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CRISIS LENS | South Korea’s nuclear drama: “green light, red light”

kruk — Sun, 01 Mar 2026 14:11:00 +0000

CRISIS LENS | South Korea’s nuclear drama: “green light, red light”

In this instalment of the Crisis Lens series, we take a look at a country with a significant civilian nuclear program comprising 19 reactors. South Korea has the scientific and technical infrastructure capable of covering the full nuclear material handling cycle, as well as nuclear experts who have suggested that “if we decide to stand on our own feet and concentrate our resources, we could build a nuclear weapon within six months.”¹ The actual timeline may be longer than six months, especially if the goal is to develop a deployable and operational weapon. Still, Seoul’s capacity and willingness to develop nuclear weapons with relatively few obstacles, should it deem this necessary, should not be underestimated.

In November 2025, a small circle of former South Korean generals, nuclear engineers and civil defence scholars gathered in Seoul. Above them hung the banner Korea Nuclear Security Project (한국의 핵안보 프로젝트). On paper, it looked like a conventional audit of deterrence doctrines. This time, however, there was a more serious question in the air. What began as a government-commissioned study gradually turned into something else: a manifesto for a state trying to think through what survival really means when it must increasingly rely on itself.

This is not an ideological or theatrical move. Rather, it grows out of a quieter belief that if one thinks far enough ahead, and flexibly enough, it may still be possible to prevent the catastrophe of forced reunification breathing down from the North. It is the preface to a story about how the atom, long kept peaceful, may find its way into South Korea’s crisis management faster than we expect — and against the assumption that a democratic state would not dare to fall out with the UN Security Council.

The project’s first two publications,^A “Justification and Implementation Strategy” (당위성과 추진 전략) and “Persuading the International Community and Building Bipartisan Cooperation” (국제사회 설득과 초당적 협력), appeared last summer and mark a subtle shift.² The first publication, for example, poses painful questions and draws conclusions that feel both technical and existential. Its first chapter asks: “Would North Korea really be unable to use its nuclear weapons?” In the fourth chapter, it states that “extended deterrence now belongs to the past — a strategic ‘myth’ repeated more than believed.” The discussions and conclusions are concrete and harsh: as Pyongyang continues to develop its strike capabilities, Seoul’s defence concept still rests heavily on theories of pre-emptive strike, which could collapse already at hour zero if something goes wrong.

Although the wording is sharp, it is not reckless. It describes a growing unease in South Korea and a debate about its central alliance relationship, which no longer radiates the same psychological reassurance. It is therefore not surprising that Seoul no longer treats the American nuclear umbrella as permanent, but increasingly sees it as an agreement that must be maintained, serviced, adapted when necessary and, if needed, renegotiated.

For Washington, long accustomed to assuming that its promises speak for themselves, this may look like mere wordplay — and perhaps it is. But wording has consequences, because even small reinterpretations tend, over time, to grow teeth. This shift in thinking is partly linked to the Trump phenomenon, which has profoundly shaped early twenty-first-century foreign policy. Yet the new mindset is driven above all by North Korea’s own behaviour: its consistent pursuit of a two-track strategy, developing capabilities to neutralise the US nuclear umbrella while building tactical nuclear warfare options at least in the East Asian region, and primarily against South Korea.^B

In the shadow of nuclear suspicion

A significant share of the world’s population tends to perceive contemporary South Korea through K-dramas, K-pop, or the high-tech products that have helped cultivate an image of the country as innovative, modern, and benign. From a security perspective, however, this picture has not always been so innocent. On the contrary, between 1968 and 1975 South Korea sought to acquire the capability to reprocess plutonium from spent nuclear fuel through a reprocessing facility, as well as intermediate-range missiles.³ It also pursued uranium enrichment research into the 2000s; between 1979 and 1981 it conducted chemical uranium-enrichment experiments, in 1982 separated small quantities of plutonium, and between 1983 and 1987 produced depleted-uranium ammunition.⁴

Over the decades, South Korea has, at different stages and with varying degrees of intensity, attempted to advance a nuclear weapons programme, particularly during the rule of military dictator Park Chung-hee. These efforts were motivated not only by energy-security concerns but also by national-security considerations. To this day, at least among South Korean nuclear nationalists, both nuclear weapons and spent-fuel reprocessing capabilities are regarded as important components of the country’s energy and security policies,⁵ albeit still without an actual nuclear arsenal.

