When Danish soldiers were flown head over heels to Greenland in January this year, they brought explosives with them so that they could destroy the airstrips in Nuuk and Kangerlussuaq, among other places.

This was to prevent American military planes from landing soldiers on the island, if President Donald Trump ultimately chose to take Greenland by force.

Also included in the cargo was blood from Danish blood banks, so that the wounded could receive treatment if it had come to battle.

This is the experience of DR, which over the past year has spoken to key sources in the Danish government, top officers, as well as high-ranking officials and intelligence sources in Denmark, France and Germany.

All the sources have played – and continue to play – key roles in the international crisis triggered by the United States' demand for control of Greenland.

Together, the sources paint a picture of an unprecedented year with sleepless nights. None of the sources have solid intelligence about specific U.S. attack plans against Greenland.

Still, in January, many of them feared that the historically important ally, the United States, could attack Greenland at any time.

At the same time, they talk about a process in which Denmark reached out to its European allies, and that together they found a closer unity.

"With the Greenlandic crisis, Europe realized once and for all that we need to be able to take care of our own security," said a top French official who has played a crucial role in the intense months and critical days of the Greenland crisis.
The key people from France and Germany say that shortly after the election of Donald Trump as president of the United States, Denmark sought political support in confidential talks – as early as the beginning of 2025 – to resist the now increasing American demands to take over Greenland.

The support was sought by the governments in Paris and Berlin, but also in the Nordic capitals. At that time, according to the sources, the goal was to create a European political alliance on the defense of the Realm.

On the one hand, Denmark wanted to avoid an escalation with the United States. But at the same time, they would not simply bow to the enormous military superiority if it came to an American attack on Greenland, according to several of DR's sources.

"The political leadership, the Armed Forces and the security apparatus in Denmark decided to 'play the game'," says the French official, who has worked to coordinate the cooperation between the Danish and French governments.

The countermeasures that Denmark and the allies chose to take on Danish initiative were to signal strong European solidarity and more joint military activities in Greenland, he says:

From France alone, Denmark could expect soldiers equivalent to a small battalion, which means several hundred soldiers, the official say.

At this time, the plan was for Denmark and the European allies to send soldiers to Greenland during 2026 to show that they took the defense of the island seriously.

But shortly into January 2026, the situation escalated in a way that caused the Danish government to hastily speed up the deployment of the soldiers.

Eight of DR's sources describe one trigger in particular: The morning of January 3, 2026, when they woke up to the news that the United States had attacked Venezuela and removed the country's president.

"That's where it blows up," says a high-ranking source in the Danish security apparatus.

For now, President Donald Trump had not only expressed an intention to use his military superiority, but also demonstrated his willingness to put it into practice in a country like Venezuela:

"When Trump keeps saying that he wants to take over Greenland, and then what happened in Venezuela happened, then we had to take all scenarios seriously," the source said.

The source also says that it was part of the assessment of the threat of a takeover of Greenland "that the official United States does not function as usual":

"Trump does not have the same degree as previous people around him who would talk him out of it. It's super dangerous.

With short notice, a first command with Danish, French, German, Norwegian and Swedish soldiers was flown to Nuuk and Kangerlussuaq.

Immediately afterwards, a main force followed, including soldiers from the Dragoon Regiment in Holstebro, elite soldiers from the Jaeger Corps and French Alpine hunters who are trained for war in cold, mountainous areas.

At the same time, Danish fighter planes and a French naval vessel were sent to the North Atlantic.

The goal of having soldiers on the ground in Greenland – with as many different flags on their shoulders as possible – was, according to six of the sources, that the Americans would be forced to carry out a major hostile action if Donald Trump actually wanted to take Greenland militarily.

That should deter the United States from even trying.

"We have not been in such a situation since April 1940," says a Danish defense source, referring to the days leading up to the occupation of Denmark during World War II.

At that time, the Danish government at the time chose a strategy of not opposing the occupying power militarily.

But in the Greenland crisis, the government and the top defense brass chose the opposite line after long discussions in deeply confidential meetings, DR has learned:

If the United States wanted to try to attack, the Danish soldiers had to carry ammunition and take up the fight. In the same way, the Danish F-35 fighter jets that were rushed to the north were also heavily armed.

All this despite none of DR's sources having any illusions that it would be possible to hold their own against an American attack.

That May, Trump was visiting Long Island for a political event when he met briefly with Ronald Lauder, a longtime friend and heir to the cosmetics fortune. Lauder told him Denmark was struggling economically and suggested that the U.S. could leverage that strain to buy Greenland outright, according to the former White House official.