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PaperclipPerfector  5d ago (text post)   25051 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of January 5, 2026

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USA really, seriously wants to own Greenland.

Trump has made this extremely clear ever since his first presidency when he first offered to buy the island from the Danish government. At the time, the Danes made it very clear that this was not possible. They could not legally sell the island, and if they could, it still would not be for sale. This presidency, he has been probing around, trying to find an effective strategy that can give the administration what they want. He made that clear in 2025 by essentially stating that no tactic is off the table. He has since attempted the following:

  1. Threaten a military takeover. He did this by stating that military intervention was not considered off the table.This was shut down by European leaders promising to retaliate.
  2. Convince the locals to declare independence. In reality, independence for Greenland means choosing a new master (thus creating an obvious opportunity for the US), as their current society cannot survive without subsidies from a wealthier nation. However, the administration failed to convince the Inuits. I suspect they might return to this strategy in the future though, if the current one does not work.
  3. Currently, the administration is attempting to use the situation in Venezuela as leverage. They are showing that the threats of invasion were not empty, using the implication to frighten the relevant parties into submission. Once again, European leaders have, through indicating support for Denmark, threatened retaliation if the US invades. I suspect this will be enough to deter the administration once more. Although if Europe had not been supportive and instead let Denmark stand alone, I do not doubt that America would be planning an invasion right now.

This begs the question though: Why does the US want Greenland so badly? It is a frozen rock in the middle of the ocean, with an entire population living off government subsidies. Why not just let Denmark pay the bill while the states keep their bases? I have some ideas below, ordered from what I think makes the least sense to the most:

  1. It is a hedge against global warming. As the earth grows hotter, Greenland will become increasingly habitable, making the island much more valuable as other landmasses are swallowed by the ocean.
  2. Real estate for data centers. The island is cold and remote, with a lot of empty space and rare earths in the ground. To my layman's knowledge though, construction of the necessary infrastructure would be ludicrously expensive, even though the land itself might be cheap. Still, I would not put it past the likes of Elon Musk to try something like this anyway.
  3. To secure the North Atlantic against military threats. This seems like the official reason, but I don't really buy it. America already has military bases on Greenland, and I do not see why the military could not simply send more equipment and personnel there if the government wanted a larger presence. No official ownership necessary. If this is wrong, then I invite any other commenter to correct me.
  4. To control the rare earths. Rare earths are a priority of the Trump administration, and even though extracting them is supposedly ridiculously expensive, the mere possibility of another country (China) gaining access to them might be enough to warrant official occupation. This way, the US government, not the Inuits, would be in control of who is allowed to mine there.
  5. It is in the American "Sphere of Influence". It is possible that the world order is turning towards one in which Great Powers (USA, Russia, China, and maybe the EU) hold influence over the smaller countries in their vicinity. The smaller countries remain sovereign and independent as long as they operate in the interest of their great power. In this scenario, the USA views all of the Americas as being under her sphere of influence, including Canada and Greenland. These countries will either bow to their leader or suffer her wrath.
  6. The purpose is to secure Trump's (and more broadly, the Republican's) legacy as president. Trump clearly cares a lot about his image, with the most recent example being how hard he has tried to win the Nobel Peace price. Successfully expanding the nation's territory with the world's largest island would go down in the history books, cementing this administration as potentially the greatest one since world war 2.

I think something that is often missed is that Greenland does not want to remain Danish. Greenland wants independence. Right now they are subsidized by Denmark which makes straight up leaving a financial problem.

I suspect that #3 is at least a large part of the reason (although obviously it's possible that it's an idea for a number of good reasons, and/or bad ones!), and the US doesn't want to gamble on Greenland finding a better partner in e.g. Russia or China or to have to worry about the status of its bases if it leaves Denmark. I could be wrong about this, but it does answer the question of "why not just station more troops under the arrangement with Denmark we already have?" - it's possible there's concern about that being a viable strategy long term. Even if Greenland doesn't declare independence, there may also be concern in the Trump administration about the long-term viability of Denmark as a partner.

It's also worth noting that apparently the Danes tried to get the US to leave Greenland after World War Two (when the US seized Greenland) and the US...didn't, although we did offer to buy it in 1946. So this is a longstanding US security concern.

I also wonder if "US owning Greenland" is a stretch goal with the idea being that by pushing for buying Greenland outright something like US-subsidized independence with a Compact of Free Association suddenly looks very tame and reasonable.

I also wonder if "US owning Greenland" is a stretch goal with the idea being that by pushing for buying Greenland outright something like US-subsidized independence with a Compact of Free Association suddenly looks very tame and reasonable.

That does sort of make sense, with Greeland being a far-off island with such a small population. But one catch is that those COFA islands usually don't do very well... with no one to fight for them in Congress, they end up unfunded and forgotten.

My personal preference would be to absorb Greenland into the state of Maine. That would give it two full senators and a representative to secure its funding. At a distance of about 2500 km from Portland to Nuuk, it's... not exactly close, but not an impossible distance either. Plus, Maine is already a state with some infrastructure to handle cold weather, the Canadian border, and indigenous groups. It also has one of our largest naval shipyards in Bath Iron Works, which would likely play a critical role in building ships to patrol the Arctic.

We could also absorb it into Alaska, which is even better developed to handle large quantities of Arctice territory, but that might lead to some awkward conflicts with Canada if Alaska was having to constantly cross through Canadian territory to administrate its new land on the other side.

We should relocate all the Greenlanders to Nunuvat for a one-time payment (One to them and a bigger one to Canada for taking them). Then Greenland might be worth the trouble.

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