Waging war on Denmark is wrong and will damage U.S. defense and foreign relations for decades

We Americans should be ashamed of ourselves and of our government. Stealing Greenland from Denmark by military force or the threat thereof is criminal under international law. It is immoral. Doing this to one of our closest allies, one always generous in aiding our defense and that sacrificed lives fighting for us, is outrageous. Donald Trump and Elon Musk initiated this, but we as citizens offer few objections. Politicians who should understand the issues are mute.

Consider the key fact that relative to national populations, as many Danish soldiers died fighting our war Afghanistan fighting as did Americans. Trump and Musk say controlling Greenland is somehow necessary for defense, a view never advanced in military circles before now.

Why not?

Because Denmark has allowed the U.S. to freely operate dozens of military facilities in Greenland starting in World War II and continuing to the present. These included several U.S. Air Force bases, including two large ones with nuclear bombers and aerial refueling tankers. We based nuclear-tipped Nike missiles on the island, operated four Dew Line radar bases and ran a naval support facility. When a B-52 with four nuclear weapons crashed in 1968, some 700 Danish civilians worked without personal protective equipment on a cleanup of scattered radioactive material. Yet 20 years later we stiffed 200 of them who sued for damaged health.

This is not a mere issue of differing opinions. It is a deeply moral one but also has practical implications for our place in the world going forward.

Are we as a people entirely ungrateful to others who sacrificed for us? Can we thus ever be trusted? Will we keep promises? Will we uphold treaties that 14 U.S. presidents made over eight decades?

Moreover, since it is clear that the whole impetus comes from the desire of Musk, a manufacturer of electric cars, to gain control of rare earth minerals, the world knows that blatant corruption now drives U.S. defense and foreign policy.

Why is no one speaking up?

Rudy Boschwitz long was a key member of the Senate Relations Committee. He knows attacking a small ally harms our position in the world. What about Arne Carlson, proud of his Scandinavian Heritage? What about Tim Pawlenty, thoughtful and moderate? None are in any danger from Trump. Why are all lips sealed?

Not only GOP leaders show moral obtuseness. Why isn’t Amy Klobuchar calling for sanity? Tina Smith is not running again. Why is she silent on this issue?

Moreover, if GOP Reps. Finstad, Emmer, Fischbach and Stauber really think that destroying  NATO is good policy, then why don’t DFL Representatives Craig, Morrison, McCollum and Omar protest twice as loudly?

I am not the only veteran who knows the importance of common defense of democracy against aggression. Over decades, hundreds of Minnesota Guard and Reserve members have trained with Danish comrades. Some served with them in Afghanistan. Why do none protest?

Many of us have friends named like Pilegaard or Jamtgaard. We have been to Aebelskiver celebrations in towns like Tyler, Ruthton, Dovray or Askov. Thousands of Minnesotans have Danish roots. Millions of us are their friends and relatives. Why such silence?

Americans have a curious faith that we can offend and always be forgiven. This time we are wrong. Our silence tacitly approves immoral actions that will harm our nation’s vital interests for decades going forward.

St. Paul economist and writer Edward Lotterman can be reached at stpaul@edlotterman.com.

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Russia’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine, Kyiv’s pressing problems on the battlefield and President Donald Trump’s brazen unpredictability have done what no other combination has done before: shocked Europe out of its peace dividend slumber. An increasing number of European leaders are now asking themselves whether the Continent can afford to do business like it did in the three decades since the Berlin Wall came tumbling down. As French President Emmanuel Macron observed with trademark dramatic flair weeks ago, “It’s quarter to the midnight.”

There is an emerging acknowledgment among Europeans that they’ve been sitting on their behinds for too long assuming the U.S. will be perfectly willing to keep the barbarians from breaching the walls. Americans have tried to disabuse them of this notion for decades — in 2011, then-U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates warned NATO allies that it would be difficult to maintain U.S. support for the alliance if the burden continued to fall on America’s shoulders. But the Europeans didn’t really take the issue seriously until a revanchist Russian leader by the name of Vladimir Putin brought war back to the region.

So it’s only fair to ask: Is Europe casting old assumptions aside and stepping up to the plate? The answer is muddled.

On the positive side of the ledger, European policymakers are moving at a relatively fast pace, which is quite impressive given the typically slow churning of Europe’s arcane bureaucracy. Germany, a country that traditionally favors social spending over national defense and is almost immovable out of its comfort zone, now resembles a country in a hurry. Last week, incoming Chancellor Friedrich Merz, working with the very political party he defeated in February elections, managed to change Germany’s constitution to loosen the country’s debt break, which constrains discretionary spending. The next German government will now be able to increase its defense budget and rebuild the dilapidated Bundeswehr without having to worry about strict deficit laws.

