OPINION: This is a 1938 moment for Europe, but the war will be a trade war

"Neville Chamberlain said in 1938 that there was no reason for British or French soldiers to die for Czechoslovakia. Nazi Germany's threat to seize Czech territory was a quarrel in a faraway country by people of whom we know nothing. Who is ready to die for Greenland? More to the point, is there anything that France or Britain - or Europe as a whole - can do to prevent the Nazi tribute act in the White House from seizing the giant Danish territory?"

"The French military is configured to fight only, short, smart, tactical battles. It has far fewer warplane and tanks than it had at the start of the century and poor stocks of rockets, artillery shells and small ammunition. According to one assessment, the French air force - 250 warplanes, compared to 374 two decades ago - has the capacity to fight intensively for no more than a couple of weeks."

"And yet there are reasons to believe that the Europeans have already won the first military confrontation with Donald Trump. France, Britain, Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden, Norway and Finland sent a handful of their troops to join a Danish exploratory manoeuvre in Greenland last week. Since then Trump has threatened to bombard the eight countries with trade tariffs; he has not repeated (nor has he withdrawn) his outlandish menace to invade the territory of an ally."

European leaders deployed small contingents to Greenland, testing U.S. willingness to use force over allied territory and calling President Trump's bluff. Western European militaries are outmatched by the United States and are structured for short, tactical engagements with limited aircraft, tanks and munitions. France's air force fields roughly 250 warplanes and could sustain intensive operations for only a few weeks. The immediate reaction from the United States took the form of threatened trade tariffs rather than renewed military threats. The confrontation now appears more likely to unfold as a long, brutal economic and trade conflict than open armed war.

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