Date: Monday, 12 January 2026
https://ericzuesse.substack.com/p/the-two-clashing-european-views-about
https://theduran.com/the-two-clashing-european-views-about-americas-grabbing
The Two Clashing European Views About America’s Grabbing Greenland
12 January 2026, by Eric Zuesse. (All of my recent articles can be seen here.)
Both Greenlanders and the Danish Government have now stated unambiguously that no purchase price that might be paid to Greenlanders and/or to the Danish Government will induce them to accept Greenland’s becoming a part of, or in any way controlled by, the U.S. Government. But the U.S. Government is now stepping up its threats to seize it by military force if that is the case — that nothing will prevent America from acquiring Greenland. Trump is saying that this acquisition is essential for America’s national security, and this statement means that if he fails to acquire Greenland, then Americans will have to believe that he had backed down on his promise to protect the USA itself — its national security — and thus to protect the safety of every American. His MAGA (“Make America Great Again”) most-basic political promise would then turn out to have been a deceit instead of a commitment to them; and, so, his Presidency will inevitably go down in flames.
Inside Europe, positions are hardening between two opposing camps:
On the one hand, there is the view expressed by billionaires-funded think tank propagandists who support the U.S. demand (which to fulfill on would be a great boost not only to America’s armaments-makers, whose main if not only markets are those Governments, but also to its mining and other extraction-firms). For example, on January 5th, Velina Tchakarova, who has built her career by arguing for European nations to continue their colonial status inside the American empire, for them to continue being U.S. colonies (‘allies’), alleges that it’s necessary in order to protect them against Russian and Chinese aggression (or, as she puts it, “The intention of the US in the long run is to win the second cold war. Whatever it takes, the winner takes all. Whatever it takes, we are going to fight the dragon bear [China and Russia]”) — she simply assumes that European nations cannot switch to support Russia and China against U.S. aggression. This is the mainstream (billionaires-funded) position in Europe.
On January 9th, Trump said:
We are going to do something on Greenland whether they like it or not. Uh because if we don't do it, Russia or China will take over Greenland and we're not going to have Russia or China as a neighbor. Okay? I would I would like to make a deal, you know, the easy way, but if we don't do it the easy way, we're going to do it the hard way.
However, the Greenland-grab by the U.S. has suddenly produced a crack in that till-now virtually solid wall of EU-NATO hostility against both Russia and China:
Here is the relevant clash of opinions:
https://x.com/RasmusJarlov/status/2010359450670952614
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Those in Europe, claiming about “imaginary Russian and Chinese threats” in the Arctic, either have not been paying attention to what was happening in the Arctic in the last ten years, are not able to connect the dots between the Western Hemisphere & Indo-Pacific region, or both.
I am head of the defence committee in Denmark It is my job to be on top of security in Greenland and I get all relevant information about it.
I can assure you that your fantasies about a big threat from China and Russia against Greenland are delusional. You are the threat. Not them.
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264.2K
Views
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This rhetoric isn’t helpful. Escalation between NATO members is in my view fully avoidable. May I draw your attention to my proposal for a Northern Corridor doctrine to avoid further escalation. Let’s focus our collective efforts in a positive way.
open.substack.com/pub/velinatcha
karova/p/the-northern-corridor-doctrine?r=rd5fm&utm_medium=ios&shareImageVariant=overlay
The link there is to her January 5th Substack “The Northern Corridor Doctrine: Securing the Arctic Corridor in the New Cold War”, which opens:
The world has entered what I describe as Cold War 2.0. This is not a revival of twentieth-century ideological bipolarity. It is a systemic confrontation between two competing bloc-building systems.
On one side stands the United States and the Anglosphere, increasingly organized around military dominance, financial leverage, technological control, and security-driven trade governance. On the other stands what I have long framed as the DragonBear—the global modus operandi of strategic coordination between China and Russia, fusing China’s economic and technological reach with Russia’s military-revisionist power and readiness for coercive escalation.
That conflict between Velina Tchakarova and Rasmus Jarlov is the current condition of the debate. (Where she refers to “the Anglosphere,” I have documented the origin of that important concept here. Tchakarova is accepting the EU’s subordination to the U.S./UK “Special Relationship.” Jarlov refuses to accept that subordination, or any subordination of Denmark’s sovereignty and independence. As regards Greenland, which is owned by Denmark, I shall deal with that in the final paragraph here.)
