Greenland had been installed for decades in a feeling of security, as if its geography and distance protected it from everything, and that certainty was has suddenly broken: in a matter of days the population has gone from joking that “nothing ever happens there” to talking seriously about evacuation, preventive flight to Denmark, or what will happen to their children if one day they wake up being “Americans”.
Live in fear. counted on an extensive report the Guardian that these days on the island we are grappling with a question: how do we survive psychologically when a military threat stops being a movie and becomes a concrete possibility.
The impact is not only political: insomnia, anxiety, daily nervousness, questions that are not answered with speeches but with emergency plansand the feeling that no one is prepared for something they have never experienced, because Greenland has no historical memory of modern invasions and its public life was built precisely on the idea that the world was far away.
Look at the sky like in 1939. The British media recalled the parallelism. The most powerful image of this moment is civil surveillance become routine: inhabitants of Nuuk following flights on applications, observing the port and the sky as if waiting for a storm that has not yet struck, interpreting every movement as an omen, getting scared by a plane transport that takes off from a nearby base and fearing that it is the beginning of “the inevitable.”
That wait has something from 1939 not because of the exact military comparison, but because of the emotional climate: the certainty that we are entering a dangerous time, the impression that prior guarantees They are no longer useful, and the feeling that the coup (if it comes) will not be diplomatic. In this tension, the telephone becomes a domestic radar and life becomes tiny.
The threat of “necessity”. The key to fear is not just that there is strategic interests in the Arctic, but the language coming from Washington sounds like appropriation and force: the idea that Greenland is “necessary” for American security, even if it is part of the kingdom of Denmark, shifts the debate from the political to the existential.
When a power speaks like this, the smaller population automatically feels powerless, and that feeling repeats. At that point, even the hope that everything remains rhetoric no longer calms its inhabitants, because the recent precedent of harsh interventions feeds the idea that the unthinkable is no longer impossible, just a matter of time.
The Thule base in the United States
Diplomacy to the limit. The encounters that youtook place in Washington They offer momentary relief because they suggest dialogue, but what remains is a cold feeling: the fundamental disagreement and, at its core, the American position have not been resolved. hasn’t changed. The presence of top-level figures adds gravity and uncertainty, because it is not perceived as an exchange between allies, but as an asymmetric negotiation where one party feels they can “afford” to impose conditions.
Even when the tone first becomes somewhat conciliatory (Trump vaguely promising that “something will come out”), the underlying message remains disturbing: options are not ruled out, Denmark’s inability to deal with Russia or China is insisted on, and the idea that American control would be the solution is maintained, which for Greenlanders sounds less like protection and more to substitution.
The European military turn. The great visible change has come in the last few hours, when Europe has begun to put troops in Greenland: France, Sweden, Germany and Norway have announced sending military personnel on a reconnaissance mission in Nuuk, and Denmark frames it as part of an effort to explore security options in an Arctic increasingly disputed by Russia and China.
It is a movement that, by itself, is already historic in terms of atmosphere: Greenland goes from being a remote territory with a discreet military presence to becoming a Allied deployment scenario and a narrative of “reinforcement” that is normally associated with “hot” borders, not with an ice capital where public life breathed calm. People notice the change in the most basic: more flights, more ships, more uniforms, more signs that something is moving beneath the surface.
The exceptional within NATO/EU. What is striking is not only the shipping itself, but what it represents: the idea of deploying European forces in a territory linked to NATO and the EU sphere as a preventive response to a political crisis with the United States is something that break the script usual of the alliance, where military reinforcement is intended against external threats, not to manage the risk of an internal struggle.
Although it is presented as recognition and training before Russia and China, the social perception is another: This happens because there is a specific threat and because time seems to speed up. In other words, the deployment suggests that Europe is trying to convert the symbology in deterrence: demonstrate presence, unity and material reality on the ground so that the discussion stops being just a game of statements.
Fear of another colonization. Furthermore, beneath geopolitics lies a deeper wound: the memory of Danish colonization and the fear of repeating the pattern with another “owner.” For part of the Inuit population, the idea of “another colonization” is not a metaphor, it is rather a real ghostand that is why fear is not expressed only in terms of sovereignty or resources, but also human: what will happen to studies, rights or daily life or identity.
The crisis, paradoxically, also activates a reinforcement indigenous identitya more marked cultural separation with respect to Denmark and a visceral rejection to be treated as an interchangeable object in a global conversation where Greenland appears as a “prize” mineral and strategic position.
A disturbing conclusion. Deep down, what emerges is an uncomfortable truth that the population perceive clearly: in a world where we are seeing invasions, wars and border changes, “international legality” not enough as an emotional shield, and that is why even those who want independence admit that today they depend on Denmark to feel safe.
Thus, Greenland is experiencing the most difficult step: stop thinking that history happens in other places and accept that, suddenly, the focus of the world lIt is aimed at them. Hence looking at the sky with an app in your hand Don’t be paranoia: it’s the modern, domestic and sad way of waiting for a decision that you don’t control.
Image | Wikimedia, GRID-Arendal, PexelsTSGT
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