“Washington already has tremendous access to Greenland under past agreements with Denmark; U.S. troops already operate in Greenland and Washington can send more. Trump’s demand that Denmark grant the territory to the U.S. is a body blow to U.S. relations with its European allies. It also hurts NATO, a military alliance that includes the U.S. and Denmark — and which would defend Greenland should an adversarial power threaten it.”
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2026/01/21/mag-toosi-greenland-00740006
“In an interview with Fox Business, he said, “We’re getting everything we wanted — total security, total access to everything.”
Yet all of that was available to Trump from the start, without the drama that sent the NATO alliance barreling toward an internal crisis, a Danish official told NBC News on Thursday.
The only nonnegotiable point for Denmark was that Greenland shouldn’t be absorbed by the U.S., the person added.
“We can discuss increased military presence and more troops. You name it, basically, you can have it” under existing treaties, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
…
his Greenland gambit clawed away some of the trust that underpins a successful alliance, said diplomats, government officials and foreign policy experts.”
https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/damage-done-trump-claims-victory-012236295.html
The US saves a lot of money on military spending because our greatest rivals would have to go through our allies and partners to seriously get to us. Without those allies and partners, those rivals could more easily reach out and touch the US, which would require greater military spending.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5KmuWGT__yc
“Observing U.S. and European operations in the far north, he finds that Nordic troops are much more agile and well-prepared for high latitudes than their American counterparts.
In fact, Rosen gets to compare these forces side-by-side when he follows a Norwegian ship on the way to a planned rendezvous with the USCGS Healy, the U.S. Coast Guard’s only Arctic-specific icebreaker. When the two ships meet, they are suddenly buzzed by a Russian helicopter. The Americans are “visibly unnerved,” Rosen notes. The Norwegians, on the other hand, dryly comment about how they do the same to Russians all the time.
An important lesson is that experience, rather than flashy equipment, makes or breaks a polar army. The cold quickly kills people and destroys machines. Snow does not behave like sand when building fortifications. Cross-country skis are faster than snowshoes. Sunburn is a surprisingly common problem despite the cold. Hooks and ropes have to be carefully maintained. Wind and weather at sea can change unpredictably. Even routine, peacetime shipboardings can be deadly.
The book argues that Europe’s comparative advantage in the Arctic can make NATO worthwhile for the U.S., by reducing the need for an American military buildup up there.
…
Most people in Greenland are Inuit, members of the same culture that much of northern Canada and coastal Alaska belong to. For centuries, they chafed under Danish colonial rule. Now they enjoy considerable self-rule within Denmark and are deciding whether to pursue independence.
Polls show that most Greenlanders support independence in theory but don’t necessarily want to break away at the moment. The fact that Danish taxpayers pay for half of the Greenlandic government budget is an obvious, widely known barrier to independence. So is the potential loss of the mobility and export markets that European Union membership provides.”
https://reason.com/2026/01/07/a-recent-book-shows-why-invading-greenland-would-be-a-dumb-idea/
“Greenland’s party leaders rejected President Trump’s repeated calls for the U.S. to take control of the island, saying that Greenland’s future must be decided by its people.
“We don’t want to be Americans, we don’t want to be Danes, we want to be Greenlanders,” Greenland Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen and four party leaders said in a statement Friday night.
…
Eighty-five percent of Greenlanders say they oppose a takeover by the U.S., the BBC reported. Most also say they favor independence from Denmark, though the Nordic country provides subsidies, military support and more for the autonomous territory.”
https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/greenlands-leaders-reject-trump-push-130751937.html
“”I DOUBT NATO WOULD BE THERE FOR US IF WE REALLY NEEDED THEM,” Trump blasted on Truth Social, while insisting the U.S. would still defend alliance members. “We will always be there for NATO, even if they won’t be there for us.”
Under Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty, NATO’s collective defense clause, an attack on one member of the alliance is considered an attack on all. The provision has been formally invoked only once — in response to al-Qaida’s 9/11 terror attack against the U.S.”
https://www.politico.eu/article/us-donald-trump-nato-allies-greenland-crisis-deepens/
“Denmark’s Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said Tuesday she is ready to abandon her country’s traditionally thrifty stance on the EU budget in the face of the threat posed by Russia.
…
“For me, the most important thing is to rearm Europe,” Frederiksen said. “That’s my starting point and that’s my conclusion in all discussions, because if Europe is not able to protect ourselves and to defend ourselves, then it’s game over at some point.”
Europe, she added, is “running out of time because of Russia’s behavior” and needs “a new profile on the budget.””
https://www.politico.eu/article/denmark-to-drop-frugal-stance-on-eu-budget-says-pm-frederiksen/
“global warming is now taking a backseat to economic woes and the war in Ukraine. Governments seem not to be in a hurry to start a discussion on new climate targets. While a handful of EU countries, Denmark among them, have endorsed a 90 percent target for 2040, others, including Poland, aren’t yet ready to do so.”
https://www.politico.eu/article/eu-all-but-guaranteed-to-miss-global-deadline-for-climate-targets/
“The bill criminalizes the “improper treatment of objects of significant religious importance to religious communities.” The prohibition marks a sea change in a country where no one has been convicted of blasphemy since 1946, and successive governments have defended freedom of expression following newspaper Jyllands-Posten’s publication of cartoons depicting the prophet Muhammad in 2005.
The Danish change of heart can mostly be traced to Rasmus Paludan, an anti-Muslim bigot and far-right activist, whose favorite pastime consists of burning Qurans around the country. These Quran burnings have not only led to violence and terrorist threats from religious extremists but also concerted intimidation from the 57 member states of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), which has worked to protect Islam from what they term “defamation” since the publication of Salman Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses in 1988.
A plurality of Danes support the bill. After all, why should they risk terrorist attacks and economic sanctions due to the antics of a widely despised extremist whose ideas and actions are off-putting even to secular non-muslims? Many Danes feel there are better and more sophisticated ways to criticize a religion than torching books.
But it is precisely the tolerance of the most offensive ideas put forth by the individuals most despised by polite society that is the true measure of the civic commitment to free speech. Once you abandon principle for expediency, it establishes a precedent that incentivizes demands for further concessions.
Using violence and diplomatic coercion, religious extremists and the OIC have established that even in liberal democracies, religions and their followers are entitled to special legal protection that trumps individual freedoms. No doubt the Danish prohibition will form the tip of the spear in the OIC’s global campaign to purge “blasphemous” content.”
https://reason.com/2023/08/30/denmark-may-ban-burning-the-quran/
“”I know that some people in the U.S. associate the Nordic model with some sort of socialism. Therefore I would like to make one thing clear. Denmark is far from a socialist planned economy. Denmark is a market economy,” then-Danish Prime Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen commented in 2015. “The Nordic model is an expanded welfare state which provides a high level of security for its citizens, but it is also a successful market economy with much freedom to pursue your dreams and live your life as you wish.”
“So, what is the catch you might ask. The most obvious one, of course, is the high taxes. The top income tax in Denmark is almost 60 percent. We have a 25 percent sales tax and on cars the incise duties are up to 180 percent. In total, Danish taxes come to almost half of our national income compared to around 25 percent in the U.S.””