Europe/NATO Paying the Price for their Sycophancy
Greenland lesson to NATO/U.S. Allies: Sycophancy empowers a bully, weakens the sycophant, like NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte, whose “Daddy” now attacks his own children.
|
Greenland is a stark lesson that sycophancy, fawning and bowing and scraping empowers a bully, it doesn’t win him over. Instead it further weakens the sycophant, like NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte, whose “Daddy” now attacks his own children.
Yet it is sycophancy that every American, or wanna-be American, ally, has been embracing in its dealings with U.S. President Donald Trump since his re-election.
They have sought to play to his ego, some nominating him for the Nobel Peace Prize, others giving him their Nobel Peace Prize, or in the case of FIFA presenting Trump with its first peace prize.
The FIFA prize was given to Trump apparently for bringing peace to Gaza even as U.S. bombs and military might helped to kill more than 70,000 Palestinians, 20,000 of them children. For the 400 plus Gazans, who have died since the cease fire in October 2025, and for West Bank Palestinians, daily assaulted by Israeli military, and for farmers being terrorized by radical and illegal Israeli settlers, peace must seem a cruel joke.
Meanwhile, so-called enemies, who have taken tougher stands, have had success in their dealings with Trump. China has negotiated down tariffs with the U.S. after Trump threatened tariffs that were as high as 145%. After a meeting between Trump and China President Xi Jinping in October, 2025, the two agreed to extend a lower tariff rate until November 2026.
It’s not known what went on in that meeting, but it’s easy to assume China’s president made no reference to Trump as “Daddy”. I am thinking that scraping and bowing was probably off the table as well.
Not so among his allies.
Last year British Prime Minister Keir Starmer invited President Donald Trump for a second state visit to the United Kingdom, which in and of itself is unprecedented. According to British practice a state visit is a once- per- leader honor and is not given multiple times to a leader.
Not only was he invited for a state visit, he received elaborate military and ceremonial honors. In fact the British military put on what has been called the largest ceremonial welcome for a state visit in recent memory, with about 1,300 troops and 120 horses taking part in the guard of honor and procession at Windsor Castle.
Why? Because everyone knows President Trump loves a military parade.
Yet the United Kingdom is among the eight nations President Trump threatened with 10% tariffs, to be raised to 50% by June, if NATO doesn’t let him have Greenland.
But history tells us neither Britain’s sycophantic response to Trump’s bullying nor America’s bullying practices should come as a surprise.
It was the UK Prime Minister at the time of the illegal Iraq war, Tony Blair, who behaved akin to a little puppy to America’s President George Bush, jumping in his lap, promising to go to war with him, no matter the lies being told or warnings being issued by the U.N. and European allies, like Germany and France. They said it was a mistake. But Bush and Blair would hear none of it.
For its refusal to join the lie-induced Iraq war, France was shunned by America, French fries were renamed freedom fries and bottles of French wine were shamefully spilled in the streets.
For Canada’s refusal to support the Iraq war, President Bush ended an investigation into a friendly fire incident in Afghanistan that killed Canadian soldiers.
No. American bullying isn’t new. America wants what America wants.
Like all bullies who continue to get what they want, they continue to bully until we are where we are today.
Trump is not an aberration. He is more extreme and considerably less sophisticated but he is not new.
But this time, unlike the bullying of his predecessors, Trump has taken aim at America’s allies. who have enabled both him and his predecessors, and who have always been more than willing to overlook and pander to U.S. bullying when it was directed against “others”. They are not so accommodating now.
America is a superpower because currently its economy and its military is the biggest, but it is not the adult in the room, it never has been.