On America’s Dominance in NATO: The E.U. as a Contributory Factor

Just after the E.U. had successfully negotiated (mostly) free-trade treaties with India and a few South American state-level countries, the E.U. and U.S. were at odds on the ownership and control of Greenland to such an extent that the NATO alliance was strained if not fraught. The resulting power-vacuum with respect to military alliances could be filled by the E.U. strengthening its federal foreign policy and defense powers and forming a military alliance with India and even South America in order to put less reliance and thus pressure on the weakened NATO alliance.  This is not to say that new military alliances would necessarily or even probably form; rather, such alliances would be in line with the dynamics and logic of power itself at the international level. I contend that the unbalanced balance of federal-state power in foreign policy and defense in the E.U. was a major contributory factor of the dominance of the U.S. in NATO.

U.S. President’s politically aggressive threats regarding making Greenland a U.S. territory (but not a state) made the American dominance in NATO suddenly unsavory to the Europeans. At the end of January, 2026, the former European Council president Charles Michel was unusually blunt by European (but not American Midwestern) standards. “NATO chief Mark Rutte should stop being an ‘American agent’ and unite the fraught military alliance in the face of the United States’ ‘hostile rhetoric’ and ‘intimidation’,” Michel told Euronews.[1] Whereas his words, hostile rhetoric and intimidation, applied to President Trump were nothing new; it was the expression, American agent, that stood out. Even though the dominance of the mighty American military power in NATO was hardly news, that Michel said it out loud signaled the depth of the Europeans’ displeasure at Trump’s overt messaging on Greenland. Michel was just as blunt about Rutte himself. “I want to be clear, Mark Rutte is disappointing and I’m losing confidence. . . . I’m not expecting Mark Rutte to be an American agent. I’m expecting Mark to work for unity within NATO,” Michel said.[2]

Rutte’s claim that Trump was the “Daddy” of NATO was admittedly over the top (Trump’s ego hardly needed the accolade of Daddy), but Michel’s criticism is weaker concerning Rutte’s efforts to find “an off-ramp for Trump to climb down on his recent threats to trigger a trade war” with the E.U. over differences on Greenland.[3] Dissipating the related economic and political escalations between countries in NATO served the interests of unity in NATO, so Rutte deserves credit for providing Trump with an off-ramp.

Michel also claimed that the E.U. had been a “very loyal partner” to the U.S. and thus did not deserve Trump’s threats.[4] Instead of going on to analyze the relative validity of the positions of the E.U. and U.S. on which continent should own and control Greenland, the road less travelled by analysts concerns the argument that the E.U. would be more likely to reach a parity of power with the U.S. in NATO were the E.U. states willing to transfer more governmental sovereignty to the federal level in foreign policy and defense. This would include (but not be limited to) moving off reliance on the principle of unanimity to hold votes in the Council by qualified-majority. As the executive branch, the Commission would of course have more shared and exclusive competencies (i.e., enumerated powers) in foreign affairs and militarily (with control over more than the 60,000 troops). As in the U.S., both the states and the Union would have armies, and the Commission could temporarily borrow the state militias as needed. That the state governments have direct power in the European Council and the Council of Ministers, whereas the American states are only indirectly represented in the U.S. Senate, means that the E.U. would be less likely to abuse its federal police and even the federal borrowing of state armies as Trump was able to do.

Moreover, that the U.S. had become so violent, in part due to the astounding corruption in local police departments and in part due to the Trump administration is itself a reason why E.U. citizens and their elected representatives have good reason to bolster defense at the federal level. Gone were the days when America stood for the little guys rather than the bullies in the world. Unfortunately, the language that speaks most clearly to Trump, Netanyahu, and Putin is that of counter-force. Were the E.U. not so bottom-heavy militarily (i.e., reliant on the state armies), perhaps a federal force could have gone into Ukraine and Gaza to push the aggressors back. Might-Makes-Right would have suffered a set-back rather than stand to become the default in post post-World War II global order. Therefore, the Europeans could stand to do some navel gazing on why the U.S. has been so dominate in NATO.  

1. Mared G. Jones, “Mark Rutte Should Stop Being an ‘American Agent’ and Unite NATO, Charles Michel Says,” Euronews.com, January 30, 2026.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.
4. Ibid.

