“By hook or by crook,” Donald Trump wants to conquer Greenland, an autonomous territory that has been part of the Kingdom of Denmark for more than two centuries. Historical antecedents are studied (Alaska, Louisiana or the Virgin Islands) and parallelisms in other parts of the planet (Venezuela, Crimea, the Marshall Islands or Panama). Old treaties are dusted off. There is speculation about how the president of the United States could take over the Arctic island. Solutions are proposed. And concern is growing among local authorities.
“As leaders of Greenland’s political parties, we once again underline our firm position: that the United States’ contempt for our country must end,” Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen and parliamentary leaders said in Nuuk on Friday. “I would like to reach an agreement, you know, the good way. But if we don’t do it the good way, we will do it the bad way.” “If we don’t do it,” he ventured, “Russia or China will take Greenland.”
Six scenarios, based on several conversations with experts and former diplomats this week in Denmark:
1. MILITARY INTERVENTION
alarms went off in Nuuk and Copenhagen. Would a similar operation be imaginable in Greenland? Will the US deploy special forces in this territory 50 times larger than Denmark and with less than 60,000 inhabitants? What it would have in common with the Venezuelan operation would be the use of force and the will to exercise control. But in this case it would not be about capturing a foreign leader wanted by American justice, nor simply controlling his Government, but rather incorporating the territory into the United States.
It could happen with violence. A handful of American troops taking control of strategic buildings: Parliament, the police, the public media, the airport. The Stars and Stripes flag flying in Nuuk.
“It is not the most likely scenario, but it cannot be completely ruled out,” analyzes Jon Rahbek-Clemmensen, head of the strategic studies section at the Royal Danish Defense College. A poll by the Voxmeter institute, published this Saturday, indicates that 38% of Danes believe that the United States will conquer Greenland by force.
How would Denmark respond? Militarily, it has little to do. But in the debates on the scenarios, options are suggested, such as a military deployment in the Greenlandic capital, as a signal to the United States that forces Danish soldiers to fight if their territory is attacked, which would also apply in the event of an American attack.
Lars Bangert Struwe, from the analysis firm Geopol Strategi and former head of the strategic office of the Danish Ministry of Defense, points to one of the possible complications in this scenario: “Carrying out military operations in the Arctic is very difficult, because it is so cold that it requires very prepared and well-trained personnel. “During World War II it was seen,” he says. “The cold and the weather conditions could kill more Americans than a real invasion.”
2. THE HYBRID WAR
The conquest could be more subtle. The Danish military presence in Greenland is small. The Americans have the Pituffik aerospace base, and a few hundred soldiers. “They could do what the Russians have done at the North Pole: plant the flag and say that it is now the United States,” reflects Jonas Parello-Plesner, executive director of the Alliance of Democracies foundation and former Danish diplomat with extensive experience in the United States.
It would be a method Russia took control with the deployment of the so-called green mensoldiers who did not identify themselves as such. He then ratified the annexation with an illegal referendum.
Constitutionally, an independence referendum would be the condition for, once Greenland was fully sovereign and detached from Denmark, to join the United States. But the process would take years, Parello-Plesner explains. “The only way to do it during the Trump period would be to push something illegal,” he says. “Like the Russians, [Trump] would say, ‘It’s ours now,’ and some countries would recognize it.”
Before reaching this point, the United States could launch a “hybrid war,” according to Struwe, “with the American intelligence services trying to seduce the Greenlandic independence movement.” and other Trump acolytes in recent months, or the appointment of a US special envoy, Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry, point to an increase in civil activity.
It is possible that Trump’s harassment of the island will be counterproductive and end up bringing it closer to Denmark. Following successive agreements in 1979 and 2009, Greenland’s economy is largely dependent on Denmark, but enjoys extensive self-government. Today the majority of Greenlanders are in favor of independence, but a majority also rejects annexation to the United States.
3. DETERRENCE (DIPLOMATIC)
What is unusual, for people consulted in politics and the academic world, is to be considering as something realistic a US attack on a country and territory in which it is already present, and which it is supposed to defend as an ally in NATO. On paper, American forces should defend Greenland against invasion… But what if the invasion is American?
Militarily, Denmark and its European allies can do little, but it mentions another option, which is already underway: “diplomatic deterrence” by the Danes and the European Union. “The Americans will be isolated in NATO and, although Trump is not a big fan of NATO, there is the entire Pentagon and Congress system, where there is great support for NATO.”
