Donald Trump and his senior officials insist that Greenland must become part of the US. This is for national security purposes, they say, maintaining that Denmark, of which Greenland is a constituent part, is not investing enough in defending the strategically vital region beyond – as the US president put it – adding “one more dog sled”.

The 1951 defence agreement between Denmark and the US is likely to be the first casualty of any hostile American takeover, since article 2 of that agreement recognises explicit Danish sovereignty over Greenland.

Framing this dispute as an issue of security ignores the fact that for the past 70 years, the US military has largely had a free hand in how it uses its military facilities in the northwest of Greenland to conduct strategic space and hemispheric defence – without interference from Copenhagen.

But America’s 2025 national security strategy, released last November, speaks of establishing US dominance in the western hemisphere, including Greenland. It shifts attention away from great power competition to a world shaped decisively by the interests and wishes of “larger, richer and stronger nations”.

If spheres of influence and domination are back in vogue, then smaller economies including Denmark and even Canada come under direct threat. Whether faced with dismemberment or incorporation into the US, the prospects are deeply concerning.

But the current dramas affecting the Arctic region cannot be blamed entirely on Trump. Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, has played his part too. Approaching the fourth anniversary of his country’s invasion of Ukraine, it is not hard to discern how a costly conflict in one part of Europe has had direct implications for other northern European territories.

Soon after Putin launched his full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the intergovernmental Arctic Council

© The Conversation