The “Donroe Doctrine” moved to the Arctic. Europe must now redefine burden sharing

By Roderich Kiesewetter | January 20, 2026

European leaders meet during the G7 summit in Kananaskis, Canada on June 16, 2025. The United Kingdom has been leading a Joint Expeditionary Force of Northern European multi-national military cooperation designed for rapid response and expeditionary operations outside of NATO since 2018. This flexible framework could be used for burden-sharing of European defense efforts from Ukraine to Greenland. (Photo by Simon Dawson / No 10 Downing Street)Share

Editor’s note: This article is published as part of a continuing collaboration between the European Leadership Network and the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. 

On Thursday, a small contingent of German Bundeswehr soldiers arrived in Greenland. In ordinary times, this might be a mere footnote in a military logbook. Today, however, it is a signal of the highest order.

This limited deployment, which also involves France, Sweden, Norway, Finland, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom, demonstrates that European countries recognize the shifting tectonic plates of geopolitics in the Arctic. Crucially, it takes place at the explicit invitation of the Kingdom of Denmark. The deployment underscores a fundamental principle that must guide Europe’s response to the new reality coming from Washington: In Greenland, nothing happens without the Kingdom of Denmark—a unity comprising Denmark, the Faroe Islands, and Greenland.

This deployment supports a NATO and EU partner that is already doing heavy lifting for Europe’s shared security. The Danish government, in close collaboration with Greenland’s capital, Nuuk, and Tórshavn, the capital city of the Faroe Islands, recently committed to a massive investment in Arctic security. Under the Second Agreement on the Arctic and North Atlantic, Copenhagen has allocated 27.4 billion Danish Krones (approx. 3.67 billion euros) to strengthen surveillance, sovereignty, and presence in the region. This includes procuring new long-range drones, establishing air surveillance radar in East Greenland to monitor the strategic northern Atlantic Ocean area connecting Greenland, Iceland, and the United Kingdom (often known as the GIUK gap), and acquiring five new Arctic vessels with icebreaker capabilities. Denmark is stepping up. The question now is: Is the rest of Europe ready to do the same?

The “Donroe Doctrine” moves North. We face this question against the backdrop of a renewed, aggressive American imperialism under President Donald Trump. His rhetoric regarding Venezuela and Greenland suggests the emergence of a strategy reminiscent of the Monroe Doctrine—or what Trump himself has referred to as the “Donroe Doctrine,” which seeks to assert American dominance over the Western Hemisphere.

In Venezuela, Trump’s logic is brutal but decipherable. It is about securing oil reserves, stabilizing the immediate neighborhood, and aggressively pushing Chinese and Russian influence out of the Americas. It is a return to classic sphere-of-influence politics.

Trump’s fixation on Greenland, however, is far more enigmatic. Why this obsession with purchasing—or seizing by force—the world’s largest island?

During my last visit to Greenland two years ago, it became clear that the economic arguments often cited by Trump allies in Washington do not hold. While the island is resource-rich on paper, the reality of extraction is harsh. Currently, 90 percent of Greenland’s GDP is generated by the fishing industry. Mining operations are incredibly costly due to the lack of infrastructure and extreme weather; consequently, most global resource companies still focus their efforts on Africa rather than the Arctic.

The United States also does not need to own Greenland to project power from it. Through the 1951 Defense Agreement, the US Space Force already operates the Pituffik Space Base (formerly known as Thule Air Base), a cornerstone of Western early warning and satellite surveillance systems. At its peak during the Cold War, the base housed up to 10,000 personnel, which underscores its immense strategic importance. Washington has practically everything it needs already in terms of military access to the Arctic.

So, what is Trump’s game?

For one, this may be a geographic manifestation of “Make America Great Again”—a desire to physically expand the map of the United States, a legacy project of imperial proportions. This thinking is rooted in Trump’s great role model, the seventh US President Andrew Jackson, and the Frontier movement of the 19th century. Under Jackson, US troops invaded Florida, numerous indigenous tribes were expelled, and the US territory was forcibly expanded. The “Frontier” was the driving concept of US expansion from the East to the West Coast. This spirit seems to still animate many Americans today—Trump included. For the president, it means expanding the United States in all directions. This “Donroe Doctrine” goes hand in hand with stopping the ambitions of Russia and China in the Arctic. Pushing back against these ambitions—especially as their “research teams” keep appearing in Greenland—aligns perfectly with the mindset of “spheres of influence”.

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Perhaps more likely, Trump is putting Greenland in the shop window to drive the price up for something else. As a master of leverage, the US president may be using the threat of challenging Danish sovereignty to extract immense concessions elsewhere. This could be linked back to his obsession with the US trade deficit or the federal budget deficit that tainted much of the first half-year of his second presidency. In this logic, Trump might demand that Europe—and specifically the European Union—buy its way out of tariffs or pay for its own security guarantees by handing over geopolitical assets or agreeing to unfavorable trade deals. Trump is treating sovereign territory as a bargaining chip in a balance sheet, just like investors treat land in a real estate operation.

Alliances like NATO are of no particular value to Trump. Treating the territory of a NATO partner as a bargaining chip, therefore, does not seem far-fetched. But doing so is jeopardizing the world’s largest military alliance.

