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Notes -
The land has pretty significant military relevance in a situation where the United States and Russia (or the United States and China) get any more unfriendly, military analysis looking at demographics expects any such efforts to happen in <20 years if it can happen, and there's a lot of benefits to making a war expensive even if you never intend to fight one for Schelling Reasons. Trying to work within Danish rule has caused friction points dating back to the 1960s, Euro and NATO unwillingness to shit or get off the pot in Ukraine has lead to much greater skepticism that this would change in response to external military force, and all the relevant countries are actively flirting with China even well before COVID.
It's not, say, Panama. But it's still pretty important.
Meanwhile, the dollar cost of the entire country's subsidies from Denmark, and a sizable incentive for every single person in the country, is dwarfed by a single (smaller!) state's hilarious set of fraud scandals, and is significantly dwarfed by what California has used to not build a train.
The goofy part's the military threats and not modeling why the entire process is pissing off the Danes. Maybe there's some 5D Chess, or anti-Trump groups (and Trump's natural inability to post in any way but the most Boomerish possible) are highlighting military options that aren't being seriously considered, or maybe it's just trying to Good Cop Insane Cop the negotiating table.
Kill two birds with one stone: get Minnesota to take over administering Greenland! 🤣
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