Canada as an Associate Member of the E.U.

In the first two decades of the twenty-first century, one trend in the American retail sector involved the creation of a status that had not existed: customers as “members.” The jargon was essentially marketing because managers in corporate headquarters realized that customers would doubtlessly appreciate the more exclusive label of “member” because clubs have members. Would the American political elite pick up on the trick and refer to citizens as members of the U.S. even though such a label so applied would not make sense? Meanwhile, to differentiate the E.U. from the U.S., Europe’s political elite regularly referred to E.U. states as member-states even though the same label could be applied to U.S. states. States of both unions are represented at the federal level, and thus are indeed members, whereas to be a customer is not to be a member of a store. When Canada’s prime minister, Mark Carney, sought closer relations with the E.U. due to his trade-fight with the U.S. in 2026, he discussed with European leaders the possibility of Canada becoming an “associate member” of the E.U. even though no such status existed. The implication is that E.U. states, unlike U.S. states, are not really states, but rather are members. This implication exposes the underlying category mistake that denies that states pertain to federal systems whereas countries are members of international alliances and trade blocs.

On September 13, The Wall Street Journal reported that Carney had been “exploring closer ties with the European Union, including becoming an ‘associate member’ of the bloc.”[1] Creating such a status would be difficult because the E.U. did not have members; rather, the political union, which is not an informal network of sovereign countries (i.e., a bloc), has states. In fact, the E.U. is beyond being a confederation of sovereign states, as the U.S. had been under its Articles of Confederation; both the federal and state levels of judicial, legislative, and executive governance have some sovereignty. This is what distinguishes a federation from a confederation in modern parlance. So, the E.U. has semi-sovereign states, and thus not “members” as if the E.U. were a bloc or international alliance or trade group.

At the time, Canada was a member of the British Commonwealth of former colonies, so Carney can be viewed as misapplying that relation to the European Union. Similarly, when David Cameron was the prime minister of Britain, he carelessly quipped that the E.U. was just one of the international networks that Britain happened to be in. A federal union that itself is semi-sovereign (enumerated powers or competencies having been transferred from the states) is not a network. It would appear that political category mistakes abound when it comes to the European Union. Like the U.S.’s federal level, that of the E.U. is semi-sovereign and thus that union is not international. Technically, both the U.S. and E.U. have international and national elements/principles of governance at the federal level, but neither union can be labeled as international. Hence the words “member” and “associate member” do not apply to states in either union.

The root cause of the linguistic category mistakes is ideology. Specifically, what had been known as “states’ rights” in the nineteenth century in the U.S. was effectively renamed in the E.U. as “Euroskepticism” two centuries later. The ideology seeks to minimize the governmental sovereignty that has been transferred to the federal level; referring to E.U. states as members intentionally gives the false impression that the states were still fully sovereign. Mislabeling the E.U. itself as a bloc is from the same motive. Whereas members of a bloc are free to act as they please, semi-sovereign states in a federal system in which the federal level’s institutions of public governance also have some sovereign powers are bound by them. It is from precisely that ideology that Viktor Orbán’s state of Hungary wantonly violated E.U. law.

The Wall Street Journal fell for the ploy of implying that E.U. states are actually members. Noting that the status of associate member did not exist in the E.U., the newspaper indicated, according to Euronews, that “the EU could be open to creating special membership arrangements” for Canada.[2] Euronews followed the sentence with another: “The EU and Canada want to bolster trade ties of goods, services and workers, particularly in areas including energy, artificial intelligence, defence and critical minerals.”[3] The E.U. and Canada are represented here as equal parties, however, rather than one being in the position amenable to being an associate member (or state) of the other. Put another way, Canada and the E.U. were negotiating on trade as equals, as per the (limited) governmental sovereignty that both had at the time. If Carney wanted Canada to be an E.U. rather than a U.S. state, Canada and the E.U. would no longer be on the same level because Canada’s accession would have to be approved by the European Union, and Canada would then be a part of the whole rather than another whole. The notion that Canada would merge with the E.U. (or the U.S.) and yet be a state, or worse, a member, is internally inconsistent. So too is the claim that a federal union of states has members, and therefore possibly associate members too. Perhaps Guam (and other U.S. territories) should be labeled as an associate member of the U.S., as if the American states were members of the U.S.

