US takeover of Greenland could ‘break NATO’, warns former Canadian military commander

As US President Donald Trump insists his country needs Greenland for security reasons, the former top Canadian soldier warns that a US takeover of the region could mean the end of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.

“We’ve never seen one NATO partner take over another’s territory,” said retired General Wayne Eyre, Canada’s former chief of defense staff, in an interview with CBC The house. “I share the Danish assessment that, yes, this could lead to the breakup of NATO, in many respects. [Russian President Vladimir] Putin’s pleasure.”

Following Trump’s operation in Venezuela, U.S. officials intensified their rhetoric on the acquisition of Greenland – even going so far as to say that “recourse to the American military is always an option”.

Earlier this week, Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen told Danish public broadcaster that if the United States chose to attack another NATO country, “then everything would stop – including NATO and therefore post-World War II security.”

Eyre said Canada must be “lucid about the range of possible future scenarios” and can guard against uncertainty by “co-existing from a position of strength.”

“It’s not just about military strength, but what can we do to strengthen other alliances – to strengthen our economy, to strengthen our institutions of democratic governance, to be resilient in the face of foreign interference and disinformation,” Eyre said.

The former military commander also said the rules-based global order reached a turning point years ago and what is happening now is an “accelerator” of that change.

“We’re clearly in this phase of disorder. And the other one that we’ve been enjoying since late 1945, I think, is gone,” Eyre said.

Jody Thomas, who served as national security adviser to former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, noted that Canada has mineral resources and access to the Arctic similar to Greenland.

“I think that the people who brief [Prime Minister Mark Carney] “Yes, we need to be very aware that we are seeing an unprecedented threat to Canadian sovereignty,” Thomas said. The house.

“Huge concern” for the American military

Since taking office, Trump has several changes in military leadershipincluding last year’s ouster of Air Force Gen. CQ Brown Jr. as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the nation’s highest-ranking military officer.

Eyre told host Catherine Cullen that he had worked with and knew “two-thirds of the three- and four-star generals and admirals who have been fired.”

“I am extremely concerned for them, for my former colleagues, as they face potentially the greatest crisis in political-military relations in the history of their country.”

Eyre said the military “follows the legal orders of the duly elected civilian government, but when that definition of ‘legal’ is called into question, there is no guide, there is no model to follow.”

In November, a group of Democratic lawmakers posted a video on social media advising troops to refuse illegal orders — prompting a sharp backlash from Trump, who described this decision as seditious behavior.

Most recently, US Secretary of War Pete Hegseth declared that his ministry censored Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly, one of the lawmakers in the video.

Eyre said that while political relations have their ups and downs, it’s still prudent for Canada to maintain its military relationship with the United States, “because we don’t know what’s going to happen decades from now.”

Canada needs a foreign intelligence service, says Thomas

As Canada strengthens its independence, Thomas told Cullen it should consider creating a foreign human intelligence service, like the CIA in the United States or MI6 in the United Kingdom.

She noted that the creation of such a service does not mean that intelligence-sharing alliances like the Five Eyes are not important, but “we don’t know what they are not sharing with us.”

“I also think that in the environment we’re in right now, Canadians aren’t necessarily going to trust information that we’ve received perhaps from another country, and they want to know if we’ve analyzed it, collected it and managed it ourselves.”

If action is taken based on the intelligence, Thomas said it would be more credible if Canada itself had collected the information.

According to the federal governmentCanada’s current spy agency, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, cooperates with foreign agencies to obtain information “that would otherwise not be accessible to Canada.”

As threats continue to change and evolve, Eyre said Canada still has “a lot for us to do.”

“What we need, though, is a sense of self-belief and a willingness to do hard things and just deliver and get things done.”