President Donald Trump has often joked that Denmark’s defense of Greenland is so paltry that it consists entirely of “two dog sleds.” As one of the few people to have manned those sleds, Kasper Damsø bristles at the remark.
For two years in the late 1990s, the Danish elite special forces soldier patrolled the vast, frozen expanses of Greenland’s uninhabited northeastern corner, often with only eleven dogs and one fellow soldier for company. His Sirius Patrol unit underwent the kind of hardcore physical training Navy SEALs receive, endured mental resilience training from NASA, and spent long months in minus-50-degree temperatures monitoring for any suspicious activity. So, although he acknowledges that Denmark needs to increase its security investment in Greenland, Damsø says the patrols are no joke.
“He can make fun of the dog sleds all he wants. But he should come and see what we do. Because then, no one will be laughing.”
Read more: Why Is Trump So Intent on Acquiring Greenland?
If Damsø’s words suggest a bit of steel beneath the Danes’ normally agreeable exterior, it is a sentiment increasingly shared at the highest levels of government. As President Trump’s long-standing desire to take over Greenland, a semi-autonomous territory within the kingdom of Denmark, has erupted into a full-blown crisis, the Danish government has been working fervently to prove itself a good ally and reach a diplomatic solution. But as Trump has continued to insist that Greenland must be taken, Denmark is also beginning to communicate, ever so delicately, that there are limits to its flexibility. And now that Trump has responded with further threats to its efforts to give him more of the Arctic security he says he wants, the pushback is spreading throughout Europe.
“We have to work closer with our most reliable allies,” said Rasmus Jarlov, chairman of the Danish parliament’s defense committee, in an interview with TIME on Friday. “And the ones that…
