In response to incessant nattering by Trump about “annexing” Greenland, Denmark took concrete steps in early January to protect its territory. As Jaroslav Lukiv wrote for BBC News, the Danish military exercises, called “Operation Arctic Endurance,” included making airports impassable if Trump gave the green light to invade the NATO-member country.
Danish soldiers flown to Greenland in January were prepared to blow up key airport runways over fears that Donald Trump could [order the invasion of] the Arctic island, Denmark’s public broadcaster DR says.
Citing sources in the Danish government and military, and also among European allies, DR says blood supplies were also brought in to treat the wounded in the event of fighting.
The Financial Times newspaper said two European officials later confirmed the report. The Danish defence ministry told the BBC it ‘has no comment.’
Jaroslav Lukiv, BBC News
The action taken by Denmark occurred near-simultaneously to U.S. military illegal coup inside Venezuela, an operation that deposed its leader, Nicolás Maduro. Both Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, were taken into custody. Trump’s orders to invade Venezuela, according to reports, increased Denmark’s situational discomfort about its Greenland territory and the reckless strongman’s likelihood of an attempted invasion.
That “discomfort” culminated in flying blood bags to the site in case Danish troops sustained casualties, as Miranda Bryant reported for The Guardian.
Denmark reportedly readied itself for potential attack from the US in January—flying bags of blood to Greenland and explosives to blow up runways in case of a battle with its former closest ally.
During the tense days when Trump threatened to take over Greenland—a largely autonomous territory that is part of the Danish commonwealth—Copenhagen was so shaken that it started preparing for US invasion, according to Danish public broadcaster DR.
When, in January, Danish soldiers were flown to Greenland, they were reportedly carrying explosives to destroy runways in the capital, Nuuk, and in Kangerlussuaq, a small town north of the capital, to prevent US aircraft from landing in the event of an invasion.
They also carried supplies from Danish blood banks to treat wounded people in the event of battle, according to DR, which had spoken to sources from across the Danish government, authorities and intelligence services in Denmark, France and Germany.
Trump and associates telegraphed their Greenland gambit for most of this year: in January, he stated with standard rhetorical gravitas that “it might be you have to do something” about seizing control of the Danish territory. Later on in March, J.D. Vance (presumably to covet sovereign-nation land that does not, and will never, belong to America) visited Greenland and declared, falsely, “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland. You have under-invested in the people of Greenland, and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this incredible, beautiful landmass filled with incredible people. That has to change.”
AUTHOR FOOTNOTE
Everything you need to know about sociopaths running “U.S.” “government” is in that quote from Jethro Dull: he sees the Danish territory as nothing more than a “landmass” to be plundered and exploited. The desperate entitlement just leaps off the page like a baby tiger trying—and failing—to impress his mama.
Speaking of entitlement, there’s a Vlad Putin angle to the Greenland situation that many media outlets are missing. Actually, there are multiple angles for Russia to be keenly interested (and invested) in a potential hostile act or acts by Donald against the territory, including but not limited to (see CNBC link for more):
- Arctic interests. Oil, gas and mineral extraction in addition to a key shipping lane (more on that below) between Europe and Asia
- NATO disruption. Putin has knives out for the transnatlantic membership organization and, as a result, so does Donald. Driving a wedge between the U.S. and Europe is Putin’s only hope since he can’t win a military fight.
- Chaos redounds to the benefit of Russia. As we are now seeing with the attacks on Iran, grinding oil-and-gas commerce to a halt has caused prices to spike and access to be limited. Some reports estimate that Moscow raked in almost $8B in the first two weeks alone following the Iran strikes.
Distinct commonalities link the Iran and Greenland ops, that much is certain, but from where I’m sitting the most striking is how both implicate critical shipping channels. The Strait of Hormuz (Iran) and Northern Sea Route (Greenland/Denmark) are both critical throughways for commerce of all kinds, but especially for moving fossil fuel. And since Russia is a “gas station masquerading as a democracy,” as John McCain once famously said, it is in Putin’s interest to rush in and capitalize on the contrived chaos.
