If you listen closely to the wind howling through the concrete canyons of Brussels, you can hear the distinct sound of a thousand bureaucrats frantically sharpening their pencils. It is the sound of war, or at least, the European Union’s tepid, committee-approved version of it. Ursula von der Leyen, the President of the European Commission and the patron saint of well-tailored technocracy, has stepped up to the podium to declare that the EU will be “unflinching” in the face of Donald Trump’s latest social media tantrums regarding Greenland.

One has to marvel at the word choice. “Unflinching.” It suggests a granite-jawed stoicism, a Spartan refusal to blink in the face of annihilation. Coming from the European Commission, however, “unflinching” usually translates to a strongly worded communiqué drafted over a three-hour lunch and a promise to form a subcommittee to investigate the feasibility of a retaliatory tariff by Q3 of 2026. The imagery is almost too rich: the immaculately coiffed embodiment of European proceduralism staring down the erratic, spray-tanned id of American exceptionalism over a frozen island that neither of them actually inhabits.

The catalyst for this latest diplomatic pantomime is, of course, Greenland. Yes, we are doing this again. The American President, whose understanding of geopolitics appears to be derived entirely from playing Monopoly on a sugar high, has decided once more to fixate on the Arctic. He wants the ice. He wants the strategic dominance. He probably wants to build a gold-plated hotel on a glacier before it melts into the North Atlantic. And because the modern world is a satire of itself that I no longer have the energy to write, he is threatening tariffs if he doesn't get his way or if the "security" arrangements aren't to his liking.

Trump’s method of diplomacy—trolling on social media—is a tactic that would be embarrassing for a fourteen-year-old on a gaming forum, let alone the leader of the free world. Yet, it works, primarily because the targets of his ire are incapable of processing absurdity. They treat his tweets like formal demarches, dissecting the syntax of a man who capitalizes words at random, searching for deep geopolitical strategy where there is likely only indigestion and boredom. Trump threatens tariffs; the markets wobble; the pundits scream; and somewhere in a Mar-a-Lago bathroom, a man chuckles at his own engagement numbers.

And how does Europe respond? With the desperate, wide-eyed sincerity of a substitute teacher trying to control a prison riot. Von der Leyen assures us that the EU shares concerns about “Arctic security.” This is diplomatic code for “we also want the oil and shipping lanes, please.” But the kicker is the threat of unity. She claims the alliance’s response will be “united.” Anyone who has spent five minutes observing the European Union knows that “united” is a relative term. This is a coalition that struggles to agree on the definition of a veggie burger. The idea that 27 nations, each with their own petty economic interests and historical grudges, will lock arms and march into a trade war over a dispute involving Denmark’s frosty cousin is laughable.

But let us not pretend the American side is any more coherent. The Right cheers for tariffs as if they are winning a sports match, blissfully ignoring that a tariff is simply a tax on their own consumption. They view Trump’s erratic behavior as “4D chess,” when in reality, it’s just a pigeon knocking over the pieces and strutting around like it won. They want to “buy” Greenland or secure the Arctic not because they have a coherent plan for polar dominance, but because it sounds big, strong, and masculine. It is acquisition for the sake of acquisition, the geopolitical equivalent of a mid-life crisis sports car.

So here we stand, trapped between two distinct flavors of incompetence. On one side, the European bureaucratic machine, a soulless engine of regulation that believes it can legislate reality into submission, threatening to be “unflinching” while terrified of its own shadow. On the other, the American chaos engine, driven by impulse, ego, and the desperate need for attention, treating international trade law like a suggestion box.

The tragedy is not that they are fighting. The tragedy is that we are forced to treat this theater as serious governance. We are expected to nod along when Von der Leyen uses words like “unflinching,” pretending that the EU isn’t just a collection of terrified economies huddled together for warmth. We are expected to analyze Trump’s “trolling” as high-stakes diplomacy rather than the erratic firing of neurons in a declining brain.

Greenland, silent and majestic, sits under the northern lights, indifferent to the fact that it has become the latest prop in this idiocracy. The ice will melt, the seas will rise, and long after the water has swallowed the coastlines, the ghosts of these politicians will probably still be arguing over who has the jurisdiction to tax the fish swimming through the ruins of Brussels. Unflinching, indeed.