We went aboard a cruise ship navigating some of the world's most dangerous waters. In the Arctic, drifting icebergs, sea ice, sudden storms and fierce winds make sailing unpredictable. Yet every year, around 100,000 cruise passengers travel to Greenland to explore its remote coastline and experience one of the world's last great wildernesses.
Brooke Nevins/US Army
The US Army is expanding its ranks of soldiers trained for space warfare, a growing military specialty that is already supporting American combat operations in the Middle East.
The service established a new enlisted space operations branch in June, creating a dedicated career field for soldiers whose work involves satellites, communications, and the ability to disrupt an adversary's use of space.
While the Space Force and its Guardians oversee a broad range of military space operations in support of the entire US military, the Army has its own dedicated specialists focused on supporting its ground forces with satellite communications, navigation, and other capabilities.
Some space soldiers are already deployed in the Middle East, where American forces have been fighting Iran.
Lt. Gen. John Rafferty, the commander of US Army Space and Missile Defense Command, said at the Association of the United States Army conference in Washington, DC, this week that roughly 2,500 soldiers from his command are deployed to US Central Command's area of operations. That figure includes both air-defense formations and space specialists.
"Space is really embedded in every single echelon there," Rafferty said, speaking of the job's growing prevalence throughout all levels of military decision-making.
Those space soldiers' responsibilities can range from helping ground forces access satellite communications and navigation systems to disrupting adversary space capabilities, known as "space interdiction." Officials did not provide specific examples or further details on the work being done.
For soldiers on the battlefield, such help is essential for communicating with nearby units and gathering intelligence on enemy movements.
The growing importance of space as a domain of warfare, alongside land, sea, air, and cyberspace, prompted the Army to expand its specialized workforce.
Command Sgt. Maj. Rickey Jackson said at AUSA that the service reviewed several thousand personnel files for its new enlisted space operations branch. The 600 soldiers ultimately selected for the new job came mostly from intelligence, communications, and air-defense specialties, though the career field is open to troops from other backgrounds.
The service plans to continue growing its formalized space community, with around 1,700 space soldiers by the end of next fiscal year.
"When we talk about the branch and the targets, having a couple thousand dedicated folks within the branch between the enlisted and the officer side is a significant contribution across the service," Col. Joseph Mroszczyk, who oversees the integration of emerging space capabilities into Army operations, said during the event.
Another oil-rich region is at the center of political tension. This time, the region is not in the Middle East or South America (Venezuela), but in North America.
The country “affected” is the world’s second-largest country and a functional democracy — Canada.
Ahead of a Monday vote on whether the oil-rich province of Alberta should begin the process toward a binding independence referendum, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney is aggressively campaigning for national unity.
Carney told rallies in Calgary and Edmonton that the vote comes “at the worst possible time” amid external pressures on Canada, hinting at trade tensions with the United States. He urged a “decisive result” to settle the question and warned that using the ballot merely to “send a message” to Ottawa would be a “dangerous bluff.”
“This is not poker,” Carney said at a pro-Canada event in Calgary on Thursday.
“A vote against Canada is a dangerous bluff that will lead to years of deep division and great uncertainty.” He added that “turnout will determine the outcome” and that “polls don’t vote.”
Alberta holds most of Canada’s proven oil reserves, the fourth-largest in the world.
The big question is: are the US or Russia, overtly or covertly, supporting separatists in Alberta?
Donald Trump has previously called Canada a potential 51st state. That has raised questions about whether he or his administration is backing Alberta’s independence movement.
Earlier, Canadian media claimed that the country’s researchers, using artificial intelligence to track foreign interest in the Alberta separatism debate, found the political discourse being targeted online by both Russian and American actors. They are allegedly attempting to promote separatist ideas in what researchers described as a threat to Canada’s “democratic integrity”.
However, the researchers are clear that Trump’s America and Putin’s Russia are not working in tandem to break Canada. They work in parallel for very different reasons.
This pattern of parallel action by Washington and Moscow is not new.
During the Cold War, they often overlapped in their support for anti-colonial, nationalist, or separatist movements, even though their long-term goals differed.
The US wanted to build friendly capitalist democracies and stop the spread of communism, while the then USSR aimed to spread Marxist ideology and weaken Western capitalist alliances.
