EU faces defining six months as Trump doctrine, trade tensions test strategic autonomy

“Europe will probably continue to be reactive,” Ian Bond, deputy director at the London-based Centre for European Reform, told Courthouse News. “It is hard to break their defense dependency on the US, so they won’t want to take precipitate steps.”

The Greenland threats carry existential implications. “Even if legally NATO continued to exist, it would effectively be destroyed — an alliance designed to defend its members against armed attack could not survive the impact of its largest member attacking one of the other allies,” Bond said.