Ukraine’s Zelensky Nails the E.U.

On a day when “(a)pproximately 4,000 building in Kyiv lacked heating . . . as temperatures plunged to -20C amid Ukraine’s coldest winter in years, almost four years into Russia’s full-scale invasion,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy “delivered a scathing critique of European inaction at the World Economic Forum . . . , declaring that the continent ‘looks lost’ and remains trapped in endless repetition of failing to defend itself or decisively support Ukraine.”  Zelensky lamented, “Repeating the same thing for weeks, months, and of course, years. And yet that is exactly how we live now.”  In particular, he was referring to the fact that just as the U.S. had been sinking drug boats, the E.U. could have been sinking Russian oil tankers even near Greenland. “We will solve this problem with Russian ships,” he said. “They can sink near Greenland just like they sink near Crimea.”  Why was Europe repeating the same “day” over and over again, as in the film starring Bill Murry, Groundhog’s Day? Zelensky had the presence of mind to identify the root problem though his wording was antiquated.

Contrasting the U.S. with the E.U., Zelensky lamented, “The fact remains, Maduro is on trial in New York. Sorry, but Putin is not on trial. . . . The man who started it is not only free, he’s still fighting for his frozen money in Europe.”  Questioning “why Trump could seize shadow fleet tankers and oil while Europe could not, noting that oil funds the war against Ukraine,” Zelensky said, “If Putin has no money, there’s no war for Europe.”  The point is that the E.U. could have acted to thwart Putin’s military might by cutting off oil revenue. Such action even years earlier seems like a no-brainer, given Zelensky’s logic: “Today they target Ukraine. Tomorrow it could be any NATO country,” he said. “Wouldn’t it be easier and cheaper to cut Russia off from components making missiles, or destroy factories making them?”  That could be done directly by bombing the factories and boycotting Russia, and indirectly by bombing Russian oil in tankers, whether Russian or not. It was, in other words, in the interest of the Europeans in the E.U. to cut off the Russian war-machine rather than appease it with inaction. 

As for the E.U.’s reliance on a few of its states to defend Greenland amid U.S. President Trump’s intention to invade or purchase the island, Zelensky noted the significance of the weak response by saying, ‘If you send 14 or 40 soldiers to Greenland, what is that for? What message does it send? What is the message to Putin, to China? And even more importantly, what message does it send to Denmark, your close ally? Forty soldiers will not protect anything.”  Even as Zelensky was insightful in drawing out these wider implications, he made a political category mistake in mischaracterizing one E.U. state, Denmark, as an ally in the E.U., for a state in a federal union is neither an ally (i.e., equivalent) to the union itself nor an ally to other such states. Unlike allies, E.U. states have delegated a portion of their respective governmental sovereignty to a federal level (e.g., exclusive competencies, as well as qualified-majority voting).  In fact, Zelensky was undercutting his own argument in so doing.

In particular, and here we get to the main point, “Zelenskyy criticized Europe’s fragmented response to global challenges, declaring the continent ‘still feels more like geography, history, tradition, not a great political power’ and ‘remains a fragmented kaleidoscope of small and middle powers.’”  Even in sending a few thousand troops from a few E.U. states rather than a federal response going beyond loose cooperation, the E.U. showed itself in relief as having succumbed to its parts (i.e., states). Zelensky actually fed the undergirding Euroskeptic, anti-federalist European ideology by referring not to states or even member-states, but to small and middle powers as if the E.U. did not even exist. If he was referring to small and large E.U. states as “small and middle powers,” Zelensky was missing the point that whether large or small, an E.U. state is an E.U. state. Mischaracterizing E.U. states as small and middle powers, and the E.U. as the unnamed large power not only ignores the E.U.’s immense weakness, especially with regard to its own states, but also ignores that in a federation, there are only two levels: the state level and the federal level. 

