It is a Danish territory sitting in the North Atlantic.<\/p>\n
Many of its people have been yearning for independence for decades.<\/p>\n
China and Russia are sniffing around.<\/p>\n
But it is not Greenland.<\/p>\n
The territory, the Faroe Islands, is another far-flung piece of the Kingdom of Denmark, hundreds of miles from Copenhagen, that has become a geopolitical jump ball.<\/p>\n
Its 18 islands \u2014 rugged, beautiful, windswept and often soaked with rain \u2014 have their own complicated story that is now getting tangled up in Greenland\u2019s crisis. Even though President Trump backed down<\/a> from his threats to seize Greenland, he set off a wave of anxiety in this part of the world.<\/p>\n The Faroes, home to 55,000 people, sit in the middle of a crucial waterway between Iceland and Scotland at the threshold of the Arctic, where superpowers are vying for dominance. European fishing fleets, American warships and Russian submarines cruise through these waters. A few years ago, a Chinese company made a play for the Faroese telecom system.<\/p>\n Day to day, things look fine. Cozy restaurants serve fermented mutton, a Faroese specialty. Salmon farms export<\/a> nearly a billion dollars\u2019 worth of fish across the world<\/a>. Traffic circulates smoothly through the islands\u2019 impressive tunnel network. The Faroese have even built a roundabout under the sea.<\/p>\n Unlike Greenland, which relies heavily on Danish subsidies, the Faroes have built a strong local economy. That gives them a high standard of living and the means to break away from Denmark and go it alone. In the past few years, the drive for independence had been building.<\/p>\n Then Mr. Trump\u2019s threats to take over Greenland posed an existential threat to the Kingdom of Denmark. Greenland pulled closer to Denmark,<\/a> its former colonizer. And the Faroe Islands hit pause on negotiations with Copenhagen over more autonomy that were supposed to begin last month.<\/p>\n Still, senior members of the islands\u2019 semiautonomous government insist they were not giving up on their dream.<\/p>\n \u201cGreenland and Denmark are in a bad situation,\u201d said Aksel V. Johannesen, the prime minister.<\/p>\n But, he added, \u201cthere is a broad political agreement that our relationship with Denmark must change.\u201d<\/p>\n Even if these islands have attracted far less attention than Greenland, geopolitical analysts are watching them closely and the islanders themselves can sense the sharpening interest.<\/p>\n \u201cThe old Cold War is coming back,\u201d said Hogni Hoydal, a former Faroese foreign minister and a leading voice for independence. \u201cAnd we are at the center.\u201d<\/p>\n \u2018We Are Wild Cards\u2019<\/p>\n The Faroese see themselves as survivors in a tough land. Many trace their lineage back to Vikings<\/a> who waded ashore more than 1,000 years ago. Their homeland is one of Europe\u2019s rainiest places, and winds there routinely reach 30 to 40 miles per hour.<\/p>\n But the Faroese do not cower. As they say: \u201cThere\u2019s no bad weather. Just bad clothes.\u201d<\/p>\n Joannes Patursson, a sheep farmer, is part of the 17th generation of his family to live in a spectacular seaside farmhouse with a bright green grass roof that is common here. It is cheap, abundant material and known to be good insulation. On a recent day, as his sheep grazed by the water, the wind whipped the waves into a sharp white froth.<\/p>\n \u201cThere will always be a struggle,\u201d Mr. Patursson said about the drive for independence. \u201cWe are a nation of our own.\u201d<\/p>\n Mr. Patursson even keeps an old knife hanging on his wall that a plucky ancestor used to cut down a Danish flag nearly a century ago.<\/p>\n In 1946, the Faroese voted<\/a> narrowly for independence, but the Danish king blocked that. In 2000, when the Faroese tried to negotiate for full sovereignty<\/a>, Denmark threatened to pull its subsidies<\/a>. At the time, the islands\u2019 economy was not as strong, and the Faroese backed down, hoping to try again later.<\/p>\n Last month, the Faroese were supposed to reopen negotiations with Denmark and push for more autonomy. But that was before Mr. Trump doubled down on his threats to \u201cget\u201d Greenland, alarming the entire Danish kingdom and leading many in Europe to fear that the world order was collapsing. So the leadership in the Faroes, which have been connected to Denmark for more than 600 years, decided that it was not the time for heavy negotiations with Copenhagen.