NATO is going through its most severe crisis in history, after US President Donald Trump made threats regarding Greenland. The former Secretary General of the North Atlantic Alliance, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, urges that Trump should no longer be “flattered” and warns that firmness is the only language the American leader respects.
“It’s not just a crisis for NATO, it’s a crisis for the entire transatlantic community and a challenge to the world, to the international order we know since World War II“, Rasmussen stated in a telephone interview for AFP, from the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos.
The former Danish Prime Minister encourages the current NATO Secretary General, Dutchman Mark Rutte, and the main European leaders to adopt firmer positions: “We need to change the strategy and come to the conclusion that the only thing Trump respects is strength, firmness, and unity. This is exactly what Europe needs to demonstrate. The time for flattery is over. Enough!”, he thundered, quoted by News.ro.
In Davos, several European leaders and Mark Rutte hope to convince Trump to give up his threats against Greenland, a territory under Danish sovereignty, a member state of the European Union and NATO.
A rupture that benefits Russia and China
Rasmussen believes that, although Trump’s threats have caused a sudden rupture between the US and its traditional allies, there is still the possibility of finding solutions that strengthen NATO. “It’s a completely new situation, different from all the other disputes we’ve known in NATO’s history“, he explained.
The former NATO chief warns, however, that if Trump would attack Greenland and deploy military actions against the island, “this means, de facto, the end of NATO“. He draws attention that the world’s focus is shifting from the real threat, the War in Ukraine, to Greenland, “which does not represent a real threat to the security of the North Atlantic”.
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