In short, if Zelensky wanted a stronger, more perfect Union in Europe, a “great power,” he should have said so, explicitly: the E.U. needs more competencies, or enumerated powers, in foreign policy and defense, subject to qualified-majority voting rather than unanimity in the European Council and the Council of Ministers. Instead, the way he described “small and middle” powers in his speech at Davos undermined his own goal. He claimed that Europe needed to learn at least how to defend itself, but since his last address at Davos a year earlier, “nothing has changed.”  He lamented that in Europe, everyone “turned attention to Greenland and its clear most leaders [in Europe] are not sure what to do about it.”  Meanwhile, Europe’s “small and middle” powers were reluctant to provide Ukraine with advanced weapons systems. Relying on the U.S. had become foolish, and yet the E.U. was still not stepping up to the plate (an expression from baseball) to bat in foreign policy and defense. 

It was long since time for structural change be made in the division of competencies between the federal and state systems of government in the E.U., especially with the U.S. eyeing Greenland and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine having been going on for nearly four years by early 2026 when Zelensky delivered his speech to the world’s economic and political elite in Davos. It was time, in other words, for the governors of the states to “step up to the plate” and agree to federalize more authority in foreign affairs and defense. After all, those state governments had enough direct power at the federal level in the European Council and the Council of Ministers to act as a check, even under qualified-majority vote, on federalized foreign policy and defense. The U.S. could take a lesson in this respect and replace elected U.S. senators with governors in that union’s higher legislative chamber to step federal encroachment on the retained and residual governmental sovereignty of the member-states there.  

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1. Aleksandar Brezar, “Zelenskyy Says Europe ‘Looks Lost’ and Living in ‘Groundhog Day’ in Scathing Davos Address,” Euronews.com, January 22, 2026.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.
4. Ibid.
5. Ibid.
6. Ibid.
7. Ibid.
8. Ibid.

9. Ibid.

10. Ibid.

Mixing Trade and Defense Policy: The E.U.-U.S. Bilateral Relationship

Trade and war have historically been related, as, for example, money from recurring surplus balances of trade—an alternative to debt—has facilitated military build-ups prior to going to war in the Europe. In threatening to take Greenland by military force if the E.U. state of Denmark continued to refuse to sell the island and then issuing 10% tariffs against Denmark and other E.U. states, as well as two sovereign European states for having sent troops to defend Greenland in case the U.S. were to invade, President Trump closely wielded trade and military policy. The E.U.’s response was unbalanced, being oriented only to the trade element of the E.U.-U.S. bilateral relationship, due to weaknesses in the E.U.’s federal system.

In January, 2026, President Trump’s announced that “a 10% tariff on all products coming from eight European countries”—the E.U. states of Denmark, Sweden, Finland, France, and Germany plus Britain, which had seceded from the E.U., and stand-alone Norway—would begin on February 1^st and increase substantially months later “until a deal is reached for the ‘complete and total purchase of Greenland’.”[1] Those states had just sent troops to Greenland as doing so would prevent Trump from using military force to invade the island. The E.U. itself was inactive on this military front even though the independent coordination between a few states in sending troops lacked not only the united action, but also the political leverage that the E.U. could have provided in pushing back against Trump’s threats. That the E.U. is more than the sum of its parts (i.e., states) seems perpetually to be lost on Europeans, whose primary political instinct would be called “states’ rights” in American terms. In fact, the Euroskeptic ideology has gone so far as to misconceive of the E.U. itself as merely a trading “bloc,” such that adding competencies, or enumerated powers, in foreign policy and defense would by implication seem taboo.

Accordingly, rather than the European Commission, the Parliament, and the Council coordinating legislative and even “basic law” action to bolster the E.U.’s military reaction to Trump’s threats, calls were instead for the E.U. to “deploy its ultimate anti-coercion tool against the US . . .”[2] That instrument had been adopted by the E.U. in 2023 “to combat political blackmail through trade” and “would allow the E.U. to restrict third countries from participating in public procurement tenders. Limit trade licenses and shut off access to the single market.”[3] The use of the instrument would be in accord with the mistaken, ideologically convenient view that the E.U. is primarily a trade organization. Besides misconstruing the E.U.’s three pillars as exclusively economic in nature, the “geopolitical ramifications” of using the legislative instrument to “severely impact U.S. services and products” would be extrinsic. Furthermore, if those ramifications would cause the U.S. to militarily invade Greenland, the E.U. would have to rely on its states to respond militarily. I submit that such a military response would be suboptimal relative to a federal response.

