The United Nations: When The Call Comes From Inside The House

This is a classic horror scenario: a vulnerable young woman is home alone, often babysitting even more vulnerable children, gets phone calls with increasing threats and the worst part is that the calls are coming from inside the house. What happens to her and the children? 

What does this have to do with the United Nations? A heck of a lot at the moment, unfortunately. 

After his actions in Venezuela, President Trump continued to threaten to invade and take over Greenland, Canada and other countries, violating international law. Trump stated, “I don’t need international law,” and the only limits to his power is, "My own morality. My own mind. It’s the only thing that can stop me.”

Stephen Miller, a top aide to President Trump, made it clear that U.S. foreign policy is now firmly in the corner of might-makes-right, saying, “We live in a world, in the real world...that is governed by strength, that is governed by force, that is governed by power. These are the iron laws of the world since the beginning of time.” 

These increasing threats are coming from inside the house; the U.S. is a member of the UN, the organization that upholds international law. Some may think international law and international crimes are a total yawn but they are deeply mistaken and will be yawning their way into World War III, because international law was born, in large part, to prevent world wars.

After World War I and 16 million military and civilians deaths, the deeply traumatized citizens of war torn countries demanded an organization that would prevent a future world war. From this demand, the League of Nations 1920 – 1946) was born, composed of sixty-three countries, created to provide collective security: aggression against any member would be considered aggression against all. The League of Nations ultimately failed in preventing World War II because most members claimed neutrality and many were nervous about entering the war. In short: they failed to live up to the collective security agreement.

After World War II and up to 60M military and civilian deaths, countries took another kick at the can of preventing world war; this time even more earnestly. After four years of talks and debates, delegates from 50 nations, representing over 80% of the world’s population,  established the United Nations on 24 October 1945 to preserve peace. One big sticking point in the negotiations was permanent members (China, the USSR, the United States, the United Kingdom, and France) demanded and finally got the right to veto any resolution passed by the UN Security Council. Many view this as the achilles heel of the UN, giving the most powerful nations carte blanche to override international law when it applies to them; putting this on a personal level, imagine that people who are most powerful and likely to harm you are given carte blanche to ignore laws that restrict them from harming you, so your murder by them is on the table of crimes that cannot be punished.

The United Nations, now comprised of 193 sovereign states and 2 observer states, is the world's largest intergovernmental organization and, given almost every state of the world is a member, it has legitimacy as the organization responsible for developing and enforcing international law.

Fast forward to the present;  President Trump has clearly broken international law and is threatening to break it in the future. “These actions represent a grave, manifest and deliberate violation of the most fundamental principles of international law, set a dangerous precedent, and risk destabilizing the entire region and the world,” a panel of United Nations experts said in a statement Jan. 7."

The crucial law presently being discussed is Article 2 that binds all members. It's posted below but, put simply, it states all member states are equal, no member should use threats or force against the political independence of members and, if they do, all members will assist the UN in enforcing international law. Trump broke international law and that pesky veto means that no actions can be taken against him or the United States - this makes the most fundamental part of this section inaccurate since all members are not equal.

Article 2:

One of Trump's excuses is that Venezuela’s President Maduro is a dictator and needed to be removed, but he is adamant that he will take Greenland, even by military force, as well as Canada, both countries with robust democracies.

In summary: Trump broke international law because he doesn't 'need it' and is constrained by nothing but his 'own mind' and because of the U.S. veto, the UN cannot act; the call is coming from inside the house of international law. 

International law, like local laws, exists to protect us and if those administering the laws aren't able to do that, is there someone else? Both Denmark and Canada are members and NATO, along with nuclear armed UK and France. NATO has a collective defence agreement; an attack against one is an attack against all but again, the call is coming from inside the house because the U.S. is a member of NATO. In January 2025, I wrote about the dilemma of one NATO nation attacking another, 

What a difference a year makes; NATO nations have now made it clear that an invasion of Denmark will change NATO and the nations have made statements that range from diplomatic to threatening:

"While NATO's leaders have focused their diplomacy on trying to convince Trump that anything he wants can be accomplished without actually taking over the island, other European politicians have been urging a more aggressive approach.

