Report: Denmark Plotted to Blow Up Greenland Runways to Stop US Planes
The outlet said it had reviewed a January 13 military operations order outlining a secret plan to deploy Danish troops to Greenland equipped with explosives and “blood supplies” in the event of military conflict.
Fearing a U.S. invasion of Greenland in January, Denmark allegedly drew up plans to destroy the island’s runways to prevent American aircraft from landing, according to a Thursday report from Danish public broadcaster DR.
Citing 12 “high-level” sources inside the Danish government and “military sources among Denmark’s allies in France and Germany,” the outlet said it had reviewed a January 13 military operations order outlining a secret plan to deploy Danish troops to Greenland equipped with explosives and “blood supplies” in the event of military conflict.
Euronews reported that the plan was conceived after President Donald Trump signaled at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, in January that the U.S. would seek to annex the autonomous Danish territory.
In fairness, Trump also told attendees, “I don’t want to use force. I won’t use force. All the United States is asking for is a place called Greenland.”
Both Greenland Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen and Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen were adamantly opposed to this course of action. And with Operation Absolute Resolve, the U.S. military operation that captured former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, fresh in mind, tensions were already high.
A Danish military official who spoke to DR on the condition of anonymity said, “When Trump says all the time that he wants to buy Greenland, and then we see what happens in Venezuela, we had to take all possible scenarios seriously.”
Two European officials, who also requested anonymity, confirmed DR’s reporting to The Financial Times.
When contacted by the BBC, the Danish Defense Ministry declined to comment.
The BBC also spoke to a senior Danish military official, who noted, “only a limited number of people would have been aware of the operation for security reasons.”
It was widely reported in January that Denmark and several European allies, including France, Germany, and Sweden, had sent troops to Greenland for military exercises. But it’s only now that we’re learning the deployment, known as Operation Arctic Endurance, was “operational.”
At the conclusion of the World Economic Forum in January, Trump announced he and NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte had reached a “framework” agreement on how to move forward in Greenland. But the specifics of the deal were extremely vague.
Fox News reported that earlier this week, Gen. Gregory Guillot, the commander of U.S. Northern Command, said, “We are working with Denmark through the Department of State to expand some of the authorities that are in the 1951 treaty to give increased access to different bases across Greenland.
“But everything that we’re doing through NORTHCOM is through Greenland and through Denmark.”
Given that the U.S., Denmark, France, Germany, and Sweden are all NATO allies, the situation presents a delicate and potentially fraught dilemma. It comes amid heightened strain driven by the U.S.–Israel war against Iran, particularly the initial reluctance of European allies to join Washington’s efforts to reopen the Strait of Hormuz.
If accurate, the episode marks one of the most extraordinary chapters in modern transatlantic relations: a moment when NATO allies, behind closed doors, contemplated sabotaging one nation’s infrastructure to defend against a member-nation of the alliance. Even if never enacted, the plan reveals just how close the NATO alliance may have come to an unprecedented internal rupture.
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Comments
That wouldn’t have stopped us.
That probably wouldn’t have even slowed us down.
But I suppose they had to come up with a plan, any plan, to give to the politicians, even if basic arithmatic says they can’t defend Greenland effectively.
It would have slowed the US down for about a week until the Engineers fixed them. In the meantime the rest of the soldiers would land or parachute in and take care of business. Talk about a futile effort.
What are the US’s contingency plans in the event of a Danish invasion of Martha’s Vineyard?
Thank them?
But they won’t tip the help when they stay there.
Allow it. LOL
Offer to help.
To provide coffee with the Danish?
Some cannibal will offer to warm you a Danish.
Two cannibals were eating a clown.
One turned to the other and asked, “Does this taste funny to you?”
Ask them to please take NYC, Chicago, and LA too?
Past time to end our membership in NATO. We can negotiate bilateral agreements with individual Nations who possess a credible military, share our values, are willing to support the USA as much as we support them, that don’t close their markets to US exports, occupy strategic locations and have critical resources. Eliminate the neocon fiction that we need or benefit from an unwieldy alliance of unwilling, inconsistent, lilliputian Nations and restore President Washington’s dictum to ‘avoid entangling alliances’. Reserve alliance with the USA to the very few Nations who we need as much as they need us and reject those Nations seeking to free ride.