President Trump’s geopolitical close linkage of trade policy and military strategy with respect to Greenland demonstrates just how deficient and costly the anti-federalist, Euroskeptic ideology has been with respect to the E.U. being thought of as primarily economic in nature. That the states sending troops to Greenland “reiterated their ‘full solidarity’” with the E.U. state of Denmark is not the same as a foreign-policy statement coming from the E.U.’s foreign minister. Even concerning the E.U.’s anti-coercion law, that the E.U. states of Germany and France were planning on pushing “their European partners to use all tools at their disposal” rather than work through the E.U.’s Council, which represents the states, demonstrates the anti-federalist, states’ rights ideology at work at the expense of federal action.[4] To be sure, it is difficult for governors of states to give up power to a federal level. The question is perhaps how deficient the E.U. must become in a changing world in which trade is increasingly intertwined with geopolitical and even military interests and activity before the E.U.’s state governments are willing to delegate enough competencies, or enumerated powers, to the Union in foreign policy and defense so the benefits of collective action can be realized. It is significant that, “across the pond” from the E.U., U.S. President Trump was happy to pit E.U. states against each other without any pushback with teeth from President Von der Leyen.

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1. Maria Tadeo, “Pressure Grows on the E.U. to Deploy Trade Bazooka against Trump’s Greenland Tariff Threat,” Euronews.com, 18 January 2026.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.
4. Eleonora Vasques and Mared Gwyn Jones, “France and Germany Push to Use EU Anti-Coercion Tools If Trump’s New Tariffs Become Reality,” Euronews.com, 19 January, 2026.

The E.U. as a Bystander on the Global Stage: A Self-Inflicted Wound

Why has the E.U. been sidelined amid the military tensions in the Middle East? The answer lies with the E.U.’s federal system, rather than the size of its economy or of its population. The E.U. certainly could have more geopolitical sway abroad were it not for a vulnerability being exploited within its own federal system. The vulnerability stems from a refusal by some state officials to recognize and respect the qualitative and quantitative differences between the federal and the state levels of the E.U. Specifically, when the governor (i.e., chief executive and/or head of state) of a state operates as if a federal-level official, especially that of a federal president, the authority of the actual federal president is undercut, hence weakening that person’s ability to convince the heads of foreign governments to include the E.U. president or foreign minister in multilateral negotiations centered on the Middle East, for example. Even unconsciously, foreign leaders may say to themselves, why should we respect the president of the E.U. if she is so easily upstaged by the leader of an E.U. state who is acting as if he were president of the European Commission?  To speak with one voice, and to be able to speak for the E.U. rather than just one state thereof, an E.U. official must be the speaker. Macron of the E.U. state of France cannot speak for the E.U., but Von der Leyen could, provided her space is respected by the governors of the states. This is not to say that this is the only reason why the E.U. has been sidelined from negotiations on Middle East warfare; rather, my contention is that this reason is typically overlooked due to the Euroskeptic ideological delusion that the E.U. does not have a federal system of government even though since 1993, governmental sovereignty has indeed been split between the states and the Union. Perhaps the underlying question here is whether continuing to clutch at the anti-federalist ideology is worth the E.U. continuing to be weakened unnecessarily from within, and thus sidelined from international negotiations that do not center on Europe. Making such blind-spots transparent is indeed a valuable occupation, even if it can be infuriating to people whose interests and ideology are served best if societies look the other way.

The full essay is at "The E.U. as a Bystander on the Global Stage." 

Oceans Arising on Edifices of Arrogance

A study published in late November 2012 in the journal Science estimates that the melting of ice sheets in Antarctica and Greenland had raised global sea levels by 11.1 millimeters (0.43 inch) since 1992. That represents one-fifth of the total sea-level rise increase in that period. Other contributors include the expansion of the sea water from warming, and the melting of glaciers, as for instance on mountains. In the 1990s, melting of the polar ice sheets in the Antarctica and Greenland was responsible for about 10 percent of the global sea-level rise, but by 2012 the effect had risen to 30 percent.[1] The study does not, however, uncover the underlying cause, or association, lying in a complexity in human nature itself. Our species has vaunted to the top of the food chain and leveraged a brain capable of engineering technological advances that would have seemed magical even just in the nineteenth century, and yet we seem hard-wired to accelerate our course to a self-destructive extinction. This lack of balance is reflected in the increasing extremes in the global climate. In this essay, I begin with the study and steadily work toward uncovering the underlying, subterranean culprit.

