Wolfgang Ischinger, a former German ambassador to Washington and currently chairman of the Munich Security Conference, writes:

As Denmark’s prime minister, Mette Frederiksen, has warned, an attack on Greenland would be the end of NATO. That would rob the United States of an unbeatable web of allies, offer rifts for our common enemies to exploit and eradicate the alliance’s collective moral high ground that has helped project American soft power across Europe and the world for decades. In short, it would make America weaker, not safer.

Greenland is not a marginal issue for Europeans. Threats against it cut to the heart of the idea of Europe, of sovereignty, international law and trust. Key European leaders recently stressed they are united in their position that it is up to Denmark and Greenland to decide their own fate — and no one else. The potential for a crisis is real, and what is most confounding is that this would be a crisis that is entirely unnecessary and easily avoidable.

Mr. Trump can credibly point to significant achievements in strengthening NATO. While not everyone may have liked his approach, it proved effective. He succeeded in pushing America’s allies to commit to a new spending target far beyond what anyone had thought possible. After more than a decade of struggling to meet the 2 percent dues benchmark, NATO members have now pledged to spend 5 percent of their gross domestic product on defense by 2035. Major European countries such as Germany have already begun to move quickly toward that target.

A stronger European pillar allows the United States to focus on other strategic challenges, most notably in the Western Hemisphere and the Indo-Pacific. By any fair assessment, NATO is on track to become militarily stronger because of President Trump’s pressure. Yet it is also because of President Trump that NATO’s very survival is now at risk. [Continue reading…]