I have written before about my early experience with the ACE Military Force, when I patrolled inside the Arctic Circle as part of NATO’s northern flank protection mission, watched by Soviet Bear aircraft. Apart from three months winter warfare training in Northern Norway, we also took our tanks to Esbjerg, where I learned about Danish history at first hand. What impressed me particularly was the way Denmark rebuffed a megalomaniac bully in World War I and saved most of their Jewish community after Hitler invaded in World War II.
Danish DNA is one of the main constituents of British people, especially in the North East of England. We only have to look to the last century, when a Danish princess became Queen Consort of the United Kingdom, to see how close we are. And a wise Danish king, who ruled England one thousand years ago, gave us one of the most important freedoms ingrained in British law: a freeholder’s right to protect their crops and domestic animals from harm.
I have given talks about civil-military co-operation in Oslo and Stockholm and had the honour to command a courageous Danish detachment in Baghdad. So, it pains me to see the current dispute that is threatening to break the North Atlantic Alliance. The reasons why the international order that has lasted 80 years is failing to keep the peace are complex, but the proposed US land-grab of Denmark’s autonomous territory is a symptom, not a cause.
Trump’s justification for taking Greenland by force is similar to Argentina’s occupation of The Falklands, or Mussolini’s intimidation and invasion of Albania. It doesn’t help that Europe has neglected Arctic security since the Cold War and did nothing about the US intervention in Venezuela. But, history tells us that bullies cannot be appeased, so any unwelcome US seizure of territory belonging to a European sovereign state must be resisted.
British Tanks In Northern Norway
Rupert Wieloch 