BRUSSELS — Nothing to see here.

That was the message from NATO chief Mark Rutte on Monday, just days after U.S. President Donald Trump doubled down on his threats to take Greenland by force — a move that Denmark cautioned would spell the end of the transatlantic military alliance.

NATO is “not at all” in crisis, Rutte told reporters during a visit to Zagreb, brushing off the standoff and saying: “I think we are really working in the right direction.”

Trump on Friday warned the U.S. “may” have to choose between seizing Greenland and keeping NATO intact, marking the latest escalation of his long-running campaign to grab the giant Arctic island. Controlling Greenland is “what I feel is psychologically needed,” he added.

The U.S. president’s bellicose rhetoric has put the alliance on the brink of an existential crisis, with the prospect of a military attack against an alliance member jolting NATO into largely uncharted waters. 

EU defense chief Andrius Kubilius on Monday echoed those concerns. Any military takeover would be “the end of NATO,” he said, and have a “very deep negative impact … on our transatlantic relations.”

Alongside its oil and critical mineral deposits, Trump has previously cited swarms of Russian and Chinese vessels near Greenland as driving the U.S.’s need to control the island. 

Experts and intelligence reports largely dismiss those claims. But Rutte said there was “a risk that Russians and the Chinese will be more active” regionally. 

“All allies agree on the importance of the Arctic and Arctic security,” he said, “and currently we are discussing … how to make sure that we give practical follow-up on those discussions.”

On Wednesday, NATO countries asked the alliance to look into options for securing the Arctic, including shifting more military assets to the region and holding more military exercises in Greenland’s vicinity. The U.K. and Germany are reportedly in talks to send troops to the self-ruling Danish territory in an attempt to assuage Washington’s concerns.

Greenland’s Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen on Monday also said the territory “increase its efforts to ensure that the defense of Greenland takes place under the auspices of NATO.”

Croatian Prime Minister Andrej Plenković, speaking alongside Rutte, said that “allies have to respect each other, including the U.S. as the largest NATO member.”

But Rutte also heaped praise on the U.S. president, underscoring the near-impossible tightrope he continues to tread as he attempts to speak for all 32 members of the alliance.

“Donald Trump is doing the right things for NATO by encouraging us all to spend more to equalize this,” he said, referencing the alliance’s defense spending target of 5 percent of GDP, agreed last year after intense pressure from Trump. “As [NATO] secretary-general, it is my role to make sure that the whole of the alliance is as secure and safe as possible,” he said.

NATO has previously survived the 1974 Turkish invasion of Greek-allied Cyprus, a series of naval confrontations between the U.K. and Iceland over cod and several territorial disputes in the Aegean Sea between Greece and Turkey climaxing in 1987. But an outright attack by its biggest and most well-armed member against another would be unprecedented. 

“No provision [in the alliance’s 1949 founding treaty] envisions an attack on one NATO ally by another one,” said one NATO diplomat, who was granted anonymity to speak freely. It would mean “the end of the alliance,” they added.