‘His Greenland message points to an attempt to deal with America’s declining global status and unsustainable imperial overreach.’ Photo by EMIL STACH/Ritzau Scanpix/AFP via Getty Images.
With just over a week to go to his inauguration, Donald Trump is already sabre-rattling. It is, he said, an “absolute necessity” that America annexes Greenland. “People really don’t even know if Denmark has any legal right to it, but if they do, they should give it up because we need it for national security.” Not even in the White House yet and the president-elect already has Europe in a frenzy, refusing to rule out economic or military coercion in his desire to secure control over the Danish autonomous territory.
Donald Trump Jr is also in on the act. He ostentatiously visited the island this week, purporting to be a tourist; but he was accompanied by Sergio Gor, the powerful incoming director of the White House Presidential Personnel Office, and was seen handing out “Make Greenland Great Again” hats. “Don Jr. and my reps landing in Greenland”, Trump posted on social media. “The reception has been great. They, and the Free World, need safety, security, strength, and PEACE! This is a deal that must happen. MAGA. MAKE GREENLAND GREAT AGAIN!”.
Not wanting to be left out, Elon Musk weighed in on X, writing, “If the people of Greenland want to be part of America, which I hope they do, they would be most welcome!”.
Unsurprisingly, Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen gave Trump’s proposal short shrift, stating, “Greenland belongs to the Greenlanders”. But all the love bombing comes amid a rising independence movement in the former Danish colony that became self-ruling in 1979. “It is now time to take the next step for our country,” Greenland’s premier Múte Egede said. “Like other countries in the world, we must work to remove the obstacles to cooperation — which we can describe as the shackles of the colonial era — and move on.” He also floated the idea of a possible referendum, a development that could potentially play into Trump’s expansionist aim.
It would be easy to laugh off Trump’s annexation claims as little more than political trolling aimed at stirring up his MAGA base and usefully diverting attention from more pressing issues, such as the lack of a clear strategy for managing the conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East. There is, though, more to this story that just Trump shooting off his mouth. In fact, Greenland has long been a serious obsession for the former and future president, who first made a bid to purchase the island in 2019.
But why is Trump so keen on this huge, icy rock where living conditions are so extreme that the tiny population (60,000) of mostly indigenous communities has to rely on fishing and hunting for its livelihood? In fact, it’s pretty straight-forward. For starters, Greenland is rich in natural resources, including rare earth minerals, which are critical for America’s high-tech industries and green technologies.
More important is its position at the doorstep of the geopolitically invaluable Arctic Ocean. Not only does the region hold vast untapped reserves of oil and gas, but as ice caps melt, previously inaccessible maritime pathways are opening up that could significantly alter global trade dynamics. Chief among these is the Northern Sea Route, along Russia’s coast and through the Bering Strait, which could cut transit times between Asia and Europe by as much as 40%, bypassing traditional routes through the Panama and Suez Canals.
Trump surely knows that Russia, with its extensive Arctic coastline, is uniquely positioned to capitalise on the region’s potential. Indeed, the Northern Sea Route is the lynchpin of Moscow’s new energy strategy; it has constructed ports, terminals and icebreaker fleets aimed at leveraging the new shipping routes to export oil, LNG and other resources from the Arctic regions to global markets, particularly Asia. It has also expanded its military presence. China, meanwhile, is also heavily present: having designated itself as a “near-Arctic state” in 2018, it has since been investing in the region through its Polar Silk Road initiative, aiming to integrate Arctic shipping into its broader Belt and Road framework.
Against this backdrop, Trump’s statements take on a more serious note. Far from being idle musings, they underscore the idea that Greenland is a vital part of the longstanding US ambition to strengthen its Arctic foothold and thereby counter the encroaching presence of Russia and China. In this sense, Trump’s talk of annexation and even military intervention, neither of which are likely to happen, risks being a distraction from the wider geopolitical dynamic at play: the scramble for the Arctic, one of the new “Great Games” of the 21st century and one that is already playing out.
To play this game, the US doesn’t actually need to seize physical control of Greenland. It already wields significant influence there under a 1951 treaty with Denmark: it bears substantial responsibility over Greenland’s defence, and operates a major base on the island — Pituffik Space Base (formerly Thule Air Base) — a critical component of its missile defense system. Any push to expand its military presence would face little resistance from Denmark, given its Atlanticist alignment and wariness of Russia. An independent Greenland would be even weaker against US demands — despite its premier claiming that Greenland “will never be for sale”.
