Denmark, the strategic sentinel of the Baltic straits and guardian of the Arctic, is no longer whispering: it is sounding the alarm. In their new joint assessment, the Defence Intelligence Service (FE) and the Security and Intelligence Service (PET) paint a chilling picture of a world where « might now makes right. »

Far from being a simple geopolitical weather report, this document reveals a brutal mutation: Copenhagen has become a priority target. Russia, whose economy has shifted into total war mode, is no longer limiting itself to Ukraine but is actively preparing physical sabotage operations against critical European infrastructure.

Meanwhile, China is conducting a silent offensive of industrial espionage to plunder the Kingdom’s green and quantum technologies, while tightening its grip on Greenland’s resources.

Add to this a terrorist threat level maintained at « serious » following the aftershocks of the Gaza conflict, and you get the portrait of a nation that must learn to live on a razor’s edge. This document is not just a warning to decision-makers; it is a shock to the system intended to wake up a civil society that thought peace was guaranteed.

by Joël-François Dumont — Paris, 15 December 2025

Strategic Risk Assessment for Denmark and Northern Europe (2024–2025)

1. Introduction: Twilight of the Established Order

The Western security environment is not passing through a fleeting crisis, but a deep structural mutation.[01] Denmark, guardian of the Baltic straits and gateway to the Arctic via Greenland, now stands at the crossroads of global tensions. It is clear that the Cold War has returned to the Arctic and that the Baltic is in battle order.

The combined reports of the Defence Intelligence Service (Forsvarets Efterretningstjeneste – FE) and the Security and Intelligence Service (Politiets Efterretningstjeneste – PET) depict a systemic competition where the distinction between peace and war is blurring.[01][02] As the services highlight, we have entered a phase where « might makes right » and where economic, technological, and military tools are used simultaneously to weaken Western democracies.[01]

2. The Russian Threat: A Multiform Confrontation

A first on April 20, 2023: four Danish and Swedish fighter jets escorted a Russian Ilyushin 20 COOT-A electronic warfare aircraft to the edge of international waters over the Baltic Sea. The Il-20 is a four-engine electromagnetic reconnaissance and intelligence aircraft equipped with a side-looking radar or synthetic aperture radar.

Russia remains the most direct and volatile security threat to Denmark and NATO. The assessment highlights Moscow’s unexpected resilience and expanded aggression.

A. Military Threat and War Production

Contrary to Western hopes of a rapid collapse, the Russian economy has shifted to « war mode. » The FE report notes with gravity that Russia has managed to regenerate its forces faster than expected, now producing more artillery shells than all NATO countries combined.[01] The risk of unintended military provocations or testing of NATO red lines in the Baltic Sea is deemed high.[01]

Danish sovereignty is tested almost daily by a cat-and-mouse game orchestrated by Moscow. The services note increased aggressiveness around the strategic island of Bornholm, a natural aircraft carrier in the Baltic, where Russian aviation regularly violates airspace to test NATO reaction times.[01]

Further north, around Greenland, the posture changes: Russian ships and submarines no longer just transit; they station. These incursions are not simple navigation errors but calculated maneuvers to normalize the Russian military presence in the Kingdom’s Exclusive Economic Zone, effectively challenging Denmark’s legitimacy to control these strategic icy waters.[01]

The GUGI Special Fleet

While the surface fleet is visible, the most sophisticated threat lurks in the abyss. Denmark has acquired certainty that Russia is deploying elite units of the GUGI (Main Directorate for Deep Sea Research) in its territorial waters.

These are not classic attack submarines, but specialized vessels equipped with mini-submersibles (such as the AS-31 Losharik or those aboard the SS-750 spotted near Bornholm just before the Nord Stream explosions).[01] Their mission is not to torpedo, but to act as combat engineers: they map every centimeter of cable, place taps to listen to transatlantic traffic, or pre-position dormant explosive charges. Reports indicate that these underwater « hydras » now operate with insane audacity, skirting Danish and Norwegian territorial waters to test NATO sonars, proving that the Kremlin views the Baltic seabed as a future operational battlefield.

B. Hybrid Warfare: Sabotage as the New Norm

Russia is no longer content with espionage; it is waging active hybrid warfare. Danish services, joined by their British counterparts, warn of a physical destabilization campaign.[03]

• Physical Sabotage: The threat level against critical infrastructure (energy, transport, subsea cables) has been raised. Moscow shows a growing willingness to « take risks » to destabilize Western societies.[01][03]
• Cyberattacks: State hackers target private companies to steal data or prepare « dormancy » actions (malware that can be activated in case of conflict).[02]

The most visible peril now navigates in the open through the Great Belt: the Russian « shadow fleet. » This motley armada of aging tankers, often uninsured and flying flags of convenience, constitutes a double threat.

