Greenland has become the island that could break NATO

The lingering sense of disquiet in European capitals over the Trump administration’s threatening behavior toward Greenland has suddenly metastasized into a full-blown emergency.

European leaders rushed to draw new red lines on Tuesday and warned the White House that NATO, the 76-year-old transatlantic military alliance, would collapse if U.S. President Donald Trump crossed them.

But the White House did not appear intimidated and instead issued new threats of coercion, even going so far as to suggest that the use of military force against long-time allies remains an option.

Facing an unprecedented challenge from the superpower that has supported European security for nearly eight decades bears no resemblance to any internal alliance crisis that European leaders have faced in the past.

But following the US military operation that led to the capture or kidnapping – depending on how one sees it – of Venezuelan NicolonLike Maduro, European NATO leaders appear to have collectively decided that Trump’s tendency to take unilateral action can no longer be ignored or tolerated.

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In an unprecedented context statement published on Tuesday, seven European leaders essentially asked the American president to reverse course.

“Greenland belongs to its people. It is up to Denmark and Greenland, and them alone, to decide matters concerning Denmark and Greenland,” it reads.

The leaders then challenged Trump to work with NATO to achieve U.S. security goals in the Arctic region and to stop trying to intimidate Denmark, which has had jurisdiction over the massive ice-covered but mineral-rich island for more than 300 years.

Greenland, with a population of around 56,000, is semi-autonomous and manages most of its own internal affairs, while Denmark controls foreign policy and territorial defense.

“Touring the kingdom”

“We are currently seeing this kind of ‘circle around the Kingdom of Denmark and Greenland’ from some of the largest European states,” said Lin Mortensgaard, a researcher and doctoral student at the Danish Institute for International Studies, based in Copenhagen.

But hours later, the White House issued its own terse response.

He said that not only would the Trump administration not back down from its desire to acquire Greenland, but it also emphasized that “the US military is always an option at the disposal of the Commander-in-Chief.

The United States has the most powerful military in the world, with an annual budget of nearly US$1 trillion.

Together, NATO’s European members are barely able to come together half of this amount – and no country can match the United States’ unprecedented ability to project military power around the world.

European leaders, led by French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Friederich Merz and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, have tried to emphasize diplomacy, aiming to convince Trump that he can achieve all of his policy goals without physically seizing Greenland and destroying the NATO alliance.

But Mortensgaard said U.S. actions over the past 48 hours raise doubts about the European strategy.

“I think we’re starting to understand that it’s not really about national security, international security or resources,” she told CBC News.

“I think it’s about Trump’s legacy. I think it’s about his desire to expand American territory.”

If this is the case, many analysts, diplomats and politicians believe that not only will European diplomacy fail, but the entire post-World War II system of alliances will collapse at the same time, if the United States acts unilaterally.

“It would mean the end of NATO,” said Kerry Buck, former Canadian ambassador to NATO between 2015 and 2019.

“It could be a quick death or a slow death, but it would be the death of NATO.”

“Everything would stop”

Speaking on Danish television on Monday, Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen issued an equally dire warning.

“If the United States decides to militarily attack another NATO country, then everything will stop, including NATO and therefore post-World War II security,” Frederiksen told Danish broadcaster TV2.

It should be noted that the European leaders’ statement contained no clear indication of the consequences if Trump continued.

During a meeting with Frederiksen in Paris on Tuesday, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney struck a tone similar to the declaration of European leaders.

“The future of Greenland and Denmark is decided solely by the Danish people,” he said.

Although Trump’s plans on the island are not new – he spoke repeatedly about the need to “get” Greenland during his first term as president – his administration’s current aggressive approach is consistent with a broader effort sever long-standing political and economic ties with Europe.

Key figures in his administration, particularly Vice President JD Vance, have repeatedly portrayed European policies, institutions and leaders as weak.

His administration has indicated that it no longer intends to foot the lion’s share of the continent’s security bill.

Countries like France, Germany and Britain have only just begun to announce major new investments in military infrastructure, but despite this, Europe will need to rely heavily on American missile defense, intelligence and logistics in the years to come, military analysts say.

The United States also remains the European Union’s largest foreign trading partner, with the EU swallowing a 15% U.S. tariff imposed by Trump – an indication of the dependence of European economies on American goods and services.

American rules

Several international media, including The economist, reported that Trump was considering offering Greenland a deal similar to several Pacific islands, under which Greenland would become independent but allow free movement of the U.S. military and gain duty-free access to the U.S. market.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio reportedly said Congressional leaders reasoned that another option would be for the United States to simply purchase the huge but sparsely populated island.

Mortensgaard, the Danish analyst, says much will depend on how the United States presents its proposal – and whether Greenlanders actually feel like they will have a choice in the matter.

“I think the main thing for Greenland is to be able to choose what independence looks like and when to actually achieve it,” she said.

“If it’s an ‘either-or’ situation, it won’t be considered a choice in Greenland.”

European leaders have repeatedly told Trump that the current deal with Denmark gives the U.S. military the freedom to use the island more or less as it wishes.

After the Cold War, the United States reduced the number of troops stationed in Greenland from about 10,000 to just a few hundred, almost all of whom work at the Pituffik space base.

Their main task is to operate early warning radar systems that detect the launch of intercontinental ballistic missiles.

Trump responded by blaming the Danes, one of NATO’s smallest but most reliable members. – for failing to properly handle Arctic security issues and wrongly accusing them of letting their adversaries run amok.

“Right now, Greenland is covered with Russian and Chinese ships everywhere,” he said. said, without offering any proof.

While NATO leaders have focused their diplomacy on trying to convince Trump that whatever he wants can be accomplished without seizing the island, other European policymakers have advocated a more aggressive approach.

“If you take it, we will take all the American bases, from Aviano to Ramstein, through Romania and all the other military bases. [they] will be confiscated, you will lose it — if you take Greenland,” Gunther Fehlinger, chairman of the Austrian Committee for NATO Enlargement, said in a podcast.

Buck, the former Canadian diplomat, said it was critical to point out the obvious downsides of unilateral U.S. action.

“They [the Americans] don’t need extra firepower, but they want extra [political] the legitimacy, the additional risk sharing, that sort of thing, so they lose that,” she said on the CBC show. Power and politics.