In short, Trump’s empty talk of military intervention shouldn’t blind us to the very real fact that the Arctic is about to become a flashpoint in the rivalry between America and the China-Russia axis. The rhetoric is useful, though, as it indicates his administration’s potential foreign policy direction. Taken with his other recent expansionist claims, which also include the Panama Canal and even Canada, his Greenland message points to an attempt to deal with America’s declining global status and unsustainable imperial overreach. It all suggests the recalibrating of US priorities toward a more manageable “continental” strategy — a new Monroe Doctrine — aimed at reasserting full hegemony over what it deems to be its natural sphere of influence, the Americas and the northern Atlantic.
This approach would attempt to balance those imperialist tendencies still very much present among the US establishment (and in Trump himself) with a more “realist” understanding of the world’s multipolar dynamics. It might also explain why Trump’s Greenland ambitions resonated with some Russian commentators. TV pundit Sergey Mikheyev, for example, said that Trump’s proposal is in accordance with “the American mindset” that his predecessors attempted to “disguise and hide”. “Trump simply says it straight — we are everything and you are nothing”, Mikheyev noted. “This is especially interesting because it drives a wedge between him and Europe, it undermines the world architecture, and opens up certain opportunities for our foreign policy”, he added, arguing that if Trump “really wants to stop the third world war, the way out is simple: dividing up the world into spheres of influence”.
Stanislav Tkachenko, an influential academic at the St Petersburg State University also voiced his support and said that Russia should “thank Donald Trump, who is teaching us a new diplomatic language. That is, to say it like it is. Maybe we won’t carve up the world like an apple, but we can certainly outline the parts of the world where our interests cannot be questioned.”
These statements could be dismissed as wishful thinking, failing as they do to account for the heightened risk of military tensions where spheres of influence collide — as they do in the Arctic. Furthermore, US-Russia relations hinge on the trajectory of the war in Ukraine, where significant obstacles remain on the path to lasting peace. Nevertheless, Trump’s remarks provide insight into how tensions between the US and Russia (and China) might evolve, even if they don’t subside. Of course, a world where weaker nations are treated as mere pawns to be “peacefully” divided among imperial powers — assuming this is the direction we are heading — is hardly the kind of multipolar order most people envision. Nor is it the order that Russia and China ostensibly advocate for, leaving open the question of how they might respond to Trump’s overtures.
But one place remains woefully unprepared — politically, intellectually and psychologically — to navigate these troubled waters: Europe. In a world poised to be divided into spheres of influence dominated by the United States, Russia and China, the Old Continent faces the prospect of becoming even more geopolitically weakened and vulnerable than it is now. And yet it continues to cling desperately to the myth of the transatlantic relationship, despite America’s increasingly apparent disregard for its sovereignty and prosperity, exemplified most recently by Trump’s Greenland ambitions. Indeed, it is bitterly ironic that Europe, after vassalising itself to the United States in an effort to counter a largely imagined Russian threat, now finds one of its territories being threatened not by Russia — but by the US itself.
Thomas Fazi is an UnHerd columnist and translator. His latest book is The Covid Consensus, co-authored with Toby Green.
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SubscribeVery good analysis.
When these immature, over-emotional pants-wetters cavorted and capered around their university campuses shouting down free speech and being offended at every sparrow’s fart, we laughed and said things like “just wait ’til they get into the real world.”
The trouble is, they’re in the real world now and they’re taking over.
I don’t suppose any of the young journalists currently intimidating older colleagues who should know better have given the slightest thought to why we think it’s a good – even essential – idea to strive for impartial news reporting.
Once you say that everything that works and has worked and is the product of many, many clever and decent minds over many many decades is “just part of white supremacy” there’s nowhere left to go.
You can’t rationalise with these people because they also see rationality as being part of white supremacy.
Bad times are coming.
Coming? They’re here.
I find the analysis weak, chiefly because the assertions are unsupported. (See my previous comment). Here’s a tip: much that appears irrational during a period of intense change are, when a tipping point is reached, suddenly revealed to make perfect sense. Kuhn explains this in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Or, more simply, consider that Churchill’s positions seemed beyond reason while Chamberlain negotiated. Dylan described this phenomenon: “Something is happening, and you don’t know what it is. Do you Mr. Jones?” And to suggest right now that “Bad times are coming?” Lynching, poll taxes, segregation, discrimination in housing, banking, education, redlining, police brutality. For people of color, bad times have been here for a century. To trot out one more cliche, open your eyes: there’s an elephant in our room.
