Donald Trump’s threats against Denmark to annex its self-governing territory Greenland have gradually escalated since his return to the White House, from musings about annexation, to a provocative visit by his Vice President, to the appointment of a special envoy with a mandate to bring Greenland into the United States, to refusing to rule out force. Last Friday he told reporters “we’re going to do something on Greenland, whether they like it or not.”

As a practical matter, it is probably less than even money that Trump will invade Greenland. Seizing this sizeable piece of territory would require a substantial force and it’s doubtful that a determined aggressor would telegraph his intentions over the course of a year. Moreover, as has been widely noted, the US already has a base on Greenland, Denmark is a NATO ally, and there’s no reason to doubt any genuine security needs would be readily met. More likely, he seeks to use the threat as leverage, perhaps for fewer limits on US access to valuable minerals, or regarding an unrelated issue. Yet Trump is erratic, impulsive, with a pathological compulsion to dominate, so attempted annexation is at least conceivable. Denmark’s Prime Minister has stated that any such attempt would mean the end of NATO “and thus the security that has been provided since the end of the Second World War.” Yet the threat itself is a grave threat to NATO, which may never be the same.

NATO has been a uniquely long-lived alliance, with a remarkable degree of military integration, in part because it addressed a common threat and solved shared problems. It has also rested on trust and reliability, and the hegemon’s respect for the interests and certainly the sovereignty of its allies. An unreliable and distrusted hegemon would soon see its allies balancing against it through arrangements with others, perhaps even seeking accommodation with a shared enemy as the lesser........

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