological convergence rather than weapons alone, and acknowledge gateway movements without fear of offense, mass-casualty attacks will continue to arrive “unexpectedly.” The blood spilled at Chanukah by the Sea demands more than condolences. It demands courage: the courage to say that faith is not the problem, but ideology is. The courage to admit that some movements function as radicalization corridors, even without firing a shot. The courage to protect Jewish communities not after attacks, but before them.
If the West continues to treat ideological blindness as tolerance, it will keep learning the truth the same way it did in Bondi — after the candles are extinguished and the bodies are counted.

Adelle Nazarian is a Senior Fellow at the Gold Institute for International Strategy, a Washington D.C. based foreign policy and defense think tank.

(This article, written by Mike Glenn, appeared in the Washington Times. https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2025/dec/12/top-retired-us-korean-generals-detail-tensions-indo-pacific/)

If America’s relationship with Europe defined the 20th century, then the 21st century will be marked by Washington’s connections to the Indo-Pacific.

However, the former commander of U.S. Army troops in the region said some people can’t grasp its complexities or immense distances without a map.

In an address to the Gold Institute think tank, retired Gen. Charles Flynn on Thursday noted that the flying time from Hawaii to Guam, America’s farthest western territory, is roughly the same as a flight from Hawaii to the District of Columbia.

“When you’re in Guam, you’re in the second island chain. That’s how big this area of operations is. It’s massive,” Mr. Flynn said. 

The Indo-Pacific encompasses two continents — Asia and Australia — and the Southeast Asia archipelago, which serves as a land bridge connecting both. By some estimates, 7 out of 10 people on the planet will be in the region by 2040, he said.

China, which the Biden administration referred to as America’s “pacing challenge,” is amid a construction frenzy. The buildup is part of its Belt and Road Initiative, a Beijing-led global infrastructure and investment program launched in 2013 by President Xi Jinping that aims to connect Asia, Europe, Africa and beyond through land and sea routes.

China is moving ahead with explicitly military building projects as well, including along its mountainous border with India, known as the Line of Actual Control. About 20,000 to 30,000 Chinese troops regularly rotate in and out of the area, Mr. Flynn said.

“In the last five to seven years, they’ve built rail and road infrastructure to move laterally. They’ve also put surface-to-air missile systems there,” he said.

China is continuing to flex its economic muscles by applying pressure to several countries in Southeast Asia, from Cambodia and Laos to Bhutan and Myanmar. Beijing’s coercive campaign is becoming a dangerous security situation, Mr. Flynn said.

“That is why it’s really important for the United States to maintain relations with Vietnam, Thailand and India, the sort of bookends of countries in South Asia,” he said. “And by the way, Thailand is a treaty ally of the United States.”

China’s strategy is to float high-interest construction loans to countries it wants to exploit. When the country can’t repay the loan, Beijing moves in and assumes control over the project, whether it’s a port facility or an airfield. That also means access to its information technology system or electrical grid.

“We have one hell of a time getting them out of these small countries,” Mr. Flynn said.

The U.S. is an Indo-Pacific country not just because of its far-reaching military power, but also because “it has skin in the game.” The people living in Guam and the Northern Marianas are U.S. citizens. 

“We can’t forget about this part of the homeland,” Mr. Flynn said.

Retired South Korean Gen. Leem Ho-young, a former deputy commander of the U.S.-Korea Combined Forces Command, said most discussions about possible military action in the Indo-Pacific seem to focus on whether China will invade neighboring Taiwan.

“It seems like they don’t really discuss much about the threat that exists on the Korean peninsula because the two Koreas — the North and the South — are charging up,” Mr. Leem said.

He said President Trump — whom he called “The Global Peacemaker” — will likely prevent any cross-strait invasion of Taiwan.

The Korean Peninsula is another story. Mr. Leem said he spent most of his military career along the tense Demilitarized Zone between the North and South.

“For 50 kilometers to the north and 50 kilometers to the south [of the DMZ], there are about 1 million soldiers there pointing their guns at each other,” he said.

While North Korean officials mouth communist slogans, Mr. Leem said it would be more accurate to call the country a feudal dynasty. The Kim family has run the country since its founding in 1948 by Kim Il-sung. 

The current supreme leader, Kim Jong-un, has signaled that his chosen heir is his daughter, Kim Ju-ae, who is believed to be 12 or 13. That could be a problem for stability in North Korea, Mr. Leem said, where women are looked down upon.

Mr. Kim is overweight, smokes four packs of cigarettes a day and drinks up to 10 bottles of wine daily. Mr. Leem noted that his father and grandfather died as a result of bad hearts.