Both propped up separate local leaders with funds and weapons. Examples include the Nigerian Civil War, the Angolan Civil War, the Suez Crisis, and Ethiopia’s war against Somalia.
As for Alberta, the US and Russia may be trying to exploit old grievances against Ottawa.
Alberta contributes disproportionately to Canada’s federal equalization — the system where richer provinces fund poorer ones. It has oil, gas, beef, and a frontier self-image. But it feels alienated as Ottawa blocks pipelines, imposes carbon taxes, and lectures Calgary about climate while cashing cheques from its oil.
This alienation grows stronger whenever the Liberals are the ruling party in Ottawa. After all, Liberal Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau introduced the National Energy Program in the 1970s.
Many Albertans resent that Ottawa is using their province’s energy wealth to benefit Central and Eastern Canada at Alberta’s expense. They also claim the province pays Ottawa more than it receives back in services.
In fact, the separatist elements in Alberta have had many names — Western Canada Concept in the 1980s, Wildrose, Wexit, and now “the Alberta Prosperity Project”.
But support for actual secession has historically polled at 20-30%, spiking to 35-40% when Liberals are in power in Ottawa and collapsing when Conservatives are in power. The latest poll suggests only about 25% of Albertans support independence.
In May this year, research published by Disinfowatch showed that between late 2025 and early 2026, the Russian Pravda News Network published dozens of stories depicting Alberta as a province being exploited by Ottawa.
An influence campaign known as Storm 1516 reportedly went further, creating websites such as albertaseparatist.com to circulate fabricated claims—including the assertion that the federal government fleeces $20,000 a year from every Alberta family.
Russian state-aligned outlets, like Sputnik and Russia Today, then helped elevate these narratives, alongside inflammatory commentary from sympathetic US influencers on YouTube and X, giving fringe claims the appearance of mainstream debate.
Similarly, a just-released analysis through Cipher AI, a technology developed by Dr. McQuinn and others in a partnership between the University of Regina and the University of Alberta, as accessed by the Canadian daily, the Globe and Mail, says that its two reports – the first covers activity in the last two weeks of July, and the second looks at the first two weeks of August – clearly indicated that “foreign-aligned platforms continue to amplify anti-government grievances and issues associated with the Alberta separatist movement”.
Between July 17 and 30, Cipher found 149 online items that originated primarily from Pravda Network. Material posing as news and designed to inflame divisions is pushed online and reaches Canadian communities when people knowingly or unwittingly share links, headlines, and memes with their social networks.
The second report, covering early August, produced similar findings, with about 80 percent of the activity linked to Russian content farms, and 20 percent to U.S. sources.
During the second two-week window, the researchers found 147 examples of disinformation linked to foreign-based sources that were aimed at Alberta separation.
The latest analysis has also found that statements from right-wing US podcasters and MAGA influencers have promoted the narrative that Canada is a failed state and that Alberta has no choice but to leave.
Such narratives followed statements from Alberta separatist leaders this year who said they met with Trump administration officials in Washington on three occasions, and comments from US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent who, when asked about Alberta in January, said he had heard “a rumor that they may have a referendum” and called the province “a natural partner for the U.S.”
Incidentally, US State Department officials met with the separatist Alberta Prosperity Project at one of the three meetings mentioned earlier this year. The group reportedly sought a $500 billion (US) line of credit from the US to support Alberta if it won a referendum.
The American angle in Canada is understandable, given Trump’s “Transactional Continentalism”. Though the Trump Presidency has not officially endorsed Canada’s breakup, the Trump ecosystem seems to have. Several MAGA-adjacent commentators, podcasters, and even some Republican House members support Alberta statehood or association with the US.
After all, Alberta holds the world’s fourth-largest proven oil reserves. For a Trump administration obsessed with energy dominance and lowering domestic fuel prices, direct access to Alberta oil without Ottawa’s environmental regulations is, it is said, a dream.
Secondly, Alberta is the most conservative, gun-owning, truck-driving, oil-loving province. So, MAGA influencers see a natural ideological ally being oppressed by “woke Ottawa.”
