Name: NATO Chief Rutte announces new mission for increased Arctic security | DW News
Uploaded: 2026-02-11T17:11:00.000Z
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NATO is ramping up its military activity in the far north with a new mission dubbed Arctic Sentry.

The deployment follows a fallout between NATO leaders and Donald Trump over Greenland.

Participle clauses

Trump has backed off his vow to take control of the autonomous Danish territory, saying he has reached a deal with NATO chief Mark Rutte to ensure greater American influence.

Rute says the mission will initially pull together existing NATO activities to in the Arctic in the face of Russia's increased military activity and China's growing interest in the high north.

It was crucial that we do more, which is why we have just two hours ago launched Arctic Sentry.

Arctic Sentry leverages the strength of the alliance by bringing together NATO and allied activities in the high north into one overarching operational approach to the region, making clear our commitment to ensuring Arctic security and indeed the security of the whole alliance together.

Now let's go to DW's Terry Schultz in Brussels, where NATO is headquartered, for more on that.

Terry, give us some more information about this Arctic Sentry initiative.

Well, as you heard the Naito chief say there, this is basically Naito's taking over coordination of some things that were already being done in the Arctic, either by allied nations or by NATO itself, exercises, deployments.

And we do expect to see more of these things added as NATO's seeks to provide more deterrence to what Russia and China may be doing in the Arctic.

Now, if you talk to experts, they say there is no imminent danger from from Russian and Chinese presence at the moment.

But with all the pressure from washing, as well as the possibility that climate change will of course make it easier for Russian and Chinese ships to patrol up there, nobody thinks it's a bad idea to increase the presence.

And, you know, some of these things will be visible.

You will see more ships, perhaps more air patrols, others will not be visible, more sonar detection, more intelligence sharing, just whatever countries in the north feel is necessary to provide a safer environment.

And of course, this was, was sparked by President Trump's intention to take over Greenland, that there were security threats there.

But it does answer a lot of concerns that some countries, including Denmark, have had for a long time about the Arctic region now.

But will this appease Donald Trump enough for him to drop his demands to take over Greenland?

Well, that's definitely part of the hope.

But when you ask officials, of course they can't answer that because you don't know what Donald Trump thinks from one day to the next.

They do take some comfort in the fact that the Supreme Allied Commander Europe, the top military official in NATO.

And so he would as such, have a keen ear and eye on what will satisfy Washington.

And this so called enhanced vigilance activity is directly under his command.

He doesn't need to go back to allies to get permission to add to this, to this operation.

And so they're very much hoping that Supreme Allied Commander Grinkovic will be conveying to Washington exactly what it needs to hear.

Denmark has launched an effort to boost its military prowess in light of recent developments is extending the term of mandatory military service, including allowing women to opt out.

Terry, you went to film at an army base there.

Let's take a look at your report and come back to you in a second.

Hatrslev army base is where Danish troops last fought a war on their territory in 1940 and where they're reinforcing their ranks now in case there's another one.

These new soldiers are the first to enter training since Denmark expanded conscription.

More than doubling the length of service and making it gender neutral, it makes the possibility to have more combat power and have the combat power faster.

While military service is mandatory now for both men and women, there are more than enough volunteers to fulfill recruitment needs.

I'm mainly here to challenge myself and to learn a lot of things.

Sebastian Hedegaard says he's excited but also realistic about the risks of joining the military.

Obviously going to war is a big part, but maybe it won't happen.

Do you think it's closer than it was a year ago?

Addressing the previously unimaginable scenario of a US invasion of Greenland may require adjustments to a strategy that's long viewed Russia as Denmark's only real adversary.

I know that I need to address it, I know that I need to talk to them about it, and

I know that some of them are actually quite eager to know what are the Danish defence going to do?

What are the government going to do about this?

Sending more soldiers to Greenland is one way the Danish government has responded to the Trump administration's repeated refusal to rule out Greenland's involuntary annexation.

But just as this crisis eased through negotiations, Trump kicked off a new firestorm by saying NATO allies had stayed off the front lines in the war in Afghanistan.

This caused fresh anger and outrage among Danes, who lost more soldiers per capita in Afghanistan than any other country besides.

The US citizens put flags bearing the names of their 44 fallen service members here in front of the US embassy in Copenhagen.

It later replaced them with the small plastic versions, but the damage was done.

Thousands of people, many of them military veterans, later held a silent march and replaced the memorial flags.

One of those was retired Air Force Gen. Christian Witt, who'd never participated in a demonstration before.

But when Trump said America had been alone in the Afghan war, that crossed a line for him because he had personally deployed Danish troops there.

That's a stab in the back simply because that's a lie.

Denmark hopes days like that, active warfare won't come again, but

it's going to have thousands more soldiers ready if the fight does come to them.

DW's Terry Schultz 5 report is still with us.

Terry, in Denmark, did you get the feeling that this shattered sense of security that sort of permeated through that report will be permanent?

You know, what was remarkable to me is that the military officials that I spoke with, as well as just the conscript, as you heard there, were very open about the fact that they could no longer feel secure.

And this is not, as was true in decades past, coming from Russia, but

from the fact that the United States could no longer be trusted to come to their aid.

If something did happen with Russia that was more painful to Danes than even the Russian threat, which is constantly there.

In fact, a survey last Month found that 84% of Danes felt that the United States was no longer a friendly country.

That's remarkable in a place that used to be so pro American.

So this definitely is a pain and that will last for Denmark, and

that is one of the reasons why they're shoring up their self defense.

But at the same time, they are welcoming this new Arctic sentry mission.

This is something that Denmark has felt that it needs more broadly, not as President Trump has portrayed it, to protect Greenland, but

to protect the entire region, including Denmark.

So I think that there will be a lot of efforts to soothe the frayed nerves, the hurt feelings, but

And Denmark's added conscription is, is foreseen into the future to add up to 2,000 troops per year.

I don't think they're going to go backwards again, given what has happened to them in the last year.

Reporting from Brussels, thank you very much, Terry.

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NATO Chief Rutte announces new mission for increased Arctic security | DW News

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