---

1. Lucy Davalou, “Canada Eyes ‘Associate Member’ Status with EU amid US Tensions, WSJ Reports,” Euronews.com, 13 September, 2026.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.

An E.U. Envoy to Russia

Should the E.U. appoint and send an envoy to Russia in spite of the fact that E.U. and state officials are not of one mind on a strategy to pressure Russia’s head, Putin, to the negotiating table to compromise? The power of the state governments at the federal level complicates efforts by Commission officials to present Putin with a specific list of sanctions because the governors are not on the same page even after Viktor Orbán’s electoral defeat in April, 2026. Ironically, desperately needed reforms to the E.U.’s federal system itself have been as politically difficult even to propose as has getting Putin to the negotiating table. Focusing on the latter while ignoring the former is a self-inflicted wound that has weakened the Europeans on the world stage. Incidentally, another self-inflicted state of denial involves assuming that such drastic cultural differences exist between two small E.U. states, such as Denmark and the Netherlands, while assuming that all of the U.S. states across a continent and beyond are basically the same, culturally. Recently, a European, who is actually a U.S. citizen, said as much to me! Denial is the main defense mechanism in the E.U. Even painstaking effort to render this political brain-sickness transparent is no match for the underlying ideological fervor that has so severely enervated the European Union from becoming a more perfect union.

Pointing to the intractable problem within the E.U. in formulating foreign policy, the E.U.’s foreign minister, Kaja Kallas, said in 2026, “Before we talk to the Russians, we should agree and talk amongst ourselves what we want to talk to the Russians about.”[1] She was undoubtedly referring to the direct involvement of state officials at the federal level in the Council of Ministers; agreement between relevant federal officials was not sufficient. In the U.S., the state governments’ official direct involvement at the federal level has been through the U.S. Senate, which, like the European Council and the Council of Ministers, represents states. Whereas the U.S. Senate’s filibuster (60 out of 100 vote threshold) is related back to the ongoing enumerated and residual governmental sovereignty of the U.S. states, the semi-sovereign E.U. states, which delegated significant governmental sovereignty to the E.U., have enjoyed veto power on federal foreign (and defense) policy—effectively choking off E.U. foreign (and defense) policy. It is for precisely this reason that in 2026, E.U. President von der Leyen and even the governor of one of the large states, (the E.U. state of Germany) publicly advocated applying qualified-majority voting to every proposed policy, E.U. law, and regulation/directive in the European Council and the Council of Ministers. This eminently reasonable constitutional (or Basic Law) reform of the E.U.’s federal system had to contend with the formidable resistance of the Euroskeptic ideology that the E.U. states were still somehow sovereign. Backing up the denial was the ideological tendency to exaggerate cultural differences between small E.U. states, such as the Netherlands and Denmark, while assuming that the U.S. states across a continent and beyond are culturally similar! Denial on top of denial to support the category mistake of comparing even a small E.U. state with the U.S. as a whole (while rejecting comparisons such as those between California and the E.U. and even between the two empire-scale unions!). The bad odor of denialism was, at least as of 2026, so ubiquitous in the E.U. that the smell may well have been likened instead to that of a freshly blooming flower. Bad air!

The ideological grip on the state-veto in the European Council and the Council of Ministers, held firmly by the states’ governors even though they were exploiting institutional and personal (i.e., power) conflicts of interest, was immune to the plea even of Ukraine’s president Zelensky, who said on May 17, 2026, “It is important for [the E.U.] to have a strong voice and presence in this process [regarding Russia’s invasion of Ukraine], and it is worth determining who will represent Europe specifically.”[2] The state veto in the councils inhibited the E.U. from speaking with one voice and even being able to sit at the negotiating table with Putin. Regarding whomever might represent the E.U., one implication is that the envoy could have sufficient discretion rather than be limited to the demands of one governor out of 27 who is skeptical. Indeed, the E.U.’s foreign minister, Kaja Kallas, admitted at the time that the relevant officials of the states had “vastly disparate views” on “concessions and conditions” for Russia.[3] Given this state of affairs at the state level, holding onto the principle of unanimity in the councils on foreign policy was quite foolish indeed.

