Any European troop deployment to the Arctic over the \u201cimaginary\u201d Russian and Chinese threats would be merely symbolic, Greg Simons has told RT<\/p>\n
Europe is too weak to stand up to US President Donald Trump\u2019s ambitions to bring Greenland under American control, journalism professor Greg Simons has said.
\nTrump stated last week that the US must annex Greenland \u2013 a Danish self-governing island \u2013 to contain Russia and China, claiming the two countries would \u201ctake over\u201d the island unless Washington acted first. Several media outlets have since reported that the UK, France and other European states are discussing plans to send ground forces to Greenland to signal that they take Arctic security seriously.
\nSpeaking to RT on Tuesday, Simons, who teaches at Daffodil International University in Dhaka, Bangladesh, said European governments lack the strength and will to resist Trump.
\n\u201cA jellyfish has more spine than these Europeans and the EU at this stage,\u201d he argued, calling their stance \u201chypocritical.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Commenting on the reports of a potential deployment, Simons said such a move would be largely symbolic. Any European troop presence in Greenland or the wider Arctic would amount to \u201ca token number of troops\u201d facing an \u201cimaginary threat of Chinese and Russian destroyers and submarines,\u201d he argued, adding that even Denmark had acknowledged there were no such vessels in the area.
\nRather than reflecting strategic autonomy, the idea shows Europe trying to placate Washington, Simons believes. \u201cIt\u2019s an attempt to try and appease Trump,\u201d he said, adding that the message to the US president would be: \u201cSee, we\u2019re helping you, so there is no need to annex.\u201d
\nHe argued that \u201cde-industrialized Europe\u201d is \u201cgutted\u201d and has \u201cvery pathetically sized armies which are nothing to speak of,\u201d leaving it unable to compete with the US for control of Greenland or the wider Arctic.<\/p>\n
READ MORE: Denmark pushes back against US Greenland annexation bill<\/p>\n
Denmark has insisted that Greenland is not for sale and that the island\u2019s future must be decided by its residents, who voted in 2008 to retain self-governing status within the Danish realm.
\nBeijing has criticized Washington for using Russia and China as \u201cpretexts\u201d for a deeper push into the Arctic. Moscow has yet to officially respond to Trump\u2019s latest remarks, but it has previously stressed that Greenland\u2019s future must be determined by its citizens and dismissed claims that Russia poses a threat.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Any European troop deployment to the Arctic over the \u201cimaginary\u201d Russian and Chinese threats would be merely symbolic, Greg Simons has told RT Europe is too weak to stand up…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":26152,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":[],"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","footnotes":""},"categories":[4,6,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26151","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-economy","category-environment","category-politics"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mongolianews.mn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26151","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mongolianews.mn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mongolianews.mn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mongolianews.mn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mongolianews.mn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=26151"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mongolianews.mn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26151\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mongolianews.mn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/26152"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mongolianews.mn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=26151"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mongolianews.mn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=26151"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mongolianews.mn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=26151"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}