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NATO has launched a new mission in the Arctic, in large part to dispel the claims of President Trump that the U.S. should take over Greenland to fill security gaps in the region. As Teri Schultz reports, there are some concerns that the Alliance may be exaggerating its actions to smooth over relations with Washington.
TERI SCHULTZ, BYLINE: NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte announced the launch of Arctic Sentry with great enthusiasm, explaining, as President Trump did, that Russia and China are present in the region and have high ambitions to gain a further foothold.
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MARK RUTTE: For the first time now, we will bring everything we do in the Arctic together under one command. We will be able to leverage what we are doing much more effectively and having a bigger impact.
SCHULTZ: The mission, which is called an enhanced vigilance activity, is short on details for now, other than to explain it will be headquartered at NATO's Norfolk, Virginia, command. And that if it finds security gaps, it will fill them, employing the latest technology, especially with drones and surveillance. But Rutte acknowledges that at least in its early days, Arctic Sentry will primarily consist of military exercises and national deployments of troops and resources that were already in the works.
Some say this operation was rather hastily gathered together, primarily as part of the ongoing effort by the NATO chief, begun in negotiations in Davos, Switzerland, to calm the tensions created by Trump's repeated desire to acquire the semiautonomous Danish island of Greenland by force, if necessary. That's how Peter Viggo Jakobsen from the Royal Danish Defence College sees it.
PETER VIGGO JAKOBSEN: The timing and the reason that - the reason they're doing it is, of course, in order to demonstrate that Trump got something out of his meeting with the NATO secretary general. But I think it speaks volumes that nothing concrete is actually being said. They're painting it all with a very broad brush.
SCHULTZ: Jakobsen agrees, however, that it's not a bad idea to improve NATO's visibility and situational awareness in the high North. That's something experts like Ondrej Ditrych, from the European Union Institute for Security Studies, have long been advocating, especially when it comes to Russia.
ONDREJ DITRYCH: Perhaps in not so distant future - this depends on the range of variables, but I would say that the intent is there - there is a real possibility of a military action launched by Russia. This can be some sort of a premeditated naval assets clash. This can be taking or an attempt at taking NATO territory - Bear Island, something in Svalbard. So I think that threat is absolutely real.
SCHULTZ: But even without getting to that dramatic level, there are plenty of reasons for concern in the region. While Denmark has adamantly rejected the notion a U.S. takeover of Greenland would improve security in any way, the Danish government had long called for more attention to the potential for meddling by Russia and China. That's a fair call, says Verineia Codrean, chief of strategy at EUROATLAS, an engineering company specializing in autonomous underwater vehicles used for surveillance.
VERINEIA CODREAN: The risk in the Arctic is a little bit less of a conventional invasion, if you could call it that way. It's more a kind of a deniable disruption because activity below the threshold of war is often below the surface. That's where you have the biggest area for deniability, the biggest area of blind spots and the biggest vulnerability as well.
SCHULTZ: So while many of the real threats in the High North are not visible to the naked eye, NATO's hoping Trump sees the quick establishment of Arctic Sentry as the answer to them and never again insists on owning Greenland. For NPR News, I'm Teri Schultz in Brussels.
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