OPINION:
Europe is in a dither over the U.S. president’s ousting of Venezuela’s socialist dictator. Heads of state hastily assembled in London to discuss Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen’s call to arms to safeguard her nation’s imperial ambitions in Greenland.
“We need to step up in Europe, we need a stronger and resolute Europe standing increasingly in its own right, capable of defending and promoting Europe and the European interests,” she said. Ms. Frederiksen insists that U.S. seizure of Greenland would implicate NATO treaty obligations and compel members to defend Copenhagen’s claim to the vast territory 2,200 miles away.
If there was any doubt that Trump derangement syndrome is a malady that belongs in the official manual of psychological disorders, then this should put it to rest. Ms. Frederiksen’s allies are indulging the fiction that NATO would exist without U.S. taxpayers.
We not only pick up the tab for the bureaucracy in Brussels but also provide the deterrence that matters, with an arsenal of 5,000 nuclear warheads and the planet’s most advanced military intelligence and logistics network.
England, France, Italy and Spain embraced the delusion with a pledge to aid the subjection of Greenland to the Danes. It’s unclear why Greenlanders themselves would prefer being ruled by the same government that ran a forced contraception campaign for decades against the island’s Inuit natives.
The European communique doesn’t mention President Trump’s plans directly. Instead, it describes the situation in generalities that emphasize the need for “upholding the principles of the U.N. Charter, including sovereignty, territorial integrity and the inviolability of borders. These are universal principles, and we will not stop defending them.”
Former Belgian politician Dries Van Langenhove ridiculed the hypocrisy. “So the E.U. elites want us to say ‘Greenland belongs to the Greenlanders!’ But if we say Germany belongs to the Germans or France belongs to the French, we’re going to jail,” he wrote Monday. The next day, Belgium’s highest court affirmed Mr. Van Langenhove’s conviction for “hate speech” because he posted memes critical of mass migration.
The Old World is struggling with relevance as it hurtles toward demographic oblivion. These countries throw open their borders to immigrants who despise the West and are eager to replace it. The predictable result has been a surge in crime and destruction of each country’s character.
Without a national vision, their political position becomes incoherent. We’re supposed to think the borders in Kyiv and Nuuk are the only sacrosanct lines on the global map and they must never change hands. Meanwhile, once-great capital cities are turned into foreign exclaves.
Mr. Trump has called Europe’s bluff, and one of two outcomes is likely. First, Europe surrenders and Denmark agrees to sell Greenland. Alternatively, Mr. Trump’s reverse psychology triggers Europe into shipping military teams to bolster Greenland’s protection.
“Basically, their defense is two dog sleds,” Mr. Trump said mockingly Sunday on Air Force One about Greenland.
Additional boots on the ground would discourage Chinese aggression in the Arctic. It’s not that President Xi Jinping fears offending French President Emmanuel Macron, but Mr. Xi knows that tangling with peacekeeping brigades would incur Washington’s wrath.
Encouraging the Continent to assume a more active role in its own defense is a key plank in the Make America Great Again platform, and achieving that goal is just as much a win as seizing Greenland itself.
“One way or another, we’re going to have Greenland,” Mr. Trump said.
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