{"id":196577,"date":"2026-01-12T00:04:44","date_gmt":"2026-01-12T00:04:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/trumps-greenland-threats-echo-dark-moments-of-cold-war-alliances-the-guardian\/"},"modified":"2026-01-12T00:04:44","modified_gmt":"2026-01-12T00:04:44","slug":"trumps-greenland-threats-echo-dark-moments-of-cold-war-alliances-the-guardian","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/trumps-greenland-threats-echo-dark-moments-of-cold-war-alliances-the-guardian\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump\u2019s Greenland threats echo dark moments of cold war alliances – The Guardian"},"content":{"rendered":"

Soviet invasions of allies helped destroy the Warsaw Pact \u2013 Trump\u2019s dangerous rhetoric risks repeating the mistake inside Nato
Donald Trump\u2019s echoing of Russia\u2019s talking points in its war against Ukraine has long been a cause for alarm and dismay in the west.
Now an even more disturbing Kremlin precedent dating from the cold war is being evoked by the US president\u2019s fixation on taking over Greenland<\/a> \u2013 that of carrying out attacks on military allies.
The Soviet Union invaded its allied communist partners twice as it engaged in a long ideological and military standoff with the capitalist west, and openly asserted the right to intervene in the affairs of other allies if they deviated from policies dictated by Moscow.
Trump\u2019s repeated assertion that the US \u201cneeds\u201d Greenland for national security purposes and his refusal to rule out acquiring it by military force has set Washington on a collision course with Denmark<\/a>, a Nato ally that has sovereignty over the autonomous, self-governing territory. Trump has said \u201cit may be a choice\u201d between taking control of Greenland and keeping Nato intact.
If Trump pressed ahead, he would \u2013 perhaps unconsciously \u2013 be treading a similar path to that followed by the Soviet Union, which invaded communist-run European allied countries in the Warsaw Pact, the Moscow-dominated eastern bloc\u2019s cold-war equivalent of Nato<\/a>.
Soviet troops invaded Hungary in 1956<\/a> to suppress a popular uprising that threatened to topple Budapest\u2019s communist regime, with up to 3,000 people killed in bloody street fighting.
In 1968, Moscow staged an invasion \u2013 this time including forces from other Warsaw Pact nations \u2013 of Czechoslovakia<\/a> to squash the liberalising Prague Spring, which was led by the country\u2019s communist leader, Alexander Dub\u010dek, who ushered in new freedoms intended to create \u201csocialism with a human face\u201d.
In contrast with Trump\u2019s mooted Greenland incursion, the Soviet actions were not mounted in wanton disregard for their impact on the Warsaw Pact but in order to save it. The Hungarian leader, Imre Nagy, who was later executed for his role in the 1956 rebellion, tried to withdraw the country from the alliance during the uprising.
\u201cThe Soviet Union\u2019s use of force \u2026 was a different kettle of fish because it was not involved in a territorial conquest but was trying to protect the integrity of the alliance by preventing the ascent of regimes that might defect,\u201d said Charles Kupchan, a fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and a former White House director of European affairs under Barack Obama and Bill Clinton.
\u201cIn Nato\u2019s case, we\u2019re looking at an alliance that has been unified and enjoyed remarkable solidarity since the beginning of the cold war. So the idea that the United States could find itself at war with a Nato ally really does defy the imagination.\u201d
To stop it becoming reality, Denmark could invoke Nato\u2019s Article 4, requesting consultations within the alliance, citing an imminent threat. If the US then attacked and Denmark then tried to invoke Article 5, which provides for the alliance\u2019s other members coming to its collective defence, it could put Washington on a military collision course with the rest of the alliance.
Kupchan played down the prospects of such an \u201cother-worldly\u201d scenario and argued that previous internal Nato rows \u2013 such as the US\u2019s threats against Britain and France during the 1956 Suez crisis<\/a>, and the fierce Franco-German opposition to the invasion of Iraq in 2003 \u2013 had not led to military conflict.
\u201cThis is a White House that sees itself as on reality TV,\u201d he said. \u201cWe are not yet in the world in which the United States is in the process of getting ready to attack an ally.\u201d
Yet even if the current tensions blow over, the long-term impact of Soviet behaviour towards the Warsaw Pact \u2013 which splintered in 1989 as one eastern European communist regime after another fell from power \u2013 may hold lessons for Nato.
\u201cIt was really the beginning of the decline of the Soviet Union because they got themselves in a position where they couldn\u2019t trust their own allies, and it was to a considerable extent their own behaviour that caused that,\u201d said John Lewis Gaddis, a history professor at Yale University and a biographer of George Kennan<\/a>, the US diplomat who pioneered the west\u2019s anti-communist containment strategy.
\u201cThere\u2019s some lessons here about what the purpose of an alliance is. It\u2019s not just deterring adversaries, but also reflecting the interests of the other members, sometimes the smaller members of the alliance. The alliance is a lot stronger if they want to be within it than if they\u2019re coerced by the biggest power in it.\u201d
The lessons are easily applicable to the US\u2019s interests in Greenland, where it has had military bases since 1941 after they were established under Franklin D Roosevelt as he prepared to enter the second world war on Britain\u2019s side against Hitler.
\u201cYou can certainly make the argument that Greenland is in a strategic position, and could conceivably be vulnerable years from now to the Chinese or a resurgent Russia<\/a>,\u201d said Gaddis.
\u201cBut the Americans already have bases in Greenland. And it seems to me it would be a lot easier to keep them, and, if necessary, expand them, with the cooperation of the Danish government, not with this kind of unilateral provocation. Trump is simply creating unnecessary friction for himself.\u201d<\/p>\n

source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Soviet invasions of allies helped destroy the Warsaw Pact \u2013 Trump\u2019s dangerous rhetoric risks repeating the mistake inside NatoDonald Trump\u2019s echoing of Russia\u2019s talking points in its war against Ukraine has long been a cause for alarm and dismay in the west.Now an even more disturbing Kremlin precedent dating from the cold war is being […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":196578,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-196577","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-us","8":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/196577","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=196577"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/196577\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/196578"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=196577"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=196577"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=196577"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}