Natalie Kitrow

For the purposes of understanding this moment, essentially what Carney is saying is that this fiction of a rules-based world order is now over.

The mask is off.

The hegemon that we've all been relying on, the United States, is now essentially turning against us.

And so my question, Mark, is in standing up to that hegemon, what cards does the rest of NATO actually have to play?

Basically, you're saying that one strategy would be for these NATO countries to get themselves in a position to eventually rely a lot less on the United States when it comes to security, especially with regard to the threat from Russia.

Obviously, that would be a long-term strategy.

That would take time to play out.

And what is the bazooka exactly?

And I presume also part of the reason it's hard to get on the same page about using what you call this economic bazooka is that there's a risk to it.

And we should point out that this whole time, there have also been risks on the U.S.

side from this Greenland gambit.

We saw Wall Street didn't seem to like this.

There are Republican senators that seem uncomfortable with it.

And, I mean, let's be honest.

It's not like there's a huge hunger within the American public to own Greenland.

So taking all the things that you've just described about the dangers for Europe and the potential pitfalls for the United States here, it makes sense that both sides actually had a real incentive to find an off-ramp here, which is exactly what it looks like they did.

But I have to ask, Mark, whatever this deal or potential deal turns out to be, doesn't this whole saga, this saga of the U.S.

threatening to subsume territory of another NATO state by force —

Doesn't that make clear that NATO is fundamentally rotten?

Like, this is an alliance that at its core is supposed to be about protecting each other from outside threats, defending each other's sovereignty.