It’s October 2026 and, oh god – Trump has invaded Greenland

2100 EST. The President informs the world that the US is leaving Nato immediately, and will annex Greenland before midnight. “Many people are saying,” he explains, “that Greenland is covered with Russian and Chinese ships all over the place. Very bad.” An advance contingent of US forces, he reveals, has already landed.

Stocks crash. The world holds its breath. Frantic befuddlement ripples through western capitals. Speaker of the House of Representatives Mike Johnson tells journalists he will not be allowing a vote on the invasion, as the Greenlanders will probably just welcome the Americans as liberators. 

Within minutes, Fox News is screening a remarkably well-prepared package explaining that the invasion is brilliant, and if it goes wrong, the blame lies with Joe Biden. 

Leaks from the Pentagon suggest the invasion force is under the command of an officer newly appointed by secretary for war Pete Hegseth. The officer’s name is in fact Pete Hegseth.

Suggested Reading

Visiting the city that Trump and Musk both hate

Emma Sky

Sunday, 1 November, 2026 

Greenland, first light. Danish troops guarding the airport in the capital, Nuuk, are poised to blow up the runway to prevent the invaders landing. But no one knows where they are.

The White House Press Room, 0900 EST. Questioned by a journalist about whether America has actually invaded Greenland, a visibly agitated White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt comes out from behind her lectern and punches the journalist.

Greenland, 1000 EST. A US Army media relations officer is travelling with the invasion forces. His name is Spartan Bachelor and he has 3 million followers on YouTube. Bachelor manages to contact Newsmax via satellite, and explains that Hegseth did not anticipate bad weather in or near the Arctic in November. His unit had to make an emergency landing miles outside Nuuk, in an ice-bound wasteland. 

However, Bachelor is able to share a photo of Hegseth wielding two assault rifles next to an American flag planted in the snow. For some reason, he is half-naked.

Nato headquarters, Brussels, 1100 EST. The North Atlantic Council meets in emergency session. The US representative phones in sick. In the light of the invasion in general and the photo of Hegseth in particular, Denmark requests collective action under Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty. 

The Council approves this, but in the absence of the US representative, and in light of president Trump’s declaration of US withdrawal, there is confusion over whether a unified response can be initiated. The Supreme Allied Commander Europe resigns in despair. No other American officer is available to replace him.

The Oval Office, 1200 EST. A senior White House lawyer advises the president that under a 2023 law, he cannot in fact withdraw the US from Nato without the approval of two-thirds of the Senate. The president fires the lawyer. Secretary of state Marco Rubio tries to hide behind a curtain. 

As the lawyer is hustled out of the room, he shouts that the law forbidding him from leaving Nato was co-sponsored by secretary Rubio. The president fires secretary Rubio. 

A second lawyer advises the president that under the North Atlantic Treaty, the US is obliged to assist in confronting the armed attack on Greenland by the US. By this point, the president is getting bored, and accepts this advice to make the lawyer stop talking.

Brussels, 1330 EST. The North Atlantic Council is still in session; the American representative, looking bewildered but conspicuously healthy, rushes in. As far as he can make out, the US reluctantly accepts it has no choice but to join a Nato mission to stop the armed attack on Greenland by the US. 

Monday 2 November, 2026

Greenland, 0900 EST. Nato forces, incorporating a contingent of US troops, land in Nuuk. As a handful of bemused Greenlanders look on, the Nato troops head out of the city to confront Hegseth’s men. (Hegseth himself is indisposed, having come down with hypothermia as a result of his photoshoot.) 

Washington, 1100 EST. Chaos reigns. All contact with America’s mutually opposed forces in Greenland has been lost. Press secretary Leavitt decks another journalist. 

1300 EST. A crackly message is received via satellite. It appears the Nato forces have engaged Hegseth’s unit in a ferocious firefight. Administration officials are delighted: they receive bulletins from the battlefield before the news reaches the media, so they’re making a killing on the prediction markets.

1400 EST. President Trump begins to grasp what is happening and threatens to blow Europe into the Stone Age.

1410 EST. President Trump phones Europe – specifically, Nato secretary-general Mark Rutte – and offers to make a deal.

1415 EST. In an alarming escalation, the Hegseth forces appear to have been massacred by a Nato-deployed polar bear. Trump storms out of the negotiations with Nato, denouncing the secretary-general as “worse than the Pope”.

1800 EST. In the final polls before election day, the conflict in Greenland appears to have destroyed the Republicans’ chances once and for all.

Suggested Reading

Tommy Robinson and the dark art of turning words inside out

Phil Tinline

Tuesday, 3 November, 2026: Election Day

Greenland, 0900 EST. A Canadian reporter arrives at the battlefield outside Nuuk, braced for carnage, but discovers all members of the Hegseth forces and their supposed Nato foes sitting in their tents playing Call of Duty, Pokémon and charades. 

It emerges that, with Hegseth incapacitated, the two sides quickly reached agreement that the situation was intolerably cringe, and have been faking the reports of the war to keep Washington happy. The polar bear thing was a joke.

Washington, 0930 EST. News that the conflict never happened and all military personnel are alive reaches Washington. Trump tells reporters that only he could have made such a great deal. 

1100 EST. Administration officials learn they have lost millions on the prediction markets as a result of the faking of the war. They launch a lawsuit against the soldiers, alleging malfeasance in office.

1400 EST. The officials hurriedly backtrack – early indications from polling places across the US suggest the resolution of the conflict has spectacularly revived Trump’s popularity. The Republicans are on course for victory.

Wednesday, 4 November, 2026

Brussels, 0400 EST. The North Atlantic Council reconvenes, and quietly agrees that the US will pretend to have left Nato, but that it hasn’t really, but that it may or may not act even if Article 5 is triggered in future – it depends. 

Conspiracy theorists hurry to explain how Trump has faked the war deliberately to win the mid-terms. Alex Jones reveals that the fakery story is fake and the war really did happen, but was something to do with aliens. 

People the world over breathe again. Everything is back to normal.