Fearing the wolf, only to be eaten by the shepherd

For 75 years Europe has put itself under the protection of America due to a fear of Russia. But Trump's mooted Greenland invasion makes it clear Europe has been blind to the threat from its West.

Over the past two days it seems to finally have started to become clear to Europe’s leaders that the risk they are facing isn’t just that the United States is no longer an ally. The situation is much more serious than that. They are looking at a new world where the United States may actually be an adversary - an enemy of Europe. And that is a major problem for a continent that has structured its entire way of life, from culture to economics to defence, around one major assumption: America will always be a friend.

Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen was dashing across EU capitals yesterday holding emergency meetings with other leaders following an alarming and dangerous phone call from Donald Trump in which the US president aggressively implied he would take the Danish territory of Greenland by force. “It was horrendous,” a government official told the Financial Times. “Before, it was hard to take it seriously. But I do think it is serious and potentially very dangerous.”

European leaders, still in deep denial about where the US is headed, had initially brushed off Trump’s Greenland threats as bluster. But following the phone call, Frederiksen travelled to Paris for emergency talks with French President Emmanuel Macron and then to Berlin to speak with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz. These meetings followed her phone calls with the NATO secretary general and the British prime minister. “There must be respect for territory and the sovereignty of states,” she said after the meetings. “This is an absolutely crucial cornerstone of the international world order we have built since World War II.” Scholz was even more pointed: “The inviolability of borders is a fundamental principle of international law,” Scholz said after the meeting. “Russia has broken this principle with its invasion of Ukraine, thereby also laying the axe to the peace order in Europe. This principle must apply to everyone. Borders must not be moved by force.”

There are now reportedly ongoing talks about sending a joint European military force to Greenland to demonstrate to Trump that he wouldn’t be able to take the island without a fight. The French foreign minister has said such a joint force is currently under discussion, but it appears the Frederiksen is worried that it will only serve to provoke Trump into an invasion. For Europeans who have been in deep denial about America’s direction of travel for many years, the idea that they are about to send troops to intimidate or warn the United States against attacking and invading European territory is absolutely traumatic.

There is an old African proverb which seems to sum up the situation Europe finds itself in this week: “The sheep will spend its entire life fearing the wolf, only to be eaten by the shepherd.” In other words, the sheep was right to fear the wolf, but in unquestioningly accepting the protection of the shepherd he was blind to the threat that the shepherd himself also posed. And what the sheep will learn at the end of his life is that the shepherd was only protecting him to kill and eat him himself in the end - and in the mean time reap profit by shearing his wool.

The wolf in this metaphor is obviously Russia, and the shepherd is the United States. While Moscow was the obviously aggressive and dangerous neighbour, Europeans have not had the courage or foresight to question the wisdom of putting themselves deeper and deeper under the control and protection of Washington in order to protect them from the Russians. America might have been a friend and ally up to this point, but what would happen if it suddenly wasn’t? What would happen if there was a regime change in the United States which meant that not only would America no longer protect Europe from Russia, but that they might seek to attack Europe themselves? France has been the only member of the flock to be cognisant of this risk and has warned about it for many years - but for that the French have been mocked and derided by others, particularly the British and Eastern Europeans. Europe’s Atlanticist leadership has been completely unwilling to even think about the idea that America wouldn’t be there as an ally forever. There was no plan B. And that is why Europe finds itself in the panicked situation it is in today.

The EU’s President Ursula von der Leyen has been the personification of this naive head-in-the-sand approach over the past two months. Incredibly, her response to Trump’s threats was to praise the United States as a dependable ally. But she is reflecting the panicked inertia of most European leaders at the moment, who seem to think that like a dinosaur in Jurassic Park, Trump can’t see them if they don’t move. And as the Substack European Tomorrow noted Monday, “for Trump’s prospective targets, it is tempting to simply sit quietly and hope he forgets about you.” But while this might be a worthwhile approach on trade and tariffs, because you can delay while preparing a trigger for fast action, on territory and defence this doesn’t work. “America using military force to seize European territory is a real possibility and not one we can hope will resolve itself,” writes Pascal Lth. “Simply staying quiet and avoiding the issue will not save us because, unlike with tariffs, it would actively undermine any efforts to deter America from such a course of action. Staying away from the topic will mean nothing more than leaving Greenland open and unprotected.”

For most Europeans it may seem inconceivable that the US would invade the territory of an EU member state. They may think that even if Trump is a madman (many here are still under the delusion that Trump as an aberration rather than an accurate reflection of what Americans have become), surely the American people would never stand for such a thing. The checks and balances would stop him. Those thinking this may not have gotten the memo that the courts, the congress and the media are all falling into line out of fear of Trump. Well then, surely the American people would rise up in a revolution if Trump harmed their friends the Europeans, right? Well that’s the heart of the delusion, isn’t it? Europeans really think that Americans care as much about them as they care about Americans. The reality is that Americans don’t give a damn about Europeans. They know next to nothing about them. They spend zero percent of their time thinking about them. The idea that it’s an attack on Europe that would be the trigger to stoke the American people into a violent resistance against the Trump regime is laughable.

Europeans need to drop the delusions, pull their heads out of the sand and realize that Americans are not the friends they thought they were. Thanks to the position of weakness that generations of Atlanticist leadership have put this continent in, there is of course no hope that Europe can resist an American invasion militarily. If Trump wants to take Greenland, he can take it. But Europeans need to make clear, now, that he will not be able to do so without a fight. He will not be able to do so without American soldiers killing European soldiers and vice versa.

Europe needs to approach this regime with a posture of boldness and strength, not the cowardice that they have shown so far. Over the next days and weeks we’re going to see those cowards say that Europe should give Greenland to America to appease Trump. Others will call for resistance and a strong united response. Who will win the argument? These next few days will be critical. Council chair Antonio Costa has now scheduled the Greenland crisis as a specific item for discussion at Monday’s informal summit of EU prime ministers and presidents in Brussels. British Prime Minister Keir Starmer will be joining them, as will NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte. Rutte, who chairs the vehicle for America’s military protectorate over Europe, obviously can’t do or say much. But the EU leaders and Starmer must come out of that meeting with a clear plan to send a joint European force to Greenland, and make it clear that the continent will respond as a bloc if Trump attempts to take it by force. Anything less would be an absolute abdication of their duty to protect their citizens.

The time to stand up to the shepherd is running out. Only by standing strong and united can the European sheep protect themselves from being devoured.