Kallas also said that the E.U. “should not ‘humiliate’ itself by seeking direct talks” with Putin.[4] The humiliation feared was that of the E.U. not having sufficient power to avoid giving in at the very start of negotiations. To be sure, Putin is a touch negotiator, but the seeds of the E.U.’s weakness are within rather than bestowed by the Russian. To be sure, both Putin and Trump could smell political weakness even from a great distance. In 2025, for example, E.U. officials “found, through press reports, a 28-point plan drafted by US and Russian officials that included issues, such as sanctions and assets, that fell under [the E.U.’s] jurisdiction.”[5] Even though the Europeans could blame the Americans and the Russians, a more mature mentality would honestly confront the weakness in the E.U.’s federal system, by which I obviously have in mind the vetoes reserved to the states at the federal level. This is not to say that expunging the veto from E.U. federalism would be sufficient to redress the weakness in E.U. foreign policy. 

As governor of the E.U. state of Hungary, Viktor Orbán belied the Von der Leyen administration by going to visit Putin in Moscow. Direct involvement in foreign policy at the federal level must not permit such a betrayal by the governor of a state, for a house divided cannot stand. This is true, by the way, for couples wherein values clash and neither (or even one) side will compromise; tragically, such clashes blow up even love as if the two people had never even met. If the Europeans can figure out how to retain some direct involvement of the state governments in foreign policy without the veto and direct state involvement with foreign officials if prohibited by the Commission, then the Americans might want to consider how the state governments could have more direct involvement, especially since U.S. senators ceased to be appointed by the state governments, for being elected by the citizens of a state does not mean that the state government is represented, and does not necessarily give a senator a political incentive to represent the state government’s interests if the people thereof would prefer federal preemption. Of course, the European ideological bias would preclude such a comparison, and thus any such benefit obtained by studying the other union.

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1. Jorge Liboreiro, “High Risks, Pitfalls and Snubs: E.U. Envoy for Russia Talks Faces Job from Hell,” Euronews.com, 19 May, 2026.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.
4. Ibid.
5. Ibid.

Is the E.U. in the U.S.'s Strategic Interest?

Is a more perfect Union in Europe in America’s national interest? On the American holiday in 2026 that principally honors George Washington, whose eight-year commitment as the military commander-in-chief to the cause of freedom for the 13 new sovereign republics that had been members of the British Empire (and would forge a comparable political Union[1]) was decisive, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio visited the E.U. state of Hungary to deliver “a message of support from the Trump administration to Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán,” who was behind in the polls in his re-election campaign.[2] At their press conference, Orbán and Rubio “signed an agreement on energy cooperation and hailed what they described as a ‘golden age’ of bilateral relations.”[3] E.U. officials were nowhere in sight; it was as if Hungary were still a sovereign state rather than a semi-sovereign E.U. state. An implicit question untreated by the media in the E.U. or U.S. is whether bilateral relations between the U.S. and individual E.U. states, as if the E.U. were nonexistent, was still in the U.S. national interest, especially in the context of Russia’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine.

To be sure, U.S. President Trump’s political support of Orbán could be attributed in no small measure to the fact that Orbán had been “the only European leader who openly supported Trump’s re-election campaign.”[4] Rubio even stated at the joint press conference that the “person-to-person connection” that Orbán had “established with the president has made all the difference in the world in building this relationship.”[5] So was Trump willing to bypass the very existence of the E.U. on the strength of his political relationship with Orbán? If so, and if a strong E.U. was actually in the national interest of the U.S., was Trump putting too much emphasis on loyalty to Trump himself?

It can be argued that Viktor Orbán had been pursuing policies that were at odds with the E.U., and more specifically with the ability of the federal institutions to exercise their exclusive and shared competencies (i.e., enumerated powers). In fact, the Commission had withheld funds from the state of Hungary because Orbán’s state administration had violated E.U. law and breached rule-of-law and justice requirements. Furthermore, Orbán had been wielding his state’s veto in the European Council to keep Ukraine from being annexed to the European Union. In fact, the Hungarian leader’s oil-related coziness to Russia’s President Putin had undercut the E.U.’s support of Ukraine militarily and thus enabled Putin’s military aggression. Is the implication for Trump that Putin’s aggression should not be countered by the E.U., or perhaps he preferred that individual E.U. states aid Ukraine militarily? If so, the fruits of collective action, even just by mutual cooperation but more strongly by a federal army, would by implication be contrary to the American national interest, according to the Trump administration.

