The Trump administration is right to highlight Greenland’s strategic importance. And it is right to want to advance American interests there. But the way it is going about it is crass, clumsy, and counterproductive.
A sparsely populated island three times the size of Texas, Greenland is geographically North American but politically a part of Denmark. It has, off and on, been a topic of acquisitive interest in Washington since the 19th century. The U.S. effectively controlled Greenland during the Second World War, and in 1946, with the contest with the Soviets heating up, offered to buy it from Denmark for $100 million.
That went nowhere. Instead, Denmark in 1951 entered into a defense agreement with respect to Greenland, which gave Washington just about everything it wanted. After the end of the Cold War, the American presence was substantially slimmed down, with the network of U.S. bases being reduced to one extremely valuable survivor, the former Thule Air Base. This has now become the Pituffik Space Base, which hosts, among other things, key missile-detection systems.
Owing to later tweaking of the 1951 treaty, if the U.S. wants to build new bases or, beyond a certain ambiguous point, expand its presence, both Denmark and Greenland, which is now largely self-governing, have to agree. Up until the current fracas, that would probably have been a near formality. But now? Deterring Moscow and Beijing is one thing, accepting a Trumpian Horse quite another.
And yet the U.S. does need to beef up Greenland’s military and economic defenses in a way that Denmark alone could not. Russia is reinforcing its natural strength in the far north. China wants — geography be damned — to be a “polar great power,” and it has the checkbook to back it up. Greenland, just because of where it is, is a prize worth holding or winning. As an American defensive outpost, it is vital not only because of Pituffik but, for example, because of how it could assist in blocking the Russian northern fleet’s route to the North Atlantic. From Beijing’s or Moscow’s perspective, the island would make an ideal launching pad for all sorts of lethal mischief. A changing climate could add even more to Greenland’s appeal as the Northwest Passage and maybe the Transpolar Sea Route become more navigable.
Then there are Greenland’s natural resources. Its cryolite, then a vital mineral for aluminum production, was one reason for the American takeover during the Second World War. Now its critical minerals, including much sought-after rare earths, are in focus. They could help break China’s menacing dominance in that market, but even in the best of circumstances, that will take time that we may not have.
Militarily, the U.S. could annex Greenland with ease, but regardless of any legal or moral considerations, the eventual cost ought to be too high for such a notion to be taken seriously. To the delight of Putin and Xi, it would shatter the Atlantic Alliance that has served this country so well — if sometimes unfairly expensively — for so long. The U.S. would have won an island, but militarily, economically, and politically it would be well on the way to “losing” a continent.
The implications in this hemisphere would also be grim. To start with, there is a resource-rich and, before the “51st state” fiasco, traditionally friendly country to our north with a lot of Arctic land.
Although a hostile takeover of Greenland remains highly unlikely, some of what has been said — or not ruled out in Washington — has amounted to the bullying of a NATO ally that stood with us and bled with us in Afghanistan and Iraq, a bad look that sends a worse message. It has added to existing strains within the alliance that are already dangerous enough and, to a predator, already tempting enough.
And none of it has been necessary. As mentioned above, when it comes to defense, Denmark and, in all probability, the Greenlanders would be much more likely to agree to the treaty-backed requests of a superpower that they regard as an ally rather than a threat. Equally, the U.S. has a far greater chance of agreeing to a deal on critical minerals with counterparties that trust it. That is an advantage that the U.S. ought to enjoy over China but is rapidly squandering.
The U.S. needs to replace stick with carrot. There is already a lot of damage to repair, but there ought to be enough shared interests and enough shared history to establish an agreement with Denmark and Greenland that delivers the strategic result that this country is looking for. And if that works well enough and is mutually beneficially enough for long enough, it is possible to envisage ending up, as has been argued in these pages before, with an arrangement between the U.S. and Greenland akin to that with Micronesia, Palau, and the Marshall Islands. But getting there will take tact, finesse, and patience, three qualities that have played little part in this administration’s handling of the Greenland question thus far.