Europe’s challenges of unity and burden sharing. With the United States’ aggressive behavior in the Western Hemisphere, the old days of transatlantic certainty are over, and Europeans can no longer rely on shared values alone. Instead, Europeans must work to protect and advance their interests while acknowledging where Trump—despite his abrasive methods—has a valid point.

Trump is correct that Chinese and Russian influence must be pushed back in the Arctic—a territory where they have no constituency. China alone accounts for half of Greenland’s fish exports, posing a risk to the island’s economic security. Outrage over Trump’s threats is not a strategy. The reality is that Greenland has long become a battleground for US and Chinese influence. If Washington loudly seeks to own the island to assert military control over the North Atlantic, China is quietly reaching for economic dominance. Europe, meanwhile, has long neglected the strategic value of Greenland. It must act now.

However, Europeans must develop a different approach to distance themselves from the imperialists and nationalists in Moscow and the “America First” strategists in Washington. For Europe, spatial policy does not mean annexation, but geo-economic networking and stability through presence. Where Europe invests and builds, there is no geopolitical vacuum for others to fill. If Europe does not counter Chinese influence economically, Greenland will slide into further dependency that Beijing will exploit politically.

Concretely, Europe must massively invest in modernizing ports and airports in Greenland, which must consistently be designed as dual-use infrastructure: civilian for trade and supply, and military usable for European forces. Europe must also upgrade Greenland politically by expanding the existing association agreement between the EU and Greenland into a true and formal strategic union. Greenlanders must feel that they have a better and more independent future economically and politically at Europe’s side than as the 51st US state.

Deterrence against Washington’s imperialistic ambitions will only work through geopolitical relevance, and declarations of solidarity with Denmark won’t be enough. But Trump has now abandoned the multilateral, transatlantic approach, acts solely based on self-interest, and says his global power is restrained only by his own morality. Where it suits him and when he receives no pushback, Trump pushes it through. Containment in the Arctic must therefore become a European task, or it won’t exist. That means Europeans must prepare to enforce their own interests in the region, cooperating with Washington only where interests overlap. Crucially, this overlap exists in the need to push back against Russian and Chinese influence. By stepping up, European members frame their contribution not just as an obligation, but as a shared strategic interest that also serves US priorities. This tangible value is essential to maintain the transatlantic link, particularly as the US administration increasingly questions its traditional commitment to NATO.

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Asserting European presence in Greenland will require a new level of coordination among Copenhagen and other European capitals, all while continuing to strictly adhere to the principle of the Kingdom of Denmark’s sovereignty over the territory. But support cannot be merely rhetorical. It requires a new strategic division of labor and investment—a smart Europeanization of burden sharing and efficiency. The UK-led Joint Expeditionary Force offers a pragmatic framework for such coordination, enabling flexible burden-sharing outside of rigid institutional structures.

Trading the Arctic for Ukraine? Denmark is currently one of the strongest supporters of Ukraine’s defense effort against Russia. Compared to its relative economic size in Europe, Copenhagen punches well above its weight, delivering F-16 aircraft and massive military aid packages to Kyiv. But with a population of less than six million, Denmark cannot simultaneously be the primary guardian of the Arctic NATO flank against Russian and Chinese expansion and continue to deplete its stocks for the defense of Ukraine at the current rate. For this, it will need the support of other European heavyweights, including that of Germany.

Europe’s approach shall not be to merely react to whatever Trump’s next moves will be, but to be proactive. Current US behavior over Greenland presents an opportunity to view this challenge as a catalyst for deeper and smarter Europeanization of defensive and strategic efforts. To keep the Arctic secure and free from a US-forced “buyout” or Russian encroachment, Denmark must be able to focus its attention on the High North. The Kingdom is already investing heavily to better monitor underwater infrastructure and has improved situational awareness in the North Atlantic. These are all vital capabilities for the entire NATO alliance.

In return for Denmark’s effort to secure the northern flank, Germany—Europe’s largest economy —must finally go all-in on Ukraine. Germans must fill the gap by providing Taurus air-launched cruise missile systems, heavy armor, and the financial backing necessary to ensure Ukraine’s victory against the invader. Germany must release Denmark from the pressure of having to choose between supporting Kyiv and securing Nuuk.

That is the only language Donald Trump respects: military strength and geo-economic leverage, not weakness and absence. If Europeans secure their own backyard—from the ice of Greenland to the trenches of the Donbas—they will not become beggars at the table in Washington. They will be equal partners with assets and leverage, too.

The principle of the NATO alliance of values has always been to not allow different zones of security. All NATO territories have the same value. Now Europe faces the challenge of ensuring security everywhere it is present, whether in Greenland or in Ukraine.

Sending German soldiers to Greenland is a good start. But to preserve European freedom and autonomy and the sovereignty of its allies and friends against threats from both the East and the imperial spatial thinking of Xi Jinping, Vladimir Putin, and Trump, there needs to be a grand strategic bargain of Europeans in Europe. Denmark shall be able to focus more on the North, while Germany plays a larger role in securing the Eastern flank. That’s what a smart European burden-sharing and efficiency should look like.

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