White House deputy chief of Staff Stephen Miller had a diddums meltdown on CNN when mildly challenged on whether the US was right to kidnap a foreign head of state. Miller, a unrepentant far-right nativist who always gives the impression of Small Man Syndrome. This is despite multiple sources (here and here) confirming he is 5ft 10ins tall.

Stephen Miller just had a tantrum

Stephen Miller ranted that:

We live in a world in which you can talk all you want about international niceties and everything else. But we live in a world, in the real world … that is governed by strength, that is governed by force, that is governed by power.

He added:

These are the iron laws of the world.

The comments came after CNN interviewer Jake Tapper had challenged Miller on the kidnapping of Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro from his home in Caracas. Tapper asked if other such abductions could be carried out.

Miller said the US would “unapologetically” use its military to pursue its interests.

We’re a superpower and under President Trump, we are going to conduct ourselves as a superpower.

For good measure, Miller also refused to rule out military action against Greenland – which is governed by Denmark, NATO ally:

Stephen Miller: “The United States is the power of NATO. For the United States to secure the arctic region, to protect and defend NATO and NATO interests, obviously, Greenland should be part of the United States.” pic.twitter.com/5IjhfG6o8K

— Conflict Radar (@Conflict_Radar) January 5, 2026

Normal behaviour there.

Trump’s new belligerent foreign policy position

Stephen Miller is a strong advocate of Project 2025. Project 2025 is a far-right ideological roadmap adopted in parts by the new Trump administration. Far-right and hyper-conservative thinkers – from thinktanks like the Heritage Foundation – developed the plan. It advocates for attacks on migrants, liberals, the left and migrants, and well as sexual and gender minority groups.

Ultimately, the Project’s authors see the plan as a sort of vaccine (oo-er) against US national decay. In truth, it is a ramblingly macho 920-page screed which sounds like someone put the transcripts of every Joe Rogan podcast into ChatGPT and asked it to come up with a set of policies. The problem is this divorced dad waffle is now backed by the massive power of the US state.

And here is the thing: Project 2025 also lays out a new foreign policy. Parts of the Project have been incorporated into the new National Security Strategy (NSS). You can read the NSS here. And our write up about how one key aim is an ethnically pure Europe here.

Death throes of a fading empire

The NSS also advocates for an aggressive posture in the western hemisphere. And the 3 January attack on Venezuela aligns precisely with that aspect of the policy.

Yet the document also accepts so-called ‘multi-polarity’. In short, it concedes that China and Russia have their own spheres of influences- hardly the stuff of ‘superpower’ status. In many ways – though not all – the NSS is an inward turn towards US isolationism. But that inward turn still includes Latin America, because the US sees the southern part of the continent is its own property.

The truth is that while the US it still very powerful, its superpower status is in decline. On some level, it even accepts that itself. What we’re seeing today is not a rejuvenated world power asserting its dominance, but the death throes of a fading empire.

Featured image via the Canary

By Joe Glenton

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