I mean that precedent eliminates Israel (they need us more than we need them)
Israel would be saved by the no free rider corollary though they will need to continue taking steps to open to to US exports, including agricultural exports. They have excellent Intel services, A very capable military and despite their public reputation a good amount of soft power influence in the region. Doesn’t mean we would/should blindly support them across the board but Israel is definitely willing to show up and fight v some other ‘allies’ who seem to expect the USA to be the world police and do the necessary fighting for them at no risk to themselves and very often without tangible gratitude. That’s the sort ‘ally’ we can do without….looking at you Spain, Germany, France and sadly the UK under Starmer among others.
Israel fought a proxy war for us against Soviet proxies in the ME, preventing Soviet hegemony in the region. We needed them to perform that mission and it corresponded perfectly with their own desire to exist.
Israel is now helping us to dismantle a nuclear threat to the United States. In so doing, it has contributed far more to the effort than any other “ally.” So, if Israel doesn’t qualify for an alliance, who does?
I’ve been thinking that for an awful lot of years.
What do you think the ME would look like without Israel? The ME is where the world gets most of its oil and without Israel, with our help, it’s still open for business. Without Israel, Iran would be the dominate force in the ME and we can only imagine what they would do with total control of its oil.
NATO was formed specifically to protect Europe from a Russian threat because after WW2 they were so destroyed they couldn’t do it themselves. It devolved into a US welfare project where we provided the bulk of the defense and money while they spent all of theirs on social welfare programs and lectured us on how evil we were. It’s long past the point where they can pay to defend themselves. We need to have a serious discussion in dissolving NATO and using the money for our own hemisphere protection.
Soviet threat not Russian but otherwise yeah. The Soviet Union and Warsaw Pact died almost 35 years ago. NATO has clung to life well past it’s expiration date morphing into a foreign aid/corporate welfare program without a central organizing purpose. Our National Security threats ain’t in Europe nor really Russia. The true threat is terrorism, narco trafficking entities, failed/near failed/corrupt States in our hemisphere and China. Of course the EU and UK meddling in our elections, seeking to impose restrictions on free speech Internationally and apply their speech codes to US Citizens and US Companies in an extraterritorial manner, imposing restrictions on US military use of our bases degrading our effectiveness in a shooting conflict, decades of applying unfair trade practices to limit US exports would seem to indicate they don’t want to be ‘allies’.
NATO has long-since outlived any usefulness it might have had.
That just shows how stupid EU leadership really is.
I know. Let’s land troops on an island in the face of an invasion by the worlds largest and most lethal military and blow up the runways so we have no way to retreat because the US Navy is right there. Sounds like a 4th level chess move to me.
Maybe they should force each plane to take 100 tins of salted herring as a duty tax instead of blowing up someone else’s infrastructure.
Why are we still a part of this charade?
Don’t get me started on the UN.
https://jbs.org/un/
It’s way past time to pull back from NATO. The EU can try and fund their own version of NATO. The squabbles will destroy the EU eventually. We can cut a deal with the Baltic States, Poland, Hungary and the Chek Republic. Probably save the US over a trillion per year.
The squabbles will destroy the EU eventually.
Ultimately, that’s what they’re afraid of. As long as they can pass off the hard stuff to us and keep funding their social welfare programs (buying peace from their subjects) they can keep their power, perks, and privileges.
The funny part is, the only reason they’re hanging together now is that they are still – multiple generation later – afraid of WW1 and WW2 happening all over again.
NATO was formed to protect NATO countries so the question is why are we paying money and providing arms to defend Ukraine? Let Europe do it.
The Danes are rotten. Who knew?
Shakespeare.
Kepler?
Old and cold: Putin is gonna invade Europe! AAAAAAAH!
New and bold: Trump is gonna invade Greenland! AAAAAAAH!
One aspect of the Communism that now infects much of Europe is the need for an external enemy. This is so the EUtopians can distract the proles from their massive failures at home (particularly the mass importation of 7th century barbarians and the resulting social and economic chaos). That external enemy can suddenly change without warning. Oceania has always been at war with
PutinTrump.Clever way of putting it.
The comments on this issue are becoming ridiculous.
What would you expect an ally to do when you threaten to invade them?
The commenters rant on about NATO and how useless it is.
Well maybe so, but what direct relevance does that have to this news item?
Absolutely none.
I persist in saying that this was President Trump at his very worst (a very rare thing , in my opinion, but even great men can have an off day) and the reaction from Denmark was measured and reasonable.
Moreover, the idea that other NATO members would stick to their obligations under article 5 seems to me like a good thing, not another reason to castigate them.
You are better than this! Stop knee-jerking and start thinking.
There’s a reason they didn’t do it.
They don’t want to poke the bear and knew it despite public posture.
We need to use Greenland for military and economic strategy. Both societies can benefit from that. The Danes see it as an opportunity to fleece the US and Trump was having none of it.
