Shoot at Greenland, Shred NATO and Enable Russia. By Chidi Amuta

News Analysis: Special to USAfrica magazine (Houston) and USAfricaonline.com, the first Africa-owned, US-based newspaper published on the Internet.

Dr. Chidi Amuta is Executive Editor of USAfrica, since 1993

 

In the wake of the Venezuela invasion, President Trump is rehearsing yet another distraction from his many domestic liabilities. Venezuela has bought him relief from the Epstein scandal which was closing in on him. Now he is doubling down on his intent to take over the arctic territory of Greenland even before the gun powder on Venezuela dries up. Denmark is the sovereign authority over Greenland. Although Trump insists that control of Greenland is in America’s national security interest, he has not cited one evidence of a threat to US security in the many decades of Danish control of Greenland. Trump has only pointed at the harmless presence of Chinese and Russian vessels in the area. Seen in the light of Trump’s recently adopted National Security Strategy document, the possible acquisition of Greenland by force or transactional blackmail is part of an intention to control the Western hemisphere as its exclusive sphere of influence. This recourse to the 18th century Monroe Doctrine seems to be the driving force of Trump’s new belligerent foreign policy. However, To threaten Greenland with either a military invasion or some other means is a direct affront on the security of Denmark which is a NATO member. It is of course a different matter whether Mr. Trump has other aspirations that are above the NATO alliance. His obligations to the alliance have remained shaky from his first tenure. He has shifted from demanding a higher contribution from member states to differing from NATO states on security guarantees over Ukraine. Trump has consistently defined US security interests in Europe as divergent from the long standing solidarity with NATO. In relations between the US and Russia, Trump has always played up his personal relationship with Putin over and above long standing rivalries between the two global power rivals. An attack on Greenland therefore is an assault on Article 5 of the NATO Charter: “an attack on one is an attack on all.” Can Trump risk an internal NATO crisis of such consequence? If Trump acts on Greenland in defiance of NATO, it will indicate the end of US membership of an alliance that has guaranteed global peace and balance since the end of WW II in 1945.

The implication is a Europe without the security guarantees of NATO. It will be a weaker Europe of 27 countries with medium to limited military capabilities exposed to the ambitious Russian war machine under a very ambitious Vladimir Putin. Trump’s ego driven foreign policy and hunger for unusual precedents may tempt him to aspire to the ‘glory’ of being the US president who dismantled NATO after WW II. The ultimate beneficiary of this inglorious but highly unlikely eventuality would be Russia. The question of global significance is , therefore, whether Trump Wants Greenland , fully aware that it might be the end of NATO and the strengthening of Russia in the European security theatre. It would not be just a strengthening of Russia. It would mean the enablement of China in global security matters and the virtual end of America’s global power pre-eminence.

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