Greenland and Ukraine

11 January 2025 ·

I dislike Putin as much as most other Danes, and I support Ukraine in the war. Nevertheless, both here on Facebook and elsewhere, I have argued that the war in Ukraine could have been avoided if we in NATO had acted differently in the period leading up to the war. If a little boy knows that there is a big, violent bully in the schoolyard, he should refrain from provoking him. It may feel unfair that this is the case, but that's just how it is. Of course, it is the big boy who is violent, but when you are small, you also have a responsibility to avoid conflict, even if there is a whole gang of classmates who tempt and pressure you and promise to help if a fight breaks out. Cars are not allowed to run over pedestrians, but as a pedestrian, you still have a responsibility to look both ways, even if the traffic law blames the driver. Now the United States is threatening to use military force to secure control of Greenland. It is a situation so grotesque that many of us find it difficult to take seriously, but what is actually going on? Let's do a little thought experiment. What if China or Russia supported an opposition group in Greenland and destabilised the home rule government ahead of the April elections to Greenland's legislative assembly, the Inatsisartut? What if foreign intelligence services supported a rebellion in Nuuk or Copenhagen that resulted in a takeover of Greenland or Denmark? The new rulers would immediately announce that we have received a good offer from China or Russia for military protection against threats from the United States and for attractive economic cooperation, so now the Thule base must be closed and we are leaving NATO and will plaster West Greenland with Russian air bases and nuclear missiles aimed at Washington and New York. How would the US react? I have no doubt that the US would immediately invade Greenland to prevent this, responding in exactly the same way that Russia did when the Orange Revolution removed the elected president of Ukraine, paving the way for a new government to work towards membership of NATO and the EU. The US and Russia are bullies who dominate each end of the schoolyard, and if a small country wants to avoid getting into a fight with them, it must refrain from provoking them. However, the conflict in Greenland is not yet about military security. The US already has total military power over Greenland, even though some wilderness tourists with a small Danish flag on their shoulders enjoy pulling a sled around Northeast Greenland in the summer, and the patrol boats along the coast sail under the Danish flag and with Danish crews for appearances' sake. The reality is that it is the US that has sovereign control over Danish foreign and security policy, and it is an illusion to believe that Denmark or Greenland has any say in the military balance in the North Atlantic. When Trump wants more control over Greenland, it is therefore not about the military control they already have, but rather about control over Greenland's minerals. China produces most of the world's rare minerals, but there are also deposits in a few other places in the world. In southern Siberia, the entire periodic table of minerals lies buried, ready to be dug up. After the war in Ukraine, Russia is so indebted to China that China has effectively gained control over Russia's mineral deposits as well. This gives them control over the entire world's electronic development and thus power over the West in the conflict that the US will be forced to engage in with China in the coming decades in order to maintain its de facto world domination. The US cannot, of course, accept that some Greenlandic fishermen and local politicians prioritise the local environment over the extraction of raw materials that could become the Western world's source of alternative supplies of minerals that we are otherwise dependent on buying from China. I dislike Putin. However, I do not naively believe that he is worse than Trump. He has simply been in power longer and has therefore gone further down the same path. Fortunately, there is hope. The United States has attacked countless countries around the world over the past 60 years. They have been at war almost continuously since the Korean War, and they have lost every war. Therefore, they will probably not be able to occupy Greenland or Denmark for very long.