Tell me you don’t understand Donald Trump without saying you don’t understand Donald Trump.
This is straight out of The Art of the Deal: identify an objective, make an absolutely ridiculous offer that no one in their right mind would agree to. Once you get the initial refusal, then you negotiate. Not difficult to understand.
If you’ve never read it, you should. The other book that I found tremendously insightful into understanding Trump was Scott Adams’ Win Bigly.
I’m not asking you to support or agree with DJT; I do, however, insist that you understand how he operates.
Relevance? Easy there’s a whole bunch of folks whining about ‘that’s not the way to deal with allies’ re Greenland. Remove NATO and the picture becomes much more clear b/c the arguments about ‘faithful NATO allies’ is wiped away which leaves cold, clear eyed realism as basis for our actions.
When the US sought to use bases in defending the rest of the World from Iranian aggression and thwart their nuclear ambitions several of our NATO ‘allies’ not only refused to assist (not our issue was the general tone) but also refused to allow US military assets permission to use our bases located in their Nations. Those ain’t the actions of dependable allies. If we can’t depend on them to at minimum get the heck out of the way while we continue to do the heavy lifting then why do we need them or want them as ‘allies’?
This was Babylon Bee, wasn’t it?
Denmark telling us they don’t understand how aircraft carriers work.
Landing on carriers doesn’t get whatever you wanted to get to land, to land.
We also have these amphibious assault ships, whose sole purpose is to get stuff to land when land doesn’t want you to.
Yes. But they also have limitations aircraft might not have.
I’m just saying that cratering runways so they can’t be used is a valid tactic for good reasons. There are ways to get around the challenges it presents, but it is a workaround. It complicates matters, is all.
the limit for amphibs and aircraft carriers is called “ice and snow.” Trying to operate either at those latitudes in January is extremely difficult.
About the only thing cratering their own airfields would have accomplished would have been to prevent supplies from reaching their own forces on the island. Not that it would have mattered when US forces would have had complete air superiority and would have likely bombed Greenland’s airfields itself in order to accomplish the same.
Or helicopters.
This is exactly the sort of thing militaries do. They build contingency plans. And sometimes you build a bunch, with some being somewhat ridiculous because you cover all eventualities.
“Build me an OPLAN for invading Grenada. Give me options for external interventions.”
“Like Cuba responding?”
“Yes, like Cuba responding. Cuba responding by sending troops; Cuba responding by bombing Key West; Cuba responding by trying to nuke Miami. Like that.”
“Ummm, OK, sir.”
Because low risk is not no risk.
I also guarantee that the Danes blowing up runways and such was an enemy COA built into OUR plans for taking Greenland.
BINGO! GWB.
We have contingency plans for all scenarios, from the mundane to the outlandish.
Also, bombing landing strips is a waste of bombs. They can be repaired as good as new in hours.
They can only be repaired if the people who want them repaired are already there, with materials. If they crater the runways before you land, it’s harder – not impossible, but harder – to get there and get things set up. We have entire units dedicated to building rudimentary landing strips and repairing blowed up ones. And some of them can be airdropped. As I said to irishgladiator63, it complicates matters – but complicated is what the American military does.
Personally I think that credits the EUtopians with too much intelligence and ability. The EU is a giant sclerotic welfare state morphing into an Islamist hellhole. Whether or not they could actually pull off something like bombing their own runways is highly debatable. Burning through billions of Euros on frivolous garbage, tossing political opponents off the ballot and cracking down on dissent is more their speed – the only things they actually care about and seem to have a knack for.
I am convinced the ONLY reason we are hearing about this is because the EUtopians want to show Trump and the US the middle finger to thrill the EU voters, who otherwise might start asking uncomfortable questions about why their countries are being overrun with Islamists.
chuck norris passed away
godspeed my man
That’s is sad RIP sir life lived well
He was working out the very day he got ill
badassss to the end
Noooo! 😕😕😕
Chuck Norris’s password is the last 8 digits of PI.
so lefty was willing to go to these lengths to stop america ;thats not unusal
they are *blowing* up our whole society
Reading this comment thread, it’s extremely obvious who’s operated (or tried to operate) ships in the North Atlantic in January and who has not.
I was part of a carrier battlegroup operating off of the coast of Maine in January. During a 5-day exercise, the carrier was only able to launch and recover planes twice due to weather. Both times, the cruiser escorts were not able to keep station due to weather. (Carrier would turn into the wind, slow to 5 knots, and the cruisers had to break off.)
