Trump’s Plan for a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve | How the AfD Got Its Swagger Back | Gradually, Then Suddenly: In Geopolitics, Decades Can Happen in Weeks, and more

Donald Trump Will Upend 80 Years of American Foreign Policy  (Economist)
A superpower’s approach to the world is about to be turned on its head

Trump’s Plan for a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve Could Trigger a Crypto “Arms Race” and Reshape the Global Economic Order  (Huw Macartney, The Conversation)
Trump’s ambitions for a strategic bitcoin reserve (SBR) will underline the growing role of private money in the world economy. But these shifts in the global order are already underway –regardless of whether the new president’s plans for bitcoin are realized.

Moscow-Washington Nuclear Hotline Has Averted War in the Past – but Cool Heads Will Be Needed in Trump’s White House and Putin’s Kremlin  (Eszter Simon, The Conversation)
Perhaps the US president-elect’s customary threats and demands will force warring parties to talk peace. But that style of diplomacy could come at the price of ramping up the risk of escalating rather than ending the war.
This would also be a particularly dangerous game to play at a time of increasingly aggressive Russian nuclear posturing. Since it attacked Ukraine in February 2022, Russia has increased the readiness of its nuclear forces and threatened multiple countries including Ukraine, the UK and Finland with nuclear weapons use or weapons deployment closer to their borders.

Limited Quarantine Is China’s Likely First Move in Subduing Taiwan  (Jane Rickards, The Strategist)
The West had better think carefully about how it would handle China imposing a nominally civil quarantine on Taiwan, because that’s the tactic that increasingly looks like an opening move for Beijing in taking control of the island.
A quarantine, imposing limited controls on access to the island, offered strong advantages for China even before Taiwan said in October that a blockade, surrounding it with forces to cut off all access, would be an act of war. Taiwan’s statement means China is even more likely to choose quarantine as a first step.

Gradually, Then Suddenly: In Geopolitics, Decades Can Happen in Weeks  (Michael Pezzullo, The Strategist)
Ernest Hemingway wrote in The Sun Also Rises (1926) that bankruptcy occurs gradually and then suddenly. This should be treated as a rule of geopolitical affairs.
For centuries, political structures and hierarchies of power that once were thought to be unchanging often suddenly vanished. Demise was gradual but collapse was sudden.

German Police Investigate AfD Mock Plane Ticket Campaign  (DW)
A local branch of the far-right Alternative for Germany has been distributing controversial fake “airplane tickets” to promote the deportation of people to a “secure home country.” Police are investigating.

Biden to Remove Cuba from Sponsors of Terrorism List  (DW)
The Biden administration announced it was removing Cuba from a list of state sponsors of terrorism —reversing a move made by President-elect Donald Trump in 2021.

South Korea: What Next After President Yoon’s Arrest?  (Julian Ryall, DW)
The embattled South Korean president is expected to put up a fight in what he has called an “illegal” investigation over charges he tried to lead an insurrection.

Trump Made the Gaza Cease-Fire Happen  (Yair Rosenberg, The Atlantic)
But not for the reasons he or Biden’s critics say

How the AfD Got Its Swagger Back  (Economist)
Germany’s hard-right party is gaining support even as it radicalizes.