Why challenge allies with a military intervention in Greenlandautonomous territory of Denmark and part of the I’LL TAKEand USA Can it agree on a greater presence of its soldiers in the immense Arctic? The question hovers over Copenhagen, its European partners and the Alliance headquarters in Brussels. A US attack would be “the end of NATO”, the Danish prime minister, the social democrat, has warned Mette Frederiksenwho has the support of its European partners and also Canada.
Donald Trump He insists daily on his obsession with taking control of the island, whether through negotiation or by force. The military option is shocking if one takes into account that the United States has not only not exhausted its deployment possibilities in Greenland, but has even reduced it to a minimum: from the nearly 10,000 soldiers it stationed there during the Cold War, it has gone up to one hundred and a half currently in service in its only strategic base in Greenlandic territory, Pituffikin the northwest of the island and 3,757 kilometers from Moscow.
Defensive disproportion
“No one will fight the United States militarily over Greenland,” he said. Stephen MillerTrump’s deputy chief of staff and a key member of his security team. His wife, Katie Miller, a former advisor to the president, put her finger on the sore spot shortly after the capture of Nicolás Maduro, by posting an X message with the map of Greenland stamped with the US flag and the word “soon.” He alluded to the theoretical materialization of Trump’s purpose of taking over the island.
Denmark is obliged by military regulations, in force since 1952, to defend the island in the event of military aggression. Greenland has a autonomous regime which, since 2009, includes its right to self-determination. But these powers do not include foreign policy in defense.
Frederiksen has opted for the rearmamentof according to Trump’s dictates and by his own pro-Atlantic conviction. It foresees a military investment of about 19.4 billion euros until 2033, which includes generous orders from the American arms industry. In the coming years, $4.2 billion will be allocated to the promised defensive reinforcement of the Arctic, destined for the purchase of 16 F-35s, two patrol ships, maritime surveillance aircraft, a radar, a drone system and more troops on the ground.
But a country of six million inhabitants – including Greenland’s 57,000 – with conscription for men and women and an Army of 17,300 soldiers, is not capable of confronting a superpower. Greenland, with 2.1 million square kilometers, 80% of which is covered in ice, now has between 250 and 300 Danish soldiers in their territory. The call Arctic Command It has its headquarters in Nuuk, the capital. Next to the Arctic Command there is a special polar unit, the historic Sirius Patrol, with a crew of 14 soldiers who receive training in extreme conditions, traveling on dog sleds and in an area that is -40 degrees in winter.
Blank check to the US
Trump has accused Denmark of neglecting the defense of Greenland in a region where they already exercise a growing dominance of China and Russia. The need to take control over Greenland is based on Danish inferiority. But it does not clarify why he does not make use of the blank check that he practically has to increase his capabilities. He Greenland Defense Treaty signed between both countries in 1951, updated in 2004 and then in 2023authorizes the US to deploy bases throughout Greenlandic territory. “The United States could expand its bases in Greenlandic territory with the agreement of the Danes and Greenlanders. There is no problem,” recalls the expert on the Arctic region at the Science and Policy Foundation (SWP) in Berlin, Michael Paul.
The result of the 1951 agreement was the implementation of the US military base in Thule, which in 2023 was renamed Pituffik. Its mission is to monitor airspace and detect the presence of aircraft or ballistic missiles. Its current strength is between 150 and 200 American soldiers, plus hundreds of civilian employees and a Danish officer, as a liaison.
Historical pretensions and current contempt
Trump displays his contempt for international law or to its European allies. Makes worth the law of the strongest and he seems to share his advisor Miller’s defiant certainty that no one will respond militarily to aggression by his powerful Army.
For the Pentagon, Greenland is ‘theirs’, in part because it assumed its defense during the Second World Warwith Denmark under Nazi occupation. In times of Cold war came to have 10,000 soldiers on the island, but progressively transferred its military installations to Denmark, with the exception of Pituffik.
Geographically, the island belongs to American continent. For Copenhagen their 600 years of shared history under different statuses, including the colonial period that ended in 1953.
The United States’ attempts to take over the island are also historic. A couple of precedents for American territorial acquisitions are usually remembered: the purchase from Russia of Alaska in 1867 and that of the current Virgin Islands, which Denmark sold in 1917. One year after the Nazi capitulation, President Harry Truman He offered Denmark $100 million for Greenland.
Trump launched his own takeover bid in 2019, during his first term. Frederiksen responded as the island was not for sale. After his 2024 victory, Trump resumed his obsession. A few days before taking office, there was a provocative visit to the island by his son, Donald Trump Jr. Already from the White House, Trump promised “trillions to make them rich” to the Greenlanders. And he sent his vice president, JD Vancevisiting Pituffik. The provocations They have been constant. The response from Frederiksen and the regional president, Jens Frederik Nielsen, is the same: Greenland is not for sale.
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