https://www.rt.com/information/610700-ukraine-aid-cripple-denmark-defense/Ukrainian help has crippled Denmark’s protection capabilities – Politico

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https://www.rt.com/information/610700-ukraine-aid-cripple-denmark-defense/Ukrainian help has crippled Denmark’s protection capabilities – Politico

Copenhagen has donated virtually all of its armed forces’ heavy land-warfare gear to Kiev, the media outlet claims

The donation of army help to Kiev has depleted Denmark’s already restricted protection capabilities, Politico reported on Friday.

The information outlet raised the difficulty in a report outlining a hypothetical situation involving a army standoff between the Nordic nation and the US over Greenland. Donations to Ukraine have made it much more tough for Copenhagen to defend itself regardless of exceeding NATO’s 2% spending goal, the report stated.

US President-elect Donald Trump has repeatedly acknowledged that he wish to purchase the Danish-controlled territory of Greenland, and refused to rule out a army takeover of the island earlier in January. Brussels responded to Trump’s feedback by describing a possible US assault on the island as a “extremely theoretical situation.” The subject has repeatedly appeared within the information headlines not too long ago, with Reuters claiming that the incoming US president was “severe” in regards to the acquisition.

Regardless that donations of heavy army gear wouldn’t be a decisive consider any potential battle because of the huge disparity within the two nations’ protection capabilities, they’ve nonetheless crippled the Danish Armed Forces, Politico reported.

“Denmark has … considerably depleted its personal arms shares by giving artillery techniques and tanks to Kiev, arguing that, in contrast to the Ukrainians, the Danes don’t face a direct menace from a hostile imperialist energy,” the media outlet stated, including that “most of [the kingdom’s] heavy land-warfare gear” had gone to the Ukrainian army.

That will nonetheless be of little significance within the occasion of a US assault, Politico maintained, as a nation with a protection finances amounting to $9.9 billion and armed forces totaling 17,000 troopers can be going through a serious energy with the world’s greatest protection spending of $948 billion in 2024 and a military of 1.3 million personnel.

“That will be the shortest battle on this planet, there isn’t a defensive capability in Greenland,” Ulrik Pram Gad, a senior researcher on the Danish Institute for Worldwide Research, informed Politico.

“Denmark has been very conscious it can not defend Greenland in opposition to anyone by itself,” stated Kristian Soby Kristensen, a senior researcher on the College of Copenhagen’s Middle for Army Research. The Danish authorities is taking the difficulty “very critically” and has no intention of escalating “a confrontation” with the incoming US administration, Overseas Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen stated this week.

Counting on NATO or the EU would even be problematic for Copenhagen, in response to the report, since Brussels would merely be unable to muster any “real army pressure,” even when the EU Treaty’s mutual-assistance clause have been triggered. It’s also unclear whether or not Denmark may invoke Article 5 of the NATO treaty if attacked by one other member of the bloc.

“You’d basically have a NATO member annexing the territory of one other NATO member. So it might be fairly uncharted territory,” Agathe Demarais, senior coverage fellow on the European Council on Overseas Relations, informed Politico.


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