INTREP360 INTELLIGENCE REPORT
01.20.2026
January 20th, 2026
Greetings! President Donald Trump just did a U-turn. Not on Greenland. Not on his ill-advised Gaza Peace Board.
But literally on Air Force One.
While writing tonight’s edition of the INTREP360 Intelligence Report, our cellphones lit up with White House alerts letting us know AF1 was returning to a frigid Joint Base Andrews to swap out planes.
Photo credit: World Economic Forum.
As it turned out, the lights went out in the press cabin shortly after take-off. Aptly, that somewhat metaphorically describes Trump’s foreign policy of late.
Symbolically, U.S. foreign policy for a century plus has been a beacon of light & the Statue of Liberty its logo.
Intended or not, Team Trump has dimmed it.
That’s not just our perspective. That’s the sense we get from people around the world—many hardened journalists—who question us as to what is going on in Washington. In their eyes, we are going from champions of liberty to villains.
Trump—especially this week as he prepared to travel to Davos—was certainly trying to set that tone. Over-the-top comments about Greenland. Ridiculing French President Emmanuel Macron. Ditto UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer.
Conversely, Trump was going out of his way to embrace a who’s who of the world’s rogue leaders by inviting them to join—$1 billion down, please—his Gaza Peace Board. It was quite the casting call.
War criminals like Russian President Vladimir Putin. Ditto Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko. Quislings like Hungary’s Viktor Orbán.
Granted, we are not fooled. Trump is being Trump. Say outrageous things to create distractions & negotiating leverage.
But the act is getting old. Europe is seeing through it. Moscow & Beijing are being emboldened by it—and the U.S. is needlessly isolating itself from its allies.
It’s time for Trump to come in from the cold. America is at its best when the Statue of Liberty is shining the brightest.
Meanwhile, the world keeps spinning & things keep happening while Trump swaps planes & heads off again to Davos, Switzerland.
Let’s get started reviewing them.
***
NORTH AMERICA
Greenland dominated the headlines yet again today in Washington. Analysts debated. Pundits—meaning us—did our punditry.
But we remain unconvinced Trump will militarily invade Greenland at the end of the day. We still assess his threats & innuendo as posturing to maximizing his negotiating position with Denmark.
To be clear, we don’t agree with Trump’s needlessly confrontational approach to Denmark. We made that clear here yesterday. But, nonetheless, it is the approach Trump is taking as he heads to Davos to make his case.
That said, you have to give Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov credit for trying to compare President Trump’s push for Greenland with Russia’s unilateral annexation of Crimea more than a decade ago. According to Lavrov, “Crimea is no less important for the Russian Federation than Greenland is for the United States.”
Photo credit: Maxim Shipnenkov, EPA. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.
The difference, of course, the U.S. has not invaded Greenland, nor would Greenland be used to exert military dominance over neighboring countries. Leave it to Lavrov to try and find common ground. He is an accessory to murder for what Russia has inflicted upon Ukraine and should be treated that way.
***
SOUTH AMERICA
Over the weekend, the European Union signed a free trade agreement with the Mercosur bloc of South American nations. Mercosur comprises of Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay & Uruguay. Bolivia—who just joined the pact—is not yet a signatory.
Definitely lots of messaging going on here. Not just South American messaging to Beijing & Washington as that great power competition plays out in Latin America, but Brussels sending signals to Team Trump as well.
Important note. It must be passed by the EU Parliament & that is by no means certain. They are badly divided. The vote comes tomorrow.
***
EUROPE
In Moscow today, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko accepted President Donald Trump’s invitation to join his so-called ‘Board of Peace.’ And yes, that is the same Lukashenko who authorized Russian President Vladimir Putin to launch his illegal invasion of Ukraine from Belarusian territory by air and ground.
Photo credit: Belta.by. Center: Alexander Lukashenko.
He aided & sustained Moscow’s invasion in 2022 by providing military equipment & munitions, training areas, recovering and repairing weapon systems, & allowing field hospitals to be set up to treat wounded Russian soldiers.
That’s not peace. That is accessory to murder.
Lukashenko continues supporting Russia & its war machine. In late December 2025, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky accused Putin & Lukashenko of using apartment buildings in Belarus to “attack Ukrainian targets and circumvent Kyiv’s defenses.”
That’s not peace either. But it is a war crime. The exact same type of war crime Hamas & other Iranian-backed proxiescommitted in Gaza.
***
MIDDLE EAST
Earlier today, Trump repeated what he believes is a success story in Iran during a White House briefing, telling reporters, “So with Iran, they were going to hang 837 people … and we let them know that if that happens that it will be a very bad day for them, and they decided not to do it.”
Left unmentioned are the 4,029 confirmed dead Iranian civilians who were killed by Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei & his regime. The total number slaughtered is likely much higher.
Photo credit: Office of the Iranian Supreme Leader via AP. Khamenei speaking in Tehran, Iran, January 17th, 2026.
