Kyler Emerson

If you need one video to understand NATO, that's the one. Trump is speaking about annexing Canada and Greenland (both part of NATO) and NATO's Secretary General Mark Rutte not only sits there without any objection whatsoever, but goes out of his way to be obsequious with Trump, praising him endlessly and saying that he "needs the clip for his family" when Trump praises him back. When Trump suggests NATO "might have to get involved" in the annexation of Greenland, the Secretary General—whose primary job is defending territorial integrity of member states—responds by trying to "leave that outside" the discussion because he doesn't "want to drag NATO in that." The very idea that NATO's chief would treat a member's territorial annexation as a topic to disregard when it's the U.S. doing it is all you need to know about the "alliance". Right afterwards, Trump boasts that "we have a couple of bases on Greenland already and quite a few soldiers," before suggesting to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth that "maybe you'll see more and more soldiers go there" in an obvious hint at seizing the territory by force. Which incidentally illustrates the absurdity of Trump's demand: with these bases, the U.S. already has the strategic foothold it claims to need in Greenland. And all the while, even as the threat of military annexation is voiced out loud, Rutte sits in silence. Same thing for Canada: Trump says "we have to do this, I'm sorry", referring to annexing Canada and making it a state, calling Canada potentially "one of our greatest states" and noting how "incredible" the country would look visually as part of the U.S.. Meanwhile at no moment does Rutte make any attempt to defend Canada's sovereignty or explain how that violates just about every principle of NATO's treaty. All in all, this exchange strips bare the reality of power within NATO: an alliance that's supposed to be about mutual defense but which in reality is a vehicle - or at the very least an enabler - for its most powerful member's imperial ambitions. It had been clear for a while when one studied NATO's behavior towards countries outside the alliance, but now even its members must face the uncomfortable truth that the very organization they joined for security could assist in their aggression.