It is important to note, however, that despite the country’s considerable resources, the nuclear programme of that era—known as Project 800—was relatively modest in scale. It consisted of several sub-projects, such as Project 890, which aimed to develop a nuclear warhead design. All of these components depended on one another. At the same time, the programme was managed by only a handful of scientists and engineers and lacked high political priority.⁶ Rather than constituting a full-scale weapons programme, it functioned more as a strategic joker in reserve—an insurance policy to be kept in the back pocket for crisis scenarios in which South Korea might need stronger cards at the negotiating table, particularly if the United States were ever to “optimise” its security commitments in the future.⁷

It is also worth highlighting that if North Korea was aware during the 1990s of South Korea’s uranium-enrichment research—and Pyongyang’s intelligence capabilities in the South should never be underestimated⁴—then South Korean activities may in turn have encouraged North Korea to pursue enrichment capabilities of its own. But why did South Korea seek nuclear weapons in the first place?

The answer lies in a deteriorating security environment during the late 1960s and early 1970s. Between 1968 and 1972, there were 722 incidents involving North Korea within the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) and another 294 incidents in rear areas. Several major provocations followed in quick succession: the 1968 attempt to attack the presidential residence, the USS Pueblo incident later that year, and the 1969 shootdown of a U.S. Navy EC-121 reconnaissance aircraft. Fast-forward to the period between 2022 and 2026, and the security environment has once again deteriorated from the perspective of democratic states. North Korea’s accelerating military modernisation is increasingly threatening to outpace the conventional technological advantages upon which South Korea has long relied.

It would be a serious mistake to view the Korean People’s Army (조선인민군) in 2026 as a relic of the previous century—an institution incapable of learning or achieving success on the battlefield. Lessons from the war in Ukraine are being absorbed and brought home, while modern weapons systems are entering mass production. Importantly, such weapons do not need to represent the cutting edge of global military technology. They merely need to be effective enough to accomplish their intended purpose. Better still if they can be produced in quantities large enough to export to partners or offer through barter arrangements—which is precisely what is taking place.

When the United States withdrew all of its nuclear weapons from the Korean Peninsula in 1991, only a small minority of South Koreans supported efforts to pursue nuclear fuel reprocessing. Nevertheless, some voices already urged the government to acquire nuclear weapons, driven by recurring clashes with North Korea.⁸ By contrast, as tensions escalated during the 2017 crisis and concerns grew that Washington might hesitate to defend South Korea for fear of provoking missile strikes against the United States itself, public opinion shifted dramatically in favour of a South Korean nuclear deterrent. Polling indicated that around 60 per cent of South Koreans supported acquiring nuclear weapons.⁹ By 2023, surveys suggested that more than 76 per cent favoured the independent development of a domestic nuclear arsenal.¹⁰

A year later, another survey revealed an important nuance. When respondents were asked, “Do you believe that the United States would employ its nuclear deterrent in a crisis on the Korean Peninsula if doing so created a risk of an attack on the U.S. homeland?”, 60.8 per cent answered “NO.” Although the survey report notes that this should not necessarily be interpreted as declining trust in the United States—and may instead reflect awareness of North Korea’s increasingly advanced nuclear capabilities and more provocative posture—it remains a significant indicator. Support for South Korea’s nuclear ambitions appears to have stabilised at roughly six to seven people out of ten.

This trend is underpinned by two core assumptions. First, that North Korea has effectively become a de facto nuclear state and is unlikely to relinquish its arsenal except through a war that results in regime collapse. Second, that the 47th President of the United States may substantially reduce—or even withdraw—American forces from South Korea, forces that since the end of the Korean War have played a crucial deterrent role against coercion and military pressure from the North.