The European Union is doing something similar. Last week, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen laid out a series of new initiatives to bolster the Continent’s military capability. A big part of this involves joint purchasing, allowing the EU bureaucracy to negotiate weapons contracts on behalf of its members in order to get the best price and minimize duplication. But by far the most innovative is a provision exempting defense spending up to 1.5% of gross domestic product from the EU’s strict fiscal rules. If taken advantage of, this could add an additional 650 billion euros to the EU’s total defense spending.

But it’s not all good news. For starters, there is still some division on Ukraine. Europe generally speaking is on Ukraine’s side, wants a settlement to the war to be as close to Kyiv’s preferences as possible and isn’t wiling to explore a detente with Moscow until the war is over. But not all European countries are singing from the same song sheet. Disagreements persist on how much support Ukraine should receive. This was illustrated during an EU summit last week, when the bloc’s foreign affairs chief was unable to get consensus on a 40 billion-euro military aid package to replenish the Ukrainian army’s stockpile of artillery ammunition. A slimmed down version of the same proposal was tabled for another day. At the end of the meeting, EU officials walked away with nothing to show for their efforts.

Although this is no doubt discouraging to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, it’s not surprising. Indeed, just because countries have a similar understanding of a problem doesn’t necessarily mean they will have a similar set of beliefs on what to do about it. Different European states also have different interests and opinions about what is most pressing or important. Those such as Poland, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, which hug the long Russian border and were once subject to Soviet Union rule, view the Russian threat as the most immediate. Italy and Spain, however, don’t share this history and are much farther away geographically, which means their perception of Moscow as a threat is less acute. Even in Germany, the second biggest supplier of military aid to Ukraine, the war is just one concern among many. Immigration and the economy, for instance, were the leading issues for German voters during the last elections.

There is also a limit to what Europe is willing to do without Uncle Sam looking over its shoulder.

Working with Macron, United Kingdom Prime Minister Keir Starmer has spent the last several weeks cobbling together a “coalition of the willing” to increase the odds of any peace deal with Russia holding. According to the plan, thousands of European troops would be placed near critical infrastructure sites in Ukraine, accompanied by air and sea assets, to defend these areas and potentially respond if Putin violates any deal. Starmer is prepared to host a meeting of European military chiefs this week to dive deeper into the operational details of the plan, up to and including which European country will contribute forces, who will command the mission and where air support will be based.

The problem, however, is that Starmer has repeatedly emphasized that his brainchild will only work if the mighty U.S. is backing up the European reassurance force. The British have made the argument that unless Washington is part of the mission, Putin simply won’t take it seriously and may press his luck with another invasion of Ukraine in the future. The Trump administration isn’t sympathetic to the pitch. Others, such as Germany and Italy, are either lukewarm to the concept entirely or don’t envision participating unless Washington is involved.

Yes, Europe is changing. But old habits die hard.

Daniel DePetris is a fellow at Defense Priorities and a foreign affairs columnist for the Chicago Tribune.

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Marion McCarthy was in seventh grade the first time she ever went to a library.

“I’ll never forget to this day, walking in there and seeing all those books. I couldn’t get over it — I was just so excited. And from then on, I really liked the library a lot,” said McCarthy, who is originally from Detroit and moved to St. Paul in 2011 to be closer to her son.

So McCarthy, still an avid reader at 97 years old, was again excited Friday when she received her first Minnesota library card from St. Paul Public Library’s Mobile Library when it visited Episcopal Homes, the senior living community where she lives in St. Paul’s Midway.

“Marion the Librarian,” McCarthy called herself, a nod to a character in the classic Broadway show “The Music Man.”

The library card will make it easier for McCarthy to request books for a monthly book club she’s joined. Until now, she’s had enough books available to her at Episcopal Homes, but that also didn’t stop her on Friday from checking out a book by John Grisham, one of her favorite authors.

“And they were able to get me a book right away, in large print,” McCarthy said.

Mobile Library

Those working on the Mobile Library, formerly known as the bookmobile, want to make sure that people can get the books they want, said mobile library manager Savitri Santhiran. For many, it’s the only regular access they have to a library.

