Photograph by Nathaniel St. Clair

Amid ongoing discussions over Donald Trump’s plans for trying to resolve conflicts in Ukraine and Israel, the U.S. president has maintained steady pressure on NATO allies for months. After his 2024 election victory, Trump again raised the prospect of annexing the Danish territory of Greenland, having first done so in 2019. Once dismissed as outlandish, his renewed push against a key ally sent shockwaves through Europe and the international community.

Trump also declared his intent to make Canada the 51st state in November 2024 and has continued reiterating his stance. Violent conflict between the two nations occurred until the mid-19th century, but aggressive annexation today appears unthinkable due to the logistical challenges, deep ties, and friendly relations between the U.S. and Canada.

Yet Trump has doubled down, with additional remarks about seizing the Panama Canal and Gaza raising further concerns that the world’s most powerful country is seriously entertaining territorial expansion.

Trump’s motivations—whether a trade tactic against Canada, securing greater military rights in Greenland, or other reasons—remain unclear. Still, Washington’s expansionist policy pivot coincides with fast-moving negotiations with Russia to try to end the war in Ukraine, likely by ceding land to Moscow.

Meanwhile, Israel is considering its own border consolidation, including potentially permanent expulsions of Palestinians in Gaza, the West Bank, and East Jerusalem, and formalizing its annexation of Syria’s Golan Heights. Once dismissed as political theater, Trump’s actions now seem part of broader efforts to reshape the discourse on borders, risking ushering in an unpredictable era of renewed territorial conflicts.

Following World War II, the international community largely resisted border changes, even in the context of decolonization, in fear of spreading instability, secession, and conquest. The 1975 Helsinki Accords, in turn, cemented Europe’s postwar borders, discouraging violent changes while allowing for peaceful and mutually agreed adjustments.

Optimists hoped that this model would hold after the Cold War. Germany’s reunification in 1990 was followed by Czechoslovakia’s amicable split in 1992, and Western territorial disputes had by then been reduced to legal battles, as part of a multilateral, institutional approach to conflict resolution that was expected to spread into Eastern Europe and beyond.

However, territorial disputes erupted in the newly independent states emerging from former communist Europe, lacking clear paths for resolution. In the former Soviet Union, Russian-backed separatists in

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