Rehearsal Greenland: The Cost of Procedure
Thursday, February 5th, 2015: I stepped off a long flight from Korea to begin my tour as a broadcast journalist at Ramstein Air Base, Germany. This meant that, for the next two and a half years, I’d take my camera and microphone around Poland and the Baltics to document U.S. Air Force cooperation with NATO allies in what was then framed as Russian nuclear deterrence. Massive exercises (or, as I called them, war games in the forest) that I’d upload to our central military media portal and then watch as the analytics showed TV stations at home as well as in Russia downloading the files. Sometimes, it was impressive; sometimes (like flying aboard a Stratotanker as it refueled a B-52 nuclear bomber just a few dozen kilometers from the border of Belarus) kind of scary. But, these demonstrations were meant to reassure European publics that the post–Cold War order still had a spine, and I believed in that.
A portrait from my final year in service.
Or at least, I believed in the people executing it. Now, nearly a decade later, I am no longer part of that machinery. I left the U.S. military eight years ago, took up long-term residence in Europe, and spent years reading, teaching, and thinking about the less flattering sides of American power. I’m no less attached to the peace and stability that NATO under the U.S.’s leadership offered, but I’d like to think I have a sharper sense of how fragile it has always been. Now watching my country’s government act with open contempt for constraint has me feeling a particular mix of frustration and shame. But that’s not what this article is about; I’d instead like to focus on how Europe (and the West in a larger sense) can right itself before it shakes entirely apart.
Just a few days ago, U.S. forces captured Nicolás Maduro in Caracas and transferred him to New York to face federal charges. Whatever one thinks of Maduro or his regime, the significance of the act lies elsewhere. It’s as if we blinked, and then suddenly a sitting head of state was forcibly removed and reframed as a law-enforcement problem. The operation was not justified as war nor regime change and, as such, did not go through the formal steps of Congressional/democratic approval; a thuggish violation of sovereignty. Indeed, it seems now that the gloves are truly off: American legal authority may be unquestioningly executed beyond its borders and there’s not all that much you, lone citizen, can do about it.
At least, that’s the message I think we’re meant to interpret.
So, in this historical moment where it feels like the accelerationists are fully in charge, Venezuela almost feels like old news and now we’re taking America’s renewed talk of acquiring Greenland quite seriously. As well we should: the logic that once rendered such an idea unthinkable is no longer reliably in place (spoiler warning: hold onto this idea, we’re going somewhere with it). After Venezuela, it’s no longer convincing nor even competent to say that certain actions fall outside the bounds of what the U.S. would ever do. The relevant question has shifted. What constraints remain, and who is prepared to enforce them?
The temptation, particularly in Europe, is to treat Greenland as a rhetorical provocation: a familiar outburst to be managed, absorbed, and ultimately ignored. It’s forgivable to want that, but history offers little comfort in that approach. Appeasement is often misunderstood as cowardice, but you could see it perhaps more accurately as a failure of incentive-reading: a belief that restraint will be interpreted as reasonableness rather than permission.
Europe knows this story well. Neville Chamberlain’s gamble in the 1930s (refresher: “just give that odd German chancellor the Sudetenland and this’ll all blow over”) failed because wishful thinking willfully misunderstands the lessons an expansionist actor learns from accommodation. That lesson has not expired just because the uniforms changed and the Old Guard died.
For years now, Europe has lived with the consequences of three major strategic abdications. It:
outsourced industrial capacity to East Asia, hollowing out domestic production and resilience.
outsourced defense to the American security umbrella, leaving European militaries interoperable but fragmented; i.e., capable in pieces but incoherent as a whole.
outsourced energy security to Russia, a dependency whose costs became painfully visible only once leverage was exercised (here in The Netherlands, that took form two winters ago and is fresh on the mind as we’re currently getting snowed in again).
These choices were maybe not irrational at the time. They were made in a world that appeared stable, governed by institutions that seemed capable of absorbing shocks. But they were also not inspiring in their long-term thinking, and now that the environment surrounding those choices has changed so dramatically, we’re only left to look at the wireframe of these decisions and pity the lack of foresightedness. Is this lack permanent? I think not; but rash action must meet rash action.
Photo by Lauren Penney.
Over the past year, the illusion of European ballast (i.e., a counterweight to some perception that the world’s strongmen leaders are just having a moment) has eroded beyond the pale. France’s fiscal and political room for maneuver has narrowed. Germany’s economic model continues to stall under the weight of energy transition, deindustrialization anxiety, and global competition. The United Kingdom, which has held onto the reputation sometimes more than others as a strategic counterweight in moments of continental drift, remains structurally distanced from the European Union, thus complicating any potential for rapid consolidation of power (as is necessary when history moves quickly). Unity, in other words, is procedurally difficult and politically fragile on the European subcontinent.
But, beneath these familiar diagnoses lies a quieter, more poisonous abdication — one that receives far less scrutiny and one I’d like to bring directly into the limelight. Europe has not only outsourced production, defense, and energy; but it has outsourced moral responsibility to procedure as well.
