[ben_w]

> The US could take Greenland by force tomorrow and the EU response would be a poetry recital.

If that's the best the EU can manage, the EU ends the same day, and all of the EU knows that. Ergo, they won't let that happen.

Likewise, all of NATO except apparently part of the US, knows that the US taking Greenland by force means the end of NATO.

[Chance-Device]

I don’t think these things work the way you think they work.

Nobody really cares about Greenland.

Nobody is willing to allow there to be real consequences, or even real inconveniences, as a result of anything to do with Greenland.

The EU is primarily an economic and regulatory structure, not a military alliance.

NATO is a paper tiger anyway, people will invent some justifications and keep doing business as usual.

[ben_w]

> I don’t think these things work the way you think they work.

Perhaps, but nobody reasonable would have forecast this situation in the first place, what Trump is doing here already wildly outside of any recent precedents for the USA's behaviour.

> Nobody really cares about Greenland.

Nobody should, the inhabitable parts are tiny, the rest is a massive ice sheet, the population wouldn't even half-fill the largest single stadium.

> Nobody is willing to allow there to be real consequences, or even real inconveniences, as a result of anything to do with Greenland.

Tell that to Trump, he's the one threatening military force to get an island he's already allowed to build whatever bases he wants on. There's no good reason for him to have burned his bridges like this. Even if he doesn't invade, he's already severely weakening relations with people who thought they were American allies, who have already come to American aid when asked.

> The EU is primarily an economic and regulatory structure, not a military alliance.

Primarily, yes, but it does also have a mutual defence clause. Never been tested, of course. Why would anyone be dumb enough to threaten an EU member state with military conquest?

And yet, here we are.

> NATO is a paper tiger anyway, people will invent some justifications and keep doing business as usual.

Article 5 has been invoked exactly once, to aid the USA. NATO-minus-USA is going to be wild, almost certainly forces a lot of other members to rapidly develop nukes of their own even if this all goes "peacefully".