Crisis at home, crises abroad. As President Trump threatens to invoke the Insurrection Act over protests against aggressive immigration raids in Minnesota, NATO allies are dispatching military reinforcements to Greenland to counter the U.S. president’s threat to invade the Danish island against the wishes of its residents and elected leaders.
Germany, France and Sweden announced plans to send troops, military aircraft, and ships to Greenland after a Wednesday discussion at the White House failed to alter Trump administration officials’ desire to acquire the territory.
The talks between officials representing Greenland, Denmark, and the Trump administration “did not succeed in changing the American position” on possible annexation, Danish Foreign Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen said in Washington, D.C. Instead the U.S. and Danish delegation agreed to form a “high-level working group” to meet “within a matter of weeks,” said Rasmussen, who added, “We therefore still have a fundamental disagreement, but we also agree to disagree.”
Danish Minister of Defense Troels Lund Poulsen warned during a separate press conference Wednesday that “security tensions have spread to the Arctic.” As a result, “in close dialogue with the Greenlandic government, we have agreed to increase our military presence and exercise activity in the Arctic and the North Atlantic in cooperation with NATO allies,” Poulsen said. He told the Danish news outlet Berlingske that increased ships, planes, and soldiers would all be necessary, and the outlet reported that Denmark will send the army’s 1st Brigade.
The U.K. has signaled a willingness to send troops to Greenland, according to a Bloomberg report this week, and Norway’s prime minister also issued a statement of support for Denmark earlier this month, Defense One’s Patrick Tucker reports.
New: More than seven in 10 Americans think it’s a bad idea to militarily seize Greenland (71%), and less than one in five (17%) overall support Trump’s general effort to acquire the island, according to survey results published Wednesday by Reuters/Ipsos.
Only 4% think a military invasion of the island is a good idea.
- Note: Four-percent polling is occasionally called the “Lizardman’s Constant”: insincere feedback revealed in opinion polling that has found, e.g., “four percent of Americans believe lizardmen are running the Earth.”
Two-thirds of those surveyed worried Trump’s efforts on Greenland will damage NATO and America’s relationship with European allies; that included 91% of Democrats and 40% of Republicans.
For what it’s worth, “About one in five respondents in the poll said they had not heard of the plans to acquire Greenland,” Reuters reports.
Notable: The White House posted a neo-Nazi message aimed at Denmark and Greenland on Twitter just before the meeting Wednesday. “Which way, Greenland man?” the post asked, showing an illustration of a sled-dog team with an apparent choice of paths leading either to the White House or to Russia and China.
Expert reax: “This is a key concept in neo-Nazi and white supremacist subculture,” Heidi Beirich, a co-founder of the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism, told the Guardian. “Western man is code for white man, and one of the most popular racist books in these subcultures is Which Way Western Man, which has been featured in a [Department of Homeland Security] post celebrating manifest destiny.”
“The idea appeals to racists and white supremacists who think only white people should be in positions of power,” Beirich said.
Update: Experts disagree with Trump’s claim that U.S. control of Greenland is critical for the Golden Dome missile defense initiative, and say it ignores longstanding diplomatic agreements that would likely already permit the project’s expansion on the Danish-controlled island, Defense One’s Thomas Novelly reported just hours after Trump made the claim on his social media feed Wednesday. For example, they said Trump’s statement ignores the U.S. military’s existing, and crucial, presence on the island at Pituffik Space Base. The work at that base is already focused on missile warning, space surveillance, and satellite command and control missions.
“What he is saying is detached from reality,” said Todd Harrison, a defense and space policy expert with the American Enterprise Institute. “It’s like he doesn’t realize that for decades we’ve had a major base in Greenland that is critical to homeland missile defense and space surveillance.”
Under a decades-old agreement between the two countries, the U.S. government has the right to “to improve and generally to fit the area for military use,” “to construct, install, maintain, and operate facilities and equipment,” and “provide for the protection and internal security of the area,” according to the agreement’s text.