Green light

Although there are currently no signs that the South Korean government is officially considering the development of nuclear weapons, both the broad public support for such a move and the two Korean-language volumes mentioned above are significant. Together, they show how Seoul is unofficially redefining deterrence and testing the limits of American nuclear guarantees and possible U.S. responses. Like Japan, South Korea possesses the raw materials, technology and resources needed to build nuclear weapons. It has previously been shown that South Korea is capable of enriching uranium up to 77 per cent. Although this level is not particularly suitable for powerful nuclear weapons, it nevertheless indicates that South Korea has the potential to produce weapons-grade, even more highly enriched uranium — and therefore nuclear weapons.

Although South Korea previously did not possess intercontinental ballistic missiles, it has a wide range of short- and medium-range ballistic missiles. On 21 May 2021, the decades-old missile guidelines limiting the range of South Korean ballistic missiles were terminated, allowing South Korea to develop and possess any type of missile, including intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) and advanced submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs).¹¹ Accordingly, South Korea announced already in 2022 that it had developed submarine-launched ballistic missiles, such as the Hyunmoo-4-4. Importantly, South Korea is the only country that possesses SLBMs but does not have nuclear weapons.¹² The first steps have also been taken at the political level, especially in February and March 2023, when Chung Jin-suk, leader of the People Power Party (국민의힘), stated that South Korea may need nuclear weapons, and Seoul Mayor Oh Se-hoon called for South Korea to acquire them.¹³

In 2025, a declassified South Korean document confirmed that Russia had offered the country nuclear-programme-related cooperation as a way of settling debt inherited from the Soviet Union. In 1992, Russia offered advanced nuclear technology, including solutions for extending the lifetime of nuclear power plants.¹⁴ In 1994, Russia additionally offered 50 tonnes of highly enriched uranium from Ukrainian nuclear warheads, as well as 150 tonnes of low-enriched uranium annually for ten years.¹⁵ Some would call all of this a chain of coincidences: diplomats meeting by chance, perhaps accidentally complaining about the maintenance costs of surplus nuclear fuel, while someone listening nearby suddenly began to see possibilities. Some coincidences are capricious; they appear where demand, contacts and strategic opportunity already exist.

The Atom’s finest hour

Estonians, too, could be polled endlessly on whether they consider the acquisition of nuclear weapons necessary, and the answer would probably surprise no one except Moscow, where such a desire would, of course, be met with deep offence and shock. But such a desire does not emerge from a vacuum. What is certain is that it always returns when the surrounding environment becomes existentially dangerous and security guarantees are “as reliable as the Budapest Memorandum.” And when interest is strong enough, the world almost always contains actors willing to offer solutions to such concerns.

Yet interest and support for the atom are meaningless without the capability to handle it. This is precisely what separates slogans from real policy: whether one is dealing with a dream or with an actual possibility. This is a fundamental question. It does not concern only the Korean Peninsula, but also haunts Europe, especially its eastern and northern regions, where some nations are technologically and industrially capable—over a longer timeframe and if they were willing to put everything on the table—of imitating Korea. For them, security has long ceased to be an abstract debate. It has become a real-life Squid Game, where everyone knows what happens if, during red light, even a single wrong movement is made.

Remarks

^AThe project aims to publish four volumes by the end of the first half of 2026, bringing together approximately fifty experts from South Korea and abroad. Contributors include current and former academics, think-tank researchers, former diplomats, retired generals and admirals, government officials and other senior practitioners representing fields as diverse as international relations, international law, regional studies (including North Korea, the United States, China, Japan, Russia and the Middle East), military affairs, nuclear technology, and defence and security studies. More broadly, the project seeks to establish a comprehensive cause-and-effect framework that would allow future governments to pursue nuclearisation gradually and systematically—step by step, without exhausting the economy or excessively alarming the international community. The underlying logic is to prepare the intellectual and political groundwork for a future moment when a brief but consequential announcement may arrive with the force of an earthquake: that the nation’s words and actions are now ultimately backed by the atom.

