Ruminations: Acquiring Greenland: Coercion or Military Action

"RUSSIA AND CHINA HAVE ZERO FEAR OF NATO WITHOUT THE UNITED STATES, AND I DOUBT NATO WOULD BE THERE FOR US IF WE REALLY NEEDED THEM."
"We will always be there for NATO, even if they won't be there for us."
"We are going to do something on Greenland whether they like it or not. Because if we don’t do it, Russia or China will take over Greenland, and we’re not going to have Russia or China as a neighbor."
"I would like to make a deal the easy way, but if we don’t do it the easy way we’re going to do it the hard way."
"You defend ownership. You don’t defend leases. And we’ll have to defend Greenland. If we don’t do it, China or Russia will. Not going to happen."
"I think that ownership gives you a thing that you can’t do with, you’re talking about a lease or a treaty. Ownership gives you things and elements that you can’t get from just signing a document [expanding its leased military base in Greenland]."
"We need Greenland from the standpoint of national security, and Denmark isn't going to be able to do it. It's so strategic."
U.S. President Donald Trump

"If the United States chooses to attack another NATO country militarily, then everything stops."
"That is, including our NATO and thus the security that has been provided since the end of the Second World War."
Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen

"The president and his team are discussing a range of options to pursue this important foreign policy goal, and of course, utilizing the U.S. military is always an option at the commander-in-chief's disposal."
"[The president and his national security aides are] looking at what a potential purchase would look like."
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt

The Aurora Borealis (Northern Lights) is seen behind a building with social housings with a mural in Nuuk, Greenland. REUTERS/Hannibal Hanschke/

Clearly, Danish Prime Minister Frederiksen's statement that the U.S. in agitating to take over Denmark's Greenland territory would result in the dissolution of the military alliance of NATO did not sit well with President Trump. There are dim echoes of his persistent declarations of security demanding U.S. total possession of the island -- not that its abundance of rich resources in rare earth minerals doesn't come far behind in a race with China over the wherewithal to produce electronics -- with the Third Reich's 1938 insistence that security and protection of German Sudetenlanders made it imperative to force its surrender from Czechoslovakia. When Europe, represented by Britain and France, boasted that by persuading Czechoslovakia to voluntarily hand it to Germany 'war was avoided'.

Fast forward to the present, and Europe is once again faced with a similar conundrum; avoiding military conflict to preserve the military alliance of NATO. And although a Europe, nervous in the wake of the U.S. night-time bombing of Venezuela and the scooping up of Maduro and wife, signalling that the U.S. is on a roll, France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Spain, Britain and Denmark responded to the tense situation in support of Greenland and Denmark alone deciding the trajectory of their joint relations.

Now, discreet White House sources whisper of internal discussions with respect to the potential of 'buying' Greenland through lump sum payments, where guidelines revolving around $100,000-per-person payments which would cumulatively result in a total payout close to $6 billion may be a solution but one still in essence 'forced' on an obviously reluctant Denmark and Greenland. Greenlanders in particular are far more invested in their total independence, yet would still prefer a linkage with Denmark over the United States.

A woman walks near a church in Nuuk, the capital of Greenland. Photograph: Evgeniy Maloletka/AP

Although the White House has not totally discounted the possibility of 'military intervention', there are those who have declared a definite preference for paying for the island outright, if not acquiring it through diplomatic negotiations. Only one of which choices would force NATO to make good on its mutual-defence mechanism, Article 5. Its lone invocation and action took place after the shock waves of 11 September 2001. On such an occasion where a member of NATO -- its most powerful and influential member -- itself would take hostile military action against another member, the very thought of a unified reaction is out of the question, altogether neutering the group.

The always-mercurial Donald Trump remains aggrieved with another NATO founding member whose Nobel Committee deigned to overlook the American president's qualifications to be chosen as 2025's outstanding nominee for the Peace Prize; a "foolish" decision, he said scornfully. When Nicolas Maduro was captured by military force, Europe nervously eyed the potential for Mr. Trump's next acquisitive eye in his increasingly unrestrained willingness to deploy the U.S. military to achieve his ends.

The joint warning issued by European leaders reminding the American president that the territorial integrity of Greenland and Denmark must be respected would no doubt have fallen on Mr. Trump's notice as a particularly grievous irritant. More so, the nudge to his consciousness that as part of the Kingdom of Denmark, Greenland falls under NATO's defence umbrella, with NATO allies collectively prepared to achieve Arctic security.