Historically, the U.S. had no issues securing its national security priorities, said Mikkel Runge Olesen, a senior researcher at the Danish Institute for International Studies in Copenhagen. “That means that de facto, it has been a very, very wide agreement in terms of allowing for the U.S. to take care of its security needs,” Olesen said, adding that any future Greenland-related Golden Dome initiatives would more than likely be accepted. “A U.S. request concerning a key security issue for them would almost certainly be considered very favorable,” he added. Continue reading, here.
Second opinion: Trump’s Greenland fixation his “Most Dangerous Obsession,” argues former Naval War College professor Tom Nichols, writing Wednesday for The Atlantic. Their headline: “Trump Is Risking a Global Catastrophe.”
How so? “Imagine that Denmark, following some intemperate claim from Trump, demands that U.S. forces in Greenland remain confined to their bases, and Trump, incensed at the insult to his putatively unlimited power, tries to force the issue and tells American servicepeople to act as the island’s de facto police, including suppressing any demonstrations or resistance from the population,” Nichols writes. “Someone might be killed. The death of a Greenlander, a Dane, or a member of any other military there as a show of support for Denmark—Sweden has already sent troops to Greenland and Britain is considering similar moves—would incinerate the NATO alliance. Then the real nightmare begins.”
“As the American military chases Trump’s ever-changing Sharpie lines across the world’s maps,” Nichols warns in a culmination of his concerns, “the West’s enemies will be tempted to take advantage of the fact that the United States has obliterated the most powerful alliance in history while scattering American forces around the globe in showpiece operations that have more to do with Trump’s vanity than with sound strategy.”
Under these circumstances, Putin may invade the Baltics. China may move on Taiwan; Trump already made public his apparent indifference to that consideration in an interview with the New York Times last week. “And although no one should try to predict what North Korea’s bizarre dynasty would do, South Korea and Japan would have to begin planning for the risks that will come during, and after, America’s voluntary strategic immolation, most likely with crash programs to develop nuclear arms,” Nichols writes. “And all this could happen—for what, exactly?” he asks.
By the way: “Russia nearly shut down Poland’s power grid in December cyberattack,” Euromaidan Press reported Wednesday after a Tuesday interview with Polish Minister of Digital Affairs Krzysztof Gawkowski. “Everything indicates that we are dealing with Russian sabotage, because it must be called by its name, which was supposed to destabilize the situation in Poland, Gawkowski said. Read more at The Moscow Times
View from Capitol Hill: “For the past year, Vladimir Putin has mocked the Ukraine peace process by steadily escalating his attacks on his neighboring country,” said Sen. Roger Wicker, R-Miss., and chair of the Armed Services Committee, speaking on the Senate floor this week. “He’s recently launched the biggest air attack the conflict has ever seen and shown repeatedly that he is not interested in peace talks. He gives lip service to peace talks, but his acts show that he’s not interested.”
Wicker continued: “Putin even echoes the likes of Adolf Hitler. Putin routinely talks about ‘liberating’ the Russian-speaking Ukrainians living in the Donbas, and other areas of Ukraine. This is the same vile, absurd pretext that Adolf Hitler used when he invaded the German-speaking regions of neighboring countries including Poland. That’s who Vladimir Putin is.”Trump to Reuters: “Zelenskiy, not Putin, is holding up a Ukraine peace deal.”
Additional reading:
Welcome to this Thursday edition of The D Brief, a newsletter focused on developments affecting the future of U.S. national security, brought to you by Ben Watson and Bradley Peniston. It’s more important than ever to stay informed, so we’d like to take a moment to thank you for reading. Share your tips and feedback here. And if you’re not already subscribed, you can do that here. On this day in 1911, Lt. Myron Crissy of the U.S. Army Coast Artillery Corps dropped a live bomb from an airplane for what’s believed to have been the first time ever. “Experiment proves aviation will figure in war,” the San Francisco Call reported.
Venezuela developments
Senate war powers resolution fails by one vote. GOP Senators Josh Hawley and Todd Young flipped their votes from last week, blocking a war powers resolution on Wednesday that would have curbed Trump’s military operations in Venezuela. GOP Sens. Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski and Rand Paul joined all Democrats in support, leading Vice President JD Vance to cast the deciding vote.