^BNorth Korea’s primary objective remains regime survival and immunity from external coercion. Its nuclear weapons serve this purpose above all as a deterrent: they raise the cost of outside intervention and provide Pyongyang with considerable strategic freedom of manoeuvre. Yet a logic of survival does not automatically preclude aggression. If circumstances were to become favourable—for example, amid the turmoil of a wider great-power conflict—and South Korea found itself isolated, such conditions could present North Korea with what it might regard as an ideal opportunity to once again attempt “liberation,” this time holding far stronger cards than before. For this reason, it would be unwise to assume that Pyongyang’s ambitions are limited solely to preserving the status quo. The regime’s immediate priority may be survival, but its long-term objectives and historical aspirations should not be dismissed merely because deterrence currently makes them difficult to pursue.

× Hannes Nagel’s opinion piece was previously published in the Estonian Defence League magazine Kaitse Kodu! (Issue 2, 2026, pp. 38–43). Photos: the Korean Peninsula and reconstructed images of the programme and missile systems (KRUK, 2026).

Sources

¹Whyte, L. & Keck, Z., 2017. Can South Korea Build a Nuclear Bomb in 6 Months? The National Interest, 23.09.2017.

²Jang, H.-W., 2025. 한국핵안보전략포럼 ‘한국의 핵안보 프로젝트’ 1·2권 출간 [Korea Nuclear Security Strategy Forum publishes Vols. 1–2 of “The Korean Nuclear Security Project”]. Skyedaily, 10.08.2025.

³ Hayes, P., 1991. Pacific Powderkeg, American Nuclear Dilemmas in Korea. Lexington Books, pp. 199–208.

⁴Kang, J., Hayes, P., Bin, L., Suzuki, T., & Tanter, R., 2005. South Korea’s nuclear surprise. Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, 61(1), pp. 40–49.

⁵ Lim, E., 2019. South Korea’s Nuclear Dilemmas. Journal for Peace and Nuclear Disarmament, 2(1), pp. 297–318.

⁶ Reardon, R. J., 2025. Civilian nuclear technology transfers as nonproliferation leverage: a reexamination of South Korea’s nuclear-weapons program. The Nonproliferation Review, pp. 1–23.

⁷ Cha, V. D., 1999. Alignment despite Antagonism: The United States–Korea–Japan Security Triangle. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, pp. 123–125.

⁸ Mack, A. 1997. Potential, not proliferation: Northeast Asia has several nuclear-capable countries, but only China has built weapons. Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, 10.01.1997.

⁹ Sanger, D. E., Choe, S. & Rich, M., 2017. North Korea Rouses Neighbors to Reconsider Nuclear Weapons. New York Times, 28.10.2017.

¹⁰ Jung, M., 2023. Over 76% of South Koreans support development of nuclear weapons. The Korean Times, 30.01.2023.

¹¹ Seok-min, O. 2021. (News Focus) Lifting of U.S. missile restrictions signifies Seoul’s missile sovereignty, Washington’s China strategy: Experts. Yonhap News Agency, 21.05.2021.

¹² Sang-Hun, C., 2023. In a First, South Korea Declares Nuclear Weapons a Policy Option. The New York Times, 12.01.2023.

¹³ Shin, H., 2023. Exclusive: Seoul mayor calls for South Korean nuclear weapons to counter threat from North. Reuters, 13.03.2023.

¹⁴ 노, 민호., 2025. 러시아, 韓에 우크라 핵탄두서 추출 고농축 우라늄 50톤 판매 제의 [Russia offers to sell South Korea 50 tons of highly enriched uranium extracted from Ukrainian nuclear warheads]. 파이낸셜뉴스, 28.03.2025.

¹⁵ 서, 주희., 2025. 러시아, 30년 전 韓에 우크라 핵탄두서 추출된 우라늄 판매 제안 [Russia offered to sell uranium extracted from Ukrainian nuclear warheads to South Korea 30 years ago]. 채널A, 28.03.2025.

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A crisis does not start with a headline: CRISIS LENS looks beneath the surface

kruk — Sun, 01 Mar 2026 08:17:00 +0000

A crisis does not start with a headline: CRISIS LENS looks beneath the surface

The Crisis Research Centre is launching the publication of the analytical CRISIS LENS series on its website. Each article in the series focuses on a country, region, crisis-related phenomenon, or broader security-policy development that helps explain how crises emerge, evolve, deepen, or become embedded in long-term international tensions.

