On: Nato welcomes Greenland deal as Trump says it will give US 'permanent security...

The island was never defended by the state that owned it. Denmark holds a territory larger than its kingdom, and no fleet capable of holding it. That fact existed before today’s agreement; the agreement merely wrote it down.

For months the American ruler spoke of taking the island outright - purchase, annexation, force. The words changed; the aim did not. Now the deal: “permanent security control.” Nato welcomed it. Mark what welcomed means. The alliance to which Denmark belongs, in which America is the strongest member, praised the strongest member for extracting permanent rights from a weaker one. The alliance did not weigh the matter. It ratified.

The stated cause is security: missiles cross the pole, the northern waters open, the Russians build. Perhaps all true. A position wanted by a great power is always described by that power as necessary. The structural cause is shorter: a strong state wanted a position, and the state holding it could not refuse. Denmark could have said no. The threats would have continued, the pressure would have mounted, and the island would have passed to America regardless - later, and less tidily. The weak do not choose between keeping and losing. They choose the manner of losing.

They will call it diplomacy, and measured against invasion it is. I record the sequence as it happened: threats, then concession, then the alliance applauding the concession. No blood. No siege. The wall changed hands because the wall was never Denmark’s to garrison, and everyone at the table knew it.

What is surrendered under pressure is not surrendered. It is taken, with paperwork.