What can small countries do to avoid being swallowed up by larger, more powerful countries?
This is not an abstract question for Greenland today. It’s very real. And there are no easy answers. Greenland’s autonomy and its future are at risk.
Greenland is a territory of Denmark. It has been largely autonomous since 2009 and has the right to pursue independence at any time. Independence is the aspiration of all political parties. But economic self-sufficiency is still a long way off, and for now we are stuck with Denmark.
Unless US President Donald Trump has his way. He wants to cede Greenland to the United States. Since the bombing of Venezuela and the abduction of President Nicolás Maduro, we have begun to realize that the president is taking this issue very seriously. Although the White House flatly refuses to take military power off the table, the real estate mogul-turned-president likely prefers a simple cash transaction.
Europe is in a diplomatic crisis. Denmark is a NATO member state. The idea that the United States, NATO’s main guarantor, would annex territory from member states seemed absurd until recently. no longer.
So what can our Danish friends do to stop it?
The unpleasant truth is that if Donald Trump sends in troops, Greenland will likely fall within days or even hours. President Trump mocked the Danish military stationed there as “two dog sleds.” This doesn’t apply to truth testing, but his argument stands. Greenland is sparsely defended. Denmark’s Joint Arctic Force, located in Greenland, consists of a small number of warships and search and rescue teams.
Meanwhile, the United States already has a major base in northwestern Greenland, and a 1951 agreement also allows Washington to establish additional bases on the island. The base is home to nearly 650 personnel, including members of the U.S. Air Force and Space Force.
Copenhagen is ready. Announced $4.2 billion in additional defense spending for the Arctic. And it is buying 16 more F-35 fighter jets (from the US, of course). But even if that were the case, Denmark would have little chance against the full force of the U.S. military.
Therefore, the United Diplomatic Front was established. As with other crises sparked by President Trump, European leaders have adopted what could be called a transatlantic judo approach. Like judo wrestlers, they are trying to redirect President Trump’s energy, his vocal America-first unilateralism, and convince him that it is best expressed in collegial, transatlantic multilateralism.
Essentially, they’re saying, “Yes, Donald, you’re absolutely right to raise Arctic security as a big issue, and we totally agree. We don’t know if an invasion of Greenland is the solution, but NATO is the solution.”
We have heard this message from NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte in recent days. And both the British and German governments have proposed sending NATO troops to Greenland to strengthen Arctic security. A German delegation was in Washington, D.C., ahead of Wednesday’s meeting between Secretary of State Marco Rubio and the foreign ministers of Denmark and Greenland.
While Europeans try their hand at judo, Donald Trump’s approach is more like sumo wrestling. The president, who wields great geopolitical influence in the United States, will not budge. He was unmoved by all the entreaties of bewildered Europeans.
When they say they can keep U.S. troops in Greenland under the 1951 treaty with Denmark, he says he wants more. When they say the unilateral annexation of Greenland would be the end of NATO, he shrugged his shoulders as if that was a price worth paying. When they question his claims that Russia and China are prepared to take over Greenland themselves, he simply repeats himself.
Appeasement or surrender is possible. If Europeans panic enough, they could turn to Denmark for an independence referendum for Greenlanders, which has been talked about for years. If Greenlanders choose full sovereignty – as the majority ultimately wants – Europe may argue that Greenland’s fate is no longer their problem. But we are not there yet.
For now, European leaders are united behind Copenhagen and Nuuk. Denmark’s sovereignty is inalienable, they say. And Greenland is not for sale.
What we might be getting closer to is fudge. Something that everyone can agree with. Perhaps it could be a resource deal for the United States to access Greenland’s rich metal and rare earth element deposits. The U.S. military presence will likely also be strengthened. That’s enough for Trump to claim victory. And for Europe, it must be a sigh of relief that NATO still has a beating heart.