Crisis Lens is not a daily news section. Its focus is slower and more in-depth analysis: why a conflict, political confrontation, humanitarian crisis, technological risk, or state vulnerability develops into a crisis; which historical, political, and societal factors intensify it; and what can be learned from such cases for understanding, preventing, and managing crises.

Over the years, our researchers have published dozens of analytical overviews on geopolitical crises, security-related phenomena, and key issues in international politics. Several of these analyses have previously appeared in print in the Estonian Defence League’s magazine Kaitse Kodu!. Since March 2026, the Crisis Research Centre has been bringing these analyses systematically to its website, accompanied by specially created illustrations.

In the 2026 Crisis Lens overviews, we examine, among others, South Korea, Yemen, Iran, and Palestine and Israel. These cases are connected by different but comparable crises and challenges: questions of nuclear policy and deterrence, state fragility, regional power dynamics, the intertwining of military and civilian dimensions, humanitarian consequences, and long-term conflicts whose effects extend far beyond national borders.

The broader aim of the series is to show that crises do not emerge out of nowhere. They are often the visible moment of longer-term developments: the convergence of political choices, historical traumas, social tensions, regional power struggles, resource scarcity, or institutional weakness. For this reason, understanding crises requires more than following the latest event or headline. It requires attention to the trajectory of the crisis, the logic of the actors involved, visible and hidden vulnerabilities, and the ways in which one crisis can feed into others.

Crisis Lens is intended for readers who want to understand more than individual events. The series provides background knowledge, analytical context, and a crisis research perspective on how uncertainty, power, violence, societal resilience, and political decisions intersect.

For the Crisis Research Centre, publishing the series on its website is a step towards making its long-standing analytical work more widely accessible. Talking about crises should not be limited to reacting during a crisis. Crises need to be understood before, after, and in between — when they are still taking shape, when their consequences become embedded in society, or when similar patterns begin to appear elsewhere. Crisis Lens helps to identify these patterns. Enjoy reading!

Photo: An article from the Crisis Lens series in printed form (KRUK, 2026).

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NATO in the Greenland fog

kruk — Wed, 07 Jan 2026 18:01:38 +0000

NATO in the Greenland fog

The Greenland tension¹ now gathering around the world’s largest island is not, in itself, the greatest danger—nor is it the first source of discord among NATO countries. What is newly dangerous instead is a crisis of definitions: whether we can still, together, call things by their proper names and draw the necessary conclusions from that naming. This matters because conflicts are not won only by seizing territory, but also by seizing the language and the mindset through which we make decisions.

First, when considering the broader possible consequences of the Greenland case, it should be recalled that NATO is a military-political organization, with the emphasis on “political.” This means that without political-level consent, the military side of the organization will not function. It should also be noted that internal disputes among NATO countries are nothing new under the sun. They have happened before.

Throughout NATO’s history, the closest example of an intra-alliance conflict hotspot has been the clash of interests between Greece and Turkey over Cyprus. Although both countries joined NATO in 1952, their shared membership did not resolve centuries of enmity or its expressions between the two nations. On several occasions, the countries have been on the brink of confrontation, mostly due to the island of Cyprus and the Greek archipelago in the Aegean Sea. The events of 1974 in Cyprus led to the creation of the quasi-state known as the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus. In that situation, Greek interests were violated—interests that Athens regards as part of its cultural sphere.

An important distinction, however, is that the conflict took place in Cyprus, which is not part of NATO territory and is not covered by NATO’s collective defense. Therefore, Greece, for example, could not initiate consultations or invoke various articles.

The Greenland case

Half a century later, on another island—this time much larger and richer in natural resources—a new apple of discord is ripening between NATO member states, one that may ultimately find an analogous resolution without the application of collective defense. What would the situation look like if one member state were to request consultations under Article 4 in relation to another? In the case of Greenland, Denmark does not need permission to raise the issue within NATO or to request assistance—consultations and political pressure are possible in any case (Article 4).

