Is this the end of Nato as we know it? Article 5 of the Nato constitution is a fundamental principle of collective defence, stating that an attack on one member is considered an attack on all members.
But what if one member threatens to attack one or two fellow member states? Well, US President Donald Trump has just done it, saying he won’t rule out using force to annex Greenland and Canada.
Does that mean other Nato member states will have to collectively fight the United States, or Article 5 goes up in smoke and it’s every country for itself?
Perhaps Canadians should count themselves lucky. While saying the prospect of attacking Ottawa appears “highly unlikely”, Greenland, a semi-autonomous island nominally owned by the Kingdom of Denmark, is a different question.
“I don’t rule it out,” he said on Sunday. “I don’t say I’m going to do it, but I don’t rule out anything. No, not there. We need Greenland very badly. Greenland is a very small amount of people, which we’ll take care of, and we’ll cherish them, and all of that. But we need that for international security.”
Since his return to the White House, Trump has widely broadcast his desire to turn Canada into America’s 51st state and to acquire Greenland for its strategic location against Russia and China as well as rich mineral deposits.