Belgium is not heading to Greenland to pick a fight with Washington, Defense Minister Theo Francken said Friday, pushing back against suggestions that a growing European military presence on the Arctic island amounts to a show of force against the United States.

“It now looks as if we’re going there to say: come on, Uncle Sam, let’s have a good fight and see who wins,” Francken said in a television interview with VRT. “That is absolutely not the intention,” he added.

Francken said Belgium will send a single officer as part of a Danish-led reconnaissance mission to Greenland, aimed at assessing logistics, operational options and conditions on the ground.

 “This is a reconnaissance mission,” he said, stressing there is no permanent deployment or combat posture planned.

The move comes as Denmark and a growing group of European allies step up military activity in and around Greenland, expanding exercises and troop presence at Copenhagen’s request. 

Denmark has said the goal is to strengthen Arctic security and allies’ ability to operate in extreme conditions, with officers and small detachments already arriving from several European countries.

But the deployments are unfolding against an unusually volatile political backdrop. U.S. President Donald Trump has repeatedly raised the prospect of taking control of Greenland, and earlier this month he said it “may be a choice” for Washington between seizing the island and preserving NATO. 

Trump also dismissed international law constraints, saying he did not “need” them.

Francken framed Europe’s response as reassurance rather than deterrence. The message to Washington, he said, is that Europeans are prepared to take responsibility for Greenland’s security, officially citing concerns about Russian and Chinese activity in the Arctic, and would prefer to do so under a NATO umbrella that includes the United States.

He added that the deployment was “not about telling the Americans: come here, let’s start a war, because we would not win.”