"Everything Would Stop"

In the midst of his ruminations on Trump's desire to acquire Greenland, Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen cut to the chase:

“If the United States decides to militarily attack another Nato country, then everything would stop – that includes Nato and therefore post-second world war security,” Frederiksen told Danish television network TV2.

He was, of course, referring to remarks from the administration earlier this week:

US President Donald Trump has been discussing "a range of options" to acquire Greenland, including use of the military, the White House said.

The White House told the BBC that acquiring Greenland - a semi-autonomous region of fellow Nato member Denmark – was a "national security priority".

The statement came hours after European leaders issued a joint statement rallying behind Denmark, which has been pushing back against Trump's ambitions for the Arctic island.

I've got to give the intellectual welterweights at Instapundit credit for at least linking to discussions of the US's Greenland options this morning, but they all miss the point. For instance, via this link,

Trump does not intend to “buy” GREENLAND as “buy” is used in common usage. What the administration hopes to purchase is DENMARK’s claim over GREENLAND as a matter of public international law.

Such a purchase of a public international law claim would be akin to the U.S. purchase of the LOUISIANA TERRITORY from FRANCE—as negotiated by President Thomas Jefferson and Secretary of State James Madison, and ALASKA TERRITORY from RUSSIA—as negotiated by President Andrew Johnson and Secretary of State William H. Seward. In each case, the U.S. did not purchase the actual land at issue from a foreign power. Rather, in each case, the U.S. payment was consideration for FRANCE’s and RUSSIA’s divesting themselves of their public international law claim over the relevant territory.

I don't understand why this guy needs to render the names of countries in all caps, but leaving that aside, the point he misses is that the purchase of "public international law claims" simply wasn't the only way the US acquired territory during its 19th century expansion. Given the reaction from the European NATO countries, a much closer analogy is the Mexican War of 1846-48.

Democrat James K. Polk was elected on a platform of expanding U.S. territory to Oregon, California (also a Mexican territory), and Texas by any means, with the 1845 annexation of Texas furthering that goal. However, the boundary between Texas and Mexico was disputed, with the Republic of Texas and the U.S. asserting it to be the Rio Grande and Mexico claiming it to be the more-northern Nueces River. Polk sent a diplomatic mission to Mexico in an attempt to buy the disputed territory, together with California and everything in between for $25 million (equivalent to $798 million in 2024), an offer the Mexican government refused. Polk then sent a group of 80 soldiers across the disputed territory to the Rio Grande, ignoring Mexican demands to withdraw. Mexican forces interpreted this as an attack and repelled the U.S. forces on April 25, 1846, a move that Polk used to convince the Congress of the United States to declare war.

The analogy with Louisiana and Alaska fails insofar as both France and Russia wouldn't have been in any position to defend those territories militarily if the US as the North American continental power wanted to seize them, and it was a much better strategy to monetize the situation on the ground. The situation with Mexico was actually a bit closer to the current one with Greenland: Polk began the discussion by making Mexico an offer to buy Texas, California, and the territory in between.

When Mexico refused the offer, Polk went to war, and within 18 months or so, US forces under Winfield Scott had seized Mexico City. Subsequent negotiations led to the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo:

Mexico recognized the cession of present-day Texas, California, Nevada, and Utah as well as parts of present-day Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, and Wyoming. The U.S. agreed to pay $15 million (equivalent to $479 million in 2024) for the physical damage of the war and assumed $3.25 million of debt already owed by the Mexican government to U.S. citizens. Mexico relinquished its claims on Texas and accepted the Rio Grande as its northern border with the United States.

So at the end of the war, Mexico had foregone the original offer of $25 million but settled for $15 million plus assumption of debt. As a practical matter, with colonial rebellions in both California and Texas and other vast territories in the intermountain West it could never realistically defend, Mexico had little alternative.

What we've seen in the reaction of the Danes and other NATO countries is that they're envisioning a Mexican-style military resistance in the face of what's likely to be a very generous monetary offer for Greenland from the US. Let's put this in the context it deserves -- many of the same NATO countries as of this past Tuesday confirmed a 2026 Ukraine aid pacKage of $60 billion to prolong its war with Russia. On one hand, the US is not on board with this; on the other, it's simply absurd for Denamrk to rattle a NATO sword over military action to take over Greenland, when NATO is already stretching its resources with its proxy war against Russia in Ukraine.

In fact, the possibility of everything NATO coming to a sudden stop isn't as unlikely as Prime Minister Frederiksen would like to believe. The same "coalition of the willing" conference this week

assembled in Paris as the operation to manipulate the U.S. into forming the cornerstone of the Ukraine “security guarantees” continues. A great deal of this is public relations and psychological operations intended to create something against President Trump’s expressed intention.

. . . There’s no President Trump because the intent of the principals is against our America-first interest. Hence, the USA did not sign up to the EU created security guarantees, because Trump is demanding they do their own work.

Key word “proposed” -- ”These elements will be European-led, with the involvement also of non-European members of the Coalition, and the proposed support of the US.”…

President Trump is presenting: The U.S. will provide intelligence *monitoring* assistance, but that’s it.

Not in our strategic interest. Not our war. Not our issue.

So if Denmark and NATO implicitly threaten to go to war over any attempt by Trump to seize Greenland militarily, then indeed from their point of view, "everything would stop" -- in particular, the ability of the NATO tail to wag the US dog. You want to end the agreement? Fine, it was set up originally as an alliance against Stalin and subsequent Soviet adventurism. The Ukraine war has shown that Russia is now a second-rate power that can't overwhelm a third-rate power. The US at this point can defend itself against Russia without NATO's aid. Let NATO without the US make its own choices.

This is the direction NATO is headed no matter what. It's plain at this stage that Trump is determined to acquire Greenland. I strongly suspect that in the near term, he's going to emulate Polk and make Denmark what will amount to an offer they can't refuse -- but this will also mean the end of NATO, or at least a NATO with the US as a member. But at that point, what happens to Canada? If Canada remains part of a NATO alliance potentially aligned against US interests, that would be an intolerable situation, as far as I can see.

Trump is playing a long game here.