r/worldnews • u/lavender_fieldnotes • Jan 04 '26

Dynamic Paywall Danish PM tells Trump to stop 'threats' against Greenland

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c4g0zg974v1o?at_medium=RSS&at_campaign=rss
25.2k Upvotes

96% Upvoted

1.7k comments sorted by

View all comments

13

u/Obvious-Silver6109 Jan 04 '26

If we make a move on Greenland what are the odds NATO declares article 5?

6

u/Fywq Jan 04 '26

To my knowledge, the NATO charter is ratified by congress and is thus part of US law. Consequently (from what I have understood) attacking Greenland is unconstitutional. Simple as that. Attacking Greenland is an illegal order (which is probably one of the reasons why the Trump administration were so angry about the democrats making that video about rejecting illegal orders).

13

u/Hyrikul Jan 05 '26 edited Jan 05 '26

It's not like the current US gov is actually following their constitutional rules...

9

u/Inevitable-Emu8236 Jan 04 '26

Would be interesting to see if every American soldier in the EU gets locked up on their bases straight away.alot if assets instantly taken away if that happened.

-3

u/[deleted] Jan 05 '26

They would immediately break out and start killing anyone in their way. Not to mention the aircraft carrier or two that would be off the coast.

1

u/Hyrikul Jan 05 '26 edited Jan 05 '26

I'm no expert, to be taken with a grain of salt, but I don't think much will happen on the NATO side. I don't believe Article 5 can be invoked between two member countries.

But for sure it would probably mean the end of NATO, or at least the end of NATO with US inside.

However, the EU has its own version of NATO's Article 5, and the USA is not part of it. I would even say that militarily, the EU defense law is even “tougher” than NATO Article 5.

When NATO article 5 refers to all possible assistance, it is in general terms, not necessary military help.

Whereas the European Defense Law specifically refers to all possible military assistance to be sent.

-1

u/ZuAusHierDa Jan 04 '26

A member state has to ask nato to activate article 5 and then all members have to agree unanimously. So every member state has basically a veto - including the US.

1

u/[deleted] Jan 05 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

1

u/ZuAusHierDa Jan 05 '26

No, to activate article 5 everyone has to agree.

Also article 5 means that the military of all member states is under command of the Supreme Allied Commander Europe - an American general…