This is CBS Eye on the World. Here's John Batchelor. I'm John Batchel with Ennatole,

my good colleague. He is the Eurasia Project Director for the Quincy Institute of Responsible

Statecraft, writing most recently at several publications about the events that

tumble these last days and weeks. We begin with a very big picture. What is a sphere of influence,

and how does it explain some of what might be going on? As we see headlines about Greenland,

certainly about Venezuela, about a Russian flagged ship being captured or persuaded or detained by the U.S. Navy, not in the Caribbean off Venezuela, but in the North Atlantic in the Greenland, Iceland, UK gap that describes Cold War thinking.

Anatole, a very good evening to you.

How should we regard a sphere of influence here in the 21st century?

What does it describe?

Good evening to you.

Hello, John.

Well, it describes what the U.S. has, but is trying to really, you know, make much, much harder under Trump in the Western Hemisphere. I mean, the Monroe Doctrine never went away, but it's, you know, it's really come back in a harsher form.

And it describes, of course, what Russia is aiming at in the former Soviet Union.

And, you know, other great powers would like, India would like, China would like.

The European Union, in a way, through its expansion, is trying to create a sort of sphere of influence as well.

So, I mean, everybody does it.

But as I said in my last, I mean, every great power does it, all collection of powers.

But as I said in my last article I mean, every great power does it, all collection of powers. But as I said in my,

in my last article, you know, there are different ways of running sphere of influence. And Trump's

way does look exceptionally crude and ferocious, but also, of course, well, dangerous when it comes to actually trying to

seize territory, not just, you know, overthrow governments and insist on states following

American wishes. But now, in the case of Greenland, he's actually threatening to seize

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