The coast of Greenland in January is ice-bound. No way for amphibs to make a landing and again due to weather flight ops are challenging.
I think amphibs now are hovercraft? Not sure how they handle in rough seas but ice may not be a problem. Don’t know,
lefty: europe is so much better than the usa so tolerant so giving blah blah blah
If the US wanted to invade Greenland (we don’t), then there is nothing that they or Denmark could do about it. Blowing up runways wouldn’t even be a speed bump.
Denmark and the EU just used Trump’s remarks as an opportunity to try and flex their tiny, laughable balls.
Nah, it would be a speed bump.
The problem is that speed bumps primarily work on small cars with low clearances, short wheel bases, and not great suspensions. America’s military is a lifted F-350 duallie with a Grand Canyon climbing suspension. It would say “THAT was a speed bump?”
Maybe they brought Surströmming to fumigate the airfields to keep us away?
(Yes, I know it’s Swedish, not Danish. Watch the guy who opened a can of it in his car. ‘Sfunny.)
What this did do was to focus NATO on their defence. Which I believe is what Trump was forcing them to do. No more free rides for NATO countries.
If they dont want to pony up to pay for their own defence then I suspect in the very near future, especially if there is another REpublican President, that they will be on their own and the US will Philipines Europes economy by removing their military presence from the continent.
By Philipines I mean…no more direct and indirect money being injected in to local economies because American defence forces are no longer sinking money in to the country they have been posted to.
Now, imagine, if you will, a Europe that was this determined to protect its own national borders from invasion from Africa and the Middle East.
TDS does not apply to Muslims, only to Trump.
We’ll trade Victor Borge for Bad Bunny, and call it done.
Pretty sure the report this news story was derived out of is a fake, with little bits of “Of course” scattered through it for believability. Like every country has contingency plans for invasions and such. The story just got a lot of traction from the “We hate Trump and everything he says” crowd.
Gotta be fake news, I would think that our bases there have their own runways but if not mainland East Coast runways would be near enough so it would take a lot of invaiding. Makes me think about the movie “The Mouse That Roared”.
Sure Jan.
Seriously, this was some Danish Military guy’s wet dream. Here you are a senior strategist in a country whose chocolate soldiers are better than your army. The most strategic thing you ever get to plan is the placement of the honor guard if the King decides to visit the theater.
And FINALLY after all these years! LOOK BOSS! See the plan I have drawn up to stop the largest military on the planet!
What? The U.S. was never ever really going to invade Greenland? BUT JUST IN CASE, I have a plan. Do I get a cookie?
Ok, because a military has never built runways and I’m sure the 17 Danish troops could repel the Marines from making a forced landing
The Danish plan is stupid. Here’s why.
We have these things called Helicopters. We also the have the Osprey tilt rotary aircraft. These can easily ferry troops to Greenland and land just about anywhere there is a flat service. Like a highway. We also have a version of the F35B that is a VTOL aircraft. It can land and take off almost anywhere. Also as mentioned we have landing craft that would be impeded. So Danish efforts wouldn’t even hinder an invasion let alone stop it.
We really need to get out NATO ASAP.
Also we have airborne troops. Doh. Don;t know why I didn’t recall those and as someone pointed out we already have a base there,
It was a last ditch suicide mission to save the colony!
Whatever. Just shows how effed up NATO is.
Well, it’s idiotic to get worked up that the Danish military considered bombing Greenland’s runways. It’s the military’s JOB to figure out how best to defend their territory against other countries, including countries that were active allies until they suddenly changed their coats.
That is, it’s idiotic for the U.S. to be upset. Greenland can be as upset as they want to be; those runways are on Greenland, and if Greenland prefers to be a conquered American territory with runways over a Danish territory without runways, that’s relevant.
All that said, successfully destroying the runways would have … what? Forced us to delay the invasion until March or April? Maybe? Handed the island over to someone neither Danish nor American with more capability to force a winter landing? I doubt it.
If Trump’s behavior towards Greenland forced Denmark to consider how it could defend Greenland without the U.S. that’s all to the good, even if it’s considering defending Greenland against the U.S. (Not saying that this is worth getting Greenland and Denmark as upset as they were, but forcing Denmark to contemplate defending Greenland is definitely a good thing, not a bad thing.)
Every country’s military has contingency plans for all conceivable scenarios. As I understand it the USA has for over 200 years had a plan for invading Canada, which is updated every decade or so. And presumably Canada has a plan for a US invasion as well. Because you never know.
So of course Denmark would have a plan for a US invasion. Of Greenland or of mainland Denmark. It might not be a good plan, but they’ve got a plan. So does every country.