At the same time, invoking Article 4 does not entail any collective defense obligations. However, when it comes to NATO’s collective defense decisions (Article 5), these are made by consensus, which means that such a decision essentially requires the absence of objections from all members. If the crisis were triggered by a NATO member itself, it could easily block such a decision—and this is precisely why the dispute over definitions (whether something constitutes an “armed attack” or “not an attack”) becomes even more significant and dangerous: it could leave Denmark, instead of relying on a formal Article 5 path, dependent on bilateral steps and ad hoc coalitions by allies, rather than on the alliance’s automatic reflex.⁴

It is certain that in such consultations there would also be a dispute over what actually happened. Collective defense sounds simple as a principle: an attack on one is an attack on all. But before that principle can begin to work politically, one must also pass a lesser-known milestone alongside Articles 4 and 5—namely Article 6. It defines what counts as an “armed attack” and to which territories that logic extends.² Greenland fits into this framework geographically: it lies in the North Atlantic, north of the Tropic of Cancer, to which the principle of collective defense should apply. Yet the concern is not necessarily that Article 6 does not apply, but that enough dispute can be stirred around it to render its application practically useless.

A crisis of definitions always begins the same way: something serious happens in reality, but softer names are offered for it in language. Pressure becomes negotiation, blockade becomes a safety zone, violence becomes the restoration of order, and conquest sometimes becomes the safeguarding of national security. Meanwhile, an attack may turn into a statement that “we are not at war”³—or, at most, a limited and temporary military operation “beneficial to all.” If the renaming succeeds, the reaction changes as well. Not because states are incapable of reacting, but because they can no longer agree on what exactly they are reacting to.

The greatest danger, therefore, is not that a classic takeover will occur in Greenland, awakening Europe in shock. The greater risk is the opposite: that there will be no clear moment to point to in retrospect. Instead, there would be a sequence of steps eventually leading to the curtailment of autonomy and possible state integration. If such a course were taken, the entire crisis would be built around the threshold of Article 6: whether the event qualifies as an “armed attack,” what constitutes an attack, who was armed (if anyone), and, more broadly, whether anything at all happened.

This would inevitably become a tool for NATO-hostile actors to undermine allied unity. If the allies spend the first week debating “what and whether something happened,” the second week debating “how and whether to respond,” and the third week debating whether the response is proportional and consistent with realpolitik realities, the facts on the ground may already have solidified.

NATO’s strength lies in unity

NATO’s strength is not only in its military capabilities but in its unified perceptual framework: that the same thing is seen and named the same way. The crisis of definitions thus breaks alliances on two levels simultaneously. On one level is the public: if people are repeatedly told that “this is not a hostile act,” their willingness to respond diminishes. On another level are the allies: if some call an event an attack while others label it an “incident” or a “crisis,” a shared understanding disappears—and without a shared understanding, no shared response can follow.

Therefore, the most important question is not whether Article 6 “covers” Greenland. The most important question is whether the political system would be able to name the power pressure that arises in reality as an attack within the meaning of Article 6—before the situation becomes irreversible. If it cannot, the result is a precedent in which rules do not break when someone forcefully violates them, but when people begin to argue about whether breaking the rules can even be called breaking.

This is dangerous for militarily weaker small states, because their security depends on one simple mechanism: that an attack is recognized as an attack quickly and collectively. If that mechanism is replaced by a prolonged argument over interpretation, then there is trouble. The adversary no longer needs to believe we are unable to respond; it is enough for him to believe we would be unable to agree.

The Greenland tension may therefore turn out to be a litmus test not only for how the Arctic is approached but also for whether the democratic Western world can, in the gray phase of the 21st century, preserve one old skill: to give phenomena a clear definition and an appropriate reaction. If that skill is forgotten, then “everything” will not collapse with one great bang, as the Danish Prime Minister predicted.⁵ It will instead dissolve in the winds of doubt. Doubts, in turn, transform into silence. And silence is precisely what new borders and a new world are built upon.

What can Denmark do?

