NATO Vs NATO: The Incredible Adventures Beyond The Thule; Ètre Et Neant From Antonius Diogenes To Jean Paul Sartre – OpEd

Love as property and not possession, is the essence of the novel that President Donald Trump wants to write in the style of an ancient narrative that refers to the love adventure at the edge of the world (Thule, Greenland) where the U.S. Space Force has been operating since 1951 with free concession from Denmark (sovereign nation) in that Cold War operation called Blue Jay.  The U.S.’s main mission includes ballistic missile warning, space surveillance and satellite control. It houses a huge radar that is essential for detecting any intercontinental ballistic missile launch, and of course it would add more. But that’s not enough for Trump.

Antonius Diogenes’ book The Wonders Beyond Thule is part of that type of Greek prose composition called  “syngramma erotikon” that is to say love narration because love occupies the relevant place, and undoubtedly applies perfectly to the Trump and Greenland case. The President who sees love of Greenland as ownership and not possession, unless there are second thoughts, which seem to have been there, risked a war  “NATO vs NATO” style similar to Dustin Hoffman’s magnificent film “Kramer vs Kramer”. 

Parallels? Evident. Just remember the track of the film. One day Ted Kramer, ambitious and capable executive of New York (Trump parallel?) who is assigned an important work assignment (Parallel USA Presidency?) returns home enthusiastically because a new gift he bought (parallel Greenland?) , but finds his wife about to leave him. (Parallel Europe?)  The woman claims that she needs time to reflect on her life and abandons Ted.

But while in Dustin Hoffman’s magnificent film there is a neighbor who somehow positively intervenes, here the remaining neighbor if the US divorces Europe is Russia. Best possible neighbor? 

But NATO (USA) vs. NATO (Europe) is a dangerous film to shoot and l’Être et le Neant comes into play

If the USA (NATO) invaded Greenland (NATO), would the NATO command choose to defend European Greenland against the aggressor USA or to bare the largest contributor of its own expenses against itself?

What should be considered by Trump in cutting relations with Europe is that a massive part of th population of th USA is from European descent and they are strongly connected with Europe. NATO is a military organization, but it is also a culture one with historical links. And here is where the book of Sartre comes into play.

L’Etre et le Neant (Being and Nothingness) is a book that few have read, many have quoted, and no professional philosopher would declare he could ignore it, even if he didn’t read it. 

The general approach of Sartre is the passage needed of man from the state of essence to that of existence: existentialism. A passage that is the result of freedom and personal decisions rather than a passive reaction to the “Global all” that surrounds us. 

In this perspective Trump’s behavior could be declared “existentialist”: shattering decades-long post-Nazi diplomacy attitudes reduced to pieces by him could be considered a way to exist.

Sartre, based on his book, rightly set aside by amateur philosophers (those who delight in philosophy cannot enjoy the book) has built several excellent novels, half a dozen acceptable plays, but an impressive series of articles that much more than the basic philosophical work have rightly made him the thinking leader of the young European people of the post-Nazi tragedy in Europe and the world. 

From Coca Cola to Marx

If the French Revolution of 1789 owes to Voltaire his inalienable libertarian philosophical principles freedom from centuries of religious political despotism, May 1968 owes to Sartre the primary references for intellectual freedom of young European people from tired and asphyxiated parasitic traditions of all European social structures.

With the Kennedys – ante litteram to the French May – that old, boring, suffocating European education returned fresh, regenerative and vital in the USA. Education, thank goodness, changed.  If even the East appeared – timidly – to the education and culture of the masses, this is because the Kennedy’s West, and French May, was regenerating the entire world of culture. In America with the Kennedys even more than elsewhere, this fantastic intellectual innovative flow was translated into a formidable production of knowledge, of an exceptional technological quality, of young people and institutions that on the social level have produced political leaders unparalleled in any system such as JFK and his brother RFK. 

Top politicians welcome back to normal human language

I must immediately say that I do not agree with 90% of Trump’s political philosophy and for that 10% that I share I disagree with the method he uses, but having said that I do not hesitate to say that there is one aspect of his behavior that I definitely appreciate, and that is to bring the image of the most important world political role to the level of understanding of the common individual. Trump does this very well! These hieratic attitudes of quasi-divinities assumed by political leaders all over the world are instrumental in playing politics hands-free. Trump doesn’t do this, and that seems very positive to me. But if we move from “form to substance”, Trump is an anti-intellectual by nature who wants to renew the cultural immobilism that has certainly been created and unfortunately transformed into rituals also of progressive attitudes, by shattering libertarian principles acquired in that May of 1968 without replacing them with new intellectual creativity.  

1789, 1968, 2026 winners

In 1789 Voltaire won, in May ’68 Sartre won, today in 2026 who wins? My answer is – fortunately – the less than 100 soldiers of 8 European countries.

Trump wants to occupy Greenland, but why does he want to do it? Isn’t it enough for him to manage it as a de facto military, political and economic base? If he made military bases a few meters from Nuuk, no one, except the Russians naturally, would oppose it. The Greenlanders, not the Danes, and not even Europe would oppose it.  NATO itself could only be pleased with this anti-Russian reinforcement after the disastrous attempt to “make NATO in Ukraine. But then why does Trump prefer to trigger an Atlantic crisis to get what he could have without striking a blow. Why does he do it? 

Wall Street Journal says let’s go back to raison

A few days ago, a concise editorial in the Wall Street Journal recognized Trump’s merits in highlighting the strategic importance of Greenland for oceanic and space domination, for missile defense, for critical mineral extraction, for oil and gas. And in 1951, in the midst of the Cold War, a military station of great importance was created in Thule. But Kimberley A. Strassel, a brilliant columnist for the world’s most important financial newspaper, in an editorial suggests the President use what the US already has in Thule as they already have everything they need. 

From the “Maduro rat” to “encounters in polar ice”. 

Because Trump likes “the abduction of Maduro” movie, maybe he thinks of Werner Herzog’s “encounter at the end of the world” to reaffirm his existence with his cinematic communicative imperial force. The descent in force on the polar ice that can be simulated by exciting television footage is a celebration of existence. But let’s face it. Kramer vs Kramer is beautiful, Dustin superb, NATO vs NATO is not possible unless NATO is dissolved.

In conclusion, therefore, Trump’s protagonism makes the “Être“ obsolete and returns to the protagonist “Neant”.

Trump, is doing that: He is detaching himself from the young European, who loves America, but they love the one of the Kennedys, Martin Luther King, Hollywood, Joan Baez, Bruce Springsteen and Bob Dylan, who perfectly deserved Nobel Prize in literature and  it is worth remembering some lyrics 

Chimes of Freedom

Seeming to be the chimes of freedom flashing
Flashing for the warriors whose strength is not to fight
Flashing for the refugees on the unarmed road of flight
An’ for each an’ ev’ry underdog soldier in the night
An’ we gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashing

It is for this reason that the new Wealth of Nations must be the modern GDKP (Gross Domestic KNOWLEDGE Product) and no longer can it be the old GDP based on fossils, which it measures everything in short, except that which makes life worthwhile.