By Per Nyholm
24.01.2025
The Ukrainian Review
Ukraine, Denmark and Europe as a whole suddenly feel and fear the effects of the change of power in Washington. We are not just going from one American government to the next, Republicans after Democrats, Donald Trump after Joe Biden. It seems to me – during a long stay in Lima, the sizzling capital of Peru – that we are finally leaving the epoch, which began with the end of World War II in 1945 and included the collapse of the Soviet Union. We are approaching a new age, maybe an age of tyrants and tyrannical artificial intelligence.
As a devout European and democrat I can hope for the best but must fear the worst. Democracy seems to be decaying around me, and not only in South America, where politics tend to be rather dubious. Until recently democracy was considered inevitable, in the US so victorious that a famous professor could sell his idea of the end of history on the market of fantastic opinions.
Today, at the opening of the second quarter of the 21st century, we have more history than we can consume, ranging from two extremely brutal wars in and near Europe: Russia’s genocidal war in Ukraine, and Israel’s war in Gaza. Lies flourish on what is called social media at the expense of the civilization we know, and which largely emerged from the Enlightenment and the European revolutions from 1789 to 1848.
Are we dealing with a paradigm shift? My answer is a reluctant yes. Fundamental ideas, models, and notions are being turned upside down. Let me venture to say, as we move from the disappointing US election in the direction of the 22nd century, that with Donald Trump in the White House, Vladimir Putin in the Kremlin and Xi Jinping in the secret city of Beijing, we move from a troubled, but familiar world to one of lawlessness and brutality. It looks like a paradigm shift, a repeat, not a copy, of ancient Rome’s fall in the fifth century to the barbarians.
In this process, Ukraine, much against the hope of 1991, plays a leading role. Ukraine is the front line of European civilization. If the barbarians break through in Ukraine, the rest of Europe will be lost. Europeans, all Europeans, the brave Ukrainians included, must make common cause here and now, given that under Trump, the United States can be expected to return to its historic destiny, that of distancing itself from Europe. Will Europeans take responsibility? We shall know more after next month’s parliamentary elections in Germany, but I can control my optimism.
These weeks, Denmark has its meeting with reality. Denmark, Ukraine’s close partner, considers itself a country of peace and thought, as a member of NATO, that it was protected by the USA. The enemy was always Russia, communist or fascist. Even before Trump’s return to the White House, this convicted gangster let it be known that his USA demanded the cession of Greenland to the USA for “absolute” security reasons. The Danes now know, what the Ukrainians have known for centuries, that international law does not exist, that the inviolability of borders and territorial integrity do not exist, that treaties and alliances do not exist, that the new Trump-Putin era knows only power and powerlessness.
A war between two allied democracies? It seemed unthinkable, but in the paradigm shift between old and new, we see a large country issuing its ultimatum demands to a small country. The Danes, who have not been at war since 1864 when they ceded Schleswig and Holstein, two predominantly German-oriented duchies, to the Kingdom of Prussia and the Empire of Austria, have no idea what to do and cannot count on much help from other Europeans. Danish security policy since the establishment of NATO in 1949 has collapsed. The East Europeans and Baltic peoples know that the Putin admirer in Washington can sell them to the warmonger in the Kremlin, if and when it may suit his whim. The Danes were caught unaware and as innocent as Alice in Wonderland.
A fear in Copenhagen is that should Denmark not follow orders, Trump may whisper to Putin that maybe he should move out into the Baltic Sea and take the island of Bornholm. A summit between the two gentlemen gangsters is approaching. What should we fear, not only the Danes but all of us? Maybe Trump and Putin in 2025, just like Hitler and Stalin in 1939, will divide Europe between them.
The small state of Denmark is in a hopeless situation vis a vis its now formal ally, the superpower USA. Copenhagen wants to negotiate with Washington, but about what? Denmark can suggest a referendum on the future of Greenland. Shall the world´s biggest island with 56,000 inhabitants remain with the kingdom? Shall it go to the US? It can also become a sovereign Greenlandic state? But will it be allowed to live? Of course, it won’t. The US, Russia and even China are there to grab what can be grabbed, even with a risk of a major war on top of the world.
The Danes can try to stall in the hope that Trump will lose his majority in Congress in the midterm elections only 22 months away (if those elections will be allowed to take place). Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen, referred to by Trump as “a nasty woman”, because in 2017 she refused his bid to buy Greenland, may be speculating in the president’s early death or normal resignation in four years. Who knows? Perhaps Trump or his successors will maintain the demand. Perhaps they will have the Constitution rewritten to the point where a Trump dynasty can be created and remain in power indefinitely, the empire of America, model North Korea.
Only this much is certain: The Greenland crisis, like the almost three-year-old war in Ukraine, shows that not only Denmark, but Europe – having neglected its defence needs in favour of an easy life – now risks becoming the victim of the new age. The paradigm shift is in full swing.
These opinions are solely those of the author.
Per Nyholm has been a Danish journalist since 1960. He is based in Austria and is a columnist and foreign correspondent at the Jyllands-Posten, a liberal Danish daily newspaper.
Tetiana Stelmakh adapted this text for The Ukrainian Review.