In Greenland, melted ice, or water, headed to the Atlantic Ocean. NYT

The study can be interpreted as essentially “firming up” what had been left to guesswork hitherto. “It allows us to make some firm conclusions,” Andrew Shepherd of the University of Leeds said. “It wasn’t clear if Antarctica was gaining or losing ice. Now we can say with confidence it is losing ice.”[2] This is significant because there are hundreds of feet of sea-level rise in the combined ice of Greenland and the Antarctica, and even that sort of rise could occur in even just two centuries. Unlike ice in the sea melting, water from land-ice is added to the sea and thus is particularly salient in the rise in sea-level.

Although correlation is not necessary causation, global emissions of carbon dioxide were at a record high in 2011, having jumped 3% from the previous year. The international goal of limiting the ultimate warming of the planet to 3.6 degrees (F) was all but disregarded at the time as unrealistic, according to researchers at the Global Carbon Project. Slowly falling emissions in some of the developed economies, including the U.S., were more than matched by continued growth in developing countries like China and India. Coal was growing fastest, with related emissions jumping more than 5 percent in 2011 from the previous year.[3]

Moreover, the level of carbon dioxide, the most important heat-trapping gas in the atmosphere, had increased 41% since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. Meanwhile, the temperature of the planet increased about 1.5 degrees (F) since 1850. The New York Times reports that scientists expected at the time of the release of the 2011 figures that further “increases in carbon dioxide” would “likely . . . have a profound effect on climate, . . . leading to higher seas and greater coastal flooding, more intense weather disasters like droughts and heat waves, and an extreme acidification of the ocean.”[4] The volume of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere in 2013 was 396 parts per million, 2.9 ppm higher than in 2012; this represents the largest year-to-year increase since 1984, when reliable global records began.[5] As a result, "(c)oncentrations of nearly all the major greenhouse gases reached historic highs in 2013, reflecting ever-rising emissions from automobiles and smokestacks but also, scientists believe, a diminishing ability of the world's oceans and plant life to soak up the excess carbon put into the atmosphere by humans."[6] Accordingly, climatologists were predicting more accelerated ice-melt.

To be sure, distinguishing a causal connection from the sort of cycle that was responsible for Greenland being green in Mediaeval times has been the fulcrum of much controversy and debate; it is not as though scientists can treat one earth by increasing the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere while leaving another earth as a control-group and measure the differing climatic consequences. As the philosopher David Hume argued in the late eighteenth century, we actually know much less about cause and effect than we think we do. The human brain naturally that’s a strong positive correlation accompanied by a logical rationale as good enough to pronounce a causal relationship.

Regardless of whether our use of fossil fuels is a contributing factor in the melting of the ice-sheets, that the sea-level was rising even in 2011 and so much of humanity lives within fifty miles of a sea-coast suggests that major dislocations will undoubtedly be necessary within one or two hundred years, and perhaps even sooner given the record-high level of carbon dioxide in the planet’s atmosphere in 2013. As much as a third of Florida could be underwater again—whether it eventuates as a result of a natural climatic cycle or carbon dioxide emissions, or both. That the acceleration in the ice-sheet melting reported in 2012 was five times that which scientists had supposed earlier suggests that the data in from the following year may result in even more dramatic headlines. That the C02 and methane (from leaks in wells and distribution as well as from permafrost melt) levels were not only increasing, but doing so at unprecedented rates, suggests that we humans have literally outdone ourselves. It seems a fantasy to expect prudent measures that would obviate beforehand even just some of the anticipated damage. Even in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, the U.S. Government could have given Louisiana a financial incentive to rebuild the city further inland, above sea-level. That would have been an easy decision compared with what to do about Manhattan, and yet the unquestioned, knee-jerk response was to rebuild on site.

