The current crisis turns that logic on its head. When the United States itself is the source of threats against a NATO member, the alliance's collective defense mechanisms offer no remedy. Denmark cannot invoke Article 5 against its own guarantor.

Russian officials have been quick to exploit this paradox. Moscow has spent years arguing that NATO expansion represents a threat to Russian security and that Western security guarantees are merely instruments of American hegemony rather than genuine mutual defense arrangements. The Greenland crisis, from the Kremlin's perspective, validates that narrative.

The timing could hardly be worse for Europe. The continent faces continued Russian pressure on its eastern flank, with the war in Ukraine grinding through its third year. European governments have spent the past decade trying to reassure nervous allies in Central and Eastern Europe that NATO would defend them against Russian aggression. Those reassurances now ring hollow when the alliance's dominant power is threatening military action against Denmark.

Several European officials, speaking to journalists on condition of anonymity, have expressed deep concern that Russia may test NATO's cohesion while the alliance is consumed by internal crisis. The fear is that Moscow could probe defenses in the Baltic region or increase pressure on Moldova or Georgia, calculating that Washington is distracted and European capitals are paralyzed by uncertainty about American intentions.

The Kremlin's propaganda apparatus has also sought to draw parallels between Trump's claims to Greenland and Russia's annexation of Crimea in 2014—a comparison designed to muddy international condemnation of Moscow's actions in Ukraine. If Washington asserts the right to acquire territory based on strategic interests, Russian commentators ask, what moral authority does the West have to criticize similar behavior by Russia?

Whether the Greenland crisis permanently damages NATO's credibility depends largely on how it is resolved. But for now, Moscow is enjoying the spectacle of the Western alliance tearing itself apart—precisely the outcome Russia has sought for years through disinformation campaigns and influence operations. This time, the damage is self-inflicted.