Orban concedes defeat. The support of Trump, Vance, Putin, Lavrov, Weidel, Milei, Le Pen, Fico, Babis and many others could not overcome Hungarian anger at a stagnant, corrupt regime
https://t.co/yfMCWUFk34
Applebaum's piece is worth reading slowly because the specific details are doing work that the summary can't.
Danish military commanders - inside a NATO alliance the United States founded - had to sit in a room and war-game whether their forces would shoot down American planes and kill American soldiers. Some of them still haven't fully recovered from running that exercise. The most popular app in Denmark during Applebaum's visit was one that identifies American products so users know not to buy them.
NATO has invoked Article 5 exactly once in its history. On behalf of the United States. After September 11th. Allied troops went to Afghanistan and some of them died there. Trump told reporters those allies "stayed a little back, a little off the front lines." The families of soldiers who didn't come back heard that.
Now Trump is in the middle of a war in the Persian Gulf with the Strait of Hormuz locked, oil prices spiking, and he's telling NATO allies - the same ones he insulted and tariffed and threatened - that he's "demanding" they come help solve a problem his own decisions helped create.
Applebaum's conclusion is precise: he doesn't connect what he does on one day to what happens weeks later. Allied leaders have drawn their conclusions. The rupture, as Mark Carney called it, isn't coming. It already happened.
“If we consider that President Donald Trump is not a very patient person, then for some reason his patience with the Russians does not seem to run out.”
– Kaja Kallas, EU's chief diplomat
Erschreckend, wie gegen den künftigen Oberbürgermeister #München Dominik #Krause gehetzt wird, weil er nach seinem Wahlsieg seinen Verlobten geküsst hat. Dass solche Reaktionen immer noch existieren, zeigt: Homophobie ist längst nicht überwunden. Dem stellen wir uns entschieden entgegen!
Behold. The worst military strategist in modern history.
The man whose decision to launch 7th October led to the destruction of Gaza, the shredding of Hezbollah, the fall of Assad, and now maybe the fall of the Iranian regime.