“It’s in his bloodline. It wouldn’t be surprising at all if he dropped dead today,” he said. “If that happens, there’s going to be a power struggle in North Korea. The power will be given to the person with a gun. China will pick a faction and support that faction.”

Mr. Leem said he wouldn’t be surprised if the other side in a North Korean internal dispute reaches out to South Korea or even the U.S. for backing. 

“If that happens and there are two different military factions in conflict in North Korea, this could lead to a conflict between China, which represents communism, and the U.S. and South Korea, which represent the powers of freedom,” he said. “The issues surrounding Taiwan will seem small by comparison.”

• Mike Glenn can be reached at mglenn@washingtontimes.com.

From climate mandates to digital censorship and centralized control, the EU is steadily
expanding its power under the banner of “necessity,” undermining the very Western
values it claims to defend.

Trump has launched a direct challenge to the Brussels bureaucracy. Europe’s openborders policy, the growing pressure on free speech, economically damaging climate and energy policies, and the active obstruction of Ukrainian-Russian peace talks have all become major irritants for the American president. Beneath this confrontation lies an uncomfortable but unavoidable question: does the old continent still share the Western values the United States has always stood for — freedom, sovereignty, and democratic legitimacy?
Anyone who dares to say today that freedom in Europe is under pressure is immediately branded with a label: “extremist,” “anti-European,” “disinformation.” It is a familiar reflex — not to challenge the argument, but to discredit the speaker. And that alone should alarm everyone.
Because let’s be honest: the European Union is not moving toward more democracy, more freedom, or more sovereignty. Quite the opposite. What we are witnessing is a steady centralization of power, justified by fear, crisis, and moral self-righteousness. This is not a plot. It is a pattern.
Take the Green Deal. Under the leadership of Frans Timmermans, hundreds of billions of euros were mobilized to push through a single ideological project. Not through open debate. Not through national parliaments. But through Brussels-driven regulations, subsidies, and coercion. Carbon emissions became not just a measurement tool, but a tool of power. Whoever decides what you may drive, eat, heat, build, or produce ultimately decides how free you are. This has little to do with “saving the climate” and everything to do with behavioral control.
Then there is the Digital Services Act. Officially designed to combat “disinformation” and “hate speech.” In practice, it functions as a legally sanitized censorship regime. Not the state banning speech directly, but the state forcing platforms to remove it. No open prohibition, but silent exclusion — not only in the EU, but even globally. No debate, but algorithmic invisibility. The question of who gets to decide what is true is no longer even asked. That alone is dangerous.
The so-called Media Freedom Act fits the same pattern. Free press, we are told. Yet through subsidies, accreditation, and regulatory frameworks, authorities determine which outlets are “reliable” and which are not. Journalism that aligns with the approved narrative is rewarded; critical voices are marginalized. That is not press freedom, that is state-approved journalism.
And we have not even touched on the technocratic control mechanisms now being rolled out at high speed: a European digital identity, a potential central bank digital currency. Always sold as “convenient,” “efficient,” and “secure.” But the central question is never answered: what happens when access to money, services, or mobility becomes conditional on behavior and compliance? Freedom rarely disappears through force. It disappears through conditions.
Geopolitically, we see the same mechanism at work. The war in Ukraine is being used to spread fear and transfer more power to Brussels. In the EU defense remains a national competence, yet calls for a European army grow louder by the day. Not because it is necessary, but because crises are always used to force integration. A war economy is a bureaucrat’s dream: larger budgets, less dissent, and reduced parliamentary oversight.
Meanwhile, the real economy is being hollowed out. Small and medium-sized businesses are drowning in regulations, reporting obligations, and costs, while large corporations know exactly how to navigate and influence Brussels. This is not a free market. It is corporatism: profits for the few, burdens for the many, all directed from the center.
Some draw historical parallels and are quickly dismissed as hysterical. But anyone who takes history seriously knows that authoritarian systems rarely begin with overt repression. They begin with moral superiority, with “necessity,” with “there is no alternative.” With citizens expected to voluntarily submit to a higher purpose defined by the state.
That was the core of totalitarian thinking in the twentieth century. Not left or right, but anti-liberal. Anti-individual. And that mindset is once again gaining ground in Brussels.
So no, this is not Nazi Germany. But anyone claiming there is no reason for concern is either not paying attention, or deliberately looking away.
Freedom disappears step by step. Always legally. Always with good intentions. Until it is too late. And then people ask: why did no one speak up?
Trump has launched a direct challenge to this Brussels bureaucracy — and that challenge is justified. This is the moment for Europe to choose. Not for more power concentrated in Brussels, but for real democratic accountability. Not for technocratic coercion, but for freedom and responsibility. Not for fear and moral blackmail, but for open and honest debate. Not for a bureaucratic EU, but for a free Europe.
National parliaments must reclaim their authority. Citizens must once again be free to question, criticize, and refuse without being labeled or stigmatized. Europe can only be strong if it is free. And freedom does not require obedience — it requires courage. The courage to say “no” when power disguises itself as “necessity”.

