Danish troops in Greenland may aim to trigger NATO clause if U.S. attacks
By Gwynne Dyer
In 1910, Henry Wilson, the British army officer charged with planning for a possible war with Germany, visited French officer Ferdinand Foch, who was doing the same job in Paris.
The Anglo-French alliance was still a tentative, semi-secret arrangement, so Wilson asked Foch: “What is the smallest British military force that would be of any practical assistance to you?”
Foch replied: “Send a single British soldier – and we will see to it that he is killed.”
He wasn’t being cruel. He believed that if the German army killed even one British soldier, the whole British empire would be at war with Germany — which was what the French needed to see, given how skittish the British were about committing to the alliance.
The story is hearsay, because nobody writes this sort of thing down. However, if the United States invades Greenland, the unwritten instructions of Maj.-Gen. Søren Andersen, commander of the 160 Danish soldiers who flew into Greenland on Monday and Tuesday, would be similar: to get at least one of his soldiers killed by American troops.
Ideally, the Americans would do this unprompted and the rest of Andersen’s troops could surrender — no need for a massacre. But if necessary, the Danes would fire first. As the victims, they would be within their rights, and the political point would be to get one of their own killed by return fire.
If that happened, the other NATO countries — except the United States — would be obligated to help, both legally and in terms of public opinion, when Denmark invoked Article 5 of the NATO treaty and asked for military support. Allies could still avoid it, but only at the cost of publicly betraying their word.
That is not to say that any number of Danish or European Union troops could repel a full-scale American invasion of Greenland. Donald Trump said at the Davos meeting on Wednesday that he will not use force to take Greenland, so these preparations may be unnecessary.
However, Trump changes his mind frequently, and the number of times he has said he will use force on Greenland is far greater than the times he has said he won’t. He also favours surprise attacks and can lull his targets into a false sense of safety before striking.
So let’s assume a violent American invasion of Greenland remains a strong possibility. What’s the use of a few people dying to resist it — and then lots of others suffering hardships if Trump imposes 200 per cent, or whatever, tariffs on EU countries to punish them for backing Denmark — when it’s all inevitable anyway?
It isn’t inevitable. It wouldn’t even be irreversible after it happened. Americans themselves might turn against Trump’s imperial adventures, either before or after a conquest of Greenland. And Danish and Greenlandic deaths, activating Article 5, and even waging a guerrilla war are ways to keep the right to the homeland on the table.
Canadians might escape the same fate if the conquest of Greenland proves too costly or too embarrassing. Otherwise, they could be the next item on Trump’s menu. Neither Greenlanders nor Canadians in occupied territories could expect U.S. citizenship, since giving them the vote would swing American political outcomes far to the left.
At the very least, a joint front against Trump on this issue would strengthen the EU’s internal solidarity against American pressure. That solidarity will have to evolve rapidly to build a credible common identity, and both Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin will try to prevent that. But the Greenland crisis may even help on this count.
A successful resort to NATO’s Article 5 — including a relatively peaceful parting with a post-Trump United States (he is 79, and his stream-of-consciousness style is increasingly repetitive) — could be a start down that road.
It’s going to be a rough ride, but the game is not over.