Relying on the E.U. states as if their mutual coordination would be enough to enable Ukraine to push back the occupying Russian troops and military hardware—a dubious assumption—opens up the possibility that those states could again turn on each other. To forestall or put out military conflicts being waged by the armies (i.e., militias) of the U.S. member-states, U.S. basic laws was made so that Union could have a federal army and the federal president could temporarily coopt a state army for use by the Union. Is it now in the American national interest that the E.U. be given comparable competencies by its states—especially given the astronomical American expense and lives given in the previous century to put out two World Wars, both of which were sourced in European conflicts?

Furthermore, given the policy of the Trump administration to pull back American military support to protect Europe, relying on E.U. states to remilitarize without any militarization of the E.U. itself along with that of its states seems to be counterproductive. Would not the American interest be in line with another Union being like the U.S. rather than the former Articles of Confederation, in which the American states were in a federal Union but still fully sovereign from 1781-1789? Before the Articles, the new republics (i.e., ex-colonies) in the U.S. were sovereign countries in a military alliance. In contrast to the latter two arrangements, the E.U. sports dual-sovereignty.

I contend that it is actually contrary to the strategic interest of the U.S. that the E.U. and its share of governmental competencies (i.e., enumerated powers) be diminished or ignored in favor of the U.S. going it alone with particular E.U. states as if they were still fully sovereign countries. Ignoring an aspect of political reality is not a good basis for going forward in international relations. Furthermore, a bottom-heavy federal system in which the federal governmental institutions are perpetually thwarted by Euroskeptic state governments (e.g., Slovakia and Hungary) even in the carrying out of existing federal competencies is inherently unstable, and thus such a Union could eventually collapse if unimpeded conflicts reach a sufficient severity between particular states, or even if states frustrated by paralysis at the federal level secede from the Union as Britain did, though the rationale for that state seceding arguably had more to do with resistance to the E.U. having any share of governmental sovereignty than with frustration over ineffective bureaucrats in Brussels.

Whereas David Cameron, a former prime minister in Britain preferred that the E.U. be based on something like the American Articles of Confederation (with each state remaining fully sovereign), the American national interest voiced by Rubio in supporting Viktor Orbán viewed the E.U. as a case of the dreaded multilateralism, and thus the E.U. as akin to an international organization like the UN or even NATO. In having a supreme court (i.e., the ECJ), a directly-elected parliament (i.e., the European Parliament), an executive branch headed by a president who could be considered to be the federal president (i.e., the Commission and Usula Von der Leyen, respectively), an upper chamber representing the states (i.e., the European Council and the Council of Ministers), the E.U. cannot be construed as only multilateral or even international in nature. So, Trump’s antipathy toward that Union is not only in error, but also reflects negatively on the basic structure of the American Union because both unions sport modern federalism (i.e., dual sovereignty rather than confederal fully-sovereign states).

That is, Rubio’s position in favor of Orbán not only weakened the E.U., risked American military involvement once again, and strengthened Putin’s military position in Ukraine (because he would not have to fear intervention by a federal E.U. army), but also reflected badly on the U.S.’s federal system. Take the U.S. back to 1826, approximately 33 years after the Americans replaced the confederal Articles with a system of modern, dual-sovereignty-based federalism (such as the E.U. has![6]), and the E.U. at 33 looks a lot like that Union back then. By implication, Trump’s position in 2026 in favor of Euroskeptic Hungary’s leader was in line with supporting anti-federalist states prior to 1861 in the U.S. and completely ignoring the federal institutions and their respective enumerated powers (i.e., competencies) in Washington. Because Trump and Rubio held federal rather than state offices at the time, the position thus reduces to a logical absurdity beyond merely being against multilateralism. 

1. Skip Worden, British Colonies Forge an American Empire: A Basis for Trans-Atlantic Comparisons (Seattle: Amazon Books, 2017).
2. Sandor Zsiros, “’We Want You to Continue’: Rubio Delivers Trump’s Campaign Message to Orbán in Budapest,” Euronews.com, 16 February, 2026.
3. Ibid.
4. Ibid.
5. Ibid.

6. Skip Worden, Essays on Two Federal Empires: Comparing the E.U. and U.S. (Seattle: Amazon Books, 2017).

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.

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.

