Editorial: America seizing Greenland would - obviously - be the end of Nato and a massive challenge for the UK

In 2024, the News Letter reported from northern Cyprus, 50 years after the Turkish invasion of the island.​

It was the nearest the Nato military alliance has ever come to a full-scale war between two of its members: Turkey and Greece.

Relations between the pair have been frosty since the attack, which Ankara launched because it feared the then Cypriot government would try to become a full part of Greece. The island is still divided, with North Cyprus a de facto part of Turkey.

But the conflict, while bitter (many British soldiers who served at the height of the Troubles in Northern Ireland in the early 1970s went on to serve in Cyprus) stopped short of full war between the two. Nato’s clauses prevent such a conflict.

Now, incredibly, there is the prospect of war not only between two Nato members, but involving its most powerful member (by far), the US. President Donald Trump has talked of seizing Greenland from Denmark, which seems to be bluster, but his designs on the country are very real.

Greenland’s energy minister Naaja Nathanielsen says a US invasion of Greenland would be an attack on all Nato allies. It would in fact be the end of Nato. Ms Nathanielsen said any such action would leave western allies having to “figure out what s this new world order about”. But even if there is no such conflict (one the US would win easily), the world order has already changed, utterly. What this means for anyone, not least a UK that has long had good relations with western Europe and America, is unclear. One thing is obvious: Britain must spend meaningfully more on defence, not Labour trickery.

That will have implications for the province. Welfare must be brought under control. And NI, which is as addicted to welfare as any part of the nation, is not going to be allowed to squander money in the way that Stormont has done. There are too many other more pressing demands on the Treasury.