NATO Alliance

NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte insisted on Monday that Europe is incapable of defending itself without US military support and would have to more than double current military spending targets to be able to do so. "If anyone thinks here... that the European Union or Europe as a whole can defend itself without the US, keep on dreaming. You can't," Rutte told EU lawmakers in Brussels. Europe and the United States "need each other," he said. Tensions are festering within NATO over US President Donald Trump's renewed threats in recent weeks to annex Greenland, which is a semiautonomous territory of NATO ally Denmark. Trump also said that he was slapping new tariffs on Greenland's European backers, but later dropped his threats after a "framework" for a deal over the mineral-rich island was reached, with Rutte's help. Few details of the agreement have emerged. The 32-nation military organisation is bound together by a mutual defence clause, Article 5 of NATO's founding Washington trea

Prince Harry, who served in Afghanistan, said the "sacrifices" of British soldiers during the war "deserve to be spoken about truthfully and with respect" as he weighed into the furor surrounding remarks that US President Donald Trump made about non-US NATO troops. Trump suggested in comments Thursday that troops from non-US NATO countries avoided the front line during the Afghanistan war, drawing pushback in Britain including from Prime Minister Keir Starmer. Prince Harry, who had two tours to Afghanistan in the British Army, said the US's allies "answered" the call to stand with the country after the September 11, 2001 attacks. "I served there. I made lifelong friends there. And I lost friends there. The United Kingdom alone had 457 service personnel killed," he said. "Those sacrifices deserve to be spoken about truthfully and with respect, as we all remain united and loyal to the defence of diplomacy and peace.

When alliances last this long, they are assumed to be permanent. But, as the famous saying goes, nations have no permanent friends or enemies, only permanent national interests

Trump has proposed invoking Nato's Article 5 to protect America's southern border, questioning whether the alliance would defend the US while reiterating concerns over illegal immigration

White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly said that if the deal goes through, the US would achieve all its strategic goals in Greenland 'at very little cost, forever,' adding that Trump is hopeful about it

Denmark's prime minister insisted that her country can't negotiate on its sovereignty on Thursday after US President Donald Trump said he agreed on a "framework of a future deal" on Arctic security with the head of NATO, and she has been "informed that this has not been the case." Trump on Wednesday abruptly scrapped the tariffs he had threatened to impose on eight European nations to press for US control over Greenland, a semiautonomous territory of NATO ally Denmark. It was a dramatic reversal shortly after he insisted he wanted to get the island "including right, title and ownership." He said "additional discussions" on Greenland were being held concerning the Golden Dome missile defence programme, a multilayered, USD 175 billion system that for the first time will put US weapons in space. Trump offered few details, saying they were still being worked out. Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said in a statement that security in the Arctic is a matter for all of NATO, and it i

Trump brushed aside EU resistance on Greenland, confirmed a call with Nato's Mark Rutte and raised the prospect of tariffs, testing European unity ahead of Davos

Intimidation," threats and blackmail are just some of the terms being used by European Union leaders to describe US President Donald Trump's warning that he will slap new tariffs on nations opposing American control of Greenland. European language has hardened since Trump returned to the White House 12 months ago. Now it's in reaction to the previously unthinkable idea that NATO's most powerful member would threaten to seize the territory of another ally. Trade retaliation is likely should Trump make good on his tariff announcement. A year into Trump 2.0, Europe's faith in the strength of the transatlantic bond is fading fast. For some, it's already disappeared. The flattery of past months has not worked and tactics are evolving as the Europeans try to manage threats from an old ally just as they confront the threat of an increasingly hostile Russia. Trump's first term brought NATO to the brink of collapse. I feared that NATO was about to stop functioning, former Secretary-General

The strategic importance of Greenland is growing, and Nato has underinvested in Arctic security, but President Trump, intent on ownership, is rebuffing deals with Europe to solve the problem

