Denmark Archives

Trump’s Greenland grab

13 January 2025

In 2019, when Donald Trump first proclaimed that the United States should buy Greenland, Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen rightly dismissed the idea as absurd. Greenland is not for sale, she noted. While Denmark manages the territory’s foreign and security policies, Greenland sees to its own domestic affairs.

But now that Trump is returning to the White House, he believes that it is an absolute necessity for the US to get ownership and control of the huge Arctic territory. And even more shockingly, he says that he will not rule out the use of military force to achieve this objective—though threatening ‘huge tariffs’ remains his preferred option.

Flabbergasting as such pronouncements may seem, they are no laughing matter. Greenland is an important and sensitive diplomatic issue. Its status should be treated with care and compassion, lest a much larger crisis ensue. That would not serve anyone’s interests.

History matters here. Greenland was a Danish colony until 1953, when it became an actual province of Denmark. The vast island (the world’s largest, in fact) then adopted home rule in 1979. Since 2009, Greenland and the Kingdom of Denmark have maintained a wide-ranging autonomy arrangement in which a few policy domains—primarily security and defence—remain under the control of the government in Copenhagen.

Most of Greenland’s political parties aspire to independence for the island, and under the 2009 arrangement, they have the right to organise a referendum for that purpose. But most Greenlanders recognise that it is too early to take such a step. They first must build up the necessary capacities to function as an independent nation-state.

Given Trump’s latest interventions, it is safe to assume that the independence question will dominate Greenland’s next elections, which will be held no later than 6 April. But it is highly doubtful that there will be much support for trading the light hand of Danish rule for the grasping hands of Trump and his MAGA coalition. For better or worse, Greenlanders are committed to the Nordic welfare model and will not want to abandon it in favour of the US’s model.

Although Greenland is not part of the European Union, its people are, by dint of being citizens of Denmark. More than half of the island’s public budget is covered by the Danish government, and 90 percent of its exports (mainly shrimp) go to the EU, where they have privileged access.

While Russia and China also have territorial and economic ambitions in the Arctic, military threats to Greenland are minimal. The closest Russian outpost is 2,000 frozen kilometres away, and China’s two Arctic-capable research vessels seem to be active primarily in the waters around Antarctica.

Moreover, under a 1951 agreement (and subsequent ones), the US already has the right to base military facilities on Greenland. The Thule Air Base in the far north of the island was a huge facility in the early days of the Cold War, and despite public denials, it even housed nuclear weapons. Renamed the Pituffik Space Base, it now serves early-warning and space-surveillance functions. But as long as the US military consults Danish and Greenland authorities, it can do more or less what it wants on the island.

Denmark, for its part, operates patrol ships around Greenland, and it will soon acquire surveillance drones; but the primary purpose for its small military presence has been search and rescue.

Of course, the legacy of colonialism is never easy to deal with. Some 88 percent of Greenlanders are Inuit, and the Greenland-Denmark relationship today is not free of complicated issues from the past. But the US, hardly covered in glory by its treatment of its own indigenous population, is in no position to preach to others about similar issues.

True, Greenland has large reserves of the rare earth minerals that are used in many high-tech products. But the investment climate for extracting these resources is far from ideal, given the new political uncertainty around the island, the lack of manpower, and the fragile natural environment. Indeed, Greenland and the rest of the Arctic is warming at least twice as fast as the rest of the planet, and this translates into economic, social, and political fragility. That is all the more reason to manage Greenland’s slow journey toward more autonomy—and perhaps eventually independence—carefully, not with bombast and bullying.

Trump’s indecent proposal, delivered at the barrel of a gun, is not only absurd but dangerous. Greenland’s evolving light-touch relationship with Denmark is clearly the best option for the island.

The meaning of Sweden’s NATO accession

24 March 2024

On March 7, Sweden officially joined the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, ending its 200-year-old policy of neutrality. The decision was largely influenced by the changing security environment following Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, and geographic considerations.

Sweden embraced neutrality as a result of repeated conflicts with Russia—particularly the early nineteenth-century Finnish War, when it lost Finland to Russia. Now, Russian aggression has forced it into a dramatic reversal that will have major implications for the regional balance of power.

Following the Great Northern War (1700-1721), and the loss of Finland to Russia in the early nineteenth century, Sweden gradually concluded that neutrality would best serve its sovereignty and national security. It avoided armed conflict, abstained from involvement in great-power spheres of influence, eschewed military alliances, and focused on international peacekeeping and humanitarian initiatives. During the Cold War, its official policy was characterised as ‘alliansfrihet i fred, syftande till neutralitet i krig’ (‘non-alignment in peace, so as to maintain neutrality in war’), despite being economically, culturally, and militarily aligned with the United States.