Poised to Take on the U.S. Military: All Five Danish Soldiers in Greenland

Even though Russia’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine was prompting E.U. officials to bolster the union’s defenses in 2025, U.S. President Trump’s statements early in 2026 in favor of the U.S. buying or invading Greenland, an “autonomous” part of the E.U. state of Denmark, triggered defensive rhetoric in that state’s government. I contend that the rhetoric was largely, though not completely, hyperbolic, and that more substantial statements could have come from the E.U.’s foreign minister because the E.U. is, as an empire-scale political union of states, equivalent to the U.S.[1] That the E.U. could in principle take on the U.S. is enough to view the Danish state’s rhetoric as hyperbolic, and thus as not credible enough to dissuade an American invasion of Greenland.

In January, 2026, Denmark’s Defense Ministry, which doubtless would be jealous in giving up even any part of its military powers so the E.U. could “walk with a big stick” rather than mere public statements, felt the need to confirm the 1952 military directive that directs soldiers stationed in Greenland to fire immediately, rather than upon orders issued by superiors, upon any other military invading the island. Danish military personnel would be required to “immediately take up the fight” even if their respective commanders are not aware that Denmark has issued a declaration of war.[2] That public confirmation was triggered by U.S. President Trump having “repeatedly threatened to take control of Greenland by force if necessary, describing the Arctic territory as vital to American national security.”[3] Trump had recently directed his military forces to extract the sitting president of Venezuela to face trial in New York City, so officials in not only Greenland, but also Mexico and even Iran in addition to little Denmark were understandably on edge.[4]

The hyperbole was in the Danish governor’s statement that an attempt to take Greenland by the U.S. would mark the end of NATO.[5] “If the United States chooses to attack another NATO country military,” Mette Frederiksen said, “then everything stops. That is, including our NATO and thus the security that has been provided since the end of World War II.”[6] Tellingly, she omitted any mention of the E.U. even though the fact that Denmark was at the time a semi-sovereign state in a political, economic, and social (policy) union is more significant than that Denmark was in an international military alliance. The prime minister’s omission reveals a lot, and is consistent with the anti-federalist ideology in Europe. At the very least, she could have threatened that if NATO would go down, presumably from her insistance alone, she would use her power in the European Council to propose an exclusive competency by which to strengthen the E.U. militarily—something that would displease the sitting American president, who preferred to meet with governors of E.U. states rather than with President Von der Leyen and the President of the Council (the counterpart of the American Vice President, who is the President of the U.S. Senate, which represents the States).

Threatening that an American invasion of an autonomous territory of Denmark would cause NATO to collapse is not something that the U.S. State Department or President Trump would (or should) take very seriously, especially with more than a few NATO countries being in the neighborhood of Putin’s military prowess in Ukraine at the time. The hint or outright claim that Denmark could unilaterally “pull the plug” on a giant military alliance reflects back on the state’s government at the expense of the credibility of its public statements. Such hyperbole can actually make an invasion more likely because weakness often tries to make itself look stronger than it is. In fact, even Denmark's threat of military force to repell an American invasion could be viewed as hyperbolic. Stephen Miller, Trump's deputy chief-of-staff, told CNN, "Nobody's going to fight the United States militarily over the future of Greenland. . . . We live in a world, in the real world, . . . that is governed by strength, that is governed by force, that is governed by power."[7] Even if Denmark would not cave once the U.S. has gained actual possession of the territory, the odds in terms of military strength were against the small E.U. state.

The E.U.’s case for additional competencies in defense and foreign affairs is actually strengthened when a small state such as Denmark shows signs of such weakness by overplaying its hand in making threats that it cannot keep. It was not just because of Russia’s military aggression in Ukraine that such additional competencies should already have been ceded by the state governments in the E.U.; small states especially could benefit from collective action in defense and foreign policy at the federal level, irrespective of the Russian threat to the east. In very practical terms, if government officials at the state level in the E.U. truly want to counter U.S. President Trump, strengthening the E.U.’s enumerated powers (i.e., shared and exclusive competencies) even though that would mean delegating such powers would be a prime way to do it. Like the Schengen Agreement and the Growth and Stability Pact, both of which began outside the E.U.’s framework and then were incorporated within it, not every state need be included. Hungary and Slovakia, for example, could be initially excluded and thus not given the power of obstruction that those states’ respective governors had relished too much. Unlike the U.S., the E.U. is more flexible with regard to the coverage of the enumerated powers, or competencies, that are at the federal level. Every state need not participate, though that every state would presumably benefit from a military-defense at the E.U. level is admittedly an argument for unanimity unless “third-party” externalities (i.e., benefits) are acceptable to the states subject to the coverage.

