The idea that one NATO country could attack another — a US invasion of Greenland — is so alien that the most famous article in NATO’s founding treaty does not distinguish clearly what would happen if two of its members were at war.
Article 5, the cornerstone of mutual protection, dictates that “an armed attack against one or more” in Europe or North America shall be considered “an attack against them all.” Simple enough if the military threat comes from Russia, but more complicated when it comes from easily the alliance’s most powerful member.
“If the US chooses to attack another NATO country, everything will stop,” Danish Prime Minister Mette Fredriksen said on Monday.
The military alliance might well continue to exist, but its effectiveness would be called into fundamental question; the obvious beneficiary, an already aggressive Moscow.
During the 2024 US election campaign, US President Donald Trump said he would not protect “delinquent” NATO members; countries that did not meet the then-target of spending 2 percent of GDP on defense.
The US was no longer “primarily focused” on defending Europe, US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth emphasized in February last year.
It was enough to provoke alarm in Europe, but diplomacy in the run-up to June’s NATO summit appeared to have massaged away the problem. Leavened by the unctuous comments of NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte — he called the US president “daddy” — NATO allies, bar Spain, agreed to lift defense spending to 3.5 percent of GDP by 2035.
Yet, rather than heal differences in opinion, it appears the NATO summit simply papered over a rift.
“Yes, the summit went well in that Rutte found formulations that flattered Trump. But I’m not sure how far that is a sustainable strategy,” said Marion Messmer, a director at the Chatham House think tank.
There have already been several months of transatlantic uncertainty about Ukraine caused by two failed US efforts to force Kyiv, after the Alaska summit and again with the adoption of the Russian 28-point plan, to give up more territory as a precursor to the Kremlin even considering a ceasefire.
IDEOLOGICAL SHIFT
Last month’s US national security strategy hectored Europe, with its extraordinary warning that the continent faced “civilizational erasure,” partly because, within a few decades, “certain NATO members will become majority non-European.”
On that extreme basis, the strategy questioned if these unnamed countries would view their alliance with the US “in the same way” as did the 12 who founded NATO in 1949.
If the diplomatic dance and the noises were not clear enough, then the re-emergence of the territorial lust for Greenland in the aftermath of the kidnapping of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has finally brought NATO itself sharply into focus, with the US explicitly challenging the historical sovereignty of Denmark, a fellow ally.
Nobody would realistically expect any of NATO’s 31 other members to defend Greenland militarily if the US sought to seize it, a point emphasized by White House Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy Stephen Miller.
The real world was “governed by strength, that is governed by force, that is governed by power” — not treaties or mutual support, he said.
Nor would they have any hope of doing so. The US has 1.3 million active military personnel, across all its services; Denmark has 13,100. NATO figures show the US was expected to spend US$845 billion on defense last year, the other 31 allies a combined US$559 billion.
The ease with which the US was able to capture Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, is a demonstration of the scale of sheer US power.
The alliance’s membership might not even change even if the US did take Greenland. There is no clear provision in the NATO treaty for expelling a country, although its preamble does commit the US and other allies “to live in peace with all peoples and all governments” and “to safeguard the freedom, common heritage and civilization of their peoples” — wording once intended to be used against a member that became communist during the cold war.
Nevertheless, one alliance member turning on another, even over an Arctic territory with a population of less than 60,000, would undermine the credibility of the 76-year-old military alliance, intended to ensure peace and mutual protection across Europe and the North Atlantic region.
Even the latest round of threats, some argue, has caused enough damage at a time when the Russian menace has never felt more real, even if Moscow is currently heavily embroiled in Ukraine.
“If any European states harbor any illusions they can rely on US security guarantees, then this is the wake-up call we are not returning to that world,” Messmer said.
Dan Sabbagh is defense and security editor at the Guardian.
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