In January this 12 months, tensions reached a boiling point between Denmark and the USA as Donald Trump demanded access to Greenland.
Now, journalists on the Danish Broadcasting Corporation discovered that Danish troops stockpiled blood ahead of a possible confrontation with the US.
In January, the Prime Minister of Greenland told residents to arrange for a military invasion and flew soldiers to the icy enclave.
But along with weapons and explosives, the soldiers took blood from Danish blood banks to have available for the worst-case scenario.
Danish government officials, officers and intelligence sources revealed the data and likewise found plans to explode airport runways in case of a US invasion.
One source referenced the danger of this past January, telling DR: ‘We had not been in such a situation since April 1940.’
One other added: ‘I grew up in the course of the Cold War, and sometimes I wish I could return to the relatively stable time when world leaders knew how far they might go without triggering the worst-case scenario.’
Earlier this 12 months, Trump threatened to hit the UK and other European nations with 10% tariffs unless they agreed to his purchase of Greenland, a semi-autonomous Danish territory.
Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen told a press conference on the time that it was ‘unlikely there can be a military conflict, but it may’t be ruled out.’
‘That’s why we have to be ready for all possibilities, but let’s emphasise this: Greenland is a component of NATO and, if there have been to be an escalation, it might even have consequences for the remainder of the world,’ he added.
Greenland sits within the Arctic Circle, where world powers, including China and Russia, have been jostling for military control.
And for good reason: Controlling Greenland would give a nation an outpost in a significant naval corridor connecting the Atlantic Ocean and the Arctic.
As climate change melts the icecaps, the once nearly impossible-to-navigate ocean is becoming more spacious, opening up recent shipping routes.
Trump has been eyeing up the island since 2019, but he’s not the primary president to want it.
The US tried to purchase it in 1846 and again in 1946 – for the equivalent of £970million– amid the Cold War.
Under a little-known Cold War agreement, the US built the military base Thule Air Base in a distant corner of Greenland.
Now generally known as Pituffik Space Base (pronounced bee-doo-feek), the post is home to 150 personnel, who keep an eye fixed out for ballistic missile attacks.
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