US President Donald Trump’s abduction of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro on January 3 emboldens him to move forward with the annexation of the Danish-owned autonomous territory of Greenland, effectively ending NATO and furthering Russia’s war aims in Ukraine, experts told Al Jazeera.
The day after President Maduro was abducted by U.S. forces, President Trump irritated Europe by telling The Atlantic, “We absolutely need Greenland. We need it for our defense.” I never seem to get tired of this sport.
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“The official position of the U.S. government since the beginning of the administration has been that Greenland should be part of the United States,” said White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller.
“The move against Venezuela shows the Trump administration’s determination to control the Western Hemisphere, of which Greenland is also geographically a part,” said Anna Wieslander, Northern Europe director at the Atlantic Council think tank.
“The success of the intervention in Venezuela was immediately followed by threats of use of force against other countries in the hemisphere, particularly Greenland, making it more likely in the short term,” she told Al Jazeera.
“Unfortunately, I think we should take seriously what the president of the United States has said about wanting Greenland,” Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen told Denmark’s public broadcaster on January 4.
But she predicted it would spell death for the NATO alliance.
“If the United States decides to attack another NATO member, everything will come to a halt. That includes NATO and therefore also post-World War II security,” Frederiksen said.
Wieslander agreed.
“If the worst comes and the United States uses military force to annex Greenland, the essence of Article 5 and collective defense within NATO will lose its meaning,” she said.
Article 5 is NATO’s mutual defense clause, which commits allies to helping each other.
“NATO will become a shadow of itself”
“If you combine what’s happening in Ukraine with a possible invasion of Greenland, you could argue that it could be a deadly one-two combination that basically destroys the alliance,” said John Mearsheimer, a history professor at the University of Chicago. “NATO will become a shadow of itself. It will be effectively destroyed.”
But when European leaders met with White House officials in Paris to develop security for Ukraine, they said nothing publicly about Venezuela or Greenland.
Konstantinos Filis, a professor of international affairs at the American College of Greece, told Al Jazeera: “The priorities are Ukraine, European defense, European security and retaining Americans.”
But Keir Giles, a Eurasia expert at the Chatham House think tank, believes Europeans see the writing on the wall and are simply buying time.
“Pandering to Trump has been an element of our strategy for the past year, and observers are hopeful, but not entirely confident, that other elements of the strategy are urgently gearing up for an eventual break with the United States,” Giles said.
moral hazard in europe
Giles told Al Jazeera that he believes Europe’s best option now is to have a military deterrent in Greenland, and that the presence of allied forces in the Baltic states and Poland from 2017 onwards could deter Russian aggression.
“The principles for preventing U.S. military miscalculation should be exactly the same as those that were available but not applied to deter Putin’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022,” he said.
Mr Giles said a US armed invasion of Greenland would be doubly bad for Europe, giving President Putin a hand in Ukraine.
“The idea of having great powers at their disposal in what they consider their backyard is very much to Russia’s taste,” he said. Invading Greenland, he believed, “could hand Moscow the greatest gift the Trump administration has ever offered.”
German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier told a symposium this week that the loss of NATO’s shared values had weakened the world order.
“It’s about preventing the world from becoming a den of robbers, where unscrupulous people take whatever they want and where entire regions and countries are treated as if they were the property of a few great powers,” Steinmeier said.
Seeing this possibility, European officials have been discussing military options.
When President Trump mentioned his Greenland ambitions last year, France sent a nuclear-powered submarine off the coast of Canada to remind Trump that the islands of St. Pierre and Miquelon off the coast of Newfoundland are French sovereign territory.
“We want to take action, but we also want to work with our European partners,” French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrault said this week, as he was scheduled to discuss the plan with Germany and Poland.
“Denmark is a member of NATO, so in principle Greenland would also be defended by NATO,” German Foreign Minister Johann Vardepoel told reporters.
Will there be military intervention?
Experts are divided on what methods Mr. Trump will use to acquire Greenland.
Marco Rubio told reporters on Wednesday that he plans to meet with the Danish government in the coming days, but refused to take military options for Greenland off the table.
“If a president identifies a threat to the national security of the United States, any president retains the option of addressing it by military means…We have always preferred to resolve problems in a variety of ways, including in Venezuela.”
Mearsheimer believes that Trump’s track record of attacking Iran last June, Nigeria in December, and Venezuela makes that more likely.
“If you look at Trump’s pattern of behavior, how willing he is to use military force when he can get away cheaply…the fact that it could be described as another pinprick operation tells us that Trump is very likely to take over Greenland,” he told political scientist Glenn Diesen.
Others disagreed. “President Trump may want to strengthen the autonomy movement within Greenland and force them to seek U.S. aid,” Fillis said.
Greenland’s main opposition leader said Thursday that Copenhagen should get out of the way and allow Greenland to reach a deal directly with the United States.
“We encourage the current (Greenlandic) government to actually have a dialogue with the US government without Denmark,” said Narelak leader Pere Broberg. “Because Denmark is antagonizing both Greenland and the United States in mediation.” Narelak won 25% of the national vote last year, double the number from last year.
Giles agreed that “coercion, pressure, intimidation, direct or indirect sabotage or extortion” would be Trump’s first move.
Reuters reported on Friday that President Trump is considering offering bribes of $10,000 to $100,000 each to Greenlanders to join the United States.
Why does Trump want that?
But in the end, President Trump’s policies still amount to what he sees as kicking Europe out of the hemisphere. why?
Mr. Trump, Mr. Rubio and Mr. Stevens all cited security concerns, but Denmark’s 1953 treaty gives the United States full permission to set up military bases, bring in equipment and personnel, and fly planes and sailing ships to Greenland. The United States operates a radar station in Pitufik to provide early warning of ballistic missiles flying over the North Pole from Russia.
A year ago, President Trump told reporters that the United States should absorb Greenland and resume control of Panama “because we need Greenland for our economic security.”
“It has to do with new shipping routes and, of course, security with the opening up of the Arctic,” Phillis said. “The Arctic will become an area of competition between great powers.”
President Putin said the Arctic sea ice was beginning to melt and commercial shipping across the North Pole had increased ninefold in the past decade. Therefore, there remains the possibility that the number of military vessels will increase, especially as Russia and China increase their joint exercises at sea.
Panama is also an important maritime route between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.
Greenland is also considered one of the European Union’s most promising sources of rare mineral resources, along with Sweden and Greece.
