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The Challenge in Greenland Deepens the Atlantic Crisis

From the series European news

The irritation expressed by Denmark on December 21st, after Donald Trump appointed a special envoy for Greenland, turned into widespread alarmism across Europe within a few weeks. Especially after the American military intervention in Venezuela on January 3rd, Europeans have been wondering how far the Trump administration will push its claim for hemispheric dominance. The day after the raid on Caracas, the American president declared: We need Greenland from the standpoint of national security. The White House then made it known that it would not rule out the use of military force to grab hold of the island, a semi-autonomous territory of the Kingdom of Denmark, despite it being part of the Atlantic Alliance.

The first formal European reaction was the statement of January 6th, signed by the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Spain, and Denmark, which states that security in the Arctic must be achieved collectively through collaboration between NATO allies, including the United States; but it is for Denmark and Greenland, and them only, to decide on matters concerning Denmark and Greenland. European indignation is hypocritical when it defends Danish possession of Greenland, ignoring the fact that the island’s population has been calling for independence for decades — a claim now openly seized upon in the dispute between European and American imperialism. Greenland was incorporated into the Kingdom of Denmark in 1953, and its population has suffered severe linguistic and cultural marginalisation, forced displacement, and even sterilisation programmes: almost half of young women were subjected to the forced insertion of intrauterine coils. The relationship between Greenland and Denmark has never been particularly warm, let alone equal.

Troops and tariffs

Although a 1951 treaty with Denmark already grants the Americans the right to build military bases in Greenland, Trump has emphasised that ownership of the island is psychologically necessary [The New York Times, January 8th]. All the more so because this land is, according to Trump, vital for the Golden Dome, the new missile shield he wants to build [Truth Social, January 14th]. Among other reasons for American designs, the press mentions the island's mineral wealth and control of new maritime shipping routes emerging in the Arctic due to global warming.

Some commentators also seek an explanation in Trump's irrationality. The world is dealing with a Trump unbound, wrote the Financial Times, a president who feels unconstrained at home and is asserting America's right to act internationally as it sees fit [January 10th]. According to Marc Jacobsen of the Royal Danish Defence College, Trump's enormous ego is the main driving force behind this affair; he wants to be the president who restored the United States to its former greatness by enlarging its territory [Le Figaro (online), January 12th].

A further stage in the escalation of the Atlantic crisis was reached when, on January 17th, Trump threatened to impose new tariffs on Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland, France, Germany, the United Kingdom, and the Netherlands, after these nations supported the deployment of military personnel to Greenland for the Arctic Endurance mission. Involving small numbers of military personnel, according to Le Monde the mission was an inter-allied operation decided urgently by the Kingdom of Denmark, without any connection to NATO command [January 17th].

Calls for European rearmament

The crude and brutal expression of American power in the Trump II era is a violent shock that is finally opening the eyes of Washington's allies, wrote Sylvie Kauffmann in Le Monde [January 9th]. After the threat of new tariffs, Le Figaro wrote peremptorily: The time has come to react or disappear. To choose between sovereignty and vassalage [January 19th]. The assertive French comments contrast with the more cautious German ones. All channels of communication with Washington must be kept open, warned the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, because Trump can threaten not only with tariffs, but also with the withdrawal of support for Ukraine and troops from Europe, and would even be capable of announcing overnight that extended nuclear deterrence no longer applies to certain unruly countries. To respond, Europeans need unity, economic strength, and military power [January 20th].

Among the comments attempting to rationalise the American president's behaviour, Peter Mandelson's stands out. Trump will not invade Greenland, says the man who was Tony Blair's adviser and British ambassador to Washington between February and September 2025. What will happen — he predicts — is that the threats to Arctic security posed by China and Russia will crystallise in European minds, performative statements about sovereignty and NATO's future will fade and serious discussion will take over. Subsequently, the United States, Denmark, and other allies will address how the Arctic region is properly secured with a beefed-up role, status, and military deployment by America. Trump, says Mandelson, is not a populist intent on destroying the post-war rules-based order. This order ceased to have meaning before he was elected, because it started to evaporate two decades ago when China emerged as a great power contesting the US-led unipolar world. Mandelson criticises European leaders who, in his view, should bring hard military power and diplomatic muscle to the table, rather than expressing their outpourings about a sheriff president who does not follow conventional practice or a traditional diplomatic rulebook [The Spectator, January 7th].

