What is the U.S. strategy? To force Denmark out?

I do not know whether there is a strategy behind this or whether these are tactical, isolated steps which in reality lack the bigger picture. We have also seen the Greenland issue ebb and flow in Trump's rhetoric. At times, other matters supersede it and it sinks into oblivion, then everyone breathes a sigh of relief. It is clear that were the U.S. to take any forceful steps to bring Greenland under its control, then this would significantly damage the credibility of the U.S .as an ally, even as this already suffered, in the eyes of other allies.

In that case, NATO as we know it today would no longer exist.

NATO is, above all, a political organization which operates on the principle of consensus. NATO can take steps when all allies concur. If one ally starts using force to seize territory belonging to another ally, then, clearly, achieving consensus on other issues becomes correspondingly harder, plus I believe that a situation like that would quickly get tested by China in Taiwan, and possibly by Russia in its own neighborhood. Would NATO then be able to set aside the simmering Greenland pot and deal with those acute security concerns? It is really this which makes us uneasy.

Not much time had passed after the arrest of the Venezuelan president before people had quickly turned to Greenland, then the U.S. administration itself once again expressed interest in owning that island. So how is this issue going to be resolved?

Greenland does not belong to the U.S. today, that is without doubt. The highest authorities have not been able to explicitly rule out the use of military force, either. I am fairly confident that it will not come to that. I think the U.S. already has a military presence in Greenland today. There are no significant levers that could prevent the U.S. from boosting that military presence there if it wished to do so. I think Denmark itself is not opposed to this either, as Denmark, the U.S. and Greenland all are a part of NATO, and in order to improve Greenland's security and, through that, indirectly the security of the U.S., the U.S. certainly does not need to acquire, buy, or conquer Greenland.

Instead, if we look at Venezuela, it is interesting that various members of the U.S. government have tried to attach a more noble purpose to that operation — talking about Maduro's illegitimacy, which is true; talking about drug trafficking, which is partly true, as a flow of narcotics originates from Venezuela, but it does not go to the U.S. especially, rather more to Europe. So from the American perspective, that certainly is not the real driving motive. The motive is that, regardless of what other administration members have said, President Trump practically returned to oil in the very next sentence. I think that in the case of Greenland too, , one major motivator is strategic mineral resources, which, with technological development and climate change, will likely be possible to extract there to an even greater extent in the future.

As President Lennart Meri said, international law, or a stable legal order is small states' "nuclear weapon." Do we still have that nuclear weapon as firmly in our grasp?

I have never liked that metaphor. A nuclear weapon is, first and foremost, a deterrent, and in an ideal world it is never used. International law, by contrast, should be applied at all times. I think the metaphor is not the most promising one, although I do grasp what President Meri was trying to say with it.

As a small state, we certainly depend very much on international law remaining strong and on rules which have been agreed actually being observed by all parties, be they large or small, militarily powerful, or less powerful states.

What is being said in Europe? The leaders of seven countries have issued a statement in support of Denmark, saying that Greenland has the right to decide for itself how it manages its affairs. From Greenland itself, there are also contradictory messages. Some residents there say that they are not being invited to the table and that this game is being played over their heads. Others want nothing at all to do with America.

The prevailing sentiment in Greenland is that Greenland and its resources belong to the people of Greenland. There is certainly some skepticism about how Denmark has exercised its authority in Greenland over decades, or even centuries. But that does not give America the right to take unilateral steps to bring Greenland under its control. I believe that opposition to this is certainly very strong in Greenland as well.

Does the U.S. also influence Europe in some way, so that Europe says it does not like the threatening statements coming from the U.S.?

It does have some influence. It is quite significant that the British prime minister — a leader of a country that is an important partner of the U.S. — was behind that joint statement too. The same goes for the Italian prime minister, who has been a relatively close political ally of Trump in Europe. So I believe that the fact that practically all major European countries are behind such a statement and are expressing solidarity with Denmark will certainly not go unnoticed or unheard. Whether Trump himself will allow his statements to be influenced in any way is doubtful, but I believe that Marco Rubio and other influential members of Trump's inner circle do see it.

What happened in Venezuela at the hands of the authorities of the U.S., and the subsequent statements — above all by Donald Trump himself — have raised many questions. Were those rights applied fairly and correctly?

It is clear that international law has, in a sense, blurred boundaries and that it is constantly evolving, but undoubtedly those who are concerned about compliance with international law still do not feel any sympathy for Nicolás Maduro.

When both our foreign minister and the [foreign minister] secretary general said that we certainly are not shedding tears for Maduro, that is substantively absolutely correct, though it slightly misses the point, as of course we are not shedding tears for Maduro. But our concern is about the survival of international law. This is both academic and practical. If the U.S. applies this new Monroe, or so-called "Don-roe" Doctrine and says that anything which happens in the Western Hemisphere falls within its privileged sphere of interest, that others have no business there, and that the U.S. may assert its sovereignty over other states in that region, then there is not the slightest reason to think that other great powers will not try to do the same in their own neighborhoods. Unfortunately, here, we are close neighbors of a far more malevolent great power, one which is hostile toward us, and this understandably makes us anxious.

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