Starmer considering sending military to Greenland as Trump ratchets up rhetoric
Sir Keir Starmer is considering sending British troops to Greenland as talk of Donald Trump usurping Danish territory continues to escalate.
This came just days after the prime minister pledged to send troops to Ukraine as the core of a coalition willing to guarantee peace; former senior military officials questioned whether the UK had enough personnel.
The statement came after Obama’s former deputy secretary of state, Frank Rose, said: Independent He says Mr. Trump’s actions threaten to undermine U.S. defenses in the region and lead allies to turn on him.
President Trump has insisted he wants control over Greenland and has not ruled out using military force to seize the semi-autonomous Danish territory.
Transport Minister Heidi Alexander insisted discussions about securing the High North from Russia and China were part of NATO’s “business as usual” rather than a response to the US military threat.
Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch harshly criticized the discussions, warning that the NATO alliance was in danger of collapsing and arguing that Greenland was a “secondary issue”.
He told the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg: “What I’m really worried about now is whether there will be a NATO. We have to keep America on our side.”
Meanwhile, Britain’s former ambassador to the US, Peter Mandelson, insisted he did not believe Mr Trump would send US troops to take control of Greenland and accused the US president’s critics of “wanting to hold on to their pearls” rather than face the facts. But his Labor counterpart criticized the prime minister, who sacked him as ambassador, for failing to deliver a promised increase in defense spending.
Telegram Military chiefs are reportedly drawing up plans for a possible NATO mission to Greenland, which could include the deployment of British soldiers, warships and aircraft to the island.
Ms. Alexander downplayed the suggestion, telling Ms. Kuenssberg that the report “probably adds more meaning to the usual business discussions among NATO allies than it actually does.”
He said the UK agreed with President Trump that the Arctic Circle was “becoming an increasingly controversial part of the world”. [Vladimir] Putin and China”.
“Even though we haven’t seen the terrible consequences in that part of the world that we saw in Ukraine, it’s really important that we do everything we can, together with all our NATO allies, to make sure that we have an effective deterrent against Putin in that part of the world.”
Mr. Trump has said he wants to take control of Greenland, which has a strategic location and natural resources, and “if we don’t do it the easy way, we’ll do it the hard way.”
But Lord Mandelson said he did not believe Mr Trump would use the military against a NATO ally.
“President Trump will not go to Greenland, he will not take Greenland by force,” he said. “He’s not an idiot. What’s going to happen is there’s going to be a lot of discussion, a lot of consultation, a lot of negotiation, and at the end of the day we’re all going to have to wake up to the fact that the Arctic needs to be secured against China and Russia.”
“And if you ask me who will lead this reassurance effort, we all know it will be the United States, right?”
He argued that Mr. Trump “believes that we live in a world of conflict and hard power… and that sometimes the nettles have to be grasped.” We need to understand this.”
He also criticized Sir Keir for failing to match his commitments with promised increases in defense spending.
“I’m sorry, but the money has to follow,” he said. “I think the principle [of extra defence spending] is accepted. I think financing has been adopted, but I haven’t seen the financial plans. “It’s not for the future, it’s not the way it should be built and developed in the years to come.”
Downing Street sources noted that the prime minister shares President Trump’s view that Russia’s increasing aggression in the High North must be deterred and Euro-Atlantic security strengthened, and that the UK takes Russia and China’s threats in the region “extremely seriously”.
They confirmed that NATO discussions on strengthening security in the region are ongoing and we will never get ahead of them, but the UK is working with NATO allies to step up efforts to strengthen Arctic deterrence and defence.
Just last year, UK Commandos, along with 7,000 allied troops, Royal Navy patrol boats and RFA Lyme Bay, took part in Exercise Joint Viking in Norway, one of NATO’s largest High North exercises in sub-zero temperatures.
This year, 1,500 Royal Marines will be deployed to Exercise Cold Response in Norway, Finland and Sweden, training with allies to defend key areas and demonstrate NATO unity.
But retired senior military officials last week warned Britain was being overextended despite Sir Keir’s commitment to Ukraine.
Retired Air Marshal Edward Stringer has warned in a report for Policy Exchange that rising defense spending in the UK is being “drained by the Ministry of Defence” [MoD]Overdraft as the UK’s military footprint shrinks at a critical moment.
Its report, titled “There Are Gaps in Defense”, states that the British Army currently has only 14 howitzers in total; The Royal Navy has been unable to launch more than one attack submarine for some time; and the RAF had to send training unit pilots to sea to secure certification of the carrier-based F35 Force.
Meanwhile, another Policy Shift report earlier in the week by another retired air marshal, Lord Stirrup, outlined how the UK had become too reliant on nuclear weapons for deterrence and warned that this did not scare Vladimir Putin.
It comes after Sir Richard Shirreff, who served as NATO’s deputy supreme allied commander in Europe from 2011 to 2014, said allied forces would need at least 50,000 troops in Ukraine to deter an attack from Russia, while the military currently has fewer than 75,000 personnel.
