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I was with you and I was with you but I don’t see what mineral rights have to do with it. I’m actually more or less in agreement with those who say the mineral rights argument is a bit of a red herring. (I also saw this story that an American company has already signed for some rights, so if there is really anything to be mined maybe Americans can get it without a treaty having to spell it out.)
The minerals are really only essential if they give America control over some natural resource it can’t already control. But Alaska and the Mountain West have a bunch and Canada has more. I guess it helps to have a backup.
Maybe also the others here are right to distinguish between sovereignty and suzerainty. I think in this case it amounts to the same thing because Greenland has only 56,000 citizens — it genuinely doesn’t matter. There is almost nothing we need to impose on Nuuk. All they need to do is let Starlink in.
I also think it does make a big difference if America has to go through Denmark or can act on its own terms. If my hunch is right we will be installing a lot more than standard military bases as such. (Satellite radio terminals, missile launchers, Starlink hookups, drone bases, data centers, port terminal services, airports.) I expect this will also eliminate the Danish crown royal monopoly on shipping to Greenland, which has been a major constraint on developing anything in Greenland from the beginning.
I have more to say but I don’t want to start an entirely different topic. My working theory is that America is building a Golden Dome autonomous supercomputer satellite swarm, built entirely on the back of the Western Hemisphere and the Monroe Doctrine. It’s basically going to obviate war as traditionally fought. (Don’t worry, there will still be lots of it.) But America will basically be isolated from it. We are going to own space, and supercomputers, and fill them with missiles autonomously-built in factories sourced with raw materials from the Western Hemisphere. Greenland, basically, only matters insofar as it fits in with that.
This doesn't make sense given the orbital mechanics. If your space weapons are in orbits below GEO (and there are good reasons for not putting them that high), then they are all over the place. The raw materials are also a furphy - space isn't particularly raw materials intensive.
If American did own LEO at some point in the future, they wouldn't need Greenland.
You need Greenland because satellites operating in polar orbits are mostly out of range of the radio ground stations located at lower latitudes. I suppose it’s not needed but this makes the system redundant as opposed to being dependent on Alaska.
Also I don’t know what the space weapons are so I don’t know how the mechanics work out. But I imagine autonomous satellites are also going to hookup with ground-based systems that already exist.
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Back in ancient times (you know, a decade ago) it was useful to have ground stations all over so your LEO satellites wouldn't have any gaps in communications coverage. I think Starlink proving out laser sat-to-sat networks has put an end to those days, though; any serious future natural security satellites are going to link to Starshield for backup comms at minimum.
This might not be the case today, but my guess is that by 2036 our serious peer opponents will be able to knock out even swarm constellations like Starlink in a serious war. Being able to put stuff on the ground still matters.
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Maybe we're both nuts, but this would tie in with the recent statement that the US has deployed space weapons.
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