Trump again expressed his intent to take over Greenland: “The fact that they [Denmark] had a boat land there [Greenland] 500 years ago doesn’t mean they own the land. I’m sure we had lots of boats go there also.”

There is a moment in revolutions- a precise and historically recognizable sweet spot- when an old, brutal, and hardened regime still deploys its forces, yet something breaks in its resolve. You can sense it, and then the public senses it: fear has shifted sides. The oppressors are no longer as certain as they once were in using force. They cannot compete with sheer numbers, with masses filling the streets. Crucially, their own men begin to hesitate. Security forces grow reluctant to shoot at demonstrators; many have family members among them, or doubt that the regime they are defending will survive. This dynamic is well documented across revolutionary cases. In Iran in 1978–79, the Shah’s regime retained overwhelming military superiority, yet its paralysis came from fractured loyalty within the armed forces and police. In Eastern Europe in 1989, regimes collapsed not because protesters defeated the state militarily, but because security elites lost confidence that repression would restore control - most famously in Berlin Wall’s fall, when orders were issued but no one was willing to enforce them. Similar patterns appeared during the early stages of the Arab uprisings, especially in Tunisia and Egypt, where the army’s refusal to fully suppress mass protests proved decisive. That moment is also when regimes begin to change their language. They make offers. They issue statements acknowledging the “legitimate concerns” of protesters or opposition figures. They float proposals for dialogue or negotiations. Far from signaling strength, these shifts repeatedly mark the point at which a revolutionary situation reaches its peak. Such gestures often confirm what protesters already suspect: that the regime’s primary tools, fear and violance, are no longer functioning. That the state is dying. Political science research on authoritarian breakdown supports this pattern. Revolutions rarely succeed because of popular mobilization alone; they succeed when coercive institutions fragment. Once uncertainty spreads within the security apparatus the regime’s collapse becomes a question of timing. The Islamic Republic still possesses formidable repressive capacity. Yet the signals- hesitation, mixed messaging, demonstration of fear by cutting internet- suggest a leadership aware that it may no longer be able to rely on obedience. Historically, that awareness is one of the clearest indicators that an authoritarian system is entering its most dangerous and potentially decisive phase. It does feel very close.

A rare glimpse of Edwardian Halifax on a cold January day in 1902. Cows and horse drawn carts share the roads with electric trams, children fascinated by the camera, gentlemen in hats and ladies in long skirts. One of Britain’s earliest surviving films, now over 120 years old.