Stephen Kinzer’s argument that seizing Greenland shouldn’t shock the world rests on a troubling equivalence (“Seizing Greenland would shock the world. It shouldn’t,” Ideas, Jan. 18). By comparing an explicit threat by the United States to take territory from a NATO ally with past US actions undertaken amid legal dispute, alliance pressure, or multilateral cover, Kinzer tries to merge fundamentally different behaviors into the same moral category.
What distinguishes the Greenland episode is not simply force vs. diplomacy but, rather, the open rejection of legitimacy itself. Previous administrations often violated international norms; they rarely dismissed those norms as irrelevant. Treating sovereignty, alliances, and international law as disposable is not realism. It is a clear break with the postwar order.
Kinzer’s analysis also understates the role of American soft power. For decades, US influence derived not only from strength but also from predictability, trust, and institutional leadership. Threatening an ally’s territory does not project toughness; it burns the very capital that has made American power effective.
Framing this moment as ordinary geopolitics risks something much more corrosive than disagreement. It normalizes an agenda that is openly hostile to the system of alliances and rules that has helped prevent great-power conflict for decades. When powerful nations stop acting as if rules apply to them, instability doesn’t become more honest. It becomes more dangerous.
Jeff Johnson
Chelmsford