Imagine you were Vladimir Putin or Xi Jinping and you woke up a year ago having magically been given command of puppet strings that control the White House. Your explicit geopolitical goal is to undermine trust in the United States on the world stage. You want to destroy the Western rules-based order that has preserved peace and security for 80 years, which allowed the US to triumph as an economic superpower and beacon of hope and innovation for the world.

What exactly would you do differently with your marionette – other than enact the ever more reckless agenda that Donald Trump has pursued since he became president last year? Nothing.

In fact, the split-screen juxtaposition of three events this week – Trump’s own nearly two-hour commemoration of his one-year anniversary as president; the gathering of defiant, rattled global elites in snowy Davos; and the spectacle of Denmark and its European allies building up a military force in Greenland with the express purpose of deterring a US military takeover – might someday be seen as heralding the official end of the grand experiment in a rules-based international order that has kept watch since World War II.

In the first three weeks of 2026, Trump’s Mad King rantings about Greenland have accelerated into something far more stunning and alarming: A superpower is choosing to self-immolate and torch its remaining global trust and friendships, including and especially NATO, the most potent geopolitical alliance in world history, at the precise moment when it had been reinvigorated and renewed and at its strongest and largest ever in the wake of Russia’s large-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

Trump’s interest in Greenland is as inexplicable and personal as ever a presidential side quest was. Seeking control from the Danes of a territory holding just 57,000 people and land mostly covered by mile-thick ice is not some long-held conservative shibboleth; it’s not something long lectured about in international-relations classrooms or even the fringiest of far-right media; it’s not a territorial acquisition that Wall Street has clamoured for and coveted over decades; there’s no well-funded astroturf “Build Green in Greenland” lobbying campaign by shadowy business interests working the halls of Capitol Hall, and there’s no rebel freedom and independence movement indigenous to Greenland that’s whispering at cocktail parties in DC desperate for US aid; nor even, like so much of America’s onetime Manifest Destiny era, is it a territory that large numbers of American settlers are desperate to homestead. None of that – quite the opposite.

In fact, given the very strength of the United States on the world stage and its network of alliances like NATO, effectively everyone in the United States who had any desires about Greenland at all could act upon them already. The US already has a military base there – and, in fact, once had far more military bases there and has chosen to wind them down over the years. Sure, it may have some valuable rare earths and its access routes to the melting Arctic might help trade move more easily in the future, but even all of that would have been accessible to any of the dreamy plutocrats who hoped to access its riches given that Denmark was, until just hours ago, among our nation’s closest and most reliable allies. Just about anyone who ever wanted to move to Greenland has already done so.

Annexing Greenland is as unpopular with Americans as almost anything ever polled – just 17 per cent of Americans support Trump’s push, and an astounding 4 per cent think it’s a good idea for America to take Greenland by military force. To put that in context: According to a 2022 survey, about 13 per cent of Americans believe in Bigfoot.

Nor is Donald Trump’s new-found imperial ambition coming at some rambunctious peak of popular and political support. His approval rating has fallen steadily since returning to office. He is underwater dramatically in support for his signature immigration efforts. News headlines are filled with how he appeared, for a time, to be incredibly close friends with the world’s most notorious paedophile.

Democrats are winning and picking up seats and offices with dramatic vote percentages. And the Republican majority in the House hinges on such a narrow margin now that Speaker Mike Johnson’s control of the chamber relies on the vagaries of such things as car accidents in Indiana. Nor has Trump rallied the nation to some grand patriotic cause; in fact, he can barely articulate whatever vision he’s pursuing – Wednesday in Davos, he referred to “Iceland” multiple times when he meant “Greenland.”

Hours later, he announced he’d come to “the framework of a future deal” with the secretary-general of NATO regarding Greenland and the Arctic, but even if such a deal emerges in the future, the damage is done and the path of the world’s future has been rewritten.

Occupying and annexing Greenland is Trump’s mind working in its weirdest and most unhinged ways. He admitted as such in a troubling and rambling New York Times interview early in the month. Asked about “why Greenland?” he said, “Because that’s what I feel is psychologically needed for success.”

• A Tell Media report / Adapted from Wired agency