An Attack on Greenland will End NATO: US President Donald Trump continues to insist that America should take control of Greenland.
He even suggested that he might use military force to do so.
Greenland immediately hit back, rejecting Trump’s threats.
If the US were to take Greenland, it would do so against both the clear will of the Greenlandic population and of Denmark (of which Greenland is a semi-sovereign part).
Annexation might well involve violence, and it is unclear if Greenlanders would perceive an American takeover as an occupation to be resisted.
An insurgency is not out of the question.
If this scenario seems outlandish, it is more conceivable than ever.
What started as a seemingly weird joke from Trump has slowly morphed into a genuine international issue.
Trump will not let this go, and he even sent his vice-president, JD Vance, to Greenland to push the notion that Denmark has been somehow remiss with the island’s security.
As others have noted, Trump often uses jokes and trolling to float ideas that are otherwise disruptive or illegal.
The US would almost certainly win a conflict over Greenland, but the side effects would be disastrous for medium-term US power:
NATO would Dissolve Over Greenland Annexation
There is no precedent in NATO’s near-eighty-year history for the bloc’s leader – the US – to attack a junior member. NATO’s collective defense commitment – Article 5 of the Washington Treaty – is assumed to be directed at non-NATO states.
In practice, that means the Soviet Union of yore and Russia today. Article 5 was also invoked after the terrorist strikes of September 11.
However, if one NATO member were to attack another in an open act of imperialism, it would be unclear how the alliance would respond.
If Greenland and Denmark chose to fight, would other NATO members help?
What would happen to US soldiers and civilians in Europe if the US were at war with several European states over European territory?
The most likely outcome is that NATO would simply collapse. There is no reason for European states to stay in NATO if the US does not feel bound to respect their sovereignty.
Article 5 would lose all credibility if the US were to fight a NATO member. No one would think the US would fight Russia on their behalf if the US were willing to attack a fellow democracy.
Trump and his ‘Make America Great Again’ political movement might not care if NATO collapses.
However, there would be substantial future costs for the US. America would lose all European basing and airspace rights. Europe would tilt in a distinctly anti-American direction after a US-Danish conflict.
Europe is a huge export market for US goods and services, and that would be lost.
Autocrats Would Mimic the US Seizure of Greenland
The other significant side-effect of a US absorption of Greenland would be the normalization of Russian imperialism in Ukraine and potential Chinese aggression against Taiwan.
US resistance to those moves is intellectually predicated on its commitment to a ‘liberal international order’ (LIO) in which the sovereignty of small states is respected by larger ones.
Just because a larger state could absorb a smaller state does not mean it should absorb them.
America’s commitment to this principle is obviously not complete. The US has a long history of expansion, and even in the postwar years of the LIO, the US has continued to intervene in other countries.
But crucially, America’s inconsistent commitment to liberal rules is preferable to China and Russia’s total disinterest in them. A world order dominated by China and Russia would be openly imperial.
Those two countries would carve out local spheres of influence – eastern Europe and the Caucuses for Russia, and east and southeast Asia for China. The American equivalent would be a Trumpian absorption of Greenland and Canada into a greater United States.
Donald Trump may not mind a world of spheres of influence, but US allies would. They would abandon the US quickly, cutting independent deals with Russia and China. Those who did not would face conflict; the world would be more violent with US extended deterrence.
In the midst of this, the US would be isolated in the Western Hemisphere. This would be a return to America’s global position in the nineteenth century. When MAGA says make American great again, perhaps this is what it means geopolitically.
About the Author: Dr. Robert E. Kelly
Dr. Robert E. Kelly is a professor of political science at Pusan National University. Kelly is also a 19FortyFive Contributing Editor. You can find him on X: @Robert_E_Kelly.