Rasmus Jarlov represents Denmark, which now recognizes that the only way it can continue as an ‘ally’ of the U.S. is as an abject vassal-state in the American empire, and this recogniton or understanting is versus the EU-NATO strict requirement, which is that, as George W. Bush stated it on 16 February 2002 (challenging all U.S. ‘allies’ to either support the U.S. or else be an enemy of the U.S.) “Either you’re with us, or you’re against us”. Barack Obama, his immediate successor, said to the world’s nations — and likewise instructed America’s military to enforce — “The United States is and remains the one indispensable nation”: meaning that every other nation — including even each one of America’s ‘allies’ — is “dispensable.” Let’s think about that remarkable statement by Obama, for a moment. Even ‘allied’ nations are “dispensable,” according to that Nobel Peace-Prize-winning U.S. President. And that phrase was no fluke from him: he repeated the same statement on several occasions. In fact, he was happy to have originally gotten this idea from Robert Kagan, a leading Republican neoconservative and champion of the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq, who was flattered that Obama did. Furthermore, during Obama’s Presidency, an important member of his Administration was Kagan’s equally intensely neoconservative (ardently pro-U.S.-imperialist) wife, who had been V.P. Dick Cheney’s chief foreign-affairs advisor during G.W. Bush’s Presidency, Victoria Nuland, and she led Obama’s policy toward Ukraine and selected who would lead that country after its democratically elected President was overthrown by the United States in order ultimately to place American missiles there, around 300 miles away from The Kremlin. Practically all of America’s leaders (both Democratic and Republican) view America’s success as consisting of nothing less than every other nation’s failure — and that’s especially the failure (the conquest) of Russia, and of China. It’s the zero-sum world-view, that every game is win-lose, none is win-win: all is dog-eat-dog — ultimately, everyone is an enemy, and so must be conquered, in order for any person (or country) to succeed. That’s the perspective of America’s leaders, both Republican and Democrat: pure zero-sum — there is always only one winner; everyone else are “losers.” And they view “losers” with contempt, because “Might makes right,” so “losers” must be inferior to whomever the winner happens to be or become.
The choice here is stark for all of Europe’s leaders today.
On January 11th, the Financial Times headlined “Nato silence on Donald Trump’s Greenland threats rattles European allies: Military alliance yet to issue public statement asserting territorial integrity of Arctic island and kingdom of Denmark”, and opened:
Nato’s silence in response to Donald Trump’s threats to seize Greenland has prompted alarm among European capitals fearful that the alliance is failing to defend the rights of Denmark.
On January 12th, Slovakia’s “European Newsroom” headlined “Fico: … Kallasová [Kaja Kallas, the Foreign Affairs Minister for the EU] must leave her post” and quoted Slovakia’s Prime Minister, Robert Fico, as saying, “We must replace the High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs, Mrs Kallasová. I am saying it openly for the first time.” “According to him, the Union’s competitiveness is declining and the only thing the EU knows, according to Fico, is to hate Russians.”
This is the biggest crisis in the now 81-year-long history of the U.S. empire or “Western Alliance.” It challenges the EU, NATO, and even the U.S. — the imperial nation — itself.
The choice for Greenlanders is different. A majority of them have long been wanting independence from Denmark, despite Denmark sending around $1 billion per year to Denmark. Denmark, in fact, provides Greenland with an annual block grant, around 4.3 billion Danish Kroner (roughly $600-650 million USD), covering core public services like health and education, with total Danish spending (including defense/security/justice) pushing total annual costs closer to $1 billion. An intelligent solution, from the European and Greenland standpoint, would be for a reformed or replaced EU to consider offering to Greenlanders to take up that economic burden because Greenland will be a valuable long-term economic asset as a part of the European community. There is no reason why this burden should be borne only by Denmark. Alternatively, if Greenlanders do not vote in a referendum on independence, then they should vote, on their own, to make their existing status, as a Danish dependency, permanent. Each NATO nation should be required to vote in a referendum on whether an American invasion of Greenland would justify NATO nations going to war against the U.S. in Greenland; and, then, Russia should be invited in as a part of that all-European force to defeat the U.S. in Greenland. Russia would probably join. Greenland could thus turn out to become the hinge upon which the new world order will be formed. However, already, on January 11th, Bloomberg headlines “UK, Germany Talk NATO Forces in Greenland to Calm US Threat”; so, at long last (ever since the “Special Relationship” formed on 25 July 1945), the UK is threatening to break away from, end, that “Special Relationship,” and rejoin the EU nations, over this Greenland issue. Apparently Keir Starmer has been instructed that this must be done in order to preserve European hostility towards Russia — ward off Russia’s being accepted into the European community. If that’s what is behind this, then the actual source of that hostility is the UK, not the U.S. UK’s billionaires would be the source, joining their 55 billionaires with Europe’s other 593 billionaires, against America’s 902 billionaires. And that too would end the now 81-year-old “Special Relationship.” And it would end NATO. And it would enormously reduce the size of the U.S. empire. It would NOT, however, be allowing Russia into the European community. Apparently, Tchakarova has been betting on the wrong horse, America. Even the “Anglo” part of “the Anglosphere” could now break off from it. But whatever the Greenland outcome, it will be the hinge to the new world order — whatever that will turn out to be. Donald Trump, as usual, just doesn’t know what he is doing. He’s playing chess but doesn’t even know the rules of the game, much less how to win the game. His doing business as just a gangster might not succeed, after all, on the global level. This is an exciting chess-game because its stakes are enormous. The Greenland pawn might be decisive.
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Investigative historian Eric Zuesse’s latest book, AMERICA’S EMPIRE OF EVIL: Hitler’s Posthumous Victory, and Why the Social Sciences Need to Change, is about how America took over the world after World War II in order to enslave it to U.S.-and-allied billionaires. Their cartels extract the world’s wealth by control of not only their ‘news’ media but the social ‘sciences’ — duping the public.
