Danish Arctic Commander: NATO Defense Requires Training (Full Transcript)

[00:00:00] Speaker 1: As a Dane who suffered a lot of losses in Afghanistan, 52 soldiers killed, that's as many per capita as the United States, is it disappointing to you that we're in this position? Frankly it is. I spoke with Zoran Andersson here in Nuuk in Greenland, he's Denmark's top military commander for the entire Arctic region. He's the one that's going to be leading the NATO military training exercises that are coming up here. Already troops are beginning to arrive and he told me their training, their exercise, the number of troops is only going to get bigger and bigger and bigger from here. It's very clear that at the moment President Trump's putting a huge amount of pressure on the Danish government on Greenland because he wants to have Greenland. Is this a message to President Trump that NATO can provide security here?

[00:00:53] Speaker 2: I will not go into any political thoughts but for me it is if you are going to defend the kingdom, going to defend NATO's northern flank, you simply have to train.

[00:01:04] Speaker 1: And part of the defense of the kingdom requires Danish troops, if fired upon by others, to fire back. If US troops came here in an aggressive way, President Trump says you might have to do this the hard way. If US troops came here and fired, would Danish troops fire back their NATO ally?

[00:01:20] Speaker 2: I think it's a hypothetical question actually because I don't think a NATO ally will attack another NATO ally.