Regarding the American threatened buyout or invasion of Greenland, E.U. President Von der Leyen should have been the official to respond. At the very least, the leverage of the E.U. was being passed up from within. Such weakness is difficult to respect from abroad. In incorrectly viewing the E.U. as an international organization, President Trump’s assumption is that the strategic interests of the U.S. are strengthened by a weakened—even if just by false categorization—European Union. The American federal president apparently was not deterred by the uncomfortable facts that the European Parliament’s representatives are elected by E.U. citizens, who by the way hold E.U. passports, the European Court of Justice is the E.U.’s federal supreme court, and the Commission counts as an executive branch, whose head stands unofficially as the federal president. In fact, because the head of the executive branch is not the head of the Parliament or the Council, the E.U.’s federal level has the same structure as that of the U.S.’s federal level. In other words, neither Trump nor Von der Leyen could be said to be prime ministers in a legislature. Even making this comparison would run counter to President Trump’s stance on the E.U. in terms of the U.S.’s security and dominance in the world. 

By ceding too much obstructionist power to the Euroskeptics, officials at both the state and the federal levels of the E.U. have been enabling President Trump’s short-sighted view of the geo-political interests of the U.S. with respect to Europe. By implication, the Euroskeptics who have been holding offices in the E.U. have been enabling the dominance of the Americans as well as the overblown hyperbole in Denmark, as if that small state could even conceivably stand up militarily to a union of 50 states. Incidentally, E.U. enlargement to the east by the accession of new states, which the U.S. did in enlarging westward during the nineteenth century, is in the Europeans’ geo-political interest with respect to becoming a counter-weight to the United States in international affairs and in dealing with the American government directly.

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1. Skip Worden, Essays on Two Federal Empires: Comparing the E.U. and U.S. (2015)
2. Aleksandar Brezar, “Danish Soldiers Would Shoot Back If Invaded, Government Confirms,” Euronews.com, 8 January, 2026.
3. Ibid.
4. My paternal grandmother’s parents came to Wisconsin from Denmark, so I am not trying to insult Denmark by alluding to the fact that it is a small E.U. state; rather, I am trying to emphasize the benefits for such a state of collective action that the E.U. could provide in defense of the state were it not for Euroskeptic, anti-federalist ideology especially in some of the eastern states of the E.U.
5. Aleksandar Brezar, “Danish Soldiers Would Shoot Back If Invaded, Government Confirms,” Euronews.com, 8 January, 2026.
6. Ibid.

7. Chris Cameron, "Miller Says Imperialism Is Justified in Greenland," The New York Times, January 7, 2026.

We Don’t Have Another America: Ukraine on the E.U.

On America’s Thanksgiving Day, 2025, Dmytro Kuleba, a former foreign minister of Ukraine, was asked whether Ukraine’s government officials could trust American officials negotiating with the Russian officials, given the fact that Steve Witkoff, the U.S. Envoy at the time, had recently been caught coaching Kirill Dmitriev, a top Russian official, on how to get U.S. President Don Trump on the side of Putin even though the ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine was still in violation of international law, which, by the way, trumps historical reasons, such as a lost Russian empire. Stalin’s forced famine in Ukraine during the 1930s would seem to nullify any imperial claims from the past. Kuleba relied to the journalist’s question with, “Not really, but we do not have another America.”[1] He was really giving Europe a wake-up call, but the problem there was not a lack of consensus, but a structural deficiency in the federal system of the European Union.

Far from being able to diagnose what aspects of the E.U.’s federal system were holding the Union back from protecting Ukraine from an American-Russian one-sided plan to end the ongoing invasion, Kuleba said rhetorically, “Isn’t it embarrassing that almost four years into the war, European leaders are still jumping from one topic to another, from sending peacekeeping forces to reassurance forces to strengthening the Ukrainian army.”[2] While it may be tempting to criticize state-level officials for being “all over the map” on what the E.U. should do regarding the American-Russian negotiations, as well as on Russia itself, moreover, such divergence of opinion is only natural. In the U.S., for instance, polling officials from the 50 states would not likely find even a consensus. For example, the leaders of Arizona and Massachusetts may have been as far apart from each other on whether to help Ukraine militarily as the leaders of Hungary and France. If this comparison itself “touches a nerve,” I contend that a festering, subterranean category mistake is the root cause of the pain.

