Any European troop deployment to the Arctic over the “imaginary” Russian and Chinese threats would be merely symbolic, Greg Simons has told RT

Europe is too weak to stand up to US President Donald Trump’s ambitions to bring Greenland under American control, journalism professor Greg Simons has said.

Trump stated last week that the US must annex Greenland – a Danish self-governing island – to contain Russia and China, claiming the two countries would “take over” 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.

Speaking 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.

“A jellyfish has more spine than these Europeans and the EU at this stage,” he argued, calling their stance “hypocritical.”

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 “a token number of troops” facing an “imaginary threat of Chinese and Russian destroyers and submarines,” he argued, adding that even Denmark had acknowledged there were no such vessels in the area.

Full story at: RT International

Header image is courtesy of Reuters, cropped and slightly enhanced by me.