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s very important that we stand together,\u201d said Eyddis Hartmann Niclasen, a lawmaker from a pro-Denmark party in the Faroese Parliament, which meets in a graceful, wooden-planked house.<\/p>\n \u201cIn the current global situation,\u201d she added, \u201cwe are wild cards in the North Atlantic, and big nations will take advantage of that.\u201d<\/p>\n A Vital Choke Point<\/p>\n The Faroes sit right inside one of the world\u2019s most important naval choke points, which is also one of Russia\u2019s main routes between the Arctic and the Atlantic Ocean.<\/p>\n The waterway is called the GIUK Gap<\/a>, and it takes its name from the lands around it: Greenland, Iceland and the United Kingdom. It is 200 miles across at its narrowest point<\/a>, and is used by NATO, which intensified its patrols<\/a> there last year, as well as by Russian nuclear submarines that come from Murmansk, Russia\u2019s main submarine base in the Arctic.<\/p>\n The Faroes are \u201cdisproportionally important,\u201d said Troy J. Bouffard, the director of the Center for Arctic Security and Resilience at the University of Alaska Fairbanks.<\/p>\n Even though the Faroes have the population of an American suburb, he said, they sit \u201cright in the middle of one of the most important transit points for our main adversary.\u201d<\/p>\n China made a play in 2019 for its telecom giant, Huawei,<\/a> to modernize the Faroes\u2019 network in exchange for an increase in mutual trade. The American government has designated Huawei a national security threat<\/a> and put enormous pressure on Faroese politicians not to allow the company to operate there. In the end, the islands chose a different \u2014 and European \u2014 supplier.<\/p>\n In the past few years, more American submarines and vessels from other NATO nations have appeared at Faroese ports, according to data from the Faroese Foreign Ministry.<\/p>\n After Russia\u2019s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, most European countries shunned Russian vessels. Not the Faroes. Russian fishing trawlers have been docking here for years. They still do.<\/p>\n Some Faroese politicians worry that Russia is using the trawlers to conduct surveillance or possibly even plot sabotage. Several major undersea cables<\/a> in<\/a> Scandinavia<\/a> and the<\/a> Baltics<\/a> have been severed in recent years, and Russia remains the prime suspect.<\/p>\n \u201cWe really don\u2019t know what the Russian ships are doing,\u201d said Sjurdur Skaale, who represents the Faroes in Denmark\u2019s Parliament.<\/p>\n And, he added, \u201cWe don\u2019t know what\u2019s on board.\u201d<\/p>\n Another thing that makes him nervous is a recent change in Russian naval doctrine. A few months into the Ukraine war, Russia\u2019s government announced that Russian civilian vessels could be utilized for military purposes<\/a>, if necessary.<\/p>\n The Faroes are currently under NATO\u2019s security umbrella as part of the Kingdom of Denmark, one of the alliance\u2019s founding members. Without NATO, Mr. Skaale said, \u201cthe Russians would take us if they wanted before breakfast tomorrow.\u201d<\/p>\n Solidarity, for Now<\/p>\n Faroese leaders say they are not giving up on their push for more autonomy. They say that they need to strike their own trade deals with foreign nations, and that under the current arrangement with Denmark, they are denied their own voice on the international stage.<\/p>\n With Mr. Trump\u2019s threats about Greenland, some might think this is a great time for the Faroese to extract concessions because Denmark is desperate to prevent its centuries-old kingdom from breaking apart.<\/p>\n But several Faroese politicians said they did not want to exploit that leverage and play hardball, at least not right now.<\/p>\n \u201cFrom a negotiating standpoint, it\u2019s probably unwise,\u201d said Bjarni Karason Petersen, another member of the Faroese Parliament, whose party has been pushing for talks on independence. \u201cBut it\u2019s an act of good faith and solidarity toward our friends in Greenland and Denmark.\u201d<\/p>\n