On the other hand, Russia’s motive is viewed as far more strategic. Two possible reasons could be the following:
One is “Payback for Ukraine”. Canada, after all, is one of Ukraine’s most hawkish supporters. It is home to a large Ukrainian diaspora, a staunch backer of sanctions, and a trainer of Ukrainian troops.
Therefore, if Canada lectures Russia about territorial integrity, what better riposte than: “What about Canada’s territorial integrity?” It is whataboutism as a weapon.
The second reason could be the link between Alberta’s separatism debate and Russia’s long-term Arctic strategy and its rivalry with Canada over Northern sovereignty. Canada is actively upgrading its military footprint in the North. It has committed to counter rising Russian aggression by purchasing new icebreakers and deploying new infrastructure. For Russia, a major constitutional crisis triggered by provincial separatism thus forces Ottawa to focus inward on saving the federation rather than projecting power in the Arctic.
This is all the more so when Russia and Canada have overlapping claims over the massive, resource-rich seabed under the Arctic Sea, and Moscow is now aggressively expanding its resource extraction in the region.
Viewed thus, Trump and Putin are not exactly partners in Alberta. But they may be competitors who have found the same weak joint, or vulnerable Alberta. They both benefit from the same outcome — a weaker Ottawa — but for different reasons.
Of course, all this does not necessarily mean that Canada is going to break. As pointed out above, separatism in Alberta is still a minority voice. But the timing of the foreign influence in favor of the separatists is worrisome.
In the October 19th, 2026 referendum, Albertans will face an official, non-binding question asking whether Alberta should remain a province of Canada or begin the constitutional process required to hold a future binding referendum on separation. This is not yet an independence vote.
There are other constitutional hurdles too.
Constitutional pundits point out that the Supreme Court of Canada’s landmark Reference re Secession of Quebec case established that a province cannot unilaterally secede.
Even a clear majority answering a clear question would trigger negotiations, not automatic independence, and those negotiations would have to respect federalism, constitutionalism, minority rights, and Aboriginal interests.
But Canada is witnessing a global phenomenon: “Sovereignty” is not just about borders; it is about narrative sovereignty. If you do not control your domestic narrative, someone else will. And that is precisely what Trump and Putin seem to be doing.
The post Are Both Putin & Trump Supporting Alberta Separatists to Break Canada? Here’s What the Evidence Shows appeared first on EURASIAN TIMES.
For more than three decades, Michael Gove has been a leading figure in British Conservatism. As a journalist, government minister and now editor of the Tory bible, the Spectator, he has helped shape the right even as it has moved further rightwards. In the latest episode of Radical Thinking, Gove joins Aditya Chakrabortty to discuss the future of the right, his record on Brexit and austerity, and the Spectator’s position on Islam
Watch the full episode with Michael Gove here.
Aditya’s suggested reading:
To read the fruits of Michael Gove’s dalliance with the Marxism Today gang, look up his essay in a 1998 collection called The Moderniser’s Dilemma: Radical Politics in the Age of Blair
For slalom ride through Michael Gove’s years in power, read The Demented Dalek by the historian Richard J Evans in the London Review of Books
To learn more on what’s become of the British right, there’s a column by me for the Guardian
Just why the most successful political party is now failing is analysed in-depth by Phil Burton-Cartledge in his book The Party’s Over: The Rise and Fall of the Conservatives from Thatcher to Sunak
Phil also writes a very good blog on British politics, which keeps a close eye on how each party is trying to marshall a coalition of voters. Here he is on Kemi Badenoch
Geoffrey Wheatcroft does an entertaining short narrative in Bloody Panico!:
or, Whatever Happened to The Tory Party
For more on the economics of the Cameron years, this paper is acute on how the Tories failed to move the UK away from being a country of renters towards a country of makers. Two of its authors will join us for a podcast later in the series.
And if you want to read how Brexit may have cost the UK 8% of GDP, there’s this paper based on data from the Bank of England
Finally, on the Spectator read Nesrine Malik’s recent column in The Guardian
Why has Britain’s oldest political magazine become such a rabid cheerleader for Islamophobia?
Continue reading...
© Photograph: James Tindale/The Guardian
© Photograph: James Tindale/The Guardian
© Photograph: James Tindale/The Guardian
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