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Hello and welcome to NewsHour from the BBC World Service.

We're coming to live from London. I'm Rob Young.

Greenland, the world's biggest island, is geographically in North America,

but the autonomous Danish dependency has been culturally and politically part of Europe since the 9th century.

And that perhaps untidy status is the source of a furious row between the US and European nations within the Defence Alliance NATO.

Donald Trump says Greenland must become part of the US,

whether through agreement or by force, to help bolster America's national security.

European nations say absolutely not, even as they fear, a US land grab would see NATO collapse.

Well, in an attempt to show the White House they take Mr Trump's

concern seriously, several European countries have sent contingents of soldiers to Greenland.

They've been arriving in the below-freezing darkness of Greenland's winter over the past few

hours. This is no mass deployment, though. Germany, for example, has dispatched Emir 13 military personnel.

The French foreign minister, Jean-Nuel Barreau, says more forces will follow in the coming days.

NATO, the Allies of the Othans, the European countries are completely capable of defending their territory

against any threat, wherever it may come from. This is the spirit in which, I believe,

our Danish colleague, our Greenlandic colleague, expressed themselves yesterday in Washington.

Initial military capabilities have been sent and have arrived in Greenland

and others will follow in the coming days across different dimensions, land, air and sea.

Well, how has that gone down in America? Speaking to journalists this afternoon, the White

House press secretary Caroline Levitt said the president would be unlikely to be swayed by the

increased European military

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