Rules, frameworks, and institutional process have become substitutes for individual judgment. Legality and legitimacy might as well be the same word here. But, if we are witnessing – or rather, active participants in – a world where power is increasingly exercised through selective enforcement, lawfare, and faits accomplis, Europe seems unusually committed to the belief that adherence to process will itself generate security. This commitment is admirable, and I suppose it’s some common perceived quality of high trust societies. But I contend that, as we’re questioning our role in the future, this fetish for procedure is also increasingly dangerous and perhaps even fatal.
Greenland exposes this vulnerability with remarkable clarity. The island is, at the moment, a territory of Denmark. As such, it’s also a stress test for consent-based alliances. If the United States were to pursue Greenland through coercion instead, the issue would not be Arctic minerals or basing rights. It would instead be the precedent established inside the alliance itself: that security guarantees can coexist with territorial appetite.
Some argue that American interest in Greenland runs counter to Russian ambitions, strengthening U.S. positioning in a melting Arctic that (tragically) means new sea lanes and critical resource access. There is probably some truth in this. The Arctic is becoming a theater of competition, and Russia’s northern ports and infrastructure investments are already reshaping the balance there.
But this reading misses a larger systemic effect. Actions that fracture NATO’s internal coherence, normalize coercion among allies, or render European sovereignty conditional are strategic gifts to Moscow regardless of publicly stated intent. Russia benefits less from who controls Greenland than from whether the alliance meant to constrain Russian expansion – NATO – can survive the spectacle of its leading power ignoring its own rules.
Whether this convergence is driven by leverage, ideological sympathy, or contempt for institutions is ultimately beside the much more existential point. When outcomes repeatedly align with an adversary’s interests, intent becomes analytically irrelevant. Fracturing the NATO alliance and shattering allied trust directly serves Russian strategic interests.
This is where European discomfort must finally be confronted. If the United States were to pursue territorial acquisition within Europe’s immediate strategic environment, it would be reasonable – destabilizing, but reasonable – for European governments to reconsider the assumptions that govern American military presence on the continent. I am not arguing that expulsion of U.S. forces from bases such as Ramstein should be the first response. I am however arguing that it should no longer be unthinkable. Passivity masquerading as prudence will lead to far graver outcomes than Greenland’s annexation alone.
Europe does not need to sever its alliance with the United States. I hope that alliance remains strong, as both sides would be significantly worse off without it. However, the alliance needs a heavy overhaul wherein constraint sees renewed prominence. Conditional basing agreements, coordinated Arctic governance, alliance diversification beyond NATO’s existing comfort zone, and a willingness to challenge narratives that equate security with ownership are, I contend, basic acts of self-respect that European leaders would be wise to act – not just talk about, but act – on.
The coming years will not reward moral cleanliness so much as they will reward clarity, speed, and the willingness to accept friction in defense of sovereignty. Greenland is, in effect, the rehearsal. The proving grounds.
I therefore leave you with this: I spend a lot of time thinking about Europe’s military readiness, but I’m recognizing I’ve been focusing on the wrong thing. I’m now more concerned about its ability to reckon with an ally-turned-adversary. Do we have the at-home competence to rapidly spin up a unified defense that operates smoothly across linguistic, cultural, and national boundaries? If so, then I can rest easy at night knowing I’ve chosen the right spot on Earth to spend the majority of my adulthood. If not, however, we’ve got a tremendous amount of work to do and not a lot of time to do it.
Next Steps
The work probably starts with people in positions of influence: government, industry, or civil society. Part of it is cognitive: they must abandon the practice of waiting for perfect alignment among each other before making hard choices (in that, I’m paying attention to any change in the timbre of the Coalition of the Willing’s ongoing talks and whether this body will amount to just another League of Nations). This also, of course, relies on the electorate to motivate this change; the action here is political organization at all levels.
Infrastructural work also needs to go into high gear immediately: can European defense firms scale rapidly enough to meet the increased threats to offshore threats, cyber warfare, etc.? Can member states pool their sovereignty in meaningful ways when crisis looms? Can Europe build its own home-grown technology ecosystem that’s resilient enough to weather these storms and which also bypasses the need to route through Silicon Valley or Shenzhen?
Maybe you’re reading this and thinking “but what can I do?” Indeed, the role of the individual in this vast machinery is obscure, but it’s also individual deference to “someone else will solve it” that’s part of the problem. Pressure your elected officials (here in The Netherlands, elections are coming up in March) to prioritize resilience over comfort, even/especially if it’s politically dicey.
If you’re an institutional leader, you might have to take some reputational risks on the chin: advocate for uncomfortable policy shifts and recognize that procedural legitimacy without courage to defend sovereignty is performative government at best, flaccid crisis response at worst.
The best thing about Europe in peacetime is the strength and density of its institutions: multiple checks and balances lower the likelihood of any one actor or corrupt interest seizing control of the entire bloc. But outside of peacetime, a fundamental shift in logic is required and it will take some discomfort on all of our parts to make it happen; but we need to make it happen yesterday, and if not yesterday, now.