In the Second World War and, above all, in the Cold War, Greenland’s position transformed it into a surveillance and early warning platform, a fixed point in the Atlantic strategy while the world was divided into blocks. Today, with the Arctic opening up, the routes changing and the pulse between powers once again hardening, the island once again occupies the center of the board… only this time the concern does not exactly come from where always.
The big question. Now that the European troops begin to step on Greenland At the request of Denmark, the focus is no longer only on Russia or China, but on a much more uncomfortable dilemma: what happens if the aggressor is not “from outside,” but the United States.
The island, semi-autonomous within the Kingdom of Denmarkhas become a piece of high strategic value in the Arctic and also a political detonator, because a US invasion would not only be a territorial crisis: it would be a system crisisthe kind of clash that tests whether alliances are rules or simply relationships of convenience while everything is going well.
What Washington already has. It we have counted before. The paradox is that the United States is not starting from scratch: it has been there since World War II and still maintains a crucial facility, the Pituffik Space Baseheir to the old Thule of the Cold War, today linked to space surveillance, missile warning and defense. The actual deployment is reduced, around about 200 troopswhich highlights a central contradiction: if the threat were as urgent as claimed, Washington could increase presence with what the existing framework already allows instead of talking about “acquisition.”
In fact, the legal origin of that presence goes back to the agreement what we explain of 1941 with Denmark to defend the island, and the history of bases, transatlantic refueling and Arctic control shows that Greenland was always a military asset, only now the security argument has become a property argument.
Control as objective. Trump justifies the idea of taking Greenland for “national security”pointing out Russian destroyers, Chinese ships and submarines as if the environment was already on the verge of collapse. But even expert voices within Arctic analysis describe that operational pressure around Greenland as limited or, in practical terms, little determining: Russia operates mainly in other sectors of the Arctic and the Chinese push in the region is more relevant in the North Pacific than in that strip.
Even so, the White House has left something even more disturbing than the naval rhetoric: that the sending of European troops does not change its objective “not at all”, that is, the debate is no longer whether the island should be protected, but rather who owns it.
Auroras at the Thule base
Europe arrives. Denmark has responded by asking for support and several allies (Germany, France, Norway, Finland and Sweden) have started to deploy teams and units in exercises and missions that seek to create a more stable presence during 2026.
It is still a small movement in number, but enormous in meaning: Europe tries to draw a political lineraise the cost of any unilateral step and convey that Greenland is not a bilateral issue between Washington and Copenhagen, but rather a European security problem. It happens that this same symbolic dimension reveals the limit: it is not a military shield capable of stopping the United States, it is a message to prevent the scenario from existing.
NATO facing the unthinkable. If Washington were to invade Greenland, NATO would enter territory for which was not designed: the alliance was born to protect itself from an external aggressor, not to manage an internal aggression. He Article 5 It says that an attack on one is an attack on all, but it does not clearly contemplate what happens if the attacker is the dominant member.
And there appears the structural crack: technically, the United States could block any operational reaction from NATO itself, leaving the organization paralyzed, “stuck”, without the ability to intervene in the defense of Denmark. The result would be devastating not only for Greenland, but for credibility: If NATO cannot react in such a basic crisis, it is left hollow, and that weakness could, for example, invite to Russia to try their luck in another point on the mapexploiting the internal chaos.
There is no way out. There are those who interpret threats as pressure tactic: raise the drama to force more allied resources in the Arctic and place polar security at the center of the agenda, something that had been underserved for years. In fact, the debate about routes opened by the thaw and greater Russian-Chinese activity has been growing, and the current crisis pushes NATO to look north with new seriousness.
But the logic of “it’s just negotiation” does not eliminate the risk: in the United States there are public support for the alliance and Congress is pointed out as a possible brake if the president tries to cross the line, although at the same time politicians willing to legitimize a annexation by legislative means. In other words: even if it doesn’t happen, the possibility is already contaminating the transatlantic link.
Article 42.7. If NATO were neutralized by internal asymmetry, Denmark would have an alternative path within the EU: Article 42.7the mutual assistance clause. Its language is forceful (it forces “help and assistance by all means at your disposal”) and, rhetorically, it sounds even firmer. that Article 5 of NATO, which leaves more room for national discretion.
Furthermore, I already knowand activated oncein 2015, after the Paris attacks, which shows that it exists and can be used, although it also shows its real nature: the EU does not act as an army, but as a coordination of wills, and aid must be negotiated country by country.
The Greenland problem. Here appears the most delicate legal and political complication: Greenland is not part of the EUleft the community framework in 1985 and today it is an associated overseas territory, which raises doubts about the extent to which European defense is applied “in full”.
There are voices in Brussels that they maintain that yes because it is the territory of the Kingdom of Denmark, but there is no definitive ruling and, in any case, execution does not go through courts or automatic mechanisms. In a real conflict against a great power, no one is going to “win” through judicial means: what a priori rules is the capacity and, above all, the political will.
The “only” European exit. They remembered this week in Political that the coldest conclusion is that the probability of an EU-US war is, in practical terms, rather zero: the EU lacks integrated military structure to sustain it and Washington has escalatory dominance at each step of intensity, being able to raise the level and continue to have an advantage.
But that does not leave Europe frozen: that 42.7 allows political responseseconomic and strategic with an objective other than direct combat, which is to raise costs and isolate. There is talk of sanctions, a catalog of countermeasures, restricting market access, limiting overflights, and even measures as radical as expel military presence of certain European bases, in addition to limited deployments and bilateral support between member states. In this framework, the EU would not be a “shield”, but it could become a systematic pressure lever.
The strategic outcome. If you like, the final question is not whether Europe has the strength to stop an American landing, but what security architecture remains If a country founds NATO, dominates its machinery and then threatens to take out an ally to “make the alliance more effective” under its control. If that happens, NATO will not explode because of a Russian missile, but because of an internal contradiction: the system that was supposed to unite becomes incapable of arbitrating its own coherence.
In this scenario, the defense of Greenland stops being a geographical discussion and becomes the closest thing to a plebiscite about the meaning of Western rules: either there is a real limit even for the strongest, or the message is that collective security only works as long as the leader decide to make it work.
Image | Arctic Wolves, POT, USACE NY, NATO North Atlantic Treaty Organization, US Army
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