Wie man Trumps Obsession mit Grönland versteht

Eliot A. Cohen: “European leaders are in a dither, understandably but inexcusably, about Donald Trump’s threats to take Greenland by force, and to use tariffs to slap around anyone who objects: understandably, because no previous president would ever have acted this way; inexcusably, because a clear if unpalatable solution lies right before them.

“If European countries were to permanently deploy, say, 5,000 soldiers armed with surface-to-air and anti-ship missiles to Greenland, keeping them there with orders to fight invading American soldiers to the last round of ammunition, Trump would not order the paratroops and the Marines to assault that frozen wasteland—too many body bags. If they were willing to put comparable economic sanctions in place—denying American companies access to Europe’s economy, still collectively the world’s third largest—he would back down from those threats as well. Such policies go against the grain of a continent that is, to use the word popularized by the British military historian Michael Howard, debellated, but that’s the world they are in.

“The Greenland episode, disgraceful and shameful as it is, should be seen in the context of Trump’s other foreign-policy escapades—the capturing of Nicolás Maduro; the bombing of the Iranian nuclear program; the attempt to rebuild and reorient war-shattered Gaza; the on-again, off-again relationships with Vladimir Putin and Volodymyr Zelensky; the tariff bazookas that get downgraded to squirt guns with China. Erratic as the president sounds, the Trumpian worldview is comprehensible and even, in some respects, predictable … 

“Trump’s domestic political gift is the feral instinct for weakness that characterizes most authoritarians. That instinct is shakier in international affairs, but it shapes the way in which he views the world. With an image of American industrial and military power that is rooted in the world of several generations ago, he has enormous confidence in American strength and therefore assumes that bullying is preferable to negotiation, unless you are up against someone who is as tough as you, even if less muscle-bound.

“He knows what he hates in foreign affairs—the mealymouthed multilateralism of the Biden administration, its catering to deadbeat allies, and its weakness in fleeing Afghanistan. He likewise despises the caterwauling about liberal values and democracy and the long-term military commitments of the George W. Bush administration. Indeed, although he cannot get over Joe Biden—Trump’s insecurities and grievances about the 2020 election and the various prosecutions he has faced between then and now prohibit it—from a foreign-policy point of view, he is at least as anti–George W. Bush as he is anti-Biden. And he despises the reverence for deliberate decision making, consultation with experts, and the willingness to engage in the conventional diplomacy that characterizes both. He views talk of international leadership, much less its practice, as claptrap.

“Above all, he has three principal instruments in foreign policy: tariffs and kindred economic sanctions, brief bombing campaigns, and commando raids. He has no tolerance for bloody battles, which is why he will not authorize an Arctic amphibious campaign that faces real opposition. If he is going to negotiate, he will use friends such as Steven Witkoff and family members such as Jared Kushner, who might have an eye for lucrative deals that will enrich the United States and privileged relatives and friends. Nothing wrong with greed-driven foreign policy, in his view.”

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