Many question what is occurring at the Arctic Circle. The Americans already have de facto control over Greenland through defence agreements from the 1950s and military bases there. Wanting to annex or buy Greenland could definitely be a deliberate diversionary tactic and provocation on the part of the US. The aim is to create discord with the EU, which they have already started to do; relations between Brussels and Washington are not great.
And why would anyone want to create bad feelings between two old friends, Europe and America? There is an obvious reason, which is unfortunately rather grim.
The Russians’ war against Ukraine is slowly progressing. A war of attrition is about the enemy’s army eventually collapsing under pressure. It may be that the collapse is approaching. When this happens, the Ukrainian army will abandon its positions and surrender, and the road to Kiev will be open, much like when the Germans marched into Paris in 1940.
What happens then?
The Russians will install a regime that serves their interests and annex the eastern part of the country. Alternatively, Poland will get the western parts in exchange for leaving NATO. Don’t forget that the Poles have strong historical ties to these regions. Hungary will get parts of Transcarpathia, and even Moldova or Romania can be bribed into obedience with land donations around its borders.
Until this happens, Trump has provoked hostility between the US and other NATO countries in Europe through the hostile annexation of Greenland, which belongs to the NATO and EU member country Denmark. Cooperation will be tenuous or partially dissolved. Perhaps other NATO countries will even freeze out the US. And that is exactly what Trump wants.
When the final reckoning for the war comes – and it will come sooner or later – the US can withdraw and blame the war in Ukraine on the EU and the remaining NATO countries, a cooperation from which they have distanced themselves. The United Kingdom, France, Germany and all the others will be portrayed as the guilty parties, because they sent money and weapons to Ukraine, prolonging a conflict that could have ended after just one month without their support.
The British in particular have invested heavily in the conflict both before and after 2022. The idea was probably that the conflict would contribute to a popular uprising against Putin, who would then be forced to resign, and that a more Western-friendly president would be installed. No one believed that the Ukrainians were capable of winning the war on the battlefield. The aim was to weaken Russia and then wait for social change. Something that never happened. The Ukrainians were exploited and lured into a battle they could never win.
So, when the war is over, and the Russians have annexed all or part of Ukraine, the EU will be left standing alone as the scapegoat. And the Russians will demand reparations and war damages from the EU countries that supported the war. They know that the US was complicit, but the US is still a superpower; it is easier and more practical to blame the EU.
As far as I know, Putin has a soft spot for Europe, especially Germany, but many other Russian politicians do not share this view. They think Europeans are the scum of the earth because they have financed the Ukrainian army, which has contributed to the deaths of many Russians, and because our metrosexual, cosmopolitan and atheistic lifestyle disgusts them. They think we have mismanaged our societies with mass migration, uncontrolled crime and cultural decline. They don’t even want to occupy us, but would rather not have to see the misery.
The EU – and not the US – will be blamed and forced to pay for the mess.