“Every place that we visit faces some sort of barrier. So it could be social, economic, geographic barrier to visiting a regular brick-and-mortar location. So we’re not going to be parking right next to Rondo Library, because there’s already a brick-and-mortar location there,” Santhiran said. “We are going to be in places in St. Paul where there are few services, or no services in a couple cases.”

St. Paul Public Library has had a mobile library service since the late 1800s, Santhiran said. In addition to its books, the Mobile Library also provides or has provided other things, like notary services or digital education or youth engagement activities, such as crafts or STEM activities. The Mobile Library also has a wheelchair lift and large print books to make it more accessible.

Marion McCarthy, 97, of St. Paul, picks the design for her first Minnesota library card, a St. Paul Public Library card, from Mobile Library employee Matthew Metzdorf on Friday, March 28, 2025. (Imani Cruzen / Pioneer Press)

In addition to visits from the Mobile Library, the St. Paul Public Library also works with around 10 partner sites, such as Episcopal Homes, to provide an exchange set — a set of large-print books or books on CD that are lent to the site for three months in order to give residents a longer period of time to access them.

“A lot of people like me, they don’t have a car, and so they, you go online, get a book, and then they come here with the bookmobile, you pick up the book. And it’s very, very convenient, very convenient,” said Lena Brooks, who started the book club McCarthy has joined.

In addition to reading, McCarthy also leads regular exercise classes, has been involved with the Lake Elmo nonprofit Vital Aging Network’s Aging with Gusto series and has worked on “kindness kits” with items for people who are homeless.

“You can still participate, continue learning,” she said.

‘I just like learning’

Typically, McCarthy likes murder mysteries and authors like Grisham or Tom Clancy, but her next book club read will be a biography — though she likes those, too — “Harriet Tubman: Military Scout and Tenacious Visionary” by Jean Marie Wiesen and Rita Daniels.

She might be one of the oldest new recipients of a library card at 97, but McCarthy is accustomed to showing others what they can do, especially at any age — she went to college despite hearing doubts about girls going and even entered a master’s program in her 70s.

“I just like learning, that’s all,” McCarthy said. “I can’t say why.”

To learn more about St. Paul’s Mobile Library and to see its schedule or services, go to sppl.org/mobile-library/.

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FOREST RIVER, N.D. – If this was a baseball game, the regular starters would have been absent, only to be replaced by three rookie fill-ins who came off the bench to take their place.

It wasn’t a baseball game, though; it was a “shed hunt,” a search for antlers that whitetail bucks shed every winter on a prime piece of hunting land along the Forest River near the border of Grand Forks and Walsh counties.

Most years, brothers Philip Schanilec of Apple Valley, Minn., and Ben Schanilec of Minto, N.D., along with spouses and friends, scour this family property early in the spring looking for antlers that bucks lose when hormone levels drop after the rut, or mating season.

It’s a social occasion that’s typically followed by a wild game feed put on by Brian Schanilec of Forest River, the brothers’ dad. Brian, an avid hunter known for his cooking prowess, owns Forest River Bean Co., and several hunting properties in the area.

In recent years, though, family commitments sometimes have taken priority over shed hunting for the two Schanilec brothers.

“I haven’t been up there in probably three years now for shed hunting, but my brother has taken friends out,” Philip Schanilec said in a phone interview. “Living in the Cities now with two kids, it’s a grind to make the trip, but we’ll get back up there one day.

“It’s fun stuff.”

First-time shed hunter

Among the newbies in the field on this brisk March day was Kelly Schanilec, the boys’ mother. While new to shed hunting, it didn’t take her long to catch on to the program.

Kelly Schanilec walks between tree rows looking for antler sheds on her family’s land near Forest River, N.D., on Saturday, March 22, 2025. She was “shed hunting” — searching for antlers that whitetail bucks shed every winter on family land along the Forest River near the border of Grand Forks and Walsh counties. (Eric Hylden / Forum News Service)

She definitely had a good eye, once she got the hang of what to look for. Think of blocking out everything on the landscape that doesn’t look like an antler and you get the idea.

Find the first one, Kelly says, and the others become easier to spot.

“I love being outside doing these kinds of things,” she said. “It can be a great family experience.”

While Brian Schanilec was the host of this shed-hunting excursion, which provided an opportunity to tromp through rows of mixed conifers and a deer-attracting food plot, he prefers to showcase his culinary talents rather than his antler-spotting prowess during his sons’ springtime shed hunts.

Ben lives nearby, but a new baby and other family commitments kept him away on this Saturday shed-hunting excursion.

