Any attempt to try and seize Greenland would be a massive catastrophe and ultimately spiral out of control, wrote Casey Michel, head of the Human Rights Foundation's Combating Kleptocracy Program.
Writing for Foreign Policy, Michel explained, "it's long past time" to treat Trump's Greenland threats as a very "real likelihood."
Trump has long talked about how important Greenland is to the U.S., but after Trump invaded Venezuela and seized its leader, fears abound among those in the European Union who are unsure if Trump is willing to go to war with NATO.
Such an attack "would be not only a morally reprehensible crime, but a national security crisis of a sort the U.S. has not seen in decades. There’s good reason to think it would be the greatest foreign-policy blunder since at least the Vietnam War," Michel continued.
In the immediate fallout, Michel said that little would change for Americans, while Greenland would suddenly add to the non-voting representative in Congress. However, the rest of the world would be quickly destabilized to the detriment of American interests. Denmark would react first, followed by a broader response from Europe. But the most important of the problems would be that NATO is effectively dead.
"Given how many European nations still have territory in the Western Hemisphere — from the Azores to French Guiana to the British Virgin Islands — which of America’s allies could be assured that they wouldn’t be next? For Trumpist unilateralists, this may matter little. But for those who view America’s allies as its greatest asset in an era of rising geopolitical tension, spiking that alliance system — all for an island in which American military power is already assured — would be a suicidal maneuver, without modern compare," wrote Michel.
Europe wouldn't be alone. Canada would likely get involved as taking Greenland would become a "bulwark against Canadian maneuverability or power projection in the North Atlantic: a gargantuan doorstop on Canada’s eastern border, isolating Canada that much more from Ottawa’s remaining allies in Europe."
Trump has also talked about seizing Canada, so these threats to other areas have become quickly problematic for the neighbors to the north.
"It will also mean something that no one in the administration has apparently considered: Canada going nuclear. Nuclear discourse in Canada has accelerated already, thanks largely to Trump’s rhetoric," said Michel. "Watching Trump suddenly encircle Canada would effectively guarantee a nuclear arms program in Canada itself — with all of the threats, uncertainty and destabilizing factors attendant. A Greenland seizure, coming alongside the actions of other nuclear-armed imperialists expanding their borders, would all but assure a new nuclear arms race among non-nuclear powers, realizing that these weapons may be the only guarantee of safety and sovereignty."
Meanwhile, the more engaged the U.S. is with Venezuela, Canada and Greenland, the easier it is for Russia to seize more territory in Ukraine and perhaps even more. It also keeps eyes off the road for China, which has long wanted to invade Taiwan.
"A suddenly destabilized world — in which colliding spheres of influence reign, with subalterns and trampled nations chafing against new colonial overlords — would ripple across the globe, presenting a national security disaster the likes of which the U.S. has not seen since the 1930s, when a similarly Hobbesian world birthed totalitarianism, fascistic empires and the most devastating war the globe had ever seen," he wrote.
It's all possible, Michel said. However, imperialism almost always leads to imperial overreach and eventual collapse.
"The ingredients are all there for a thrust into Greenland to be a debacle of era-defining proportions — and a national security crisis whose ramifications are only just beginning," Michel closed.
Read the full column here.
