In today’s episode of Critical Conditions, Claire and I focused on the outrage —real outrage, a word that has been devalued — of the United States now openly messaging that it is not ruling out the use of force against a NATO ally, Denmark, to seize Greenland, which Donald Trump covets.
That sentence alone should stop anyone cold. Not because the scenario is likely, but because it is now sayable. Greenland is sovereign territory associated with Denmark, a NATO member in good standing. The United States, the central guarantor of the postwar security order, is declining to categorically rule out military force against a treaty ally over sovereign territory. For bullshit reasons. Did the American people vote for this?
Sure, there are minerals, shipping lanes, Arctic strategy and more involved —but really, none of the arguments hold water. What’s at stake is the basic idea that an American president can treat allied territory as an object of acquisition. That is a major line crossed.
Moreover, Denmark is clear that the US can have all the access to Greenland — troops, bases, and anything else — needed to project presence in the Arctic. As for grabbing mineral wealth in the ground, the US cannot be a country that engages in this kind of thuggery. At least not openly. But then again, Trump’s statements just last weekend that he needs access to Venezuela’s oil.
For seventy-five years, NATO has rested not just on Article 5, but on an unspoken assumption more fundamental than any clause: that disputes among allies are resolved politically, never militarily. Once that is trashed with indifference, the alliance approaches the breaking point and Putin is handed a massive gift.
It sends a message to every small and mid-sized ally watching closely: your security may be contingent.
Claire made the crucial point that signaling matters as much as action. Even if no force is ever used, which I’m pretty sure it won’t, the mere refusal to rule it out changes calculations. Allies hedge. Adversaries probe. Norms weaken not with explosions, but with caveats.
Critical Conditions is a co-production of Ask Questions later and Claire’s The Cosmopolitan Globalist. The CG is well worth checking out.
We did diverge a little on the long term.
Claire’s view, put simply, is that this kind of damage lingers. Once a taboo is punctured — once the United States shows it is willing to entertain the use of force against an ally — that trust does not simply snap back. Even if Trump disappears from the scene, the memory remains. The precedent exists. Future leaders, allies, and rivals alike will factor it in.
I don’t disagree with the diagnosis. Where I differ is on the permanence.
I argued that this episode represents erosion, not collapse. Serious erosion, yes—but not something beyond repair. The postwar order was not sustained by vibes alone; it was sustained by interests. And those interests haven’t vanished. NATO still works because its members, including the United States, derive overwhelming strategic benefit from it. That reality exerts gravity of its own.
Either way, the Greenland episode is no joke, no distraction, and no mere Trump curiosity. It is a reminder that alliances are not just treaties—they are habits of restraint. And once restraint becomes optional, even rhetorically, everyone has reason to pay attention.
Beyond Greenland, we also spent time on Iran. The protests there seem like they have potential to destabilize the regime, and I noted that there is some serious coalescing behind the exiled crown prince, Reza Pahlavi. I praised Trump for warning the Iranians not to kill protestors, but Claire noted that when they did so anyway, by the score, he seems to have moved on.
Then again, ICE just killed a US citizen who was not even protesting in Minnesota. This is not just another death — it will be a symbol of everything that has gone authoritarian in the United States. I expect massive resistance anywhere else ICE is deployed — which may actually be what Trump and his goons want. Things may be spiraling out of control.