Denmark's foreign minister said Wednesday that a fundamental disagreement over Greenland remains with President Donald Trump after talks in Washington with Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio. But the two sides agreed to create a working group to discuss ways to work through differences as Trump continues to call for a US takeover of Denmark's Arctic territory of Greenland. Trump is trying to make the case that NATO should help the US acquire the world's largest island and says anything less than it being under American control is unacceptable. Denmark has announced plans to boost the country's military presence in the Arctic and North Atlantic as Trump tries to justify his calls for a US takeover of the vast territory by repeatedly claiming that China and Russia have their designs on Greenland. Denmark is ready to explore what is doable' on Greenland, even amid disagreements with the US Leaders from Denmark and Greenland say they don't agree with Trump on t

UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer has urged allies to step up their security presence in the High North and recently reached out to European leaders

Britain is discussing with NATO allies how it can help beef up security in the Arctic to counter threats from Russia and China, a government minister said Sunday. Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander said the talks are business as usual rather than a response to recent threats by US President Donald Trump to take over Greenland. Trump said Friday that he would like to make a deal to acquire Greenland, a semiautonomous region of NATO ally Denmark, to prevent Russia or China from taking it over. We are going to do something on Greenland whether they like it or not, Trump said Friday. Greenland, with a population of around 57,000, is defended by Denmark, whose military is dwarfed by that of the US, which has a military base on the island. Denmark's prime minister has warned that a takeover would threaten NATO. Tensions have grown between the US and Denmark since the Trump administration renewed its warnings against Greenland. Jesper Moller Sorensen, Denmark's ambassador to the US, fir

As Donald Trump revives calls for US control of Greenland, Nato faces rare internal strain. Here's how the alliance was born, how its role evolved, and why allies are alarmed

As Donald Trump revives talk of acquiring Greenland, here's explaining on whether the US can legally buy the island, what international law allows, and why Europe is pushing back

While Greenland is a self-ruling territory, with the local government controlling most domestic issues, Denmark oversees the Arctic island's defense and security

Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said Monday an American takeover of Greenland would amount to the end of the NATO military alliance. Her comments came in response to US President Donald Trump's renewed call for the strategic, mineral-rich Arctic island to come under US control in the aftermath of the weekend military operation in Venezuela. The dead-of-night operation by US forces in Caracas to capture leader Nicols Maduro and his wife early Saturday left the world stunned, and heightened concerns in Denmark and Greenland, which is a semiautonomous territory of the Danish kingdom and thus part of NATO. Frederiksen and her Greenlandic counterpart, Jens Frederik Nielsen, blasted the president's comments and warned of catastrophic consequences. Numerous European leaders expressed solidarity with them. If the United States chooses to attack another NATO country militarily, then everything stops, Frederiksen told Danish broadcaster TV2 on Monday. That is, including our NATO and .

Erdogan said he made his pitch personally to Trump during their White House meeting in September, calling the decision to expel Turkey from the F-35 programme 'unjust'

Two NATO-nation intelligence services suspect Russia is developing a new anti-satellite weapon to target Elon Musk's Starlink constellation with destructive orbiting clouds of shrapnel, with the aim of reining in Western space superiority that has helped Ukraine on the battlefield. Intelligence findings seen by The Associated Press say the so-called zone-effect weapon would seek to flood Starlink orbits with hundreds of thousands of high-density pellets, potentially disabling multiple satellites at once but also risking catastrophic collateral damage to other orbiting systems. Analysts who haven't seen the findings say they doubt such a weapon could work without causing uncontrollable chaos in space for companies and countries, including Russia and its ally China, that rely on thousands of orbiting satellites for communications, defence, and other vital needs. Such repercussions, including risks to its own space systems, could steer Moscow away from deploying or using such a weapon,

Spain previously earned Trump's ire when it rejected the US call at the Nato Summit in June to increase defence spending to 5% of national GDP, becoming the only nation in alliance to reject new goal