E.U. citizens had a solid basis for being frustrated, for although “two top E.U. aides joined negotiations with Ukrainian and American delegations in Geneva . . ., European leaders have been largely side-lined from the talks.”[3] As for the Coalition of “the willing,” which consisted of 33 sovereign countries, depending on a bloc rather than on the E.U. to safeguard Ukraine’s geopolitical and military interests, or treating the E.U. as if it were a bloc, can be reckoned as borderline foolishness when up against an active theatre of combat.

Kuleba’s point in lamenting that Ukraine did not have another America in Europe may imply that the E.U. could and even should be another America capable in terms of raw power to be a counterweight to American foreign policy in the world. This is not to say that “another America” would be a replica of the United States, for the European Union, although another empire-scale federal system characterized by dual sovereignty (and thus not a confederation such as U.S.’s Articles of Confederation (1781-1789)), contains differences. For example, whereas the U.S. Senate represents the member-states at the federal level, the European Council and the Council of Ministers represent the state governments at the federal level in European Union. Yet the U.S. House of Representatives and the European Parliament are much more alike counterparts, representing U.S. and E.U. citizens, respectively. The political genus of empire-scale and level federalism of dual sovereignty (i.e., state and federal) can indeed support institutional and procedural differences in the basic, or constitutional, law. Whereas the U.S. in the twentieth century had become too consolidated, the E.U. in its first few decades in the next century has been too state-heavy, as the U.S. was for many decades since it split the atom of governmental sovereignty in 1789. Even though the E.U.’s federalism contains more safeguards protecting the states from federal encroachment than did the U.S. even when the governments of the member states selected U.S. senators, those E.U. safeguards arguably have paralyzed the E.U. on the world stage.

In particular, the veto power of each state government in the European Council and the Council of Ministers, and the refusal of every state to delegate more governmental sovereignty to the European Commission to conduct foreign and defense policy, are why the E.U. president (i.e., of the federal executive branch) and the federal foreign minister were not able to defend Ukraine from the ongoing invasion for years, and to become directly involved in the negotiations to end the invasion. Put more bluntly, by even just threatening to use the state’s veto, the governor of the E.U. state of Hungary was holding E.U. policy and power regarding Ukraine and Russia hostage. Even with regard to the frozen assets of Russia’s central bank, E.U. officials were having trouble using that as political leverage to shift the negotiations more to Ukraine’s favor. It is not that President Von der Leyen was weak or not astute politically, or naïve on defense; rather it is the case that a federal system in which governmental sovereignty is held both by state governments and the Union is incompatible with the confederal device of the state veto at the federal level.

A dean of the Global Affairs school of Boston University told me in 2024 that the E.U. was a mix of confederal and modern (dual sovereignty) federalism. I countered that the two types of federalism are mutually exclusive. To conflate the two, such as by granting the federal institutions some governmental sovereignty while giving each state government a veto over such sovereignty, is self-contradictory and thus inherently implausible. To be sure, the E.U.’s states could look at the process of consolidation of power at the federal level in the U.S. and want institutional and procedural safeguards against such federal encroachment from happening down the road in the European context, but I submit that such safeguards can exist without hamstringing the E.U. internationally.

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1. Mared Gwyn Jones, “European Decision-Making on Ukraine ‘Embarrassing,’ Former Foreign Minister Kuleba Says,” Euronews.com, November 27, 2025.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.