“…those who fear for their job security will simply opt to say nothing…”
That won’t work, because saying nothing is also “racist”.
Such a measured explanation of the balance of nature in relation to today’s society and belief systems. The debunking of the world of fluffy sentimentality has never been needed more in a society where animal charities give away planet-destroying toys in return for your subscription. Bye bye Care Bears!
I truly hope Prof. Gray is wrong.
So reassuring to hear that everything is Trump’s fault and that there is no reason to be concerned about declining birth rates, the hollowing out of America’s manufacturing and the assault on the western canon.
A good analysis, but your point about the white majority who are likely to be looking on with bemusement is, I suggest, wide of the mark. BLM is racist, discriminatory, divisive and, above all, profoundly insulting to the white and other non-black majority and, I suggest, has greatly set back race relations in this country. ‘Taking the knee’ and raising a clenched fist are deeply offensive gestures and in my own case, alas, have created strong resentment. BLM deserves no respect for its aims which have now diverged so widely from the justified protest over the killing of Floyd.
I am delighted to read this article, I feel in complete resonance with Katherine . I fear (without being condescending) that some BLM supporters popularising token recognitions as black box on social media sites , taking the knee or chanting slogans like ‘don’t shoot’ are not asking what they can DO better . What would be more useful is not just to be seen to be doing but to be doing . Improvements in society can only only happen if one looks inwards (without blame ) with a resolution to be a better person , to set an example , to inch forward in that manner day after day rather than to play the blame game today and meaningless gestures that topple statues and change products names and iconic brands . If this struggle does not distance itself from those for whom gestures is everything it is allowing its noble goal to be demoted . Take Rashford for example – he is one that is doing , not blaming not gesturing but just using his persuasive skills that are admired by all.
In referring to Rachel Zegler as an actor when she is, in fact, an actress, shows even you have taken the Kool Aid, Michael.
Great column. The 2016 Disney film Zootopia, where a male fox and a female bunny rabbit team up to solve a crime was a particularly silly case of a film for children that denied essential predator-prey relationships.
This is a mind blowing analysis. Thank you.
Your conclusion, “the resolution between such categorically-different life experiences can only be achieved through the expression of force”, is spot on in my opinion.
One only needs to exchange force with shaming and for me the jig saw puzzle is complete.
In this respect, nominalism or naming (which is reinforced with capitalisation) is the conduit by which people can arbitrarily shame. I mean on a very basic level it is just name calling (a form of ad hominem attack that draws a vague equivalence between a concept and a person, group or idea) so is rooted in logical fallacies.
Unfortunately, to various degrees we are all to blame and so must take some responsibility since even Woke is name calling.
That said, if a group of people are adamant about needing to name in order to shame, then the fact that these people are actively choosing to use naming and shaming as a politically divisive tool needs to be named in order to be shamed.
So WE have justified shaming (Anti-Wokism) in order to protect societal Universals intact and we have unjustified shaming (Wokeism) which seeks to erode societal Universals.
This I presume, and as you point out, is why unjustified Shamers reject Universals because Universals reduce their ability to name and shame and so Universals are characterised as forms of Oppression against the ability to unjustifiably name and shame.
This brings me to the absolutist versus the relativist
with absolutism making normative ethical decisions based on objective rules and relativism making normative ethical decisions based on subjective rules.
In this respect, unjustified Shamers are absolutist (black and white) about their relativism and justified Shamers are relativist about their absolutism (black and white).
So WE have in very broad polarised terms,
Absolute relativists
and
Relative absolutists.
Interestingly, this may be reducted to positive and negative rights and duties.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/….
with positive rights and duties being broadly promoted by Wokes with naming and shaming being used as a political vehicle to enforce positive rights and duties and negative rights and duties being broadly promoted by anti-Wokes with naming and shaming being used as a political vehicle to enforce negative rights and duties.
Closer to reality, these circles will intersect in the middle which is where we find Red Toryism and Blue Labour with the positive circle broadly characterising the Liberal Left and the negative circle broadly characterising the Conservative Right. (I’ve posted the revised model/map on your twitter).
