Europe’s Defence Deficit Is a Deficit of Will




In the first week of January the American president said, of Greenland, that his country needed it for reasons of security. What struck me was the silence that followed in European capitals, which told me more than any reply could have.

“We need Greenland from the standpoint of national security.”
— President Donald Trump, January 2026, as reported by the Stockholm-based Institute for Security and Development Policy

The island belongs to Denmark, a founding member of NATO, and the man claiming it leads the alliance’s most powerful state. After years of covering summits, I know that diplomats reach for euphemism the way other people reach for an umbrella. Plainness, when it comes, is startling. My argument is a narrow one, and admirers of the West may not enjoy it: Europe’s predicament is not chiefly about money or machinery. It is about political will. Moscow has noticed, and so has Beijing, and so has every middle power watching from the stands.

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