Rob Roos is a distinguished fellow at the Gold Institute for International Strategy, a Washington, DC-based think-and-do tank.

In his January 2025 European Parliament speech, Rob Roos presented that President Trump’s reelection represents a mandate for restoring national sovereignty and reversing progressive policies that have eroded European identities and freedoms. Due to the current tensions between EU bureaucrats and the Trump administration we are republishing the January speech.

Change will not come if we wait for someone else, or if we delay for another time. The words of Barack Obama, spoken during his historic campaign in 2008, still resonate—but today, they carry a very different meaning. It is a rallying cry for patriots, conservatives, and all who believe in freedom, sovereignty, and the dignity of our nations to stand together. We are the ones we’ve been waiting for. We are the change that we seek.

In 2008, Obama’s words signaled the dawn of a new era: one marked by social justice campaigns and the rise of “wokeism.” For years, these ideas were cloaked in promises of progress and inclusivity.

But what have they truly delivered? Today, we see the devastating consequences—fractured societies, eroded national identities, and an alarming loss of freedoms.

But, the tide is turning. The reelection of President Trump has sent a clear and powerful message from the people of the United States. The message is simple: We want our country back.

We want to be proud of our flag, our culture, and our heritage. We demand affordable, reliable energy to power our homes and businesses. We seek real food from our farmers, not synthetic substitutes dictated by unelected technocrats. We want secured borders, prosperity, peace, and the ability to pursue happiness without interference.

The overwhelming MAGA victory—President Trump reclaiming the presidency, the Senate, the House, and the popular vote—reflects a mandate that can not be ignored

For too long, the radical left has sought to dismantle the pillars of our civilization. Obama’s policies, often presented as ‘progress’, initiated a chain of events with devastating effects. I’ll give you four examples:

1. The Arab Spring, spurred by social media campaigns, unleashed waves of instability that flooded Europe with millions of migrants. Our historic continent—once a beacon of cultural and intellectual achievements—is now grappling with security threats and the erosion of its identity and culture.
2. The war in Ukraine, provoked by Obama’s NeoCon allies, has brought untold suffering. It began with the removal of Ukraine’s democratically elected leader in 2014, setting the stage for

conflict. These NeoCons, in collusion with the Military-Industrial Complex, are as culpable as any aggressor.

• Critical Race Theory, a twisted ideology. It is nothing short of racism repackaged, weaponized to pit communities against each other.
• Censorship and suppression of free speech. Through NGOs and the so-called “Censorship Industrial Complex,” they controlled narratives and silenced dissenting voices.

Their strategy has always been sophisticated—using fear, globalist policies, the illusion of moral superiority, and ‘democracy’ of institutions instead of democracy of the people.

The United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals, the Green Deal, and the WHO’s pandemic overreach are all symptoms of a broader agenda: a transfer of power from the people to unaccountable elites.

Even NATO, once a coalition of nations united against foreign aggression, has now also become a tool wielded to suppress populist movements among its own people.

But we are not powerless. We the People represent true democracy. If we unite, we can reverse this destructive course. The momentum of the MAGA movement can inspire change across Europe and beyond. Now is the time to build a unified front that transcends party lines and minor disagreements.

We must Make Europe Great Again by:

1. Restoring Free Speech: Reverse the Digital Services Act and protect public discourse.
2. Ensuring Freedom: No Central Bank Digital Currencies. No digital IDs. We are born free and do not need technocratic controls.
3. Dismantling the Green Deal: End this social engineering project that sacrifices our economies and energy and food security for an illusion of environmental progress.
4. Defending Our Borders: Protect our nations from uncontrolled migration that threatens both safety and cultural heritage. National civil rights must take precedence over globalist human rights.
5. Exposing Corruption: Demand full transparency in dealings with corporations and NGOs.

• Deregulating Economies: Empower small and medium-sized businesses—the backbone of our prosperity. Deregulation fuels innovation and competitiveness.
• Restoring National Sovereignty: Renegotiate or cancel harmful international agreements and treaties.

