The Shadow of Caracas#

To understand the gravity of the situation, however, we must look away from Switzerland and towards the reality on the ground. In recent weeks, a coalition of European countries has made a move unprecedented in recent history: the deployment of an active military contingent on Greenlandic soil. These are not scientific observers, but troops charged with carrying out a ‘reconnaissance’ mission. It is this physical presence—European boots on a territory that Trump considers his Arctic ‘backyard’—that triggered the last tariff crisis.

But why has this coalition decided to move? The answer lies in the rubble of Caracas. The acceleration was dictated by terror, unleashed by what Washington christened Absolute Resolve, but which the rest of the world saw for what it was: a special military operation to topple an inconvenient South American dictator. The Monroe Doctrine has suddenly transformed from a distant memory into the operating manual of Trump’s foreign policy. The operation in Venezuela tore away the final veil of hypocrisy: sovereignty is an elastic concept, which ceases to exist where the White House’s primal instincts begin.

The calculation made in the involved European chancelleries is therefore easy to understand: if Washington can redraw the political order in South America in half a night of bombing, who can guarantee that international law will protect the Arctic? Greenland has gone from being an autonomous Nation to a mere ‘Monopoly square,’ the next item on the American shopping list.

Kvanefjeld#

But let us clear the field of any possible misunderstanding: the presence of the European coalition in Greenland is not a provocation; it is an act of legitimate self-defense. It is the sacrosanct response of those protecting their own borders and future against an ally that has decided to transform itself into a predator. Yes, because the true objective of Washington’s—currently diplomatic—aggression cannot be security, but rather the appropriation of a resource that Europe has the right and the duty to develop: the Kvanefjeld deposit.

We are speaking of one of the world’s largest deposits of rare earths, uranium, and zinc, a fundamental strategic asset for the Union’s energy independence. The project represents, quite literally, the future of Europe. If the coalition has decided to garrison the area, it is because it has understood that Washington does not accept fair competition. Trump’s America does not want to ‘collaborate’ in the Arctic; it wants to monopolize it, snatching the keys to industrial sovereignty right out of European hands.

American greed has a purely economic explanation. Kvanefjeld is a geological jewel: an open-pit deposit with year-round direct shipping access, unique features that guarantee extremely low extraction costs, unattainable for expensive North American projects. Unable to compete in terms of efficiency and market forces, the United States has chosen the path of geopolitical bullying, attempting to take by force what it cannot obtain through economics.

To Moscow and Beijing, the spectacle must appear surreal, yet the blame falls entirely on the strategic blindness of the White House. While Russia legitimately consolidates its Northern Sea Route and China builds its trade networks, the United States is doing the dirty work for its rivals: it is dismantling NATO from the inside. Washington’s arrogance is handing its systemic competitors the greatest possible victory: a fractured Western world, where Europe is forced to watch its back not only against its historic enemies, but also against the one who has always been its ‘big brother’.

The New Wild West#

If Washington is prepared to behave like the very states it has condemned for decades—violating the sovereignty of an ally for mere calculation and, above all, without even bothering to fabricate a justification—then the post-1945 rules-based order is officially buried. We have entered a geopolitical Wild West where anything can happen.

The scenario looming over Europe is the final humiliation. It is, in any case, plausible to imagine that Trump, ignoring all diplomatic niceties, could decide to land American troops on the island without any authorisation, seizing physical control and sending the European contingents home on military flights, without firing a single shot. This will leave the European Union facing only two paths, both of them drastic. The first is to become a ‘walking dead.’ stripped of all strategic relevance and reduced to a mere spectator of history.

The alternative, perhaps achievable only after this necessary passage through humiliation and vassalage, is true federalism. NATO will dismantle itself slowly, a victim of its own internal contradictions, but Europe must decide now whether it wants to be a player or a mere extra. Because the rules no longer exist. Or perhaps, they never did.