Nato’s European powers have been served a reminder that the distraction of a “Greenland sideshow” could weaken vital support for Ukraine, the alliance’s former assistant secretary general has told The National.
Dr Jamie Shea said European struggles to generate troop commitments for Ukraine should show how important it was to avoid a rapid departure of US troops from Europe.
“The problem for the Europeans is that they're already having trouble generating forces for the Ukraine reassurance force, let alone their Nato commitments in Eastern Europe,” he said. “They can't afford Greenland to become a massive and diversionary side show.”
Ukraine’s ability to defend itself if Washington orders the withdrawal of its key intelligence operation and sale of weapons would be deeply damaging.
“The focus on Ukraine should be the number one priority. It is crucial for European and US security,” said Nato Secretary General Mark Rutte, speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos.
Ukraine fears
The urgency of the threat to Ukraine was highlighted by UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who told parliament on Wednesday it would be “foolhardy” for Nato to “rip up our relationship with the US and abandon Ukraine”.
Vital to any future peace deal between Kyiv and Moscow is American security guarantees that Mr Starmer and others appeared to have cemented with the US last month.
“We have to work with our allies, including the US, on security guarantees to make sure we can do what we must do in relation to Ukraine,” he said.
Mr Rutte also said long-range US ballistic missiles were “not available any more” to supply Ukraine, most probably because of supply constraints. Kyiv’s air defence stockpiles are diminishing as Russia continues its aerial campaign against energy infrastructure.
It was unclear whether President Volodymyr Zelenskyy would meet Mr Trump in Davos but during his hour-long speech the US President did refer to seeing him during his stay.
Resource drain
With Mr Rutte presenting a framework for Artic security at Davos that led Mr Trump to withdraw the threat of punitive sanctions on Europe, Dr Shea had a suggestion for what that would look like. To remove the sting from Washington's Greenland push, he said Nato funding could be used to build up Greenland’s defences. This would see airfields, air defences, radar and bases, and more military exercises.
“But Nato can't afford for Greenland to become a massive drain on ships and aircraft or forces getting stuck there doing nothing, because the Russians are not really present there at all, nor the Chinese.”
More importantly, the posting would distract significantly from the peacekeeping force the British and French are trying to establish for Ukraine and “the much more dangerous situation in the Baltics”.
“Nato doesn't have infinite forces, and if you put them into the B scenario, you're losing out on the more important A scenario,” said Dr Shea, senior fellow at the Friends of Europe in Brussels.
“This is an unnecessary crisis for Nato,” he warned, which could pull resources away from far more serious threats in Eastern Europe and Ukraine. “The threat is not a Russian parachute division landing in Greenland and occupying the island.”
American withdrawal
But Greenland had also reinforced the deeper problem of declining European confidence in America as a reliable security guarantor. “We’re dealing with a background where the US is disengaging from Nato,” he said.
There was concrete evidence including the withdrawal of 200 US officers from Nato command structures and the removal of a US combat brigade from Romania.
“This is not dramatic withdrawal but a steady nibbling away at the US contribution,” Dr Shea said, adding that the key European task now was to “keep enough Americans in Nato to give Europeans time to build up”.
That included preserving US nuclear deterrence and maintaining a limited troop presence in Europe, he said, noting that Congress passing legislation mandating a minimum of 72,000 US troops in Europe was “good news for Nato”.
But the mood inside Nato headquarters in Brussels had of late become grim. “It’s been a pretty depressed atmosphere, frankly,” Dr Shea said. “Ambassadors aren’t meeting up for cozy cups of tea."
The real issue for Nato was the type of model Mr Trump was proposing of one in which the US dominated, leaving Europeans with “no real political say”.
“Do Europeans really want Nato at that price?” he said. “That’s the real question they’re facing.”
