In the untamed fjords of southwestern Greenland, a fleet of Danish warships patrol the icy waters of what’s become a highly contested Arctic hotspot.
For three centuries, Denmark has been the sovereign power here, a tiny European monarchy still reigning over Greenland’s 57,000 people, as well as its vast swathes of harsh and resource-rich terrain.
But Danish colonial authority – now focused mainly on foreign, defense and economic policy – is facing an unprecedented challenge, and the Scandinavian kingdom is at pains to underline and maintain its military control.
CNN was invited on board the HDMS Niels Juel, a Danish air defense frigate deployed to Greenland for Exercise Arctic Light: a land, sea and air training mission that is just one aspect of Denmark’s intensified military presence, launched in June this year, around its Arctic holdings.
Publicly, Danish officials echo the longstanding concerns of their NATO allies that Russia has been bolstering its offensive capabilities in the Arctic over the past two decades or more.
Greenland, together with Iceland and the United Kingdom, sits along a crucial axis, the so-called GIUK gap, which controls maritime access to the North Atlantic.
Moscow may be bogged down fighting in Ukraine at the moment, but once that brutal conflict is finally over, Danish military officials tell CNN they fully expect Russia to divert resources and use its warfighting experience to pose a much greater threat in the Arctic region.
China, too, has been stepping up its Arctic claims, taking part in patrols and exercises with Russian vessels, as well as funding Arctic infrastructure projects and developing a “polar silk road” plan for Arctic shipping. It’s even declared itself a “near-Arctic state,” despite the fact that its most northerly major city, Harbin, is roughly as far north as Venice in Italy.
But in face-to-face meetings, senior Danish military commanders say that neither Russia nor China currently present any significant military threat to Greenland.
“I don’t think we have a threat to Greenland right now,” Major General Søren Andersen, the chief of Denmark’s Joint Arctic Command, told CNN.
“We see Russia is active in the Arctic Ocean, in the Bering Strait between Alaska and Russia, but not here,” he added.
What’s more, Danish military officials insist the world’s largest island – the size of six Germanys or two of the biggest US states, Alaska and California, combined – is relatively straightforward to defend. Harsh weather, mountainous terrain and a lack of infrastructure make the entire east coast of the territory “virtually unconquerable,” according to one Danish military official.
It all begs the question why Denmark – a US ally that contributed troops to US wars in Iraq and Afghanistan – is now hosting its biggest ever military drills, ramping up Arctic defense spending by more than $2 billion, establishing an Arctic special forces group and purchasing new naval vessels and long-range drones.
The answer is more likely to be found in Washington DC than in Moscow or Beijing.
Denmark’s military spending spree was announced in January this year, shortly after US President Donald Trump began expressing renewed interest in controlling Greenland, insisting last December ahead of taking office that “the United States of America feels that the ownership and control of Greenland is an absolute necessity.”
Subsequent remarks, in which Trump refused to rule out taking Greenland by force, stirred further alarm.
But while the issue appears to have dropped off the agenda of the mercurial US leader, along with his threats to annex Canada and to take over the Panama Canal, many Danes still see it as their most pressing – and worrying – diplomatic challenge.
In a likely act of protest, Denmark recently confirmed to CNN its biggest ever arms purchase, agreeing to spend more than $9 billion on air defense systems from European manufacturers instead of American Patriot missile batteries.
One Western diplomat told CNN that even a year ago American suppliers would “almost certainly” have won that contract – a stark illustration that Trump’s rhetoric can incur a serious financial cost.
And while Danish officials tell CNN the country, as a firm NATO ally, will remain a major buyer of American military hardware, possibly including the purchase of more F-35 war planes, the air defense systems deal is a potent reminder that high-value arms procurement often carries a political message.
Back on the Danish frigate, in the Nuuk Fjord, flanked by Greenland’s bleak mountains of sheer black rock, the boom of practicing naval artillery guns reverberates into the Arctic abyss, as fighter jets scream overhead.
“The message to all our allies is that we are protecting the Kingdom of Denmark,” Maj. Gen. Andersen told CNN – less a warning to Russia and China, perhaps, than a plea to the US for respect as a capable and committed Arctic ally.
CNN’s Benjamin Brown and Luis Graham-Yooll contributed to this report.