NATO is in full crisis mode, racing to stop US President Donald Trump from turning his Greenland obsession into something explosive, like sending U.S. troops to seize the Arctic island from Denmark.
If reports from the US media outlet Politico, based on diplomats and insiders, are to be believed, they reveal a desperate two-pronged push: lobbying in Washington to cool things down and NATO ambassadors in Brussels planning to beef up the region’s defenses.
They reportedly discussed boosting Arctic spending, rushing more troops up there, and scheduling way more joint exercises, all to prove to Trump the place is already locked down tight, no American takeover required.
The pitch drew broad agreement from the other envoys. The urgency stems from a sharp shift in European thinking. For months, they had treated Trump’s repeated talk of “acquiring” Greenland or even using military force as provocative rhetoric.
That changed quickly after the Venezuela raids. Officials now regard the threats as credible, and some in the EU are even preparing for a direct clash with Washington.
Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen has stated earlier that such a move would mark the end of NATO and the transatlantic security framework built after World War II.
Trump has insisted that Washington needs Greenland amid Russia and China’s increasing military presence in the region.
He has repeatedly refused to rule out the use of force to seize Greenland, infuriating Denmark, a loyal US ally and founding member of NATO.
Washington already has a military presence in Greenland — the Pituffik base, which dates to World War II, when the U.S.S sent forces to defend Greenland after Denmark fell to Nazi Germany.
Some 150 personnel are permanently stationed at the frigid base, but the United States stationed up to 6,000 troops across Greenland during the Cold War, largely out of concerns that any Soviet missile would cross the island on its way to North America.
Under a 1951 treaty, the United States could simply notify Denmark that it is again sending more troops.
“The United States could significantly increase its military presence in Greenland without anything really needing to be done,” said Kristine Berzina, a senior fellow at the German Marshall Fund of the United States.
But for Trump’s Make America Great Again (MAGA) movement, the security presence may not be the point. Trump has accelerated threats to Greenland after “extracting” Venezuela’s president, Nicolas Maduro.
Trump has spoken of a new “Manifest Destiny” — the 19th-century belief that the United States was destined to expand — and of a “Don-roe” Doctrine, his own aggressive take on the 1823 Monroe Doctrine that declared the Western Hemisphere out of bounds to other powers.
Trump’s motivation may lie more in “this notion of maps and legacy,” Berzina said.
“Perhaps the size of the country harkens back to this idea of American greatness, and certainly for the MAGA movement, American greatness matters a lot,” she said.
Greenland, which lies in the Western Hemisphere, is the size of the US state of Alaska and has only 57,000 people. Its seizure would make the US the third-largest nation in land area after Russia and Canada.
The White House, while not ruling out an invasion, has said that Trump, a real estate tycoon, is studying an offer to buy Greenland.
Both Greenland and Denmark have made clear the island is not for sale. But there is precedent, if not recent, for a purchase.
The United States bought what are now the US Virgin Islands from Denmark in 1917 for $25 million in gold.
Denmark had initially resisted the deal, in part due to concerns about how segregated America would treat the island’s largely Black population, but agreed after the United States threatened force, with Washington fearing Germany would seize the archipelago and gain a Caribbean foothold in World War I.
After World War II, President Harry Truman made his own offer to buy Greenland, but did so quietly and was rebuffed by Denmark.
The issue had appeared moot with the creation of NATO, the alliance that Trump has belittled as unfair to the United States.
Diplomats say that another option mulled by the Trump administration has been to offer a compact association like the United States has with Pacific island nations, which are independent but rely for their defense on the United States.
Greenland’s leaders have made clear they do not want to be part of the United States.
Even if Trump could persuade Greenlanders with cash payouts, he would still encounter massive hurdles from the US Congress, let alone Denmark.
“There are a lot of options that might exist in principle, but they seem fairly far-fetched,” said Brian Finucane, a former legal expert at the State Department now at the International Crisis Group.
“There are a lot of hurdles to incorporating Greenland into the United States, and it’s hard to know how much of this is bluster from Trump and trolling,” he said.
By ET Online Desk & Agence France-Presse (AFP)
