After weeks of relentless attacks against Denmark, Greenland and the United States’ European allies, Donald Trump announced on January 21 “the framework of a future deal” over Greenland after a meeting with Mark Rutte, NATO’s secretary-general, at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. On Wednesday, February 11, the day before a meeting of NATO defense ministers in Brussels, Rutte, the former Dutch prime minister, announced the launch of “Arctic Sentry,” an enhanced surveillance operation in the region aimed at addressing the American president’s concerns.
The new initiative would “leverage NATO’s strength to protect our territory and ensure the Arctic and the High North remain secure,” said General Alexus Grynkewich, NATO’s supreme allied commander, on Wednesday. “For the first time now, we will bring everything we do in the Arctic together under one command,” added Rutte.
More specifically, all of the military exercises that various NATO countries had already planned in the area, as well as new surveillance resources deployed in the Arctic, will be coordinated at NATO’s Norfolk command in the US state of Virginia. Some countries have already announced sending new resources to the Arctic, such as the United Kingdom, which will double the contingent it has deployed in Norway, going from 1,000 to 2,000 soldiers in the next three years.
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