On one hand, it represents an « environmental time bomb » for Scandinavian coasts; on the other, as revealed by the services, many of these civilian ships are packed with electronic listening equipment (SIGINT) to spy on Western communications during transit.[01][02]

Faced with this militarization of merchant traffic and the psychosis of cable sabotage (after the Nord Stream and Balticconnector incidents), the response is organizing.

Denmark, Finland, and Sweden have formed a united front, intensifying real-time maritime intelligence sharing. This Nordic coalition is no longer limited to observation: it is now preparing common intervention protocols to intercept any suspect ship dragging an anchor a little too close to vital infrastructure, transforming the Baltic into a total surveillance zone.[03]

The « Dragging Anchor » Strategy

The Baltic has become the theater of a silent war against Europe’s nervous system: its data cables and energy pipelines.

Danish and Finnish services have documented a Russian modus operandi formidable in its simplicity: sabotage by « simulated negligence. » Rather than using explosives (too visible after Nord Stream), commercial vessels, piloted or incentivized by Russian intelligence, cross critical zones while « accidentally » dragging their anchors for kilometers.[01]

This tactic, observed during the ruptures of the Balticconnector gas pipeline and C-Lion1 cables (linking Finland to Germany), places NATO in an impossible legal dilemma: is it clumsy navigation or an act of war? This ambiguity allows Moscow to cut Western communications while remaining below the Article 5 threshold, transforming the seabed into a lawless zone where the resilience of our internet connections hangs by a thread.

Drone Incursions

Finally, a new asymmetric threat is saturating Danish radars: drone proliferation. These devices, ranging from modified commercial quadcopters to military reconnaissance drones, are reported with alarming frequency over critical infrastructure.[05]

Oil platforms in the North Sea, power plants, and even civilian airports report unidentified overflights, often at night.

This tactic, low-cost and difficult to attribute, aims for a dual objective: mapping the physical vulnerabilities of sensitive sites and maintaining constant psychological pressure on security forces, forced to remain on high alert against an invisible and elusive enemy.

As Ken McCallum, Director General of MI5, phrased it, Russian intelligence (GRU) is on a mission to « generate mayhem on British and European streets » through arson and sabotage.[03]

3. The Chinese Challenge: Espionage and Dependency

If Russia is an immediate storm, China represents climate change: a slow but devastating systemic threat.

A. Scientific and Economic Espionage

PET warns of the massive scale of Chinese industrial espionage. Denmark, a leader in wind energy, quantum computing, and biotechnology, is a priority target.[02] Methods include the use of visiting researchers, cyber-espionage, and pressure on the diaspora, aiming for the forced transfer of civilian technologies to modernize the People’s Liberation Army (PLA).[02]

B. Resource Monopoly as a Weapon

The report highlights a critical vulnerability: dependence on rare earth elements. In 2024, China controlled approximately 70% of the global production of these essential minerals.[01] This dominance offers Beijing a formidable economic coercion lever against Europe should it oppose Chinese interests, particularly regarding Taiwan.[01][03] Richard Moore, head of MI6, further describes China’s technological strategy as deploying « data traps » on a large scale.[03]

4. The Arctic and Greenland: The New Frontline

Melting ice has transformed the Arctic zone, once calm, into a major theater of competition for the Kingdom of Denmark.

• Russian Interests: Russia is remilitarizing its Arctic coast, viewing the zone as the strategic bastion of its Northern Fleet.[01]
• Chinese Ambitions: Beijing now defines itself as a « Near-Arctic State » and seeks to establish a foothold in Greenland via dual-use mining and scientific investments.[01]
• American Uncertainty: Defence intelligence (FE) notes concern regarding a « hemispheric approach » from Washington. Facing China’s rise in the Pacific, the risk exists that the United States might reduce its attention on Northern Europe, leaving Denmark more exposed.[01]

5. Terrorism and Domestic Threats

The terrorist threat level in Denmark is maintained at 4 out of 5 (SERIOUS).[05] Two factors worsened the situation in 2024–2025:

• The Quran Burning Affair: These events placed Denmark (and neighboring Sweden) back among the priority targets of global jihadist propaganda.[05]
• The Israel-Gaza Conflict: It acts as a radicalization catalyst, mobilizing isolated individuals or small groups ready to act in reaction to images of the conflict.[05]

Nordic and Scandinavian Integration: A Model for NATO

Facing Russian imperialism, Nordic countries oppose a « wall of silence » of formidable effectiveness. Far from thunderous declarations, Denmark, Sweden, Finland, and Norway are operating a quasi-total operational fusion, de facto creating a regional superpower. This integration model goes far beyond standard NATO norms: their air forces now train to act as a single unified entity, sharing a common real-time radar picture to lock down Scandinavian skies.[01] This harmonization extends to warning networks and logistics, allowing forces to shift from one national territory to another without administrative friction. This « deterrence by cohesion » sends a clear signal to Moscow: attacking one Nordic country means instantly facing the coordinated response of the entire bloc.