Change will not come if we wait for someone else or another time. We are the ones we’ve been waiting for. We are the change that we seek. Obama’s words, once a banner for radical policies, now serve as a call to reverse the damage inflicted on our nations and it’s people.

Let us unite, work together, and make this a reality. Let us Make Europe Great Again.

Rob Roos is a distinguished fellow at the Gold Institute for International Strategy, a Washington, DC based foreign policy and defense think-and-do tank.

Contact Gold Institute today!

(This article originally appeared in Korea On Point: https://koreaonpoint.org/articles/article_detail.php?idx=509&start=# )

Key takeaways:

– This distinction matters because burden-shifting implies withdrawal, while responsibility-sharing implies empowerment and inclusion.

– In effect, he challenged Seoul to embrace a self-conception aligned with its actual capabilities, that of a global actor critical to shaping Indo-Pacific stability, not merely a frontline state facing North Korea.

– By demanding more of Seoul and, in turn, granting it greater agency, he helped catalyze the transformation of the U.S.–ROK alliance from a mentorship into a mutual enterprise, from reliance to alliance.

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Since the early months of his presidency, President Donald J. Trump’s approach to America’s alliances has been both disruptive and revelatory. For South Korea, one of Washington’s most steadfast defense partners in Asia, his method was particularly transformative. At first glance, President Trump’s insistence that U.S. allies increase their defense contributions seemed to signal a transactional mindset that risked unsettling long-established bonds. Yet beneath that rhetoric lay something more consequential, a reframing of the U.S.–Republic of Korea (ROK) relationship not as patron to client, but as a partnership between equals tasked with jointly defending and advancing shared strategic interests in the Indo-Pacific. His message to Seoul was clear, the time had come for South Korea to step fully into its role as a capable, self-confident regional power, not simply as a beneficiary of U.S. protection. Far from abandoning the alliance, this approach sought to mature it and transform an asymmetrical relationship rooted in the Cold War into a modern strategic compact befitting a South Korea that had emerged among the world’s foremost economies, democracies, and security contributors.​

President Trump’s entrance forced these issues into the open because his direct questioning of alliance costs and responsibilities unsettled policymakers on both sides. Critics often described his push for higher South Korean defense spending and cost-sharing as crude burden-shifting that reduced the alliance to a transactional ledger. But this reading overlooks the continuity between his rhetoric and a deeper tradition of strategic recalibration that expects capable allies to share not just fiscal, but also strategic responsibility for collective defense. At times inelegantly, President Trump articulated an expectation that America’s wealthiest and most capable partners should carry a larger share of the load in defending the free world, rather than relying indefinitely on U.S. subsidies.​

This distinction matters because burden-shifting implies withdrawal, while responsibility-sharing implies empowerment and inclusion. President Trump sought to make clear that the United States, while remaining the bedrock of regional security, would not forever subsidize an order in which others underinvest in their own defense. South Korea, endowed with advanced capabilities and national resilience, was precisely the kind of ally Washington wanted to see take on greater leadership. Under his administration, negotiations over the Special Measures Agreement on host-nation support for U.S. forces were contentious but clarifying, as Washington pressed for steep increases and Seoul maneuvered to frame any rise in its contribution as part of a more strategic, long-term alliance modernization. Seoul’s willingness to increase its contributions, while simultaneously expanding coordination on missile defense, intelligence-sharing, and joint exercises, demonstrated that shared responsibility could strengthen rather than strain the alliance.​

Behind President Trump’s demands lay an implicit invitation to equality. He signaled that Seoul’s growing strength and global stature were not inconvenient realities to be managed, but welcome assets to be fully integrated into a shared strategy. By insisting on more equitable participation, President Trump upended the traditional U.S.–ROK dynamic in which reassurance flowed one way, from Washington to Seoul, and dependency shaped expectations on both sides. His language often suggested impatience, but his strategic instinct reflected a belief in South Korea’s potential to act as an equal partner rather than as a perpetual security dependent. In effect, he challenged Seoul to embrace a self-conception aligned with its actual capabilities, that of a global actor critical to shaping Indo-Pacific stability, not merely a frontline state facing North Korea.​

Rather than undermining deterrence, this recalibration strengthened it. A South Korea increasingly confident in its own defense capabilities enhances, rather than diminishes, the credibility of U.S. commitments by signaling that any aggression would face not only U.S. power, but a capable and determined local ally. Deterrence in the Indo-Pacific now depends not solely on American military might, but on a constellation of capable partners willing to act in concert to resist coercion and revisionism. President Trump’s approach anticipated this architecture, even as many observers focused primarily on his rhetoric and style. In this context, “equal partnership” in security terms is not a euphemism for U.S. withdrawal, but a pathway to more durable stability rooted in shared will and distributed capabilities.​