In this respect it was interesting to have an online conversation that reflected these different positions in that I thought shaming on the basis of race, ethnicity, gender and belief should be banned with certain exception to the rule (negative I think) and the other guy thought shaming should be allowed but only within certain limits (positive I think). This I thought broadly characterised the Left of radical centre position (Blue Labour) and the right of radical centre position (Red Tory).
So overall, a muddle it certainly is but I think the way forward is trying to bridge the two which I have been trying to do through my online activism by conceptualising the entirety of this broad ranging cultural transformation debate with the universal of
#OurSociety – The Inclusive Variety.
For me, the first step is to acknowledge the historical formation of societal/structural inequalities as a consequence of the historical inequalities between class which historically has unequalised value, worth, dignity and respect on the hierarchical basis of class. As such, #OurSociety needs to deeply acknowledge the interdependent functionalism between the different classes and in so doing equalise value, worth, dignity and respect between the different roles and functions that collectively creates the basis of Our Society’s prosperity.
Most seem to be on board except hardened Conservatives and hardened Liberals who need an enemy to justify either their identity driven selfishness or justify their identity driven shaming.
Of course, in reality organic Universals only exist as conceptual totalities so at least in terms of ethics, there will always be exceptions to the rule, but I think generalised Universals can be conceptualised which the Ten Commandments tried to achieve.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/…
The difficult bit is trying to conceptualise Universal ethics whilst at the same time circumnavigate the life death relationship between all beings.
#AllBeingsMatter
P. S sorry about previous post, discus and mobile phones do not mix very well especially when selecting and copying text.
Well done, David, it’s good to hear reason and balance. That’s why I’m here.
Thank you! A well-argued article that hits the bullseye it sets up at the beginning.
What an excellent piece Katherine.
Thanks. I hope you are right, and widely read.
All folk of independent mind and good will outside the U.S.A. will hope and pray you are wrong and the second-greatest country the world has ever seen will pull itself together and get back on the road of courage and common sense. But I fear you are right.
Black lives matter, no they don’t!
That is a nonsensical mantra.
The correct version, which must be adopted immediately is, BLACK LIVES SHOULD MATTER.
‘the events of 2016’
You mean someone legitimately won an election. That’s all that happened. Please don’t make it sound like World War Three and the Pacific tsunami combined.
Excellent grounding back to reality. I needed that. Thanks.
It is quite easy to lose perspective when in the thick of it.
So what do you think is driving this cultural aberration. Survival anxiety, status anxiety, some other anxiety or a crazy combination of anxieties.
And will these anxieties go away through resolution or will they continue simmering away.
It seems that postmodern democracy in the US is the politicisation of mass society using media manipulation, targeted privilage grievances and mass shaming in opposition to selected political opponents.
Foucaultism and manufactured consent is the new political reality in America with the Black Lives Matter movement using the same fundraising platform as the Democratic Party.
Similarly, NGOs in the UK are now largely aligned with the Progressive Alliance which will no doubt be headed up by the Labour Party at the next General Election.
Sorry to disappoint people but Trump will win in November and the more Democrat-governed cities abolish their police forces the bigger that win will be.
Just a small heads-up!
Pre-Censorship of comments is a Herd Mindset.
So it seems that “Our Mission” must be reviewed.
As Jordan Peterson has said on multiple occasions, the deconstructionist will keep fractionating groups and classes, e.g. the gender list will continue to grow, until you’re out of groups to deconstruct, and you’re right there at the individual.
“And that’s what the West already discovered.”
It’s funny to watch “progressives” participating in this venture of group conflict, and thinking they are uncovering new information.
Just a paste of myself!
It sure is funny reading a title like this one after what we have seen this lovely year of 2020!
After that I just read some parts!
Lucky for me I read this one:
Are we still in the exploration phase?! That sure does not sound compatible with a premise of “able to think for oneself”!
The nature is in our Memory & Thought.
The solution is quite simple: Forget Time, Embrace Compassion.
My sweet childhood Teddybear, who I still have, would weigh 800 pounds in real life and would eat me without giving it a thought. I’m glad my parents didn’t explain that to me when I was four.
This is a mind blowing analysis. Thank you.
Your conclusion, “the resolution between such categorically-different life experiences can only be achieved through the expression of force”, is spot on in my opinion.
One only needs to exchange force with shaming and for me the jig saw puzzle is complete.
