What Donald Trump is doing now with Greenland is his first move that truly departs from current American policy, the one we have known since 1945.
So far, Trump has done more or less the same or similar things, but his form has been much more crude than that used by his predecessors. For example, this invasion of Venezuela is not a precedent.
In the early 1990s, George Bush did the same thing in Panama.
All previous presidents have made discretionary decisions based on which the US Air Force would fire a missile and eliminate someone whom official Washington has labeled a terrorist.
Trump did something similar when ships carrying alleged drug dealers were rocketed. He just didn't bother with speeches about expanding human rights and strengthening democracy in the world and beyond.
However, this situation over Greenland seems to be something else. No American president since World War II has ever so openly threatened an ally, a member of the NATO alliance.
Moreover, a country that has followed American policy towards the war in Russia and Ukraine to the letter, and often beyond, over the last four years.
Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen was one of the hawks who are, and continue to be, ready to wage war against Russia for decades to come, until the last piece of occupied Ukrainian territory is liberated.
She constantly made statements that Russia was the country that posed the greatest threat to the territorial integrity of Europe. And of course, her own country. And now Denmark is one step away from having its territory invaded by America. Today's world is truly full of wonders.
Croatia is not among the eight countries, all loyal NATO members, that Trump has threatened with 10 percent tariffs, and intends to increase them to 25 percent in June if they do not relent. So it is not affected by this first wave of Trump's announced retaliation. But all of this raises a logical and inevitable question - how will all of this affect the Western military alliance.
Could it really happen that NATO disintegrates in the worst case? That would be the worst scenario for Croatia.
Of course, one can find fault with NATO for many things, and should, but the inescapable fact remains that the Western military alliance, together with the EU, defines and preserves the current international order in this part of the world.
An order in which Croatia has comfortably settled by being a member of both of these integrations. An order that makes it a safe country, especially when it comes to any security or military threat from our immediate neighborhood.
Whether it's southwest, north or southeast. Simply put, as long as NATO exists in its current form, and of course as long as the EU exists, any territorial threat to Croatia is impossible.
However, if NATO were to disintegrate or become completely dysfunctional, which is not impossible if Trump makes a few more moves like the one with Greenland, then the cards will be shuffled again all over the world, including in our little corner. And dealt again. So who gets what?
The ones Croatia has now are very good. In a possible new distribution, it can only get worse. Much worse.
Therefore, Croatian policy, especially foreign policy, should start thinking about what and how if this worst-case scenario, the collapse of NATO or, in a milder version, its complete inability to function due to the constant conflicts between the EU and the US that Trump is producing as if on an assembly line, actually happens. Croatia's old "friends" from the north and southwest still formally adhere to the postulates of the existing security structure.
What would happen if it disappeared – no one knows. What could happen from the southeast can perhaps be predicted somewhat more easily. And that is precisely why it would be necessary to change the policy that consists of lecturing our eastern neighbors as if we were Sweden, and not, together with them, a member of the same, war-torn federation until yesterday. And of course, to change the policy that constantly pokes a pen in the eye of official Sarajevo.
Of course, the scenario of some kind of NATO collapse is still unlikely, no matter how hard Trump tries.
But it wouldn't be a bad thing if his bizarre moves forced the government and the president, that coalition of the unwilling, to change some bad policies towards some neighbors right now.
After all, this should be done regardless of what happens to NATO.
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