“This is their annual deal but none of them can make it,” Brian said. “It’s a two-, three-hour deal, and then afterwards, we have a little meal at my house with two or three different types of wild game.

“That’s kind of our tradition.”

Getting started

According to Ben Schanilec, the tradition of looking for antler sheds on the 177-acre site began about 2012. A 20-acre (or so) food plot on the hunting property can attract more than 100 deer at times, Ben says, which got him and his brother thinking.

An antler shed pokes up out of the shelterbelt floor on Schanilec family land near Forest River, N.D., on Saturday, March 22, 2025. Family members were “shed hunting” — searching for antlers that whitetail bucks shed every winter — on family land along the Forest River near the border of Grand Forks and Walsh counties. (Eric Hylden / Forum News Service)

“I don’t know how we got the idea,” he said in an interview. “We were just thinking there might be a lot of sheds out there in the spring. I think whenever the snow came off that year – it was probably March or April – we went out there, found a bunch and since then, we’ve done it pretty much every year.

“It’s something fun to do if the weather’s nice.”

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Prime shed hunting time begins when about 90% of the snow is gone and before vegetation turns green, the brothers say. The antlers become more difficult to spot after green-up.

“I think the longer you wait, like if you did it in the summer, it would be harder to find them, and then the sun can really bleach the color of the antlers,” Ben Schanilec said. “And then, I don’t know what kind of rodents chew on antlers, but if you had a really nice shed, like from a nice buck, you’d rather not have the chewing on it.”

Another key is focusing on wintering areas, places where the deer spend a majority of their time and are most likely to drop their antlers.

“Our first year shed hunting, we went to every corner of the property, climbing over logs, under logs and getting scraped up,” Philip said. “Based off of how much effort we were putting in vs. what we were finding, we found the most efficient thing to do is chase the feeding areas.”

Besides being the most productive, they’re also the most accessible, he says.

“We’ve had a little routine going where we start with the food plot, then we go to the tree rows around the food plot, then we go toward the feeders that are in the trees and then we do the evergreens up in the meadows,” Philip said. “You want to look for areas where they spend most of their time. If you’re finding a trail that they traverse once a day for two minutes, the likelihood of them dropping a shed on that trail is probably pretty small.”

They’ll find 25 to 30 sheds on a good day in years with higher deer numbers. More recently, 15 to 20 would be a good day, the brothers say.

“If you wanted to look under every log in the property, you could spend a whole month out there,” Philip said. “Our group size is usually anywhere from as small as two to as big as probably six or seven, and we’ll spend anywhere from an hour and a half to five hours out there, depending on what the weather is like and how much fun we’re having and all that kind of stuff.”

The brothers have a knack for picking those perfect spring days with little wind and a high temperature of 49 degrees or so, Brian Schanilec says.

“They somehow figure that out, and they kind of make a social occasion out of it,” he said.

Finding shed antlers also saves on tire repairs when replanting his food plots, Brian says.

“I’ve popped tires before” by driving over antlers, he said.

Tougher winters with deeper snow, which force the deer to congregate in smaller areas, often provide the best shed hunting opportunities – or worst tire-popping risks – once the snow melts.

“This year was a very mild winter, so I saw deer spread out all over here all winter,” Brian said.

That’s apparent by the abundance of feed, such as brassicas, still in the ground in the food plot.

“They weren’t even in our property because there was still a lot of corn in the ground, and on top there wasn’t much snow,” Brian said. “So they didn’t need to come.”

Productive hunt

Philip Schanilec couldn’t make the trip for last weekend’s shed hunt, but he still got involved by putting together a map, highlighting spots where the brothers have had their best luck finding antlers over the years.

Kelly and Brian Schanilec compare a couple of antler sheds during a shed hunt on family land near Forest River, N.D., on Saturday, March 22, 2025. “Shed hunting” is searching for antlers that whitetail bucks shed every winter. (Eric Hylden / Forum News Service)

The shed hunters found 14 sheds during their two-hour excursion. Not bad for a trio of rookies.

“Some people do the shed hunting experience to gain knowledge of certain deer on their property,” Philip said. “We moreso do it as a time to be outdoors. It’s getting a little bit warmer out, you get to be outside after a cold winter and it gets you excited for deer season already, starting in February or March.”

In keeping with tradition, the elk Brian prepared for a post-shed hunt feast was spectacular. And if the day was any indication, the Schanilec brothers will have a new shed-hunting partner in years to come.

That would be their mom.

“This was so much fun,” Kelly Schanilec said. “I want to go again.”

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