On Jan. 18, Prime Minister Stoere of Norway received a message from President Donald Trump about his desire to acquire and control Greenland. As he justified in his message: “Denmark cannot protect that land from Russia or China, and why do they have a ‘right of ownership’ anyway?”
Trump asserts that he has “done more for NATO than any other person since its founding” but boasts an unrestrained need to control foreign lands protected by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).
Despite Trump’s claim that Europeans don’t need a right of ownership, the following statement from NATO proves that there is, in fact, a document proven to protect the right of ownership. In Resolution 849 (IX), “Greenland freely decided on its integration within the Kingdom of Denmark on an equal constitutional and administrative basis with the other parts of Denmark.”
Prior to World War II, Greenland existed as an independent colony open to discovery and exploration. But in the 1950s, the U.S. helped accelerate defense measures within Greenland, using a Space Base for national security reasons.
Does this legitimize the current American administration’s need to seize control of Greenland despite it being integrated with the Kingdom of Denmark? The pretense being military-related is a flimsy one. This is because Trump’s foreign policy adopts a realist perspective and operates on his own self-interests.
Realism entails the classic zero-sum game theory: once an opponent or objective is declared, one side benefits from the gains and the other side experiences more loss. It is, in other words, a non-leveled playing field in the political arena.
Furthermore, NATO’s Article 5 — formed after the 9/11 attack in New York — states “an attack on one is an attack against all.”
This is paramount to this situation because one NATO member attacking another will regress from the current unilateral order to a bilateral, pre-Cold War global order. This means that sides could be taken and rhetoric about energy and national security may morph into polarization within the U.S. administration and the European Parliament.
The U.S. might become the perpetrator on the global stage, and backlash from allies could cause a domino effect undoing the efforts of Americans over the past 250 years to consolidate democracy.
Since emotions run high during turbulent political times, the split between the Democratic Party and the Republican Party may also widen. Some Republicans pushed back against Trump on his Greenland aspirations. This could mean drawbacks leading up to the 2026 November Midterms, which is a win for Republicans that he surely awaits.
