In a world currently oscillating between the performative hysteria of the left and the transactional sociopathy of the right, we finally have a moment of crystalline, unvarnished truth. Scott Bessent, the incoming US Treasury Secretary and a man whose entire professional existence is dedicated to the stewardship of imaginary numbers, has confirmed what we have all suspected: Denmark doesn’t matter. In response to a query about Danish investments, Bessent noted that Denmark’s bonds—and the nation itself—are 'irrelevant.' It is the kind of blunt, accidental honesty that usually only occurs when a politician is three martinis deep or undergoing a massive stroke, yet here it is, served cold as a Nordic fjord.

Naturally, the European establishment responded with the only weapon it has left in its arsenal: a sternly worded press release and a frantic appeal to the ghost of the post-1945 world order. Anders Fogh Rasmussen, the former NATO Secretary General and former Danish Prime Minister, has emerged from the mahogany shadows of his own insignificance to declare that the 'time of flattery has ended.' One has to admire the sheer, unadulterated gall required to suggest that Europe has ever done anything other than flatter the American hegemon while hiding under its nuclear umbrella like a terrified child under a damp duvet. Rasmussen, a man whose chin has spent more time tucked into NATO’s starched collars than a nervous turtle, is now pretending that Europe might actually 'step up.' It’s a delightful fantasy, really. The idea of the European Union—a bureaucratic nightmare that requires three years of committee meetings to decide the legal curvature of a banana—becoming a decisive military power is the funniest thing to come out of the continent since the Black Death.

Rasmussen’s warning that a US 'attack' on Greenland would be the 'end of NATO' is perhaps the most obvious statement ever uttered in the history of geopolitics. It’s the equivalent of saying that if your husband burns the house down with you inside it, the marriage might be in trouble. The fact that we are even discussing the prospect of an American seizure of Greenland—a massive, frozen rock primarily populated by muskoxen and existential dread—is proof that we are living in the terminal stages of the human experiment. Trump’s obsession with the territory isn't about strategy; it's about the ultimate real estate flex. It is the playground logic of a billionaire who has already bought everything else and now wants the giant ice cube in the neighbor’s freezer just to prove he can take it.

Denmark, of course, is caught in the middle of this tragicomedy. On one side, you have the American right, led by figures like Bessent who view the world as a spreadsheet where anything that doesn't produce a quarterly dividend is a rounding error. To these people, sovereignty is a quaint 18th-century concept that shouldn't get in the way of a good leveraged buyout. On the other side, you have the European center-left, represented by the likes of Rasmussen, who believe that 'diplomatic off-ramps' and 'multilateral frameworks' are actual things that stop people with bigger guns from taking what they want. They speak of Greenland as a 'strategic point' for democracy, as if the polar bears are currently voting on the merits of a parliamentary system.

Let’s be clear: Greenland is not being discussed as a 'strategic point' for the defense of the free world. It is being discussed because as the planet melts—thanks to the tireless efforts of the very people Bessent represents—the rare earth minerals and shipping lanes beneath that ice are becoming accessible. This isn't a clash of civilizations; it's a fight over who gets to loot the corpse of the Arctic first. Rasmussen’s plea for 'Europe to step up its defense' is merely a request for Europe to build its own shovels so it can join the digging.

The tragedy here isn't the 'end of NATO' or the 'irrelevance' of a small Scandinavian nation. The tragedy is the utter bankruptcy of the entire discourse. We are forced to choose between the arrogant indifference of an empire that treats its allies like disposable napkins and the impotent whining of a continent that has traded its backbone for a social safety net it can no longer afford. Denmark isn't irrelevant because it’s small; it’s irrelevant because the very concept of a rules-based international order is a corpse being puppeted by actors who stopped believing in the script decades ago. Bessent just had the bad manners to point at the body and laugh. Rasmussen, meanwhile, is still trying to check for a pulse with a velvet glove. Both are equally grotesque, and neither has any intention of stopping the inevitable slide into a world where 'relevance' is measured solely by the caliber of your artillery and the depth of your cynicism. Welcome to the future. It’s cold, it’s expensive, and nobody cares if you’re invited.