Still, Sweden’s policy did evolve over time. After joining NATO’s Partnership for Peace in 1994, it started actively participating in NATO operations, EU-led rapid-response forces, and multinational defense initiatives. It also provided specialised training for peacekeeping through its participation in various interoperability and readiness programs.

Sweden’s NATO accession can be understood as part of the broader trend towards (defensive) militarisation across Europe and within the European Union. Now that Russia’s war on Ukraine has elevated security concerns and disrupted energy supplies, European leaders are focused squarely on achieving strategic autonomy and mobilising collective responses to Russian aggression.

To name just one potential threat, the transformation of the Baltic Sea region into a ‘NATO lake’ may lead the Kremlin to seize the Suwałki Gap, a sliver of Polish territory between the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad and Belarus. Given this fraught geopolitical context, the EU is drawing up plans for a ‘war economy’ oriented around higher defense spending and energy and supply-chain security.

The EU’s transition to a war economy will bring a significant boost to the defense sector. One recent proposal, the European Defense Industrial Strategy, aims to create new incentives for European arms manufacturers to increase investment and output, and to encourage more collective procurement of European-made arms. The goal, reflecting European anxieties about the upcoming US presidential election, is to accelerate efforts to strengthen supply chains and meet heightened demand for military hardware in the face of crises.

The shift in public opinion within Sweden has been remarkable. Around 68% of Swedes polled are now positive toward NATO membership, compared to 30% in 2019, and there is a broad political consensus for NATO membership (with only the Greens and the Communists openly opposing it).

Sweden’s geographical proximity to Russia cannot be ignored. Swedes know that they are well within range of Russian air and naval power. Russia has increased its maritime presence, exercises, and maneuvers in the Baltic Sea, posing a significant threat to Sweden’s economy and sea lanes. Russian undersea operations in the vicinity have raised national-security concerns, invoking memories of the 1981 ‘Whiskey on the Rocks’ incident, when two Swedish fishermen came across a beached Soviet submarine within Swedish territorial waters.

Moreover, Russia’s anti-access/area-denial capabilities—including cruise missiles, surface-to-air missiles, and nuclear weapons based in Kaliningrad, along with its strategy of engaging in hybrid warfare below the threshold of armed conflict—continue to pose a serious threat across the Baltic region.

These threats demand a robust defense posture and heightened surveillance to deter aggression. Sweden has already increased its military presence on the island of Gotland in the Baltic Sea, following Russia’s deployment of landing ships through the Great Belt Strait. Now, integration into NATO’s collective-defense framework will further enhance its ability to counter such threats.

Although Sweden has already been cooperating intensively with NATO, full membership will deepen the relationship significantly. As a formal member, Sweden will be directly protected under Article 5 of the NATO Treaty. Greater access to cutting-edge military technology and deeper intelligence insights will strengthen its defense capability against air, naval, submarine, and cyber threats. And it will play a greater role in shaping the alliance’s strategies, particularly in Northern Europe.

NATO also benefits from Sweden’s accession, of course. Sweden’s strategic assets include Gotland (a key hub for deploying reinforcements during any conflict); a strong defense industry that produces world-class military equipment (notably advanced Gripen fighter jets); and a modern, highly experienced submarines fleet.

Swedish accession also means that all Nordic countries—Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden—are now aligned under the same security umbrella, mutually reinforcing NATO’s capabilities and obligations on its northern flank and on its eastern flank across the Baltic Sea. Moreover, Sweden’s change in policy may convince other neutral EU countries like Austria and Ireland to join, too, potentially leading to a significant reconfiguration of security alliances across Europe.

Of course, while NATO enlargement enhances collective defense, it also intensifies Europe’s security dilemma. Russia frames any new additions as a sign of strategic encroachment, thus increasing tensions. Having promised to respond to Sweden’s accession, the Kremlin may scale up military activities nearby or pursue more aggressive posturing, with frequent military exercises and deployments of advanced weaponry closer to NATO territories.

To show that it respects Russia’s own security and commercial interests, Sweden should continue to emphasise that its membership is a defensive precautionary measure, and that access to the Baltic Sea remains open. With NATO’s presence expanding substantially in the Arctic—an area of growing importance for Russia (and China)—the situation calls for careful strategic balancing. Russia inevitably will claim that NATO is trying to encircle it. Precisely how it responds has become the most important strategic question for the region—and for NATO.