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Trump signs an executive order allowing mining the moon and asteroids:
In 2015, the Obama administration signed the U.S. Commercial Space Launch Competitiveness Act (CSLCA, or H.R. 2262) into law. This bill was intended to "facilitate a pro-growth environment for the developing commercial space industry" by making it legal for American companies and citizens to own and sell resources that they extract from asteroids and off-world locations (like the moon, Mars or beyond).
On April 6th, the Trump administration took things a step further by signing an executive order that formally recognizes the rights of private interests to claim resources in space. This order, titled "Encouraging International Support for the Recovery and Use of Space Resources," effectively ends the decades-long debate that began with the signing of the Outer Space Treaty in 1967.
This order builds on both the CSLCA and Space Directive-1 (SD-1), which the Trump administration signed into law on December 11th, 2017. It establishes that "Americans should have the right to engage in commercial exploration, recovery, and use of resources in outer space, consistent with applicable law," and that the United States does not view space as a "global commons."
(Score: 3, Informative) by PiMuNu on Tuesday April 14 2020, @03:33PM
France and UK have nukes - invasion of the Scandinavian peninsula would be a big risk. OTOH it would be interesting, to see Russia bogged down fighting Scandinavian insurgents for the next 50 years. I believe the Scandinavian countries still have conscription for exactly this reason.
What would be the strategic benefit to Russia? North sea oil is pretty much done for. Better to retake South East Europe and build influence in the Middle East to get access to the Black sea and Red sea oil fields (oh look at that! this is exactly what they have done). This way they can attempt to build in monopoly over oil a la OPEC...