National Review senior writer Michael Brendan Dougherty, on today’s edition of The Editors, proposes a “thought experiment” regarding President-elect Trump’s recent comments floating the purchase of Greenland.

“Greenland,” Dougherty said, “is a hugely strategic piece of territory for a country like the United States if it’s going to uphold the Monroe Doctrine. It’s in our hemisphere. It helps us protect the entire northeast hemisphere. It gives us a launch pad toward Europe, toward Russia, toward China.”

Dougherty claims Denmark, the current owner of Greenland, “doesn’t have the resources to develop” the land mass’s “valuable potential commercial interests . . . so yeah, I think, purchasing it would be obvious.”

Taking the idea a step further, Dougherty said that while National Review senior writer “Noah Rothman wrote on our website that no serious commentator could possibly entertain the idea of invading, you know, or using coercion,” he’s “willing to limbo underneath that bar.”

Dougherty posits “as a thought experiment: On the list of policy ideas, yes, it would be an unjust, aggressive war. But . . . it would be far less costly or dangerous than regime-changing Iran. We would succeed almost immediately.

“We’re talking about 60,000 people that are affected, but we’re also talking about the permanent enlargement and enhancement of the security of a continental nation of over 330 million people.

“I am not a war-hawk expansionist, but I don’t think it’s a totally insane idea.”

The Editors podcast is recorded on Tuesdays and Fridays every week and is available wherever you listen to podcasts.