Greenland is not Venezuela. It is also not Cyprus |
For half a century, Cyprus carried the cost of Europe’s hesitation. What was tolerated there hardened into routine, and what became routine escaped scrutiny. Today, the same logic is being tested elsewhere. From the Eastern Mediterranean to the Arctic, the question is no longer whether sovereignty is challenged, but whether Europe is willing to enforce it before erosion becomes irreversible. And in an era shaped by President Trump, where leadership is increasingly measured in transactions, alliances endure only where power chooses restraint over leverage.
Cabinet note, circulating quietly across Europe: the line is clear. Greenland belongs to Greenlanders. Borders inside NATO are not bargaining chips.
Europe has seen this before. Cyprus has lived it for five decades. A military fait accompli hardened into permanence through civilian means: infrastructure, utilities, settlement, dependency. Varosha reset facts on the ground. The European Court of Human Rights recognizes Turkey’s effective control. Europe condemned, adjusted, and moved on. Law stayed on paper. Dependence became reality.
Sovereignty eroded by accumulation, not by declaration.
What Cyprus reveals in full, Greenland now shows in outline. In the occupied north, irreversibility was built into daily life through water, electricity, data, and administration. Control embedded in routine. In Greenland, the tools differ but the logic holds: basing rights, capital, critical minerals, connectivity, narrative. Not conquest, but........