Denmark misplaced 52 troopers combating alongside the US. Now it feels threatened by Trump

All his grownup life, Colonel Soren Knudsen stepped ahead when his nation known as. And when its allies did.

He fought alongside US troops, notably in Afghanistan, and for a time was Denmark’s most senior officer there. He counted 58 rocket assaults throughout his responsibility.

“I used to be awarded a Bronze Star Medal by the USA they usually gave me the Stars and Stripes. They’ve been hanging on my wall in our home ever since and I’ve proudly proven them to everyone.”

Then one thing modified.

“After JD Vance’s assertion on Greenland, the president’s disrespect for internationally acknowledged borders, I took those who Stars and Stripes down and the medal has been put away,” Soren says, his voice breaking a bit of.

This week earlier than Congress, the US president doubled down on his need to grab the world’s greatest island: Greenland, an autonomous territory of the Kingdom of Denmark.

“My first feeling was that it hurts, and the second is that I am offended,” Col Knudsen laments.

I meet him within the first weeks of his retirement outdoors Denmark’s 18th Century royal residence, Amalienborg Palace within the coronary heart of Copenhagen.

Abruptly, pipers strike up and troopers stream by.

Right this moment’s Altering of the Guard comes at a time when the Trump administration has not simply tweaked however defenestrated most assumptions round US-European safety which have held quick for 80 years.

“It is about values and when these values are axed by what we thought was an ally, it will get very powerful to observe.” Soren says along with his American spouse Gina at his aspect.

“Denmark freely and with out query joined these efforts the place my husband served,” she says.

“So it comes as a shock to listen to threats from a rustic that I additionally love and to really feel that alliance is being trampled on. This feels private, not like some summary overseas coverage tactic.”

Soren has not given up all hope although.

“It is my hope and my prayer that I’ll in the future be capable of put [the flag] again on the wall,” he confides.

There is not any signal his prayers can be answered quickly.

Greenland, an autonomous territory of the Kingdom of Denmark, goes to the polls subsequent week with all the principle events backing independence sooner or later sooner or later.

A takeover by Donald Trump – doubtlessly by power – is just not on the poll paper.

Not removed from the royal palace stands Denmark’s memorial to its troopers misplaced in latest battle.

Carved on the stone-covered partitions are the names of these killed alongside their Western allies.

The part honouring the fallen within the US-led invasion of Afghanistan is especially sizeable.

Denmark misplaced 44 troopers in Afghanistan, which as a proportion of its lower than six million inhabitants, was greater than every other ally aside from the US. In Iraq, eight Danish troopers died.

Because of this the president’s phrases sting a lot.

One man very effectively positioned to think about what Trump’s ambitions for Greenland truly quantity to is Anders Fogh Rasmussen.

“President Trump’s declaration of intention to possibly take Greenland by power is similar to President Putin’s rhetoric on the subject of Ukraine,” he tells the BBC.

The previous prime minister of Denmark and ex-secretary basic of the Nato alliance argues that is the second Denmark and the remainder of Europe should step as much as higher defend itself if the US is just not keen to.

“Since my childhood, I’ve admired the USA and their function because the world’s policeman. And I feel we’d like a policeman to make sure worldwide legislation and order but when the USA doesn’t wish to execute that function, then Europe should be capable of defend itself, to face by itself toes.”

Fogh Rasmussen would not although imagine the policeman is about to show felon.

“I want to stress I do not suppose on the finish of the day that the Individuals will take Greenland by power.”

President Trump first talked a couple of Greenland takeover in his first time period of workplace earlier than returning to the theme firstly of this 12 months.

However now, after blindsiding supposed allies along with his newest strikes on Ukraine, tariffs, in addition to the Center East, Denmark is urgently making an attempt the assess the true menace.

For a lot of youthful Danes, management of Greenland is apparent fallacious – an unfathomable colonial hangover.

It does not imply they need it handed straight over the US as a substitute.

“We do have connections to Greenland,” says music pupil Molly. “Denmark and Greenland are fairly separated I’d say however I nonetheless have buddies from there so this does have an effect on me fairly personally.”

