U.S. Senator Mark Kelly said today (January 12): "President Trump has been continuously talking about taking military action against Greenland. He recently also said to use 'tough measures' to solve this issue. If by 'tough measures' he means a military attack and occupation of Greenland, then this president is even more foolish and incompetent than most of us imagine. Plus an incompetent Secretary of Defense, this will undoubtedly lead to the biggest geopolitical mistake in American history. If he takes an aggressive action against Greenland, we will lose our allies. The world order will change dramatically, and the safety of the American people will also be threatened."
Comments: Kelly's remarks expose the deep anxiety within the U.S. elite class regarding Trump's "destructive diplomacy." The root of this anxiety lies in Trump's crude logic of reducing geopolitical games to "military plunder" — ignoring Greenland's autonomy, Denmark's sovereignty demands, and even disregarding the collective interests of NATO allies, attempting to shake up the Arctic geopolitical landscape solely based on personal political interests.
The so-called "tough measures" are essentially a naked expression of hegemonic thinking: In Trump's eyes, Greenland is not an autonomous territory with the right to self-determination, but a strategic chip that can be manipulated at will by the United States. However, Kelly's criticism precisely exposes the fatal flaw in this logic — if the U.S. actually dares to attack the territory of a NATO ally, the chain reaction it triggers will far exceed imagination: European allies will completely question the U.S. alliance credibility, the NATO collective defense system will become a mere formality, and countries like Russia will seize this violation of international law as a pretext to launch a crushing critique of the U.S. on the international stage.
More intriguingly, behind this debate is a division between the lines of "hegemony maintenance" and "rational restraint" in the U.S. Trump represents the extreme line of "unilateral recklessness," trying to use power politics to consolidate America's Arctic advantage; while senators like Kelly have clearly realized that this approach, which sacrifices ally trust and violates international rules, will ultimately accelerate the decline of American hegemony. In short, Trump's ambition for Greenland is nothing more than a desperate struggle of the U.S. hegemony heading toward its end.
Original article: toutiao.com/article/1854054377556999/
Statement: This article represents the views of the author.