“In short, this means the Senate will NOT pass the resolution to require Trump to get approval from Congress in order to take military action in Venezuela,” Sahil Kapur of NBC News reported.
GOP dissent in the House: “It’s shameful that senators in safe seats can’t stand up to the political pressure of this President and his henchmen, even when they know what’s in the best interests of the United States and what their oath to the Constitution requires of them,” Kentucky’s Thomas Massie wrote on social media, adding, “Ambition is their downfall.”
That vote came after news had surfaced that the White House just netted $500 million for its first sale of Venezuelan oil, and is holding at least some of the proceeds at a “main account” located in Qatar, according to administration officials who spoke to Semafor Wednesday.
Background: On Friday, Trump signed an executive order aiming to “block courts or creditors from tapping any revenue from those oil sales,” Semafor’s Shelby Talcott and Eleanor Mueller write. “Venezuela owes international bondholders, oil companies and others as much as $170 billion—one reason why US firms have been reluctant to help rebuild the country’s infrastructure.”
Second opinion: “If we’re asserting that the money is safer in Qatar than the U.S., that suggests that it is being protected because Qatar has something the U.S. lacks—presumably a lack of accountability to American courts and Congress,” author and former Washington Post columnist Philip Bump wrote online Wednesday.
“There is no basis in law for a president to set up an offshore account that he controls so that he can sell assets seized by the American military,” Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., told Semafor last week, and added, “That is precisely a move that a corrupt politician would be attracted to.”
Others were more blunt. “Looks like Donald Trump used the military to do a smash and grab for his personal benefit,” Jamelle Bouie of the New York Times observed on social media.
More dissent from Capitol Hill: “There is no clear path forward, no timeline, and no explanation of how the Trump Administration intends to avoid further instability or escalation” in Venezuela, said Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Oregon “Instead, the Administration appears to be prioritizing profits for Big Oil over democracy and the rule of law.”
“It is not America’s responsibility to go around the world using our military to push regime change when there is no imminent threat to our national security and then running foreign countries when we have our own serious problems here at home,” said Sen. Tammy Duckworth, D-Illinois. “Senate Republicans had an opportunity to block the President from further escalating military force against Venezuela, reassert our Constitutional authority and send an important message that he must end his march into another reckless forever war with no justification and no end state. It’s shameful that instead of taking this critical opportunity, they again chose to take the word of the least trustworthy President in history” rather than do what she says is in “the best interest of our nation’s servicemembers and the American people.”
Related reading: “Hundreds of Big Post-Election Donors Have Benefited From Trump’s Return to Office,” the New York Times reported one week before the Venezuelan invasion and abduction of Maduro.
Developing: The White House is preparing to use “private military contractors to protect oil and energy assets in Venezuela rather than deploying U.S. troops,” CNN reported Thursday.
Among those floated to participate: Former Blackwater founder Erik Prince. Another is Grey Bull Rescue Foundation, which is “a group that helped opposition leader & Nobel laureate María Corina Machado,” Zachary Cohen reports. Story, here.
Update: We’ve learned a little more about a previously-secret Justice Department memo authorizing Trump’s attacks on Venezuela. The memo admits regime change in Caracas was the goal, and claims the White House had “no contingency plan to engage in any substantial and sustained operation or occupation of Venezuela and that the envisioned operation would be limited to a level short of what would require going to Congress,” Charlie Savage of the New York Times reported Tuesday.
The memo also claims killing people in alleged drug-trafficking boats is okay because they are “civilians directly participating in hostilities such as by assisting in war-sustaining activities, or civilians who are present at legitimate targets provided that the harm is not excessive in relation to the military advantage gained.”
Iran developments
U.S. carrier to the Middle East? In the wake of Trump’s threats to punish the Iranian regime for its deadly crackdown on protestors, NewsNation says the Abraham Lincoln and its strike group have been diverted to the Middle East from Asia, but that remained unconfirmed at press time.