"If you take it, we will take every single base of the Americans, from Aviano from Ramstein, from Romania to all the other military bases — [they] will be confiscated, you will lose it — if you take Greenland," Gunther Fehlinger, chairman of the Austrian Committee for NATO Enlargement, said in a podcast."

It makes sense that Austrians, one of the first casualties of Hitler's territorial expansion, have little tolerance for Trump's ambitions. 

Many have commented that an attack on Greenland by the U.S. will effectively end NATO. Trump likely sees this as an incentive to attack Greenland; since 2024, he has been frustrated by his legal inability to leave NATO stating, "The US doesn’t need Nato." Attacking Greenland, and the subsequent dissolution of NATO, may give Trump the way out NATO he has been wanting. 

The reason for Trump's disdain for the UN and NATO is simple; both organizations are built to thwart territorial expansion by preventing invasion and annexation of sovereign countries and Trump has made it abundantly clear that he plans to invade and annex whatever countries he wants. This won't, as Trump hopes, lead to the dissolution of international law that holds countries in check. This is not based on a pollyannaish view of the world but a very realistic and practical one; people have no tolerance for mass war deaths and historically have demanded organizations that prevent the invasion of sovereign countries.

How this will play out is anyone's guess. The UN may restructure to finally get rid of vetos. NATO may change into an organization sans the U.S., much like the "Coalition of the Willing" that presently defends Ukraine. Ultimately, these organizations exist only to protect us and if, like the League of Nations, they don't protect us, they will be replaced. We'll build a world order educated by the fiasco of Trump, where calls coming from inside the house don't endanger us. Why? Because the people of the world will demand just that. 

2025: The Year of The Bizarre Legal Questions

 

With 2025 in it's infancy, it can already be dubbed The Year of The Bizarre Legal Questions. One of the weirdest of the lot, and one none of us have ever heard before is: if Canada is attacked by the United States, what protections does Canada have? 

This is a rather breathtaking question, given the longstanding friendship between our two countries, but here we are. How we got here and where we go from here are the crucial questions. 

The GOP began threatening Canada around the convoy protests, when in February, 2022, Republican congresswoman, Lauren Boebert, claimed that the United States has, "neighbors to the north who need freedom and who need to be liberated.”

Then entered Tucker Carlson, with comments and a film, proclaiming, "the US should invade our neighbors in the north."

Many Canadians thought this was an extremely odd way to object to how Canada handled a domestic issue, but most of us shrugged and continued on with our lives. Then, in November, 2024 when Canada's Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, met with the incoming U.S. president-elect, Trump talked about the potential annexation of Canada to make Canada the 51st state.

Since then, this conversation has become one where the issues are a moving target. 

After threatening 25% tariffs on all Canadian imports if Canada didn't improve border security, Trump responded to Canada's proposed border investment of $1.2-billion with a new spin that the United States pays to protect Canada. Since Canada has never required protection from attacks, this must mean NATO investments, but Canada's ramping up their investments in NATO also doesn't seem to satisfy Trump. He responded by saying, "Canada and the United States, that would really be something," Trump said. "You get rid of that artificially drawn line, and you take a look at what that looks like, and it would also be much better for national security." 

After meandering around this issue, trying out many narratives, Trump seems to have settled into the idea that he will use, ''economic force to acquire Canada." 

Others in the GOP are lining up on this with Rep. Brandon Gill, a Republican from Texas saying, "I think that the people of Canada, for that matter, should be honored that President Trump wants to bring these territories under the American fold." 

The moving of goal posts is breathtaking, but worse is the misuse of language. 

"In his essay “Politics and the English Language” (1946) Orwell observed that “political language is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.” In other words, certain political language (propaganda) uses words and phrases to hide ugly truths. He foresaw how politicians would misstate and mislead in order to stay in power, using words to distort more than to inform, not to convey meaning but to undermine it." 

The deliberate misuse of of language is hiding a potential march to war.  

Clearly, Canada is an independent and sovereign country and is not a 'state' or 'territory' but by refusing to call Canada a country, Trump et al suggests that 'annexation' of Canada is easy. 

But we all know that any attempt to 'annex' another country is a declaration of war and we only need to look at Russia's attempt to 'annex' the Ukraine to know the dire consequences of such actions. 