The congressmen in Washington – Democrats and some Republicans – are the asset of Danish diplomacy. It’s not simple. Trump, in an interview in The New York Timessaid that “maybe we have to choose” between NATO and Greenland. If their demands for Greenland are not accepted, the Atlantic Alliance is over (and possibly support for Ukraine as well).
4. THE PURCHASE
and then he said that his intention was to buy it. It may have seemed like an extravagance, but it would not be the first time that the United States purchased a territory from another country. What’s more: without these acquisitions, the United States would have a different geography and would not be what it is.
In 1803 the United States purchased Louisiana from Napoleonic France, a territory then larger than the current State of that name. It cost him what today would be $430 million, according to an estimate by The Wall Street Journal. In 1867 he bought Alaska from Russia for 158 million.
The sale and purchase of territories has a tradition, at least until the end of World War II and the establishment of an international order more or less based on law. But there is something very Trumpian in the desire to buy a territory as if it were real estate. If it had its way, it would not be the first time that Copenhagen has entered into a transaction of this type with Washington.
In 1917, Denmark sold what was then called the Danish West Indies to the United States for 25 million dollars at the time (today 633, according to the calculation cited). Today they are the US Virgin Islands. On the State Department website, the purchase is explained in a way that – saving temporal, geographical distances, and dimensions – is reminiscent of what Trump claims to conquer Greenland: “Mainly for strategic reasons in order to ensure the tranquility of the Caribbean.”
Today other echoes of that time resonate. “The United States of America will not object to the Danish Government extending its political and economic interests over the entirety of Greenland.”
Trump ignores these commitments, but it is not the first time that the United States wants to buy Greenland. The last was when Democratic President Harry Truman, in 1946, made an offer for 100 million dollars at that time. For the United States, it was about prolonging the control over the island that it had enjoyed during World War II, thanks to an agreement with the Danish ambassador in Washington behind the backs of the authorities of Nazi-occupied Denmark.
To Truman, Denmark said no. Today the Danes and Greenlanders once again reject the offer (and in any case it would be the Greenlanders who would have to decide, once they became independent). “Greenland is not for sale,” they say.
5. THE ASSOCIATION
One of the options to, if not completely incorporate Greenland, then bring it closer, would be through an Agreement of Free Association (COFA) like the one that links the United States such as the Marshall Islands, the Federated States of Micronesia and the Republic of Palau. Under this scenario, “the US would make an offer to Greenland, and it would accept it,” Rahbek-Clemmensen speculates. “Formally, Greenland would become independent, but it would enter into very close collaboration with the United States and give it, in factcontrol over their own security policy and perhaps also over their mineral wealth, in exchange for economic support.” The aforementioned Pacific countries maintain their sovereignty, but, in exchange for economic aid, they offer full access to the US Armed Forces.
“This is not impossible,” says Parello-Plesner. “But it is not plausible either, since we already have treaties. What could be tried with Trump, who is not exactly a man of details, would be to repackage the current treaty [de 1951]: remake it and tell him it’s a treaty for him. “There is already a kind of double sovereignty regarding defense.”
6. THE AGREEMENT
In Copenhagen they emphasize, when referring to this crisis, that the 1951 agreement with Washington for the defense of Greenland already makes it possible to respond to many of the American demands regarding security in Greenland. The United States, according to the agreement, has the possibility of At the end of the Cold War, Washington closed the bases and only left one open, but could open as many as it wanted and increase the military presence. Also invest. Nothing prevents it.
“Denmark and Greenland could offer the United States a way out of the crisis, something that would not lead to political control of Greenland,” says Rahbek-Clemmensen, “but that the United States could present as a victory, and we could turn the page. A new defense agreement, for example, or new legislation on Chinese investments, or an increase in military spending.”
There is a recent precedent of a country that Trump wanted to conquer and which, for now, he seems to have forgotten. “Marco Rubio went to negotiate with them, he made the Chinese company leave, he made American companies enter, and Trump thought it was a good agreement,” says Parello-Plesner. “Now the treaties we already have could be renewed, common projects on mineral resources and rare earths could be made. Here perhaps there is an option for a rather friendly agreement.”
“The solution, adds Struwe, “is to talk to the Americans and promise them that there will be no Chinese or Russian presence in Greenland, so that security concerns do not exist.” The underlying problem is, he adds, that Donald Trump “does not see [Groenlandia] “as a security problem, but as a way to expand the United States.”
In Copenhagen they believe that the current agreements make it possible to respond to security concerns and tension with China and Russia in a strategically central Arctic. It will be more complicated for Denmark and its partners to give a satisfactory response to Trump’s desire to proclaim that Greenland is his, part of the United States of America.