Accordingly, even the study on ice-melt reported in late 2012 and the report in 2014 of the record increase in C02 in the atmosphere were unlikely to affect public policy significantly, at least in the United States. Enabling such negligence, Andrew Shepherd of Leeds said in 2012: “The signals suggest there is no immediate threat.”[7] Meanwhile, the carbon emissions were actually increasing from the previous year. This represents two degrees of separation from a reduction. The emissions targets in the UNFCCC agreement signed in 1992 had included stabilisations at 1990 levels for some countries and reductions for others by the year 2000.   In other words, we as a species seem pretty clueless, even as we promote ourselves being of the highest and most developed species. 

We are, it can be said, a species of today. The stock markets demonstrate this innate propensity clearly enough. For a complex organism not known for quick evolutionary adaption to a changing environment, it is dangerous to be so “hard-wired” for today when our artifacts collectively can shift a planetary equilibrium beyond its natural cycle. It is not a given that we will be able to rely on our prowess at technological development to make up for our convenient habit of looking on and even making a situation worse. I have personally felt this in momentary lapses of my new-found better diet when I eat one after another chocolate cookie after having fallen with one. My mind succumbs to the fallacy that in having lapsed, might as well open the flood-gates. The next morning, I make myself go running, as if the presumed cause-effect relation might prevent any future lapses. Nietzsche may have been right in suggesting that thoughts are really instinctual urges and reasoning is their tussling for dominance.

As Mark Twain observed, speaking through an angel in The Mysterious Stranger, “Man’s mind clumsily and tediously and laboriously patches little trivialities together and gets a result—such as it is.”[8] Yet so conceited is that mind, and in other matters too. In spite of having a moral sense, and perhaps because of our knowing right from wrong, our “paltry race [is] always lying, always claiming virtues which it hasn’t got.”[8] From an angel’s point of view, homo sapiens—arrogantly self-named here as the “wise man” species—can only be “dull and ignorant and trivial and conceited, and so diseased and rickety, and such a shabby, poor, worthless lot all around”[10] as to be met with utter indifference from the angelic perches so different—the pathos of distance being hollow rather than filled with empathy or even sympathy.[10] Twain’s angel does not mince words. Humans “have nothing in common with me—there is no point of contact; they have foolish little feelings and foolish little vanities and impertinences and ambitions; their foolish little life is but a laugh, a sign, and extinction.”[12] It is not merely the staying power of the moneyed commercial caste that moves us as a species to our own extinction; all of us are complicit.

We have built our mammoth edifices and modern conveniences on such a scale, and we use them as if we were junkies on a drug-fix that we have outstripped our own capacity as a species even to mop up after ourselves. This vulnerability becomes truly dangerous now that we are capable of having a significant impact on the planetary ecosystem, including its atmosphere. Even so, we continue to single our species out as “Made in the Image of God,” and as we preach our moral sense, ignorant of the probability that a more intentionally cruel and self-destructive race has never roamed on the land or swam in the sea. Our reckless conceit, it would seem to all outward appearances, is in such denial of its own existence that we naturally assume we cannot be wrong—that we affirm with such factuality, “I know what I know.” If only the ice on this towering edifice would melt from global warming; if only we could be so lucky.

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1. Gautam Naik, “Polar Ice Melt Is Accelerating,” The Wall Street Journal, November 30, 2012.

2. Ibid.

3. Justin Gillis and John Broder, “With Carbon Dioxide Emissions at Record High, Worries on How to Slow Warming,” The New York Times, December 3, 2012.

4. Ibid.

5. Reuters, “Greenhouse Gas Levels in Atmosphere Surged to New High in 2013, World Meteorological Organization Reports,” The Huffington Post, September 9, 2014.

6. Joby Warrick, "CO2 Levels in Atmosphere Rising at Dramatically Faster Rate, U.N. Report Warns," The Washington Post, September 9, 2014.
7. Gillis and Broder, “Carbon Emissions at Record High.”

8. Mark Twain, The Mysterious Stranger in The Mysterious Stranger and Other Stories (New American Library: New York, 1962), p. 212.

9. Ibid., p. 192.

10. Ibid., p. 172.

11. Ibid., p. 176.

12. Ibid., p. 211.