In Copenhagen, the foreign ministry has quietly resurrected a ritual that sounds ripped from this fantasy epic: a nightly vigil to guard against unpredictable threats. Only this time, there are no dragons or White Walkers, just Donald Trump.
Every evening at 5pm, as the Danish capital winds down, a dedicated team will settle in to track the United States president's words and movements. By 7am, their findings are compiled into a morning report sent across the corridors of government, ensuring ministers are armed with the latest developments from a world half a day away.
The initiative sprang from this spring's Greenland debacle, when Trump mused about buying or seizing the Arctic island. Officials realized that, in a world where the United States president's next move could be tweeted at 3am Danish time, constant vigilance was essential. Thus, the need for a "night watch".
Denmark has created a coordinated "night watch"
Rather than each diplomat nervously refreshing news feeds through the night, Denmark has created a coordinated "night watch", a collective, almost ritualized effort to follow Trump's every pronouncement. It is, as Politiken notes (via The Guardian), one of several ways Danish diplomacy has adapted to the unpredictability of the second Trump administration.
Jacob Kaarsbo, former chief analyst at the Danish Defence Intelligence Agency, sums it up bluntly: The idea that the United States is our most reliable ally is over. "Alliances are built on common values and a common threat perception. Trump shares nether of those with us and I would argue he doesn't share it with most Europeans."
So while Copenhagen's watchmen do not guard icy castles or ancient walls, they patrol a more modern and bewildering frontier: the volatile world of 21st-century geopolitics, where a single tweet can unsettle nations. In Denmark, the night watch waits, pens ready and screens glowing, guarding the realm from the unexpected, one Trump pronouncement at a time.