CBS on January 13th estimated it at 12,000. 7News Australia yesterday reported that it was higher than 16,000.
Tragically, it is likely a lot higher.
Trump bears some indirect responsibility. Earlier, last week, he actively encouraged Iran’s protesters—men, women & students—to continue protesting & “to take back their country” while telling them that “[U.S.] help was on the way.”
That help never came.
The 837 Iranian civilians that were allegedly ‘saved’ from public execution will simply be disposed of by other means. If they haven’t been already. Khamenei’s regime has shut down the internet – virtually blinding the west.
Numerous reports coming out of Iran describe protesters being shot—murdered, really—in the streets. They are largely executed beyond the camera’s lens.
Still more Iranians are likely being butchered as we write this. Yesterday, Iran’s national police chief Ahmadreza Radan declared that the regime would “pursue the rioters and terrorists to the last person.”
Ominously, that’s code—essentially—for summary execution. To that end, Iran’s judiciary chief Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejei, made it clear that time was of the essence. He asserted Monday that “By acting with speed and precision in dealing with these cases, the verdicts will be more effective and deterrent.”
Photo credit: Iran International. Iran’s judiciary chief Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejei, date unknown.
The protesters—brave as they are—do not have the weapons to challenge Khamenei’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. Nor do they have the six days it takes for the Pentagon to reposition a Naval Carrier Task Force into the region.
This was a poorly thought-out plan by an administration with a short attention span. It has allowed the Islamic Republic of Iran to identify, target, and kill leaders & supporters of the revolution—maintaining a status quo in the region while threatening the very country—the U.S.—responsible for letting them off the hook in the first place.
While it is encouraging—as reported today in The Wall Street Journal—that Trump is demanding a “decisive” military option, the harsh reality is that it cannot—and will not—arrive soon enough for many Iranian protesters.
***
AFRICA
Africa is far too often overlooked by national security analysts. Typically, it is a heavy lift to get some editors to greenlight stories.
Many readers aren’t interested &—understandably—it takes clicks to generate advertising dollars to sustain news outlets.
Here—fortunately—we do not operate under those same restraints. Understanding Africa—especially the great power competition actively at play across the entire continent—is essential to understanding overall U.S. national security.
Why?
Because Russia & China are actively seeking to exploit Africa’s vast mineral wealth & undermine its democracies.
Despite continued Russian military failures on the battlefields of Ukraine, Putin is still actively supporting instability and revolution throughout Africa. Sudan, Libya, Niger, and now Madagascar – another French failed colony.
Namely hybrid warfare by other means.
Photo credit: Brian Inganga / AP. Rebel troops in Madagascar.
As we previously noted here in December, Russia delivered a significant shipment of weapons and military personnel to Madagascar. The aid was directed at supporting the military junta that seized power in an October 2025 coup.
According to Sitini Randrianasoloniako, who led the opposition before the coup, a Russian military plane landed at an airport near the capital Antananarivo with 40 troops and 43 crates of weapons. The shipment included assault rifles, sniper rifles and anti-tank rocket systems.
Russia has aligned itself with Islamic terrorists in North Africa & the Sahel Region. Madagascar’s proximity to southern Kenya and Somalia—regions already dominated by the Muslim terrorist group al-Shabaab, could further destabilize an already volatile East Africa region and threaten maritime shipping lanes.
Putin & Chinese President Xi Jinping are not playing a singular hemisphere game. For them—in 007 James Bond terms—the ‘world is not enough.’
To that end, China has built a spaceport in Djibouti. Elon Musk & his SpaceX mates aren’t the only ones who want to get to Mars.
Don’t sleep on Africa. We won’t.
***
INDO-PACIFIC & INDIAN OCEAN
Speaking of U-turns, Trump did one today in the Indian Ocean. He condemned the UK deal to transfer sovereignty of the Chagos Islands—where the strategic U.S. air base Diego Garcia is located—to the country of Mauritius.
Trump posted on Truth Social that it was “an act of GREAT STUPIDITY.”
Doing so, however, is a wee bit awkward. Only last year, the Trump Administration endorsed the pending handover.
As an aside, yes, the base is far too strategic for the U.S. to ever relinquish control. It is a key link in defending the Persian Gulf & Indian Ocean.
***
ICYMI!
Mark was on TVP World today to talk with Ashim Kumar about our in-depth INTREP360 Intelligence Report yesterday of Trump’s first year back in office.
***
Thank you for reading! We will see you tomorrow. Please subscribe, comment and share. We truly appreciate it!
Jon & Mark
Follow Jon on X at @JESweet2022 or on Bluesky at @JonSweet.bsky.social.
Follow Mark on X at @MCTothSTL or on Bluesky at @MarkToth.bsky.social.
What are we supposed to do
Say thank you
For not moving forward with another hellscape plan for america?
thanks for the info though