Trump Targets Greenland: Will Europe Awake?

Will Europe awake? Though decades old, this question has been revived in the public and elite consciousness by the aggressive postures of Donald Trump toward Greenland — the latest and perhaps boldest overture by the American executive who has a long history of hostility toward Europe. Europe’s purported lacklustre contribution to NATO has been a bugbear of Trump since his first foray as president. The buck does not stop with Trump’s caprice, ultimately, for the Democratic administration of Joe Biden also acted in a fashion inimical to European interests. Most notably through lending uncritical support by way of military arms to the Zelensky regime in Ukraine, thereby perpetuating an unconscionable blood bath; regretfully, the youth of Ukraine shall continue to pay the price for this until the war ceases. During this period, clandestine American forces sabotaged the Nord Stream pipelines, thereby ensuring the maintenance of Europe’s subservience to America.

There is a fatal contradiction in European politics which may result in the continent’s ruin, immiseration, and the perpetuation of its status as a de facto vassal. European populists undeniably constitute a vital, healthy force inasmuch as they decry the policies undergirding the mass population transfer from Africa, the Middle East, and Asia, to European soil. Whether under the aegis of refugee resettlement — an imperative, its apologists claim, owing to multilateral treaties; that treaties are voluntary, and thus may be voluntarily withdrawn from is never countenanced — or due to the supposed need for workers (Automation? Temporary work permits? The Dubai model?) to support capital or the aging population of retirees, the result is the same: the replacement of Europeans in their homeland; a fact not even the blind are oblivious to.

Though they find themselves on the right side of the immigration question, they’re nevertheless a problematic force. Obstructed by innumerable obstacles, from a hostile media to hate speech laws, European populists have been forced to make friends with allies — no matter how sordid. Parallels betwixt the Trump movement and Brexit, not to mention the shared affliction of mass immigration which impacts both Europe and America, has engendered fellowship and cross-pollination. Likewise, the enmity between Euro-Federalists and National Populists has pushed certain quarters of the latter into the arms of Putin. Whatever may be said of the Russian Federation, unless incorporated into Europe (at present a delusion), Russia will pose a threat to the sovereignty and autonomy of its nearest neighbours. Such is the nature of a large power; a fact one ought to accept without engaging in pathological Russophobia.

The record of Euro-Federalists on the question of migration need not be adduced. Suffice to say, their actions and their omissions has led to the current predicament we find ourselves in; many of Europe’s major cities are comprised of pastiche of nationalities, which as an aggregate outnumber the native populace; the exceptions will not remain exceptions for long. Mass immigration, if it proceeds apace, shall achieve what the Ottomans and Mongols failed to: our extirpation. This is a glum, dour vision; some may protest that it is hyperbolic on grounds of pedantry. To this I say: trends are inexorable absent the will to stop them.

However, Euro-Federalists are superior in one respect to their National-Populist counterparts: they recognise that the European Union is a power. A power does not tolerate its constituent elements - nations in the case of Europe - fraternising with other great powers. America would not permit Colorado to appeal to Russia for support vis-à-vis the Federal Government. In fact, the economic relations between the Confederate States of America and the United Kingdom was a contributing factor to the tensions which spilled over into the American Civil War. Russia, China, and India would be equally zealous in cracking down an analogous situation arose. The nascency and relative centrifugality of the European Union are such that “rogue states” (in lieu of a better term; take it with a grain of salt) are afforded leeway otherwise unthinkable.

Europe finds itself in the age of great powers. There is evidence, not least of which with respect to legitimacy, that America’s unity is beginning to faulter. Nevertheless, it is an extant power, and despite the cries of “multipolarity” it continues to possess power projection capabilities far in excess of its rivals. Gone are the days when the self-satisfied European could subsist in an oblivious state, contenting himself with idle dreams of living in a retiree paradise. We deluded ourselves with the notion that America constituted our protectorate. Greenland proves that Uncle Sam’s interests are not always ours.

The situation in Greenland represents an opportunity for Europe to take a stand. For Europe to awake from its slumber; to throw off the yoke of vassalage. The reduction of the greatest continent the world has ever seen, the greatest continent the world will ever produce, to the position of mere secondary power, playing fiddle to Washington, should constitute an intolerable affront to the manhood of Europe. We should be under no illusions regarding the Eurocrat apparatchiks with their faux patriotism — a mere mask for their jingoistic ambition. In fact, to disclaim that America is a threat to Europe is to leave the task of Europe to them alone. Europe belongs to those who know her: us.

Reversing mass migration and reviving European power on the global stage should be the Pole Stars of European liberation. Instead, they are at odds, bifurcated by the divisions between National Populists and Euro-Federalists. This is the tragedy of our age.