The conclusion of all these comments coincides with the slogan pronounced by Mario Draghi when receiving the Charlemagne Prize: Europe must become stronger militarily, economically, and politically.

Pragmatic federalism

The path towards this goal is increasingly taking the form of the pragmatic federalism advanced by Draghi. The €90 billion for Ukraine, a substantial part of which will be spent on the European arms industry, was approved by the EU Council in December, despite only 24 of the 27 member States formally approving it. According to the FAZ, this is a historic decision because it involves new Eurobonds through which the Commission gains further political influence [January 15th]. The signing of the EU-Mercosur agreement was then approved by the European Council on January 9th, despite votes against by France, Poland, Austria, Hungary, and Ireland.

On the military front, the sticking point was the coalition of the willing in support of Ukraine, comprising France, the United Kingdom, and Germany, around which flexible military cooperation has been established. At the summit of the willing on January 6th, at which London and Paris expressed their intention to send troops to Ukraine after a possible ceasefire, Madrid abandoned the low profile it had previously maintained on this subject. After the summit, Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez announced that his government is determined to deploy peacekeeping troops not only in Ukraine, but also in Palestine [El País, January 8th]. Shortly afterwards, Foreign Minister José Manuel Albares said that it is important for us Europeans to take a leap towards sovereignty, as we did with the single currency, and that we must ensure that deterrence is in our hands. This implies, Albares continued, moving towards a European army and using a coalition of the willing, as we have done so many times in history [El País, January 14th]. Defence Minister Margarita Robles added that she does not rule out Spain's participation in the European mission in Greenland [El País, January 15th].

Meanwhile, the storm over the Atlantic is pushing London closer to the continent. In December, the first meeting of the Franco-British nuclear control group created last summer was held, and the British participated for the first time in the French Strategic Air Forces' Poker exercise, a simulation of a nuclear attack. France has also held discreet discussions with other European countries on how to join forces in expressing French deterrence. For example, the possibility of stationing Rafale aircraft capable of carrying atomic bombs in Germany or Poland is being considered [L'Opinion, December 24th].

Spectre of the German bomb

The shock suffered by European Atlanticism has also reopened the debate in Germany on the reliability of the American nuclear umbrella. In an interview with the Süddeutsche Zeitung, Roderich Kiesewetter explained that he had shared on the Internet, only as a food for thought, the personal opinion of a German general, according to whom Germany needs its own nuclear weapons. The CDU foreign and security policy expert and former Bundeswehr officer made it clear that he himself is opposed to a German bomb, if only because it would mean cancelling the 1990 Two Plus Four Treaty and reopening the question of reparations. However, Kiesewetter argues that we should go beyond the idea of merely extending Paris's nuclear umbrella, on the one hand because it is insufficient, and on the other because of the political uncertainty of a far-right victory in the French presidential elections. The CDU member of the Bundestag, known for his Atlanticist convictions and his hard-line stance against Russia and China, proposes a German financial contribution to the development of a nuclear arsenal in alliance with other States, but without Germany taking the lead. Countries such as Sweden, Finland, and Poland are also said to be debating the issue [Süddeutsche Zeitung, January 12th].

Eckhard Lübkemeier, former deputy director of the European Affairs Department of the Federal Chancellery, sees the suggestion of a German bomb as a possible lever to obtain the extension of British or French deterrence. The spectre of a German bomb, he says, is something that even a French president from Le Pen's party would find difficult to ignore [Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung, January 4th]. For Berthold Kohler, one of the editors-in-chief of the FAZ, regardless of how many counterarguments there are, Berlin must seriously consider its own nuclear armament [January 16th].

Lotta Comunista, January 2026

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