Danish Foreign Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen in Munich on Feb. 13. Photographer: Alex Kraus/Bloomberg Photo by Alex Kraus /Bloomberg

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(Bloomberg) — In a prime-time evening broadcast this month, Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen walked out alongside her foreign and defense ministers to announce that Denmark would deepen cooperation with France on nuclear deterrence, a dramatic move for a country long opposed to atomic weapons.

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What made her appearance before the nation all the more striking was that it came days into Denmark’s election campaign, just weeks before the vote.

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The introduction of such an emotive issue gets to the heart of the highly unusual nature of the March 24 ballot, one in which security and Denmark’s place in an increasingly unstable world have risen to the top of voter concerns over staples like jobs, health or the economy.

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The new reality is causing a reassessment of longstanding policies including Denmark’s lukewarm relations with the European Union to huddle closer to the bloc, and a reappraisal of the country’s energy mix in a bid to become more self-reliant.  

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“We are in the middle of a geopolitical earthquake,” said Soren Lippert, a former political adviser to Frederiksen’s Social Democrats who went on to found GeoPolitik, a forum for political analysis.

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For the first time in modern Danish history, geopolitics has become the main lens through which voters will choose their leaders, said Lippert. President Donald Trump’s renewed claims over Greenland have had the effect of turning foreign and security policy into a domestic concern, he said, meaning voters will above all assess politicians on their leadership and their capacity to handle the unknown.

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“There is a threat to Danish sovereignty,” said Lippert. “And that’s why it’s so important.”

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Denmark, a nation of six million, has directly felt the shift in the global order through Trump’s ongoing attempts to wrest control of sovereign Danish territory. With great-power politics brought uncomfortably close to home, Trump and his antagonism of core US allies has loomed over the election from the outset.

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Frederiksen called the vote seven months before a constitutional deadline to capitalize on a surge in support resulting from the standoff. The rupture bolstered the 48-year-old premier’s standing, reinforcing her image as a disciplined and steady leader during periods of national crisis. She leads a rare cross-bloc government spanning the Liberals to the right and the Moderates, a new centrist party.

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The prime minister has framed the vote as a “decisive election” as Danes define their relationship with the US and the future of the kingdom, which includes Greenland and the Faroe Islands. In what analysts say is a clear advantage for the governing parties, 33% of respondents to a poll published by TV2 last month said foreign and security policy was top of mind.