In this respect, nominalism or naming (which is reinforced with capitalisation) is the conduit by which people can arbitrarily shame. I mean on a very basic level it is just name calling (a form of ad hominem attack that draws a vague equivalence between a concept and a person, group or idea) so is rooted in logical fallacies.
Unfortunately, to various degrees we are all to blame and so must take some responsibility since even Woke is name calling.
That said, if a group of people are adamant about needing to name in order to shame, then the fact that these people are actively choosing to use naming and shaming as a politically divisive tool needs to be named in order to be shamed.
So WE have justified shaming (Anti-Wokism) in order to protect societal Universals intact and we have unjustified shaming (Wokeism) which seeks to erode societal Universals.
This I presume, and as you point out, is why unjustified Shamers reject Universals because Universals reduce their ability to name and shame and so Universals are characterised as forms of Oppression against the ability to unjustifiably name and shame.
This brings me to the absolutist versus the relativist
with absolutism making normative ethical decisions based on objective rules and relativism making normative ethical decisions based on subjective rules.
In this respect, unjustified Shamers are absolutist (black and white) about their relativism and justified Shamers are relativist about their absolutism (black and white).
So WE have in very broad polarised terms,
Absolute relativists
and
Relative absolutists.
Interestingly, this may be reducted to positive and negative rights and duties.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/….
with positive rights and duties being broadly promoted by Wokes with naming and shaming being used as a political vehicle to enforce positive rights and duties and negative rights and duties being broadly promoted by anti-Wokes with naming and shaming being used as a political vehicle to enforce negative rights and duties.
In this respect it was interesting to have an online conversation that reflected these different positions in that I thought shaming on the basis of race, ethnicity, gender and belief should be banned with certain exception to the rule (negative I think) and the other guy thought shaming should be allowed but only within certain limits (positive I think). This I thought broadly characterised the Left
Closer to reality, these circles will intersect in the middle which is where we find Red Toryism and Blue Labour with the positive circle broadly characterising the Liberal Left and the negative circle broadly characterising the Conservative Right. (I’ve posted the revised model/map on your twitter).
So overall, a muddle it certainly is but I think the way forward is trying to bridge the two which I have been trying to do through my online activism by conceptualising the entirety of this broad ranging cultural transformation debate with the universal of
#OurSociety – The Inclusive Variety.
For me, the first step is to acknowledge the historical formation of societal/structural inequalities as a consequence of the historical inequalities between class which historically has unequalised value, worth, dignity and respect on the hierarchical basis of class. As such, #OurSociety needs to deeply acknowledge the interdependent functionalism between the different classes and in so doing equalise value, worth, dignity and respect between the different roles and functions that collectively creates the basis of Our Society’s prosperity.
Most seem to be on board except hardened Conservatives and hardened Liberals who need an enemy to justify either their identity driven selfishness or justify their identity driven shaming.
Of
If Trump is the problem – or one of the problems – is Biden the answer? Were any of the Democrat alternatives the answer? Does anyone have the answer? Apparently not.
The answer is “no.” The multilateral genome research and identification projects, as well as similar pursuits with historical mitochondria are putting an end to the fantasey of both the one-people-one-race fantasy, not to mention the out-of-Africa hypothesis, which has been crammed into every class room and TV documentary with a passionate and entirely political zeal since WW II.
An excellent article and very true. Sadly a lot of younger women who call themselves feminists have been so indoctrinated by the Stonewall agenda at university (and the collaboration of most academics) that they are in the process of giving away our hard earned sex based rights to the pro self-ID / Trans lobbyists. Thank heavens the government has had the sense to scrap the review of the GRA and protect women’s only spaces. We now need to ensure this is adhered to and work on Sporting Bodies to ensure women’s sport is just for those with XX sex chromosomes. The current trend to allow anyone who identifies as female into female sport will lead to the end of women’s sport as we know it. The IOC must make the right decision on this.
“Conservatives” don’t have a vision for the future either.
The only vision they have is fixing voting lines to win an election.
Embarrassing.
And that, my dear is what you call a conspiracy theory.
In this piece, the effort to support the central assertion is laughably minimal. The author suggests there’s a widespread trend that journalists “have been offered explicit institutional support to actively participate as protesters.” He says, “Some of these authorisations have been made public, while others have not.” The words “made public” are linked to a NYTimes article that cites only one institution and that portrays the support of that particular employer–Axios–as ambiguous. Nothing else, zero, is offered as an example of such support, either public or not public.