The new Arctic security agreement strengthens Washington’s position in Greenland and shuts the door on a Russian or Chinese military foothold. But despite the president’s sweeping announcement, the United States has not taken possession of Greenland — and many of the military rights being celebrated today have existed for decades.

After several days traveling through Ukraine, Poland and Germany, I finally made it back home to Panama. I had barely unpacked — or, more accurately, discovered that the airline had apparently decided to keep my luggage — when President Donald Trump announced what he described as a historic agreement over Greenland.

Trump said the United States had secured “permanent control over security” in Greenland and would have the ability to prevent American adversaries from establishing military bases, deploying forces or making sensitive investments there. He called it an agreement without an expiration date and said the United States would begin developing a larger military presence on the island.

That sounds enormous. It sounds almost as if the United States finally got Greenland after all.

But that is not what happened.

Denmark and Greenland remain sovereign over the territory, and their leaders have been considerably more restrained in describing the agreement. They say the arrangement strengthens security in the Arctic and North Atlantic while preserving Danish sovereignty and Greenland’s right to self-determination. The final agreement is expected to be signed around the United Nations General Assembly and still must go through the appropriate parliamentary procedures.

The more interesting question is not whether Trump “got Greenland.” He didn’t.

The question is what America actually gained.

America Was Already There

One of the most important pieces of context has largely disappeared beneath the headlines: the United States has had extensive military rights in Greenland since 1951.

Under the existing defense agreement with Denmark, American forces already have broad authority to operate military facilities, station personnel, move supplies and conduct military operations in Greenland. The United States once operated more than a dozen installations there and today maintains Pituffik Space Base, formerly known as Thule Air Base.

That is why I think some of the celebration surrounding this new agreement needs to be put into perspective.

When I compared what we already possessed under the old arrangement with what has been publicly described in the new one, much of it looked familiar. The United States already had an enormous amount of latitude to defend Greenland and use it as part of the broader defense of North America and NATO.

There are, however, potentially important additions.

According to reporting on the negotiations, the new framework is intended to survive even if Greenland eventually becomes independent from Denmark. It also restricts non-NATO countries from establishing military bases and places tighter limits on sensitive investments by countries such as Russia and China. Depending on the final language, that could give Washington a more durable position in an Arctic region that is becoming increasingly important strategically.

That matters.

But it is a long way from annexation.

Trump’s Negotiating Style on Display

When I traveled to Greenland earlier this year, Trump was openly talking about acquiring the island and repeatedly refusing to rule out force. Those statements infuriated Denmark, alarmed European governments and were deeply unpopular among many Greenlanders.

At the time, I argued that if the United States wanted a larger military footprint or stronger guarantees against Chinese and Russian influence, there were far less destructive ways to accomplish that than threatening a NATO ally.

What we are seeing now looks very much like the end result of Trump’s familiar negotiating method: begin with a demand so extreme that everyone assumes it is impossible, create enormous pressure around it, and then retreat toward an agreement that would previously have looked ambitious.

You can like that method or hate it. I have never thought it was necessary to insult allies in order to negotiate with them. But in this case, Trump appears to have emerged with a strengthened American security position while Denmark retains sovereignty and Greenland retains its right to determine its own future.

That is a meaningful result.

It is simply not the same thing as America taking Greenland.

There is another reason for caution. As I recorded the live discussion, the complete text of the agreement had not yet been publicly released. That makes some of the sweeping claims surrounding it impossible to evaluate definitively. The governments involved have also described the arrangement differently, with Trump emphasizing permanent American control while Danish and Greenlandic officials emphasize sovereignty and shared security.
Until the final text is public, the details matter more than the victory speeches.

The Bigger Story Is Europe

Greenland is only one piece of a much larger strategic shift I watched unfolding during my trip through Europe.

Poland is becoming increasingly important to American military planning. Trump announced that progress is being made toward establishing a new permanent U.S. Army base there, while roughly 10,000 American troops are already stationed in the country on a rotational basis. Poland has spent years asking Washington for a more permanent American military commitment.

I saw that concern firsthand.

While I was in Warsaw, I visited the Polish parliament and interviewed Poland’s defense leadership about the growing security pressure along NATO’s eastern flank. Polish officials are deeply concerned about sabotage, drone incursions and other asymmetric threats connected to Russia, while the alliance is simultaneously watching conventional military activity around Belarus, Kaliningrad and the narrow Suwałki corridor connecting Poland with Lithuania.

The Polish message to Americans was remarkably straightforward: they consider the alliance with the United States central to their security.

That makes the movement we are seeing from Washington particularly interesting.