Denmark’s own politico-military options cannot be ignored: for decades, it has lived comfortably under the assumption that Arctic security is “covered” by the alliance and by the proximity of the United States—but that situation has now changed. Denmark’s own credible, visible, and rapidly deployable military capability in and around Greenland has so far been marginal, and this feeds and sells the argument in Washington that Greenland is a matter of “national security” that the U.S. must ensure if necessary.⁶ Yet this narrative is neither new nor born within NATO itself: the debate over Greenland’s strategic value has been held in the United States since the 19th century, and the Cold War only amplified its resonance.¹

The possible solution is somewhat ironic: if Denmark wants to defuse and de-escalate this crisis in a mutually beneficial way—and to neutralize the growing U.S. concern about the national security vacuum perceived from Greenland—it will not suffice to rely merely on value-based rhetoric or the inertia of welfare-state arguments. It must decisively rebuild and expand Denmark’s own credible and visible Arctic-based military capability so that presence, surveillance, response readiness, and the ability to operate jointly with allies are genuinely perceivable.⁷

Danish defense policy itself has stated that the kingdom bears a special responsibility for the defense of the Arctic and the North Atlantic and has pledged to strengthen its capabilities there; the question now is whether that can be achieved. This is one possible solution that would, in fact, strengthen Denmark’s (and thereby Europe’s) national security both on ice and at sea. A more likely scenario, however, is that the ambitions voiced across the ocean will have to be taken seriously—and that the first confrontation will have to be fought not on the ground, but in the crisis of definitions.

Sources:

🟠 The opinion piece (by Hannes Nagel) was first published in the Delfi opinion portal on January 6. Photoes: image collages from the Greenland tensions (Kriisiuuringute Keskus, 2026).

¹ Nagel, H., 2025. Gröönipingega 52. osariik. Kaitse Kodu!, 4, 44−49.

² (Anon.), 1949. The North Atlantic Treaty. 04.04.1949, NATO.

³ O’Connell, O., 2026. Rubio says US not at war with Venezuela, as Maduro set to appear in New York court on Monday. 03.01.2026, BBC.

⁴ Facio, F., 2025. What happens if Trump invades Greenland? Brexit Institute.

⁵ Laugen, L., 2026. Taani peaminister: kui USA ründab teist NATO riiki, lõpeb kõik. 06.01.2026, Delfi.

⁶ Mackintosh, T., 2026. ‘We need Greenland’: Trump repeats threat to annex Danish territory. 05.01.2026, BBC.

⁷ (Anon.), 2025. Danish intelligence report warns of US military threat under Trump. 12.12.2025, The Associated Press.

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We talked about the civil defence and crisis preparedness on Äripäev radio’s morning programme

kruk — Tue, 14 Jan 2025 10:00:24 +0000

We talked about the civil defence and crisis preparedness on Äripäev radio’s morning programme

On January 14, Hannes Nagel, the head of the Crisis Research Centre, appeared as a guest on Äripäev radio’s morning program to discuss Estonia’s civil defense and crisis preparedness.

The visit to Äripäev radio was a follow-up to a longer article “No requirements – no shelters” (pages 26-29) in Ehitaja 4(275), published in Spring 2023. In the article, we highlighted the concerns of shelter policy, the lack of shelters, and the gap in legislation.

According to the programme, the state of shelter construction in Estonia is now relatively similar to that of spring 2023. “The shelter system in Estonia is currently based on public hiding places, which provide primary protection from flying objects. Unfortunately, public hiding places are not bomb shelters, and we still do not have them in Estonia,” Nagel stated.

The radio program also discussed the law amending the Emergency Situations Act. “A draft amendment to the Emergency Preparedness Act, which includes requirements for the construction of bomb shelters, has gone through the consultation stage, but there have been no responses. It’s encouraging that Finland, in particular, is setting an example. Bomb shelters, as defined by the new law, are specifically built for sheltering purposes, whereas public hiding places are previously existing buildings or parts of buildings adapted for this purpose, and thus do not provide equivalent protection,” said Nagel.

The visit to the radio can be summarised as follows. The state of crisis preparedness is concerning, as there are no bomb shelters capable of protecting against direct hits, and existing public hiding places provide only minimal protection against flying objects. At the same time, the population’s awareness and preparedness for crisis situations is extremely low, with costs passed on to end users, making housing unaffordable for many, emphasising the need for a stronger national contribution to civil defence.

🎙️ Listen to the programme here and read the 2023 article on the Äripeäv portal.

Photo: Kirke Ert/ERR, 2023.

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