Greenland is not in Europe
Troops from European countries have arrived in Greenland, but a major question remains: how far are European countries willing to go to stop Donald Trump? Despite the strategic position and mineral resources of the Arctic island, the costs of an open confrontation seem exorbitant. What is at stake is not only the humiliation that yielding to pressure would represent for Denmark and all of Europe, nor the further blow to the cohesion of the Atlantic Alliance, nor the validity of international law and the unwritten rules of the world order. Giving in on Greenland could open the door, in the medium term, to renewed pressure on other non-European territories currently held by powers of the Old Continent. This poses a direct threat to the territorial integrity of half a dozen European countries, with France and the United Kingdom at the forefront, and to the perception of Europe as a first-rate global actor.
It is worth remembering a geographical element: if we have to associate Greenland with a continental sphere, it would be in North America. The island shares a tectonic plate, is associated with the same continental shelf, and is separated from the nearest Canadian territory by only 26 km of sea. Despite the Viking presence from the 10th to the 15th centuries and Danish recolonization from the 18th century onward, today nearly 90% of the island's population are native Inuit, related to the peoples of the American and Siberian Arctic, not to any European population. Sovereignty versus geography.
This geographical fact is rarely mentioned, but it is relevant because, beyond respect for international law, it touches a nerve with European capitals: overseas territories. The European powers, after the wave of decolonization from 1945 to 1980, were left holding the bag. of empire, of territorial losses both near, like Ceuta and Melilla, and far, like French Polynesia, remnants of what had been enormous possessions. With exceptions such as the return of Hong Kong and Macau, for decades European countries have acted as if decolonization were complete. But the Dutch flag in the Caribbean, the French in the Amazon, and the British in the Indian Ocean are vestiges of a historical order detested by many countries around the world. Moreover, the vast majority of European countries have never had colonies outside Europe; they decolonized decades ago, or were even colonies themselves: it is not clear that they are willing to make significant sacrifices to maintain flags that are not even theirs in such distant territories.
At a time of manifest weakness and bewilderment due to the United States' change of direction, Europe bears a striking resemblance to the Spanish Empire of the late 19th century, or the Ottoman Empire of the second decade of the 20th: weak both internally and externally, watched with covetousness by predatory powers hungry for territory. If tiny Denmark loses Greenland to the American colossus, there is no guarantee that, sooner or later, other overseas territories will not become coveted, whether by the United States itself—for example, in the Caribbean—or by other global powers, or by neighboring states that see an opportunity in European weakness and disunity.
The European powers, now too small to project themselves independently, and too divided internally to act together in the global context, clamor for respect for international law (albeit selectively: more so for Greenland than for Venezuela, and certainly more so for Gaza). They are right to do so, and they are also right to seek allies wherever they can find them. But it would also be wise for someone to start calculating the political and material costs that European citizens are willing to bear for distant territories, and to consider whether it wouldn't be better to seek solutions agreed upon with the local population that strengthen international law, instead of waiting to act under pressure from increasingly unscrupulous extra-European imperial powers.
Perhaps the current threat will pass—who remembers the boasts about Canada less than a year ago?—but the underlying issue will remain. In a world of unchecked powers, eroded international law (often with the acquiescence of the European states themselves), and alliances in flux, European overseas territories will be vulnerable and challenged. Riding out the storm and waiting for the fallout in Washington to subside might work. But perhaps bolder and more imaginative solutions are needed to reposition ourselves in a world that, for now, seems quite willing to sideline Europe and impatient to cleanse itself of the remnants of its colonial past.
