Editorial - February/March 2026

US President Donald Trump continues to shock the world. In a matter of months, we’ve seen fatal attacks on his own people in Minnesota; the bombing of Nigeria on Christmas Day; the abduction of Venezuela’s President Maduro; his laying claim to Greenland, fundamentally undermining NATO; threats towards Iran, risking further destabilising the Middle East; all while the four-year war in Ukraine continues unchecked, with reports of Russia targeting power plants as temperatures in Kyiv drop to -20°C. This is the new age of aggression.

The Trump administration put the world on notice. First, the publication of its National Security Strategy made clear that Putin’s war was far from a priority. Instead, the liberal democracies of Europe – which the strategy describes as risking ‘civilizational erasure’ – appear to have become more of a target. The strategy elevated the Western Hemisphere as a priority for US dominance, framing drug trafficking as a national security threat and Venezuela as a ‘narco-state’ aligned with hostile powers. Second, in September, Trump’s Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth rejected that title and became, instead, Secretary of War.

Reacting to protests in Minnesota, Trump has threatened to invoke the Insurrection Act, which would allow troops – Hegseth oversees 1.3 million service personnel – to undertake law enforcement. This is quite a prospect given Hegseth’s address to senior military figures at a Virginia Marine base in the autumn. ‘We untie the hands of our war fighters to intimidate, demoralize, hunt and kill the enemies of our country,’ he said. ‘No more politically correct and overbearing rules of engagement; just common sense, maximum lethality and authority for war fighters.’

It’s the approach that informed the US strikes on suspected Venezuelan drug boats in October, prompting Admiral Alvin Holsey, then head of the US Southern Command, to resign after 37 years’ service amid clashes with Hegseth over the legal basis for the campaign. The US Constitution explicitly vests the power to declare war with Congress, but Trump views it differently: ‘My own morality. My own mind. It’s the only thing that can stop me’. We’ll see. Already Senate Republicans are asking serious questions about the limits of his power, the democratic accountability of mid-terms awaits later this year and his U-turn regarding Greenland suggests otherwise, too.