Here are the approximate known locations of the Navy’s carriers, per independent ship-tracker Ian Ellis.
CNO cautions against extending carrier’s deployment for Iran ops. Adm. Daryl Caudle said Wednesday that his office would push back against the idea that the USS Ford should be sent to the Middle East. The carrier is bumping up against its planned seven-month deployment after being diverted from the Mediterranean to the Caribbean for operations against drug boats and the leader of Venezuela. Caudle said he’d be happy to suggest other options, and that the carrier would be honored to carry out any orders. Defense One’s Meghann Myers reports from the Surface Navy Association conference, here.
U.S. analysts’ forecast: “The unprecedentedly brutal crackdown that the regime is conducting has broadly suppressed protest activity and may get the protests under control if no other factors intervene,” the Washington-based Institute for the Study of War wrote Wednesday.
For what it’s worth, Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu’s personal plane has reportedly departed the region amid fears of a possible new conflict in Iran.
In case you missed it: Saudi Arabia greenlit several Trump real-estate projects after MBS’s White House visit. On Nov. 18, Trump gave Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman a few things he had long sought, including status for Riyadh as a “major non-NATO ally”; a promise to sell 300 Abrams tanks and an unspecified number of F-35 fighter jets (previously sold in the region only to Israel); and the U.S. president’s personal approbation for the man U.S. intelligence concluded had ordered the murder and dismemberment of a Washington Post journalist.
Now, “MBS appears to be returning the favor,” reports Popular Information’s Judd Legum. “The Trump Organization announced it would be partnering with Dar Global to build a $7 billion “Trump-branded hotel and golf course” in Saudi Arabia. The development in Diriyah “will include 500 mansions, priced between $6.7 million and $24 million.” Read more, here.
Around the Defense Department
The Navy’s recent announcement to build a Trump-class “battleship” caught the service by surprise, Rear Adm. Derek Trinque, the Navy staff’s surface warfare director since June, said Tuesday at the Surface Navy Association symposium outside Washington, D.C.
“I did not expect to be told to build a battleship when I got this job,” Trinque said.
Background: The Navy was not planning to unveil a new class of ship last year, much less two, but November and December brought the cancellation of a frigate program, the launch of another, and the comeback—at least in name—of a type the service had largely deactivated by 1947, Myers reports. The nascent Trump-class “battleship” will basically be a next-generation guided-missile destroyer “on steroids,” Adm. Daryl Caudle, chief of naval operations, said Wednesday at the symposium.
As the service was trying to figure out how to best equip the DDG(X), they were running out of space on the ship, having to make the choice between outfitting it with the new Conventional Prompt Strike missile and a tried-and-true gun system. So “when national leaders announced that they were interested in building a battleship, this was a great opportunity for us,” Trinque said. Continue reading, here.
On the Hill: SOUTHCOM and NSA/CyberCom noms are testifying. Marine Lt. Gen. Frank Donovan is up for nomination to lead Southern Command along with Army Lt. Gen. Josh Rudd, who has been nominated to be the next director of Cyber Command and the National Security Agency. Catch that over at the Senate Armed Services Committee’s livestream here.
Read more: “Experts see NSA nominee’s Pacific experience as a boost to US cyber posture on China,” Nextgov’s David DiMolfetta reported Wednesday.
And lastly today: The CBO says Trump and Hegseth’s Defense Department-to-War Department name change would cost between $125 million to at least “hundreds of millions of dollars.” The larger estimate would stem from a formal renaming by Congress, which would likely be closer to the $2 billion NBC News reported in November, citing six people with knowledge of the potential costs all across the military.
“In CBO’s assessment, it would cost about $10 million for a modest implementation of the order if the name change primarily occurred within the Office of the Secretary of Defense,” the Congressional Budgeting Office said in a new report made public this week. On the other end, “A statutory renaming could cost hundreds of millions of dollars depending on how Congress and DoD chose to implement the change.” Read more in their full report (PDF) here.
Additional reading:
Read the full article here