The current impasse over Greenland between the United States and Denmark, largely portrayed in the media as a crisis for NATO, paradoxically offers a once-in-a-generation opportunity to reinforce the Atlantic Alliance. President Donald Trump and his European counterparts at Davos this week should set the wheels in motion to that end in full recognition of Greenland’s critical role in US security, necessitating a greater American stake, Greenland’s self-determination being inviolate, and an urgent need to arrest the downward spiralling rhetoric spilling onto European streets. 

Greenland offers a generational opportunity for pragmatic and realist leaders on both sides of the Atlantic and in between to substantially and unequivocally institutionalize and modernize transatlantic security for decades to come. It is far too important a historic moment to bungle.

The United States and Denmark can reaffirm the NATO alliance by allowing for a greater American stake in Greenland—confirmed by Greenlanders—in exchange for an ironclad American reaffirmation of NATO Article V, reinforced by US troop presence along Europe’s eastern borders, including Finland, the Baltic states, Poland, and Romania. 

Denmark and Europe, moreover, should connect Europe’s security interests in Ukraine to America’s security interests in Greenland. It would be prudent and reciprocal for Europe to entertain greater US ownership of Greenland, with commensurate American security assurances and guarantees in Ukraine and NATO’s eastern front. 

Additionally, the United States and Denmark should establish an extraordinary defense and critical minerals partnership committed to the shared development of Greenland’s natural resources, coordinated military maneuvers, interoperability, and manufacturing to secure the High North. 

The Trump administration should make clear that the resolute fortification of transatlantic security, stretching from Alaska to Greenland, Denmark, Finland, and Romania, is in the hands of Denmark and Europe. Denmark has the option to either risk a spat and split in transatlantic security over Greenland, or use the opportunity to enshrine a resolute and strong transatlantic security bulwark for the twenty-first century. 

A bold deal on Greenland is at hand that leaves all involved—Greenland, Denmark, Europe, and the United States—more secure and prosperous than they are today. It behooves all parties to pursue it single-mindedly in advancing their respective national interests, undistracted by perceived and real slights. 

President Trump is right to assert the importance of Greenland to American national security. As is Europe and NATO in asserting the critical role of Ukraine to European security. The security assurances in both theaters can only be underwritten by the US military. American ambivalence towards Ukraine and European security is self-harming, as is the Danish and European misapprehension of Greenland’s critical geography to American security. 

President Trump has prioritized American security in the Western Hemisphere and identified Greenland as critical to bolstering American (and Greenland) national security in a rapidly changing Arctic. He is fully committed to........

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