Europe has three options for defending Greenland
Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. “IT IS NOT easy to think about solutions when you wake up every morning to new threats." Such was the understated view of Lars Lokke Rasmussen, Denmark’s foreign minister, on January 14th. He and his Greenlandic counterpart had just held a testy meeting with Marco Rubio, America’s secretary of state, and J.D.
Vance, the vice-president, in Washington. Since America’s exfiltration of Nicolás Maduro, Venezuela’s dictator, on January 3rd, President Donald Trump has revived his interest in what Mr Rasmussen called “conquering" Greenland. Anything less than having the island “in the hands of the United States" would be “unacceptable", Mr Trump wrote on social media before the meeting.
Otherwise Greenland would fall into the clutches of Russia or China. The two sides “agreed to disagree", Mr Rasmussen said. He offered no hint that his government might budge on the status of Greenland, a self-governing territory that is part of Denmark.
But even if no crisis seems imminent, Mr Trump’s meddling with the sovereignty of a NATO ally has sparked alarm in European capitals. His intentions are hard to divine. Does America want to divide the Greenlanders from the Danes, to buy the islanders off, or even to invade? Europe’s politicians are scrambling for a strategy.
Their options fall into three camps: deflate, deter and distract. For now the priority is to deflate Mr Trump’s purported concerns by showing that they can be resolved within the existing legal framework. Mr Rasmussen said a “high-level working group" would be convened to discuss Arctic security.
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