New Delhi, Jan. 11 -- While the White House insists that the US might use military force to annex Greenland, serious people in Denmark believe that the actual takeover might be more prosaic.

As Shane Harris and his colleagues report in The Atlantic, President Donald Trump could simply announce on social media that the territory is now a part of the US. Neither Denmark nor any Nato partner would put up a defence because they don't have the military power to confront the US.

What such an outcome will mean for Nato is another question, but the fact that some European policymakers believe that they could effectively give Washington a military walkover reveals a lot about the state of European preparedness. If the Russian invasion of Ukraine...