Trump’s Greenland Pursuit Has Left NATO Damaged

By Gregory W. Slayton & Sergei Ivashenko

Thursday, January 29, 2026

 

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization is the most successful military alliance in the history of the world. Since its founding in 1949, NATO has helped unify Western democracies in ways that go far beyond military partnership. In doing so, it has held at bay the expansionist dictatorships of the old Soviet Union and the Russian Federation despite their aggressively imperialist foreign policy.

 

For 77 years, Russia’s leaders have dreamed of dividing NATO. Even now, Vladimir Putin is leading a hybrid war against NATO that shows no signs of letting up. Unfortunately for Putin, because of his unprovoked invasion of Ukraine, NATO has dramatically grown in size and strength. NATO dwarfs Russia militarily and economically, and Putin knows it.

 

NATO forces include more than 22,000 military aircraft and over 1,100 military ships. Russia has fewer than 5,000 military aircraft and 500 military ships. NATO’s advantage in terms of tanks and armored personnel carriers is also vast and growing, given the sharp losses Russia has suffered in its war of aggression in Ukraine. After Finland joined NATO in 2023 and 2024, Russia must now focus on defending its 830-mile-long border with that country, which approximately doubles the old NATO border with Russia. This has stretched the short-handed Russian army even further.

 

Economically, the difference is even more stark, as Russia’s economy is approximately one-twentieth the size of NATO’s total GDP. Italy’s GDP alone is greater than Russia’s.

 

Nowhere is NATO’s strength and importance more evident than Ukraine. With strong NATO support, Ukraine has battled the much larger Russian army to a near draw for almost four years. Russian casualties are now estimated to be more than 1.1 million soldiers, approximately double that of Ukraine.

 

But all true partnerships are built on trust. Once that trust is gone, effective partnership becomes impossible. It can be built back over time, but it takes years, not months. President Trump’s recent threats to annex Greenland have broken this trust. Both privately and publicly, key NATO allies are now talking about a NATO without its cornerstone — that is, without America. That is a road we, as Westerners and as Americans, do not want to go down. If America First really means America Alone, our nation’s and our world’s future is bleak.

 

Thankfully, broad domestic and international opposition to one of the most misguided foreign policy proposals to come out of the White House in decades has led Trump to reverse course. The treaties the U.S. has long had with Denmark give America almost carte blanche in Greenland militarily. All NATO allies desire to strengthen NATO’s presence in the Arctic. There was no need for the president’s “the United States must own Greenland” policy.

 

But now Trump’s willingness to use economic and/or military force to get his way has caused a profoundly serious rupture in the NATO alliance.

 

Trump’s recent statement calling into question the effectiveness of NATO forces in Afghanistan before the chaotic U.S. withdrawal has only served to rub salt into the wound (though Trump subsequently tried to clean up his comments). The recently released U.S. National Defense Strategy specifically talks about offering “more limited support” for U.S. allies, which officially calls into question the U.S. commitment to its allies, and specifically to NATO.

 

After four years of failure in Ukraine as well as globally, and with the Russian economy in deep trouble, Putin is on the ropes. Why would Trump now want to give him what Russian leaders have unsuccessfully sought for 77 years: a weakened, fragmented NATO?

 

There is no satisfactory answer to this question. Trump’s grasp of European history is weak at best, leaving an opening for advisers to advance a false case that Denmark has no real claim to Greenland or that NATO forces never helped the United States. His confusion of Greenland and Iceland four times in one speech at Davos was hardly reassuring.

 

This is why Congress must stand up and exercise its constitutionally mandated foreign policy prerogatives. They include the power of the purse for the military and all branches of the federal government, the right to approve treaties and key appointments (think ambassadors and other key State Department officials), the right to investigate wrongdoing (who advised Trump to threaten to take Greenland by force?) and the power to regulate all foreign commerce and trade (including foreign tariffs). These are substantial powers if our Congress, and specifically Republican leadership, is willing to exercise them. They should do so immediately.