Arctic Exercises

This Scandinavian fortress is not isolated; it serves as a bridgehead for massive Allied force projection in the High North. The region has become the theater of exercises of unprecedented scale (such as Nordic Response), designed to test the Alliance’s capacity to fight in extreme climatic conditions. The report underscores the crucial importance of these maneuvers where France plays a leading role. Whether it involves French mountain troops hardened for polar combat or French Navy deployments in the Norwegian Sea, Paris’s participation demonstrates that Article 5 solidarity extends to the ice of Greenland. These regular deployments aim to prove to Russia that NATO is not just a political alliance, but a force capable of projecting firepower beyond the polar circle to secure Europe’s Northern Flank.[01]

6. Conclusion: Transparency as a Weapon of Democratic Resilience

The publication of these reports marks a major cultural evolution for Denmark, which is now aligning with a doctrine of strategic transparency close to the German model.

By choosing to make these threats public, Copenhagen draws inspiration from the Wehrhafte Demokratie (militant or defensive democracy) enshrined in the German Basic Law.[06] This approach postulates that democracy has a duty to arm itself morally and intellectually against its enemies. German services (Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz) have practiced this pedagogy for decades to « inoculate » public opinion.[06] Denmark, supported by oral warnings from British services, adopts this posture:

• Legitimation: Naming the enemy justifies defense budget increases and aid to Ukraine.[01][03]
• Accountability: National security becomes a shared responsibility between the State, the private sector (targeted by espionage), and civil society (targeted by disinformation).[02][06]

We can welcome the fact that threats from enemies, declared or otherwise, are finally brought to the attention of the general public. Faced with authoritarian regimes that thrive in secrecy, the light shed by these reports constitutes, in itself, an active defense measure.[06]

The United States, a potential threat to national security

In an unprecedented turn of events, the latest Danish intelligence report (December 2025) now identifies the United States as a potential threat to national security. The document openly criticizes Washington, stating that it “uses its economic power […] to impose its will” and no longer rules out “the use of military force, even against allies.”[07] This development marks a break with previous analysis, which merely highlighted the uncertainty of US commitment.[08]

Joël-François Dumont

Sources:

[01] Forsvarets Efterretningstjeneste (FE), « Udsyn: Efterretningsmæssig risikovurdering 2024 » (Outlook: Intelligence Risk Assessment 2024).

[02] Politiets Efterretningstjeneste (PET), « Vurdering af spionagetruslen mod Danmark » (Assessment of the espionage threat against Denmark).

[03] Ken McCallum (Director General MI5), « Threat Update Speech », London, October 2024.

[04] Richard Moore (Chief of SIS/MI6), « Speech on Human Intelligence in the Digital Age ».

[05] Politiets Efterretningstjeneste (PET) / Center for Terroranalyse (CTA), « Vurdering af terrortruslen mod Danmark » (Assessment of the terror threat against Denmark).

[06] Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz (BfV), « Verfassungsschutzbericht 2024 » & Principles of the Basic Law (Grundgesetz).

[07] The Guardian, « Danish intelligence accuses US of using economic power to ‘assert its will’ over allies » (December 12, 2025).

[08] Bloomberg, December 11, 2025.

See also:

• « Danemark : Dans le viseur de Poutine » — (2025-1215)
• « Denmark: In Putin’s Crosshairs » — (2025-1215)
• « Dänemark: In Putins Fadenkreuz » — (2025-1215)

Decryption

Beyond the inventory of risks, this report marks a major doctrinal rupture in Scandinavian intelligence culture. Long an adherent of silence, Denmark is here undergoing its transformation towards « strategic transparency, » aligning with the model of Wehrhafte Demokratie (defensive democracy) dear to neighboring Germany. The logic is implacable: facing hybrid warfare—disinformation, cyberattacks, sabotage—secrecy is no longer a shield, but a vulnerability. By publicly naming the adversary and detailing their methods, Copenhagen seeks to transform every citizen and business leader into a link in the national security chain. It is no longer up to the State alone to protect society, but up to society to develop its own immune resilience. By breaking the seal of secrecy, Danish services send a clear message to Moscow and Beijing: we know what you are doing, and from now on, our population knows it too. It is the end of innocence, but it is the beginning of the democratic counter-attack.