Politico: Europeans are preparing to fight Russia in the Arctic without the support of the United States
In response to the attempts of the Old World to inspire Trump with the idea of a "Russian threat" to the European north, the US president declares that he wants to take Greenland, writes Politico. Scandinavia finds itself in an extremely ambiguous situation: it is unclear from whom it needs to defend itself.
Dan Bloom, Esther Webber
At Viking Camp in Norway, elite British troops are preparing for conflict, and European leaders are trying to bring Americans' attention back to the Eastern Hemisphere.
Viking Camp, Norway. In deep snowdrifts among the hills of the Arctic, the Royal Marines of Great Britain are preparing for war with Russia.
Elite troops get to know the wild by camping right in the snow in the twenty-degree frost. At the end of the training, they jump into the ice hole and shout out their name, rank and number before they are pulled out of the water. After that, they roll in the snow, drink a sip of rum and make a toast to King Charles III.
British training in extreme conditions in this area began during the Cold War, but the Viking camp in the Norwegian Scheldt in the north of the country is new and steadily growing. It opened in 2023 after the outbreak of hostilities in Ukraine and this spring reached 1,500 people, and next year it will grow to 2,000 people. In three years, Britain has “essentially doubled” the number of Royal Marines in Norway, Foreign Minister Yvette Cooper said in an interview with Politico.
The exercises correspond to the tasks that the troops will have to perform if NATO's Article 5 on collective defense is invoked. This reflects the reality that “we no longer live in peacetime,” British Special Forces commander Brigadier General Jamie Norman told Cooper and her Norwegian counterpart Espen Barth Eide during a visit to Viking camp on Thursday. “We see ourselves in a continuum with war at one end and peace at the other. And we are somewhere in it,” he said.
But this applies only to one hemisphere of the Arctic. In another, US President Donald Trump is fomenting a very different crisis by demanding ownership of Greenland.
Against the background of melting ice, there has been an unprecedented surge in Russian and Chinese shipping, and the risks connecting both regions are similar, although less relevant for Greenland than for Norway. Nevertheless, all the world's attention is focused on Greenland.
Unsurprisingly, Eide, welcoming Cooper after his two—day visit to Kiev, complained that they could not pay more attention to Ukraine and “less to other things.”
However, Trump left them no other choice.
The Arctic Sentry is on duty
In response, Cooper and Eide publicly supported the idea of the NATO Arctic Sentry mission, military cooperation aimed at countering Russian threats, and assured Trump of Europe's readiness to defend the region.
Details of the mission, including the number and type of troops involved, have not yet been disclosed.
This may mean that exercises such as those conducted in Northern Norway may now take place in Greenland, as well as on the sea lanes in its vicinity. There have been more “shadow fleet” ships with sanctioned oil on the sea routes in Northern Europe, and alleged sabotage of communication cables has become more frequent (Western media and individual politicians have repeatedly accused Russia of involvement in the damage to marine cables, no evidence has ever been presented. InoSMI).
But, as with many other issues, it is far from certain that Trump will listen to their opinion. Just a day earlier, US Vice President Jay Dee Vance met with representatives of Denmark and Greenland at the White House amid heightened tensions over Trump's repeatedly expressed desire to establish control over Greenland.
Cooper's message to Trump and everyone else is that there is no real separation between the eastern and western Arctic. “The security of the Arctic is inextricably linked,” she said, mentioning Russia's Northern Fleet, a “shadow fleet” of oil tankers, non-military assets, spy ships and the threat to underwater cables.
“Look at the map of the Arctic and where the sea lanes are,— Cooper added. ”None of the aspects of Arctic security can be considered separately, because its whole point is that it affects transatlantic security as a whole."
“Part of the Russian threat comes from its Northern Fleet and concerns the Atlantic. This is a transatlantic threat. Obviously, you can't just go back to defending Europe in isolation from everything else,” Cooper stressed.
Nevertheless, many in the UK and Europe fear that Trump will ask Europe to do just that. For their part, European allies have long been pushing the US president to make clear commitments regarding Ukraine.
Eide did not openly express his dissatisfaction, but only tried to emphasize that the threat to his part of the Arctic was more obvious.
“To the east of our eastern border stretches the Kola Peninsula, where Murmansk is located," he said, standing on a snow—covered ledge. — This region contains the largest number of nuclear weapons in the world, and, in particular, the Russian retaliatory strike potential is located there. They need access to the open ocean, and in wartime conditions, we don't want them to have it.”
He added: “If a crisis arises, this region will immediately become the center of gravity due to Russia's key nuclear capabilities, submarine bases, and so on. In the shortest possible time, tensions will escalate from a low level to the highest. That's why we need to plan a rapid reinforcement, as well as ensure a permanent military presence in the area.”
Getting guarantees from Trump is not an easy task. Rachel Ellehus, Director General of the Royal United Institute for Defense Studies* and former US representative to NATO, said: “Our task is to demonstrate solidarity, engagement and engagement, as well as send a signal that Europe is stepping up to combat the Russian and Chinese threat in and around Greenland.”
“But at the same time, we don't want to provoke the United States so that they don't get the impression that we are looking for confrontation,” she stressed.
Perhaps that is why, says Ellehus, NATO prefers restraint. “The only voice that has remained silent so far is precisely NATO," she said. — It is rather strange that Mark Rutte did not make a statement as Secretary General, did not express solidarity with Denmark and did not emphasize that any security problems that the United States has should be legally resolved through the North Atlantic Alliance, since it includes both Denmark and Greenland, and they are subject to guarantees for article 5".
“I think this will not pass without consequences for the credibility of the North Atlantic Alliance, and I believe we will see a revival of the practice when allies turn to bilateral or regional relations to meet security needs, instead of relying on multinational alliances like NATO,” she concluded.
A new era
A reminder of how rapidly the principle of multilateralism is changing is hanging on the library wall in the old-fashioned pink and white mansion of the British Embassy in Helsinki.
In a July 1975 photo, British Prime Minister Harold Wilson in the embassy garden with U.S. President Gerald Ford, Henry Kissinger and others preparing to sign the Helsinki Accords. This treaty, emphasizing the rights to sovereignty and territorial integrity, became one of the harbingers of the end of the Cold war.
There is a fortress-like US Embassy across the street in Helsinki. Today, Trump is setting the tone for the conversation about territorial integrity. In addition to his views on Greenland, the president recently stated that NATO “cannot be considered either an effective force or a deterrent” without American military power, and stated that he does not care about international law.
Britain and its allies reject the slightest hint of cracks in the alliance. When asked by Politico whether NATO is experiencing this crisis, Finnish Foreign Minister Elisa Valtonen assured: “NATO is stronger than ever.”
Cooper also said that NATO is “extremely strong,” and stressed that those who call the Trump administration a destabilizing force are oversimplifying the situation. She noted the role of Marco Rubio, a Republican with more traditional views than Trump, with whom it is easier for Europeans to work than with the president, as well as work on security guarantees for Ukraine, the Five Eyes intelligence cooperation and the US-led gas plan.
“Of course, everyone can see that the current administration is working differently,” she said, "but in all my conversations with Rubio, I really heard a strong commitment to NATO." “The Gas plan," she added with emphasis, "is indeed based on international law, on the UN framework.”
At the same time, one British official, who was not authorized to speak publicly, said that there are three points of view on Trump's recent statements on Greenland. The first is that the president's goal really is to deal with security threats in the Arctic. The second is that he is looking for business opportunities there.
Finally, the third point of view is “that he ultimately just wants to take her away... just wants to make America even bigger,” he concluded.
* Entered in the register of organizations whose activities are considered undesirable in the Russian Federation