For much of Trump’s second term, Europeans have questioned whether the United States was moving away from NATO. Now Washington is discussing a permanent base in Poland while simultaneously strengthening its long-term position in Greenland.

Those two developments should be viewed together.

One sits on NATO’s Arctic and North Atlantic flank. The other sits near the alliance’s eastern frontier with Russia and Belarus.

Whatever the rhetoric surrounding NATO has been, the military geography is moving in the opposite direction from American withdrawal.

Washington Turns Up the Pressure on Moscow

There is another important development.

Trump signed a sweeping bipartisan Russia sanctions bill on September 18 after it passed the Senate 86-11 and the House 262-159. The legislation expands sanctions against Russian officials, banks and the so-called shadow fleet used to move Russian energy, while giving the president authority to impose tariffs as high as 100 percent on major importers of Russian oil and natural gas.

That does not guarantee that every available sanction or tariff will be used. As I pointed out during the live broadcast, giving the executive branch authority to apply economic pressure and actually exercising that authority are two different things.

Still, taken together with the discussions over Poland and Greenland, the direction is notable.

The United States is strengthening its ability to operate in the Arctic, discussing a more permanent military presence on NATO’s eastern flank and giving the administration powerful new economic tools against Russia.

That is not the posture of a country abandoning Europe.

Greenland Was Never Just About Greenland

This is why I think the Greenland story is being misunderstood.

The important part is not the idea that America somehow conquered an enormous Arctic island without firing a shot. It didn’t. Greenland remains Greenland, and Denmark remains sovereign.

The important part is that Washington appears to have secured a more durable strategic arrangement in one of the most important pieces of geography on the planet.

Greenland sits between North America, Europe and the Arctic. It matters for missile warning, space operations, air and maritime access and the emerging competition over the High North. Russia possesses an enormous Arctic coastline, while China has spent years seeking economic and strategic access to the region.

Keeping hostile military infrastructure out of Greenland is unquestionably important to American security.

Trump deserves credit if the final agreement strengthens that position while preserving the relationship with Denmark and Greenland.

But we should also be precise about what happened.

America did not take Greenland.

It appears to have strengthened an arrangement that has existed for 75 years, made that relationship more durable and secured additional guarantees against Russian and Chinese influence. That is less dramatic than the rhetoric surrounding the announcement, but strategically it may be far more useful.

And after what I just saw traveling through Poland and along NATO’s eastern frontier, I suspect Greenland will not be the last place where we see the United States quietly strengthening its position as the confrontation with Russia moves into a more dangerous phase.

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Become a Supporter

From sabotage and arson to drones and dangerous encounters in the Baltic, a growing series of incidents is forcing Europe to confront a difficult question: How far can the pressure escalate before NATO responds?

WARSAW, Poland — I came to Europe because the pattern was becoming increasingly difficult to ignore. Russia’s war against Ukraine is still being fought with missiles, drones, artillery and soldiers, but another confrontation is developing farther west — one that often operates below the threshold of conventional warfare.

From here in Warsaw, the signs of that confrontation are increasingly visible.

Across Europe, authorities are dealing with sabotage, suspicious fires, attacks on infrastructure, drone incursions and increasingly dangerous encounters involving Russian military forces. Not every incident has been publicly attributed to Moscow, and it is important not to treat suspicion as proof. But some cases have already produced compelling evidence of Russian involvement, while others are being investigated against the backdrop of a broader campaign European officials have increasingly described as hybrid warfare.

One of the clearest examples is here in Warsaw.

A Shopping Center Destroyed by Fire

I visited the remains of the Marywilska 44 shopping complex, a massive commercial center that once contained roughly 1,400 shops and service businesses. In May 2024, the complex was destroyed by fire.

Polish prosecutors have since concluded that the blaze was deliberately set by members of an organized group operating on behalf of Russian intelligence. Investigators say individuals connected to the operation were instructed to record the fire and send the footage to handlers for use on Russian propaganda channels. Polish prosecutors have also linked members of the same network to other arson operations in Lithuania and attempted attacks elsewhere in the region.

Standing at that site changes the way you think about the term hybrid warfare. It sounds clinical when discussed in a television studio. On the ground, it can mean an enormous commercial complex burned to the ground and hundreds of people's livelihoods disrupted.

The objective of an operation like this does not necessarily have to be territorial conquest. Disruption itself can be the weapon.

Sabotage Brings Dutch Railways to a Halt

That concern became even more immediate this week in the Netherlands, where authorities discovered deliberately placed materials on railway tracks at approximately 30 locations.

