President Trump is 鈥渄iscussing a range of options鈥 to acquire Greenland, the White House said, making clear that using the military is not off the table.
is a professor of history at Cornell University, where he specializes in military history and defense policy. Despite tough talk from European leaders, Silbey says a NATO military response to the US annexation of Greenland would not happen.
Silbey says: 鈥淣ATO isn鈥檛 a single entity 鈥 there are lots of different countries with different agendas. Poland, on the border with Ukraine, is much less likely to care about the US taking Greenland than say, Iceland. Certainly, the alliance would be fractured whatever the formal response is, but you can already see European officials talking about a deal that would avoid firm pushback.
鈥淢y best analysis would be that the Europeans try to push Denmark towards some kind of deal with the US to essentially hand over control in some way that is not entirely a capitulation.
鈥淥n a larger geostrategic point, it鈥檚 a remarkably stupid push by Trump. The US and Denmark already have defense treaties around Greenland that gives the US military access there. He鈥檚 going to blow up NATO to get something the US essentially already has.鈥
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