A Drone Wall for the E.U.: Russian Aggression Assuages Euroskeptic States

Speaking after his meeting with U.S. President Trump in Alaska during the summer of 2025, Russia’s President Putin said that if no agreement is reached with Ukraine, the force of arms would decide the matter. In other words, might makes right, or at least military incursion is a legitimate way to decide political disputes between countries. I would have hoped that such a primitive mentality would be antiquated in the twentieth century, but, alas, human nature evolves only at a glacial pace undetected within the lifespan of a human being. In September, 2025, the United Nations was under attack from within the General Assembly because of the continuance of the veto held by five countries in the Security Council; the U.S. had just vetoed a resolution for an immediate cession of Israeli destruction in Gaza. As a former deputy secretary of the UN had admitted to me during the fall of 2024, the veto itself renders the UN unreformable; a new international organization would have to be established sans vetoes for efficacy to be possible. Even so, absent a real enforcement mechanism, such as a military force, a resolution even of a vetoless organization would merely be parchment. The impotence of the UN is one reason why NATO, a defensive military transatlantic alliance, has been valuable in the face of military threats by Russia. Yet in September 2025, after Russian drones had flown into four E.U. states, E.U. President Von der Leyen felt the need to take the lead by again stressing her proposal for a drone wall along the E.U.’s eastern border; she was not deferring to any international alliance, much less to the United Nations. I submit that Von der Leyen’s initiative is yet another means by which the E.U. can be distinguished from international “blocs,” alliances, and organizations. Unlike the latter three, the E.U. has exclusive competencies and is thus semi-sovereign (and the same goes for the state governments).

After “two or three large drones were spotted at Copenhagen Airport,” which is in the E.U., on September 23, 2025, the E.U.’s Commission “called for a drone wall, a novel initiative first unveiled by President Ursula von der Leyen” in her State of the Union speech.[1] “For those who still doubted the need to have a drone wall in the European Union, well, here we get another example of how important it is,” a spokesman at the Commission said.[2] Why had not the Commission pursued this proposal in time to block the incursions in August and September?

Euroskeptic, or anti-federalist, Europeans, which included at least two governors at the time, loathed the idea of federalizing defense (and foreign policy). Also, just as in the early decades of the U.S., some state governments resisted the federalization of “collective” debt. That the E.U.’s executive branch was “rolling out a €150 billion loan programme to boost defence spending, which could be mobilized to promote domestic production of drones,” represented to some governors a giant leap on the way to a central federal state that would eventually encroach on the state governments.[3] This fear, by the way, is precisely what led several U.S. states to try to exit the U.S. in 1861.

Whereas in the U.S., the state government’s direct power at the federal level had been weakened when state governments no longer appointed delegates to the U.S. Senate, E.U. state governments could wield veto power over a significant number of proposed federal laws and regulations. Whereas the U.S. state governments could no longer adequately protect their turf against federal encroachment, the E.U.’s federal governmental institutions could still be paralyzed by blocs of states or even just one state. So, it is incredible that the Commission was able to act on the incursions of drones once this had been in a north-western state (i.e., Denmark) to create a drone wall and issue significant “collective,” or federal debt. Unlike international organizations, the E.U. has some governmental sovereignty that had been delegated by the states, and this means that it is no surprise that the E.U. rather than NATO or the UN would take action in the face of Putin’s use of force of arms to decide the question of Ukraine. The problem is that the Commission has too often been paralyzed by the state governors, which is particularly damaging because the E.U. is not an international organization, and those that existed as of 2025 could not be relied upon.

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1. Jorge Liboreiro, “’We Cannot Wait’: EU Calls for Drone Wall to Deter Russia after New Incident in Denmark,” September 23, 2025.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.

The E.U.’s Proposed Sanctions Against Israel: Excessive Reliance on the State Governments

To leverage the combined power, or united front, that is possible in Europe, the European Union was established in the waning years of the twentieth century. Roughly thirty years later, the power of the state governments at the federal level still compromised the leverage, especially in foreign affairs and defense. Even in sanctioning trading partners, even qualified majority voting in the Council of the E.U. can be said to have negatively impacted the ability of the E.U. Commission, the executive branch, to leverage the political muscle of the E.U. against other countries. State-level political agendas could essentially hold any possible leverage hostage. It may be worth thinking about why a qualified majority vote in the Council of the E.U., which represents the state governments, rather than in the E.U.’s parliament, which represents E.U. citizens, was necessary for trade sanctions to be applied to duty-free imports from Israel. That state-level political or economic interests could possibility trump applying economic leverage to stop Israel’s genocide and holocaust in Gaza, as well as Israel’s military attacks on other countries in the Middle East can be an indication that the state governments have too much power at the federal level. For if the E.U. is only an aggregation of states, without the whole being more than the sum of the parts, then the whole sans the aggregate cannot very well enact leverage on foreign actors abroad, even those whose behavior has been nothing short of atrocious.

The full essay is at "The E.U.'s Proposed Sanctions Against Israel."

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."