Metal pipes were positioned across rails, causing signaling problems and major disruptions across the Dutch network. Jumper cables were also reportedly used to interfere with railway systems. Police have opened a major investigation into what authorities are treating as coordinated sabotage.

At this point, however, Dutch authorities have not publicly identified who carried out the operation or established a Russian connection. That distinction matters.

But the scale of the operation is alarming regardless of who is ultimately found responsible. Someone demonstrated the ability to interfere with a NATO country's transportation infrastructure simultaneously across dozens of locations.

The purpose of hybrid warfare is often precisely this kind of ambiguity. The aggressor does not necessarily need to send tanks across a border. Instead, infrastructure fails, transportation is disrupted, fires break out and governments are forced to spend resources investigating incidents whose perpetrators may initially be difficult to identify.

The public experiences the consequences long before anyone knows for certain who is responsible.

Pressure in the Baltic

The escalation is not confined to covert activity.

A Russian frigate in international waters off Denmark fired two flares toward a Danish military helicopter that had been sent to photograph the vessel. Danish officials said one of the flares passed close to the aircraft. Denmark subsequently summoned Russia’s ambassador, while Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen described the incident as part of a broader pattern of increasingly aggressive Russian behavior in Europe.

Russia, for its part, accused the Danish helicopter of conducting dangerous maneuvers near its ship.

At roughly the same time, NATO aircraft intercepted and destroyed an explosive-carrying drone that entered Lithuanian airspace after approaching from Belarus. The incidents are different, but together they illustrate just how crowded and dangerous the space between Russia and NATO is becoming.

This is where the danger of miscalculation becomes difficult to dismiss.

A flare narrowly misses a helicopter. A drone crosses a border. A railway is sabotaged. A fire destroys a commercial building. Each incident can be treated individually as something short of war.

But what happens when one of them kills dozens of people?

The Strategy Behind the Pressure

My assessment is that Russia is testing how much pressure it can apply without provoking a direct NATO military response.

European governments remain among Ukraine’s most important supporters. Moscow has little realistic prospect of convincing those governments through diplomacy that abandoning Ukraine is in their interests. But it may have another avenue: convince ordinary Europeans that supporting Ukraine carries an increasingly uncomfortable price.

If trains stop running, factories are disrupted, infrastructure becomes unreliable and fear begins affecting everyday life, public pressure can eventually migrate upward toward elected governments.

That is the logic behind hybrid warfare. You do not necessarily defeat your opponent's army. You attack the society supporting it.

Russia’s conventional military remains heavily committed inside Ukraine, while Ukraine continues striking Russian energy and military infrastructure far behind the front lines. The Kremlin therefore has an incentive to find other methods of imposing costs on the countries supporting Kyiv.

Whether Europe is prepared to respond effectively is becoming one of the most consequential questions of this war.

Ukraine Is Still the Center of the Conflict

None of this means the conventional war has slowed.

Russia continues launching enormous numbers of missiles and drones against Ukraine, while Ukraine continues carrying out long-range attacks against Russian military and energy infrastructure. The human cost remains staggering, particularly for civilians living near the front and in cities subjected to repeated aerial attacks.

But the significance of what is happening in Europe is that the geographic boundaries of the conflict are becoming less clear.

Former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, speaking recently in Ukraine, described the conflict as fundamentally an imperial war and argued that the West must provide Ukraine with a clearer future inside European institutions. His argument is that ambiguity about Ukraine’s future has helped prolong rather than resolve the confrontation.

Whether one agrees with that conclusion or not, Europe is already confronting consequences that extend far beyond Ukrainian territory.

Where Is the Line?

NATO was created around the principle that an attack against one member can be treated as an attack against all. That principle is relatively straightforward when the attack involves tanks, aircraft or missiles.

Hybrid warfare deliberately makes the calculation harder.

What happens when the weapon is an arsonist?

What happens when critical infrastructure is sabotaged by people working indirectly for a foreign intelligence service?

What happens when a drone crosses NATO airspace, or a Russian warship fires flares toward a NATO aircraft and the next encounter ends differently?

Those are no longer theoretical questions.

I’m in Poland because I wanted to see this developing confrontation firsthand. From Warsaw, I’ll be traveling north toward the Suwałki Gap and then toward the border with Russia’s Kaliningrad exclave — one of the most strategically sensitive pieces of territory anywhere in NATO.

Ukraine remains the battlefield where the shooting war is concentrated. But the struggle surrounding it is already reaching much farther into Europe.

The question now is not simply whether Russia is willing to keep applying pressure.

It is how much pressure Europe will tolerate before it decides the line has been crossed.