The New Dark Age

Monday, 19 January 2026 — TFF Transnational Foundation

Introduction to TFF’s forthcoming four Idea Portfolios of Diplomatic and Nonviolent Resistance

“America, you are too arrogant.”

— Martin Luther King Jr.

By TFF’s Board
Pascal Lottaz, Biljana Vankovska, Annette Schiffmann & Jan Oberg

‘Over the course of Trump’s first term and now a year into his second, the world has witnessed a consistent pattern of actions that challenge the basic long-standing norms of international cooperation, weaken multilateral institutions, and ignore the global norms and legal frameworks established by the UN Charter.

During these years, we have witnessed military operations in Iran, Syria and Ukraine without UN authorisation; the killing of Iranian General Qassem Soleimani; repeated strikes across the Middle East; and the launch of tariff wars against allies and competitors alike. We have seen a renewed emphasis on nuclearism and zero interest in arms control and disarmament negotiations. Pentagon is now The Depart of War.

We have seen travel bans targeting entire nationalities; visa denials for diplomats meant to attend UN meetings; and threats to withdraw from NATO while demanding that allies spend 5% of their GDP on the military without any shared threat analysis. We have also witnessed systematically confrontational policies and orchestrated and well-financed media campaigns directed against China and other actors.

U.S. policies have involved unwavering support for Israel’s devastating genocidal military campaign in Gaza; recognition of Juan Guaidó as “president” of Venezuela and the kidnapping of Nicolas Maduro with spouse as well as taking control over Venezuelan state assets; hard pressure on Ukraine to de facto let go of its natural resources; withdrawal from the JCPOA with Iran; and public statements about acquiring territories such as Canada, Mexico, Cuba, and Greenland — the latter being an integral part of Denmark, a loyal U.S. ally since 1948.

The rhetoric surrounding these actions has been confrontational, personalised as arrogant or vulgar, and consistently dismissive of international law. Domestically, Trump has dismissed officials, centralised executive power, and pursued a “law and order” agenda that cannot help but raise profound concerns about democratic norms inside the United States itself. It is not only warfare on most of the world; it is also a domestic war.

The speed, surprise, and scale of these actions — combined with the near absence of meaningful international countermeasures — is likely to create the dangerous illusion within the Trump Regime circles: that such behaviour carries no cost, that it can continue indefinitely, and that the world will simply adjust to whatever it does next. Most likely, Trump thinks to himself – I can obviously get away with doing what I want – and I will.

Europe – fragmented, submissive, and visionless – has shown little willingness or ability to respond beyond words, and more words. Instead of developing a creative alternative West, European leader travel physically or mentally to sit at the feet of the Emperor.

Military confrontation is neither realistic nor desirable, yet eminently productive tools such as diplomacy, conflict resolution, and concrete nonviolent measures have barely been considered. The result is paralysis — and paralysis invites escalation.

We believe this moment demands something different. Not passivity. Not fear. Not the old reflex of waiting for a “better” post-Trump America.

We demand – and propose – diplomatic and other nonviolent resistance — principled, lawful, creative, and global with the aim of stopping the Trump Regime from doing more harm to humanity.

What will follow this introduction, therefore, is four portfolios of immediate and long-term measures that governments, institutions, and citizens can take to signal boundaries, impose costs, and demonstrate that even the most militarily powerful state operates within limits.

None of these proposals is military, coercive, or vengeful. They are grounded in international law, civic mobilisation, economic sovereignty, and the collective strength of global civil society. But, yes, they require civil courage and a will to do some new thinking. The situation seems to make both imperative.

TFF’s four idea portfolios would imply the most far-reaching nonviolent resistance to U.S. policy since 1945.

It is necessary because the belief that the United States is inherently a force for good in our world — or that Trump is an aberration — has become a dangerous illusion. The elites inside the US Military-Industrial-Media-Academic Complex, MIMAC, feed him so that he can serve them.

Likewise, it is delusional to hope for the ‘good old America’ to return after Trump’s second (or third) term. His destruction of the US will be beyond repair. Furthermore, his personal style is indeed special, but he operates fully within the parameters of the US Empire and how an empire behaves when its decline and fall become more and more clear to itself and the rest of the world.

The world cannot rely on nostalgia or wishful thinking. One may paraphrase a thinker reflecting on the Second World War: those who sleep in times of peace and democracy may well wake up in a dictatorship at war.

TFF insists that better paths exist — grounded in creativity, nonviolence, and international law. We insist that there is a huge spectrum of possible actions between fighting the US militarily and doing nothing.

We therefore publish these Four Idea Portfolios of Resistance, followed by a vision for transforming the Arctic into a Zone of Cooperation that benefits local communities, the region, and the world.

Please look out for these five TFF documents in the near future.

If you find them useful and necessary, please share them widely so that we can build critical nonviolent mass for resistance and thereby promote a future with much more justice, peace and respect for global norms and laws. The implementation of at least some of these ideas will also enable the world to again dialogue about solutions to humanity’s real and very urgent problems and reduce the attention to destructive Trumped-up militarism and imperial narratives.

The world must act now. The window of action may soon close.