Greenland Turns Into an Alliance Problem, Not a Strategic Asset
- What had been a strategic discussion about Arctic access, radar coverage, and basing has shifted into a test of alliance limits.
European officials are now publicly warning that a unilateral U.S. military move on Greenland would rupture NATO. Greenland has responded by saying any defence activity must sit inside the alliance, and Denmark has backed that position publicly ahead of senior-level talks with Washington.
This is no longer being handled through Denmark and NATO behind closed doors. Allies are now saying in public what they will and will not accept. They will not accept a U.S. military presence or control in Greenland outside NATO structures. They will not accept bilateral arrangements that bypass Denmark or Greenlandic consent. They will not accept public pressure or unilateral moves on a sovereignty issue that has always been managed collectively.
The tone coming out of Washington has made this harder. Cartoon-style White House posts about Greenland may play to a domestic audience, but they land badly with allies who are already drawing lines. When European officials are warning openly about NATO breaking, they are reacting not just to policy signals, but to how those signals are being delivered.
What had been a strategic discussion about Arctic access, radar coverage, and basing has shifted into a test of alliance limits. Once those limits are stated in public, they become harder to walk back, even if interests still overlap.
Washington wants Greenland for practical reasons. It sits between North America and Europe and anchors early-warning systems, missile tracking, and control of North Atlantic and Arctic air and sea approaches. It offers space for runways, sensors, and support infrastructure that cannot be replicated elsewhere and sits next to routes that matter for military movement, shipping, undersea cables, and communications. It is also one of the few Arctic locations fully inside Western political and legal space at a time when Russia is active across the region and China is looking for access through investment and infrastructure.
Part of the value is simply keeping others out. And sitting underneath all of that is energy. The Arctic is estimated by the U.S. Geological Survey to hold around 90 billion barrels of undiscovered oil. Greenland’s offshore basins are part of that estimate. Those barrels are expensive and slow to develop, but they exist, and that alone keeps Greenland relevant to Washington even when no one is drilling.
Greenland also carries a longer-term oil dimension that policymakers never fully lose sight of. The Arctic holds a large pool of undiscovered oil, and Greenland’s offshore basins are part of that landscape. Those barrels have remained untouched because they are expensive and slow to develop. It wasn’t necessary. But when governments start worrying about where future supply could come from, and under whose control it would sit, places like Greenland resurface as options that remain on the table when alliances break down.