Trump's Venezuelan invasion proves military might is all that matters, writes Andrew Marr
Just a fortnight ago, when MPs were heading off to hit the cherry brandy, try to remember the names of their children and take a break from social media, the world was a different shape.
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Now Trump has invaded Venezuela - if you remember, I said he might - and its president Maduro is in shackles in New York, where he has plead not guilty to the charges against him and insisted he is a 'decent man' who is 'still president of his country'.
Now there are threats from the White House that they're going for Greenland, Danish sovereign territory. Forced to make a choice this morning, Keir Starmer chose to side with Denmark not with Donald Trump.
Meanwhile, perhaps a bigger story still, Iran seems on the edge of revolution, with its Ayatollah Khamenei thinking of fleeing to Moscow. It's hard to get our heads around it all but one thing is pretty clear. The big message from Washington is that we can forget any illusion about a rules-based international order.
All those grand summits, those black-robed judges with their international law - phooey. The UN in grand session, with its carefully numbered resolutions? Hollow laughter. It's all a mirage.
The truth is, we now live in a world of rival empires and their backyards in which only military power counts. Well, Not quite true. Resources also matter. The American takeover of Venezuela, which could yet go very wrong, is also, says Trump, about oil - though whether the US oil industry, already worried about prices would welcome more oil coming onto world markets is another question.
Greenland? Well that's a prime source of the rare earth minerals on which America's tech industry so heavily depends. All the rest is just baloney.
This might feel unfamiliar to us, but I think if you took an imperial politician from the age of Queen Victoria and you said, the shape of the world is driven entirely by military might, technology and the race for resources- they'd say, yes, obviously. What's your point? Hm. Good point. And my point tonight is that if we want to understand what's going on around us, we shouldn't rely on news - we should start by going back and reopening the history books.
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Andrew Marr is an author, journalist and presenter for LBC.
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