In the broader Indo-Pacific competition, the U.S.–South Korea alliance has implications far beyond the Korean Peninsula. President Trump’s emphasis on equality resonated with his administration’s goal of building a network of self-reliant partners capable of collectively deterring coercion by major powers. By viewing South Korea as a co-equal stakeholder, Washington effectively widened the scope of Seoul’s expected engagement, from a narrow focus on North Korea to a broader role in regional security, maritime domain awareness, and supply-chain resilience. The administration encouraged South Korea to find greater synergies with like-minded democracies such as Japan, Australia, and India, reflecting an understanding that Indo-Pacific resilience would depend as much on allied initiative as on American leadership.​

President Trump’s re-envisioning of equality extended beyond defense into economic and technological domains that shape long-term strategic outcomes. In trade, he pressed for recalibration of KORUS that recognized South Korea’s advanced, globally competitive economy as a peer, not a dependent market, while continuing to support robust bilateral commerce. In technology, the administration promoted cooperation with allies on critical sectors such as 5G, semiconductors, and digital infrastructure to reduce reliance on Chinese supply chains and standards. This approach implicitly cast South Korea, home to world-leading chip and electronics firms, as a technological partner of first order, whose choices would significantly influence the balance of economic security in the region.​

No dimension of President Trump’s engagement tested the alliance more visibly than his first-term diplomacy with North Korea. The high-profile summits in Singapore and Hanoi triggered anxiety in Seoul, where policymakers feared marginalization or abrupt shifts in U.S. posture. Yet his direct engagement with Pyongyang, however unconventional, also highlighted that peace and stability on the peninsula were joint challenges requiring close U.S.–ROK coordination. His administration expected Seoul not to remain a passive observer, but to participate actively in post-summit diplomacy and contingency planning, reinforcing the idea of co-ownership of the peninsula’s future. The experience of navigating the uncertainties of U.S.–North Korea diplomacy pushed South Korea to strengthen its own diplomatic capacity, inter-Korean initiatives, and regional outreach.​

Alliance management is as much psychological as it is strategic, and the U.S.–ROK partnership has long been shaped by narratives of protection, vulnerability, and dependency. President Trump disrupted those narratives with a message that to many Koreans sounded provocative but also validating, South Korea is strong enough to do more and should act accordingly. To some, this seemed dismissive of past sacrifices; to others, it was a long-overdue acknowledgment of the country’s transformation into a confident middle power. Over time, this shift carries potential long-term benefits because equal partners tend to make clearer decisions, share risks more fairly, and build deeper trust. As the emotional premise of the alliance evolves from gratitude to solidarity, the relationship becomes better positioned to weather tactical disagreements while preserving strategic alignment.​

Policy analysts often measure alliance health in budgets, bases, and formal agreements, but beneath those metrics lies a deeper element, tone. President Trump’s unapologetically assertive tone changed how both nations spoke about their partnership, moving the discourse from deference to dialogue. High-level interactions increasingly encompassed not only defense coordination, but also cooperation on broader issues such as regional economic security, pandemic response, and supply-chain restructuring, even if those agendas were more fully articulated after his term. The relationship thus became more multidimensional, capable of friction, yet resilient because it rested on shared interests and values rather than one-sided dependence.​

History will continue to debate the style and substance of President Trump’s diplomacy, but the structural impact of his approach toward South Korea is likely to endure. By demanding more of Seoul and, in turn, granting it greater agency, he helped catalyze the transformation of the U.S.–ROK alliance from a mentorship into a mutual enterprise, from reliance to alliance. The result is a partnership better suited to confront the strategic realities of the 21st century, North Korea’s evolving threat, China’s regional assertiveness, and global challenges that no single nation can manage alone. Far from diminishing American leadership, this model amplifies it through empowered allies whose strength contributes directly to a more stable order. A South Korea that stands shoulder to shoulder with the United States strengthens not only deterrence on the Korean Peninsula, but also the resilience of the entire Indo-Pacific architecture. President Trump’s conviction that strong allies make strong alliances helped recast a foundational relationship for a new era, opening the door to a U.S.–ROK partnership defined by mutual commitment and co-equal strategic stakes rather than by the asymmetries of the past.

Eli M. Gold is the president of the Gold Institute for International Strategy, a Washington, DC based think-and-do tank.