Pentagon Not Tasked Yet on Greenland Invasion

U.S. President Donald Trump’s repeated threats to seize Greenland have pushed an unthinkable scenario into open debate without triggering formal military planning. Pentagon officials said Tuesday they have not been asked to prepare operational plans for an invasion of Greenland or for managing its aftermath, despite the president publicly keeping force on the table. The gap between rhetoric and planning has become the story itself: an unprecedented coercive posture toward a NATO ally, articulated at the political level but not translated into defense tasking.

At a lengthy White House news conference on Tuesday, Trump declined to define limits, telling reporters, “You’ll find out.” He has previously said he intended to acquire Greenland “whether they like it or not,” adding, “if we don’t do it the easy way, we’re going to do it the hard way.”

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent reinforced the ambiguity on Sunday on NBC News’ “Meet the Press,” suggesting Greenland could be taken by force if talks with Denmark fail and arguing that “Europeans project weakness. The U.S. projects strength.”

A Feasible Operation, Strategically Toxic

From a narrow military standpoint, analysts note that Greenland would be easy to seize. The island has about 56,000 residents spread across a territory roughly three times the size of Texas, and the United States already operates one base in Greenland’s far north.

That footprint is far smaller than during World War II, when the U.S. maintained as many as 17 bases on the island. These facts explain why the idea can be floated casually in Washington. They also explain why senior defense officials privately describe the rhetoric as destabilizing.

An attack on Greenland would be an attack on Denmark, a NATO ally whose forces fought alongside U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. That seems to be why several Pentagon officials and senior commanders have expressed dismay that the president continues to frame military force as an option against an ally, warning that even hypothetical threats erode alliance credibility.

Alliance Stress Signals

The strain sharpened last week when a group of European nations sent personnel to Greenland for military exercises in a visible show of solidarity with Denmark.

U.S. officials said the move may have angered Trump, who threatened over the weekend to impose tariffs on participating countries unless they dropped opposition to a U.S. acquisition of the island.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent also dismissed France’s proposal to hold NATO exercises in Greenland, taking aim at French President Emmanuel Macron’s domestic record and suggesting Paris should prioritize fixing its strained public finances rather than projecting force abroad.

With European troops now present, current and former U.S. officials warn that the risk of miscalculation has risen, even absent any planning order from the Pentagon.

“Even the threat of taking Greenland raises profound issues about trans-Atlantic relations and the future of NATO,” Ivo Daalder, a former U.S. ambassador to NATO, wrote last week. The concern is structural: coercion aimed at an ally undermines the mutual-defense logic that has anchored NATO since World War II, regardless of whether orders are issued.

Planning Silence, Political Noise

Pentagon officials emphasized that contingency planning is routine across regions and scenarios, yet stressed that no direction has been given on Greenland. They spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss operational matters. That silence contrasts with the political messaging cycle, in which threats, tariff warnings, and public interviews have kept the issue alive without clarifying U.S. objectives.

For now, the episode illustrates a widening gap between presidential signaling and defense execution. The Pentagon’s restraint may be intended to preserve alliance stability. But as European deployments increase and rhetoric hardens, officials across the trans-Atlantic system warn that what began as a negotiating gambit is steadily testing NATO’s core assumptions.