The Danish international minister fist-bumped his ambassador after which rushed as much as Greenland’s international minister and lit her cigarette. They’d simply met with U.S. Vice President J.D. Vance and U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio. Within the Jan. 14 assembly, they mentioned U.S. President Donald Trump’s need to “personal” Greenland, the Greenlandic folks’s agency opposition to being owned, and the way they will all transfer ahead in mild of this deadlock.
Because the smoke settled between the high-level diplomats exterior the embassy’s automobile, a brand new view was settling in throughout the Atlantic Ocean. No matter occurs subsequent, Denmark, and its relationship with the USA, has modified irreversibly.
The Danish international minister fist-bumped his ambassador after which rushed as much as Greenland’s international minister and lit her cigarette. They’d simply met with U.S. Vice President J.D. Vance and U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio. Within the Jan. 14 assembly, they mentioned U.S. President Donald Trump’s need to “personal” Greenland, the Greenlandic folks’s agency opposition to being owned, and the way they will all transfer ahead in mild of this deadlock.
Because the smoke settled between the high-level diplomats exterior the embassy’s automobile, a brand new view was settling in throughout the Atlantic Ocean. No matter occurs subsequent, Denmark, and its relationship with the USA, has modified irreversibly.
“We put all our eggs in the USA’ basket. We’re ‘super-Atlanticists.’ We’ve gone far additional in our assist of the U.S. than many different nations. We’ve actually prioritized the connection to the U.S., however it would by no means be the identical once more,” mentioned Mikkel Runge Olesen, a senior researcher on the Danish Institute for Worldwide Research.
“Probably the most trans-Atlantic politicians are essentially the most bitter and skeptical. [Danish Prime Minister] Mette Frederiksen and [former NATO Secretary-General] Anders Fogh Rasmussen, for instance,” Olesen mentioned. “I feel, from a Danish perspective, the concept of the USA as our safety technique is gone. Now we’re on the lookout for a European various. It’s been an costly lesson. We trusted the Individuals, and we by no means ought to have accomplished that.”
The Jan. 14 assembly did nothing to assuage Danish opinion. Trump has not curbed his enthusiasm for proudly owning Greenland—or “conquering” it, as Danish Overseas Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen put it at a press convention after the assembly. In line with Rasmussen, there’s nonetheless deep disagreement on the difficulty, however the three events agreed on making a high-level working group.
Instantly after the assembly, the European Parliament issued a strongly worded assertion in assist of Denmark and Greenland. However one thing has modified in Europe. It’s not simply sturdy statements—a number of nations are actually committing to boots on the ice.
France, Germany, the Netherlands, the UK, Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Estonia have all responded to a European army train in Greenland and are sending troops there. Along with opening a everlasting French Consulate in Nuuk in early February, French President Emmanuel Macron has mentioned that extra army is on its solution to the Arctic. “An preliminary workforce of French troopers is already on website and shall be bolstered within the coming days by land, air, and sea belongings,” he mentioned in an deal with to the French armed forces on Jan. 15.
Even when it’s only a few officers, the message is a robust one. “Think about a U.S. helicopter lands in Greenland, what do they see after they step out? No person? A dogsled? Or a row of European troopers? It makes an enormous distinction,” mentioned Christine Nissen, a chief analyst at Assume Tank Europa. “By elevating the stakes, Denmark makes it tougher to go a special path than diplomacy.”
For Nissen, that is a part of a extra seismic shift in European considering.
“Yesterday’s world has suited Europe rather well,” Nissen mentioned. “We’ve set all the things up round it. Our total society relies in a free world, worldwide commerce. We will import each safety and vitality and small low cost thingamabobs from China and never must do something ourselves to maintain the mannequin we’ve got. This can be a goodbye to all that. It takes time to react to, that’s why there’s been this paralysis.”
The result’s prone to be a deepening of European unity. After Russia, the USA is now the second main energy to pose a risk to European territory. This creates a purpose for each anti-Russian and anti-American segments of European opinion to come back collectively and argue for a stronger Europe.
“What we’re seeing proper now could be everybody transferring nearer collectively within the European Union,” mentioned Marlene Wind, a professor and director on the Middle for European Politics on the College of Copenhagen. “A united Europe will not be what Trump desires. He desires a divided Europe. So, this can be a little bit of an personal objective.”
“We’ve learnt that we shouldn’t enterprise into U.S. dependency once more, as a result of what if there’s a brand new Trump down the road?” Wind mentioned. “We’re not going to have our IT infrastructure, weapons, and safety tied as much as a personality who so very clearly hates the EU and Europe.”
The requires strategic autonomy are actually coming from all sides. Every week in the past, German Brig. Gen. Frank Pieper responded to Washington’s raid on Venezuela by posting on-line, “Germany and Europe can not reliably base their existence on the USA and its nuclear umbrella. CONCLUSION: Germany wants its personal nuclear weapons.”
After all, Europe can’t simply cease counting on the USA in a single day. Pilots are educated to fly Lockheed Martin planes. Palantir provides Europe with surveillance know-how. Joint NATO workout routines require programs that work collectively, that means U.S. programs. In different phrases, Europe is already within the U.S. army industrial advanced and getting out requires much more than switching from Apple to Nokia.
However that doesn’t imply Europe isn’t going to do its finest. “This fall, Denmark made its largest miliary expenditure ever, 58 billion kroner [$9 billion] on a brand new ground-based air protection system,” Nissen mentioned. “They selected a European resolution. We haven’t had an air protection system since 2004, so there was no lock-in impact like with the F-35s. So, after we purchase one thing new that isn’t American, it’s additionally a declaration for the long run, that we’re locking in on European options.”
Europe’s transition will not be going to be straightforward. However the continent’s leaders now consider it’s mandatory. For Nissen, “it’s a path of opposites. On the one facet, there’s the structural connection and the nice issue it could be to sever that, however on the opposite facet, it’s a must to do it. As a result of it’s not a long-term resolution to not.”
The glacial decoupling from the U.S. protection trade goes to harm the USA, Nissen mentioned. European international locations have elevated their protection spending the previous few years. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and Trump’s continued threats of punishing nations not dwelling as much as NATO’s required spending helped that. Most of that cash has gone straight to U.S. arms suppliers. In line with the Stockholm Worldwide Peace Analysis Institute, “For the primary time in 20 years, the biggest share of US arms exports in 2020–24 went to Europe.” This implies, Nissen mentioned, that “there shall be a number of offended lobbyists from the protection trade if Europe stops the imports.”
Whereas Europe prepares for a long-term shift in its relationship with Washington, its leaders are nonetheless attempting to clean over tensions.
Trump has offered many contradictory and incoherent causes for wanting Greenland. In his assembly with Rubio, Rasmussen tried to handle the latest one: Trump’s supposed concern of Russia or China taking up the island. At a subsequent press convention, Rasmussen mentioned that he and his colleagues highlighted Denmark’s investments in Arctic protection, defined that the USA may make investments and base forces in Greenland, and famous that the USA has really decreased the variety of troops current on the island over time. He had additionally identified {that a} Chinese language warship hasn’t been noticed round Greenland a decade.
Talking with Danish reporters after the convention, Rasmussen provided one extra level. Trump, he mentioned, beforehand needed to personal the Panama Canal however now appears to have dropped that obsession. If Europe can preserve him occupied lengthy sufficient, Rasmussen instructed, then maybe he may also overlook about Greenland.
The change in Europe is actual. In spite of everything, European forces are nonetheless on the best way to Greenland. But it surely appears European leaders haven’t utterly given up on the technique of hoping and ready both.