“I discover it actually scary,” says 18-year-old music pupil Luukas.

“Every part he sees, he goes after. And the factor with the oil and cash, he would not care in regards to the local weather, he would not care about anybody or something.”

His good friend Clara chips in that Trump is now so highly effective he can “have an effect on their day-to-day life” from hundreds of miles away, in what’s an period of unprecedented jeopardy.

In gentle of President Trump’s suspension of army help for Ukraine and his deep reluctance to fund Europe’s safety, Denmark has been on the coronary heart of the drive to spice up defence spending throughout the continent.

The nation has simply introduced it is going to allocate greater than 3% of its GDP to defence spending in 2025 and 2026 to guard in opposition to future aggression from Russia or elsewhere.

In the meantime, safety analyst Hans Tino Hansen stands in entrance of an enormous display screen in what he calls his “ops room”, at his Copenhagen headquarters.

“This map is the place we replace each day our menace image based mostly on alerts and incidents everywhere in the world,” says Hans, who has been operating Threat Intelligence for the previous 25 years.

As a part of Denmark’s elevated defence spending, it is bolstering its energy within the “Excessive North” with an additional two billion euros introduced in January and three new Arctic naval vessels and funding in long-range drones.

Hans believes Arctic safety may be tightened additional, not by an American takeover – however with new offers that restore US affect.

“Should you make extra agreements, each on defence and safety, but in addition financial ones and on uncooked supplies, then we’re roughly going again to the place we had been within the 50s and 60s.”

However the story stretches additional again than the mid-Twentieth Century.

“Should you take a look at this globe, Greenland is essentially the most centrally situated place on Earth,” says world-renowned geologist Prof Minik Rosing, gesticulating in his wood-panelled workplace.

The serenity of his room displays the temperament of a person who grew up in a settlement of simply “seven or eight individuals” within the Nuuk fjord of the island.

However a key cause his homeland is now coming below growing scrutiny from outsiders is the wealthy mineral deposits beneath the Arctic ice.

We have seen how Ukraine’s pure sources have caught President Trump’s eye in a lot the identical means.

“All these minerals that they discuss like uncommon metals, uncommon earth parts – they’re truly not uncommon. What’s uncommon is using them,” he causes.

Prof Rosing says the vastness of Greenland and the dearth of infrastructure are simply two parts why the island is probably not the cashpoint some Individuals are hoping for.

“They’re a minuscule a part of the mining trade and the financial system of extracting them may be very unsure, whereas the funding to begin extracting may be very excessive. The chance of the funding is simply too excessive relative to the potential achieve.”

The present Greenlandic authorities says there can be a vote on independence sooner or later following subsequent week’s election.

Though absolutely unintentional, President Trump’s designs on the island have shone a light-weight on a need discovered among the many Inuit to lastly break away from 300 years of Danish management.

However Prof Rosing believes, regardless of all of the latent mineral wealth, his fellow Greenlanders are in no hurry to forego the annual block grant of the equal of £480m (€570m) it receives from Copenhagen.

This accounts for simply greater than half of the island’s public finances.

“Individuals discuss well being companies, faculties, the following outboard engine they need on their boat and what’s the value of fuel and all of this stuff that ordinary individuals do,” he says.

“It is not like they arise with a giant knife, wave it within the air and shout independence, independence.”

By way of Trump’s obvious obsession with taking Greenland, Fogh Rasmussen fears there could also be a troubling conclusion to be drawn.

One that may render the Danes unable to do enterprise with a person whose view on territorial integrity is so wildly incompatible from theirs.

“I perceive very effectively the American strategic curiosity within the minerals, however on the subject of mining in Greenland, they’ve proven no curiosity,” he says.

“That leaves me with the priority that possibly it is not about safety, possibly it is not about minerals, possibly it’s only a query of increasing the territory of the USA.

“And that is truly a degree the place we aren’t capable of accommodate President Trump.”

Further reporting by Kostas Kallergis