President Donald Trump’s renewed, bizarre obsession with taking control of Greenland — and more to the point, his refusal to rule out using military force to do it — is straining America’s ties with its NATO allies to the breaking point, no doubt to the great cheer of the despots who rule Russia and China. Add to that Trump’s announcement of huge new tariffs against our allies as punishment for their resistance and it’s clear that Americans’ lives could soon become both more expensive and less safe. The Americans potentially facing economic and even military chaos because of one unstable man’s raging id include, of course, Missourians. So where are our elected voices of reason to restrain this lunacy? Most of the Republicans in our state’s congressional delegation, like most of the Republicans who control Congress, have publicly said little lately regarding the topic the whole world is nervously talking about. With the post-World War II global order hanging in the balance, they at least owe their constituents assurances that they won’t allow Trump to carry out his reckless threats. NATO has been the most successful military alliance in human history, maintaining relative peace and security in Europe and North America for almost eight decades now because of one simple principle: collective defense. Any adversary considering an attack on any NATO member knows it would be considered an attack on the entire alliance of (currently) 32 countries. This is the primary reason none of NATO’s signatory nations has faced a conventional military invasion since the end of World War II. Trump, long contemptuous of our fellow democracies, has often chipped at the edges of that alliance. Now he threatens to shatter it from within. Greenland is a semi-autonomous territory under Denmark, a founding NATO member. Trump for years has mused about buying or otherwise acquiring the massive Arctic island. But lately, he appears to be doing more than musing. Trump now says the U.S. “must” take over Greenland because of its strategic importance, perched across the Arctic Circle from Russia and China. But the U.S. already has a significant invited military presence in Greenland for that very reason. Unless Trump is intent on renaming the country after himself (would anyone be surprised at this point?), it’s unclear why U.S. ownership of it should be so crucial. Loopy as purchasing Greenland sounds, Trump’s more threatening comments lately about taking it by force are nothing to laugh off. He has called U.S. acquisition an “absolute necessity” that he would undertake “the easy way or the hard way.” He reportedly has ordered the Joint Chiefs of Staff to draw up contingency plans for a possible invasion. Even in official public statements, the White House says a military takeover isn’t out of the question. An American attack against a fellow NATO member would put our allies in an impossible position. It would likely end America’s role in the alliance and perhaps even destroy it completely, to the detriment of not only America but the world. A few hearty Republicans have, to their credit, preemptively pushed back. Rep. Don Bacon, R-Neb., called Trump’s threats “the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard.” Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., predicts that his fellow Republicans in both chambers would impeach and remove Trump in response to a Greenland invasion. They should all be saying that, loud and clear. But for the most part, congressional Republicans have publicly said little about Trump’s threat to invade a NATO ally. And is anyone truly banking on the psychological stability of a president who suggested to the prime minister of Norway, also a NATO ally, that part of this is about his personal pique at that country’s failure to give him the Nobel Peace Prize? (The Norwegian government doesn’t even have that power, but whatever.) Even discussing taking Greenland by force is objectively insane. The threat alone is already endangering NATO and, consequently, the world. But no one should assume that means Trump won’t do it. Missourians and the rest of America should demand that congressional Republicans publicly commit to ensuring he doesn’t.