So, as we meander along the path of Trump and his sycophants, it's understandable why Canadians - who are generally a calm people -  are asking about international laws. 

I really hope that someone with true expertise answers the questions that are arising from all this. Certainly, Canada has many multilateral defence agreements, but the most significant and most talked about these days is NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization). Canada was one of twelve founding members of NATO in 1949, and now there are 32 members. Of these, three of NATO's members have nuclear weapons: France, the United Kingdom, and the United States. 

Since the United States and Canada are both founding members of NATO, perhaps this article analyzing this question in the context of the 2020 tensions between NATO allies Turkey and Greece, helps clarify the issue: 

"what if this altercation between two NATO allies did escalate, leading to the beginning of a new armed war? Considering there are no such precedents, what would this mean for the fighting allies and in what way will NATO interfere?

"The goal of collective defence is codified in Article 5 NAT. It states that an attack against one member of NATO should be considered an attack against all. In this case, all other NATO allies will assist the said attacked member...it is important to note that this article does not make a distinction between NATO members and external attacking parties. This could imply that the article could even be triggered when the attacking party is a NATO ally. Since an event like this never occurred, there are no precedents to look into.

"Another Treaty article that could give us more insights into the consequences of such conflict between allies, is Article 8 NAT. The specific article states that ‘Each Party undertakes not to enter into any international engagement in conflict with this Treaty’. Knowing that the main purpose of the Treaty is peacekeeping and preventing attacks against NATO members, this could imply that fighting allied nations means disobeying the article and therefore breaching the Treaty." 

The last point is crucial. The main purpose of NATO is to prevent attacks against members. So, will NATO act as a form of deterrence? Will the United States, if it attacks Canada, be expelled from NATO? Given that the United States is a major contributor to NATO, this will give everyone pause. However, the United States attacking a peaceful country like Canada, with a stellar reputation around the world, will worry all NATO nations that their country could be next on the list and joining Canada in this fight would be a form of self-defence much like the Ukraine is seen as the frontline of Russia's aggression and, if it falls, other countries will be that frontline. 

Underlying all this Orwellian language is the key deception by Trump et al: that mild and meek Canada can easily be invaded by the mighty United States. I leave it to experts to analyze the real numbers in terms of military might of the United States verses the military might of the other thirty one NATO nations combined, as well as other nations Canada has military and cooperative agreements with, such as Canada's defence relations in the Asia Pacific . However, if I can be forgiven for spitballing in lieu of expertise, the United States has touted its large military contribution to NATO of 1.3 million troops. Let's put this in context. Canada contributed  1.159M  troops to World War II, when Canada's population was a mere 12M. Today, Canada has a population of 40M. And we are just one country in NATO.  Also, despite Trump's claims that the United States contributes two-thirds of the NATO overall budget, that number is actually only 15.8% of the total NATO budget as of 2024. Add to this the other two NATO nations besides the United States that have nuclear arms and we have the makings of a real mess. This is why an actual expert is needed to gauge the military might of the United States verses all other NATO countries because if NATO is to function as a deterrent to war - and it should - the might of NATO should be stated as a counterweight to the spin emanating from Trump et al. 

After walking down this road, one can't help wondering how the road ahead will look. First, it could go like all the other trade and tariff wars Canada and the United States have had over the years and end up at a negotiating table with a deal hammered out. We will then have proof - lacking at this time - that all this talk of war was just a negotiating strategy, however, the moving goal posts of how to resolve this makes this narrative a tad questionable. Second, Trump et al could be forced to back down by Americans - citizens and members of the government - calling out the Orwellian language and demanding a stop to calls for war. These first two options are the preferred choice for all those who want peace and a continuation of the long, fruitful friendship between our two nations, so we can go back to walking our dogs, sipping lattes and pondering real problems such as what to make for dinner.* Third, it could end up as a war where the United States attempts to take Canada by force with NATO and other allies of each country being involved. As Canadian citizens from coast to coast and Canadian governments at all levels have clearly stated:  Canada, an independent country, will not become a part of the United States without a fight. Avoiding that war is a crucial issue for 2025. 

*Update: while I was writing this article, my husband made dinner so, that problem is solved.