Ambassadors of Nordic countries discuss Arctic defence

  By Henry Srebrnik, [Sydney, N.S.] Cape Breton Post

A recent panel on “Climate Change and Transnational Security,” organized by the Institute of Island Studies at UPEI, hosted the representatives of the five Nordic countries to Canada, as part of a New Brunswick-P.E.I. tour recently.

Three of these nations – Demark, Finland, and Sweden – are members of both the European Union and NATO, while Iceland and Norway belong only to NATO.

Of especial concern to Denmark and Iceland are the recent statements by U.S. President Donald Trump indicating he would like to “buy” Greenland, currently a Danish possession. Denmark also rules the Faroe Islands northwest of Britain.  Nearby Iceland would also be affected.

Regarding Trump’s declarations, Danish Ambassador Nikolaj Harris told the audience that this was not some idle threat: “we are taking it very seriously.” Nonetheless, he said, it is a non-starter. The Danish government announced a huge boost in defence spending for Greenland after Trump repeated his desire to purchase the Arctic territory. Danish Defence Minister Troels Lund Poulsen said the package was at least $1.5 billion.

Harris pointed out that the 57,000 indigenous inhabitants of Greenland, who call themselves Kalaallit, an Inuit ethnic group, have a great deal of internal self-government and would need to be taken into account in any deals regarding their island.

But Harris also added that Denmark is willing to engage with the U.S. over its legitimate concerns regarding the defence of the Arctic region against a potential enemy, particularly Russia. Washington already has military assets in Greenland and seems to have had no issue with this before Trump took office, he noted.

In 1917, Denmark sold the Danish West Indies in the Caribbean Sea to the United States; the islands are now known as the U.S. Virgin Islands. Could Trump have got the idea of buying Greenland from this earlier American acquisition?  

In 1949, Denmark became one of the charter members of NATO. It hosts Pituffik Space Force Base in Greenland, which provides great strategic value for U.S. and NATO military forces. Since the 1950s, Pittufik has enabled space superiority and provided a critical early-warning radar system that improves U.S. and NATO military capabilities in the Arctic region. 

The Faroe Islands and Greenland are semi-autonomous regions within the Kingdom of Denmark, and the United States has a strong relationship with both, including regular dialogues on commercial, scientific, and cultural cooperation. The U.S. Consulate in Nuuk, Greenland, reopened on June 10, 2020, after the first U.S. Consulate there closed in 1953.

Hlynur Gudjonsson, Iceland’s ambassador in Ottawa, mentioned that the United States had occupied his country during the Second World War, to defend it against Nazi Germany. In July 1940 Iceland’s representative in the U.S., Vilhjalmur Thor, asked the State Department whether Iceland could be placed under U.S. protection in accordance with the Monroe Doctrine, the long-standing U.S. policy asserting a U.S. role in protecting the Western Hemisphere from aggression. 

Iceland became important to the United States during the Cold War period. This was strengthened by Iceland’s agreement with the U.S. on the Keflavik Naval Air Station in 1946, with Iceland being a founding member of NATO in 1949, and with the conclusion of the Bilateral Defense Agreement between Iceland and the U.S. in 1951.

The agreement remains in force, although U.S. military forces are no longer permanently stationed there. The Americans kept Keflavik base on the island until 2006, when they left voluntarily.

The Arctic, encircled by Russia and seven NATO members -- the U.S., Canada and the five Nordic countries -- has drawn increasing attention in recent years as melting ice from climate change opens up shipping lanes and the possibility to explore for potential energy and mineral resources.

Is it possible, someone suggested, that Trump does not trust Canada to defend the Arctic? All five diplomats stressed that NATO could be relied upon to maintain the political integrity of the North Atlantic. Following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, longtime neutral countries Finland and Sweden joined the alliance. Along with Norway, Finland has a land border with Russia – in the latter’s case, 1,340 kilometres. They all remain vigilant.