US President Donald Trump’s abduction of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro on January 3 has emboldened him to proceed with the annexation of Greenland, a Danish-owned, self-governed territory, spelling the effective end of NATO and furthering Russia’s war aims in Ukraine, experts tell Al Jazeera.
The day after Maduro’s kidnap by US forces, Trump made Europe fretful – a sport of which he never seems to tire – when he told The Atlantic, “We do need Greenland, absolutely. We need it for defence.”
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White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller said, “It has been the formal position of the US government since the beginning of this administration … that Greenland should be part of the United States.”
“The move on Venezuela illustrates the Trump administration’s determination to dominate the Western Hemisphere – of which Greenland geographically is a part,” said Anna Wieslander, Northern Europe director for the Atlantic Council, a think tank.
“Since the successful intervention in Venezuela immediately was followed with threats of using force against Greenland, among others in the hemisphere, it has in the short run, made it more likely,” she told Al Jazeera.
“Unfortunately, I think the American president should be taken seriously when he says he wants 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 country, then everything would stop – that includes NATO and therefore post-World War II security,” Frederiksen said.
Wieslander agreed.
“Should the darkest hour come and the United States uses military force to annex Greenland, the essence of Article 5 and collective defence within NATO would lose its meaning,” she said.
Article 5 is NATO’s mutual defence clause, committing allies to come to each other’s aid.
‘NATO would be a shadow of itself’
“You could argue that if you marry what’s happening in Ukraine to a possible invasion of Greenland, one could make the argument that it could be a deadly one-two combination that would basically ruin the alliance,” said Chicago University history professor John Mearsheimer. “NATO would be a shadow of itself. It would effectively be wrecked.”
Yet when Europe’s leaders met White House officials in Paris to design security guarantees for Ukraine, they said nothing in public about Venezuela or Greenland.
“The priority is Ukraine, European defence and European security, and keeping the Americans in,” international affairs professor Konstantinos Filis at the American College of Greece told Al Jazeera.
But Europeans see the writing on the wall, and are merely buying time, believed Keir Giles, Eurasia expert for Chatham House, a think tank.
“The pandering to Trump has been an element of our strategy over the last year, leaving observers hoping, but not entirely trusting, that another element of the strategy is preparing urgently for the final rupture with the United States,” Giles said.
The moral hazard for Europe
Giles told Al Jazeera that Europe’s best option was to place a military deterrent on Greenland now, believing that putting allied troops in the Baltic States and Poland after 2017 deterred a Russian attack there.
“The principle for deterring the United States from military miscalculation should be precisely the same as the one, which was available, but not applied for deterring Putin from invading Ukraine in February 2022,” he said.
A US armed invasion of Greenland would be doubly bad for Europe by playing into Putin’s hands in Ukraine, Giles said.
“The idea that larger powers can have a free hand in what they regard as their own back yard is very much to Russia’s taste,” he said. Invading Greenland, he believed, would amount to “potentially handing Moscow the greatest gift to the Trump administration has yet offered”.
German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier told a symposium this week that the loss of common NATO values weakened the world order.
“It’s about preventing the world from turning into a den of robbers, where the most unscrupulous take whatever they want, where regions or entire countries are treated as the property of a few great powers,” Steinmeier said.
Seeing these possibilities, European officials have been discussing military options.
When Trump mentioned his Greenlandic aspirations last year, France sent a nuclear submarine off Canada’s shores to put him on notice that the islands of St Pierre and Miquelon off Newfoundland are French sovereign territories.
This week, French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot said, “We want to take action, but we want to do so together with our European partners,” and was due to discuss plans with Germany and Poland.
German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul told journalists, ”Since Denmark belongs to NATO, Greenland will in principle also be defended by NATO.”
Will there be a military intervention?
Experts were divided on what method Trump would use to acquire Greenland.
Marco Rubio told journalists on Wednesday that he would meet the Danish government next week in the coming days, but refused to take military options against Greenland off the table.
“If the president identifies a threat to the national security of the United States, every president retains the option to address it through military means … we always preferred to settle it in different ways, that included in Venezuela,” he said.
Mearsheimer believed Trump’s track record of attacking Iran last June, Nigeria in December and Venezuela now elevated the chances.
“If you look at Trump’s pattern of behaviour, how willing he is to use military force when you can do it on the cheap and get away with it … the fact that … it could be portrayed as another pinprick operation, tells you there’s a really good chance that he could take Greenland,” he told political scientist Glenn Diesen.
Others disagreed. “Trump may want to strengthen the autonomy movement within Greenland and get them to ask for US help,” said Filis.
The leader of Greenland’s main opposition party on Thursday said Copenhagen should get out of the way and allow Greenland to come to an arrangement directly with the US.
“We encourage our current [Greenlandic] government actually to have a dialogue with the US government without Denmark,” said Pele Broberg, the leader of Naleraq. “Because Denmark is antagonising both Greenland and the US with their mediation.” Naleraq won 25 percent of the national vote last year, doubling its previous showing.
Giles agreed that “coercion, pressure, blackmail, direct or indirect subversive activities or extortion,” would be Trump’s opening moves.
Trump is considering bribing Greenlanders with a per capita sum between $10,000 and $100,000 to join the US, Reuters reported on Friday.
Why does Trump want it?
At the end of the day, though, Trump’s policy still amounts to pushing Europe out of what he sees as his hemisphere. Why?
Trump, Rubio and Stephens all cited security, but Denmark gave the US full permission to establish military bases, bring in equipment and personnel, fly aircraft and sail ships in and out of Greenland in a 1953 treaty. The US operates a radar station in Pituffik, providing early warning of ballistic missiles flying over the North Pole from Russia.
A year ago, Trump told reporters that the US should absorb Greenland and resume control of Panama, because “we need them for economic security”.
“It’s to do with new sea routes as the Arctic opens up, and of course, security,” said Filis. “The Arctic Circle is going to be an area of competition among the great powers.”
Arctic sea ice has been melting, allowing the volume of commercial shipping across the North Pole to increase ninefold over the past decade, according to Putin. That leaves open the possibility that military shipping could also increase, especially with Russia and China holding more joint exercises at sea.
Panama, too, is a vital sea passage between the Atlantic and the Pacific.
Along with Sweden and Greece, Greenland is also considered one of the European Union’s most promising sources of rare mineral resources.
