Building more facilities there to complement Pituffik Space Base would further the US’s “Golden Dome” missile defence plans for obtaining a strategic edge over Russia, while extracting more critical minerals from there would reduce dependence on vulnerable Chinese supply chains.
By Andrew Korybko, Substack
Trump recently reaffirmed his intent to annex Greenland on the pretext that this would supposedly preempt China or Russia from invading NATO member Denmark’s autonomous territory. Many believe that his main motivation, however, is to obtain control over what’s estimated to be the world’s second-largest reserve of critical minerals [1].
The Daily Mail then reported that the US itself is actually planning on invading the world’s largest island, not China or Russia, which Denmark doesn’t consider [2] to pose a threat.
Amidst this news, Bloomberg reported [3] that “UK, Germany discuss NATO Forces in Greenland to Calm US Threat” ostensibly with the intent of deterring the US, even though it’s extremely unlikely that they’d fight it over Greenland, just like it was earlier assessed [4] that France wouldn’t either. Greenland is basically Trump’s for the taking if he really wants it, since neither NATO nor the locals can stop it, the latter of whom have no realistic way to block it from extracting resources or building more military bases there.
Therein lie the goals that the US would advance since more facilities to complement the Pituffik Space Base would further the US’s “Golden Dome” missile defence plans for obtaining a strategic edge over Russia, while extracting more critical minerals would reduce dependence on vulnerable Chinese supply chains.
Moreover, annexing Greenland would help build “Fortress America”, which is the “Trump Doctrine’s plan as enshrined in the National Security Strategy for restoring US hegemony over the hemisphere [5].
Achieving this grand strategic goal would eventually help subsidize Trump’s proposed 50% increase [6] in the defense budget to $1.5 trillion next year (and whatever more after), thus enabling the US to more muscularly contain China, and ensure that the US survives and even thrives in the (for now far-off) scenario that it’s expelled from the Eastern Hemisphere or withdraws from there.
Greenland is the crown jewel of “Fortress America” for the aforesaid reasons, so its annexation is imperative for the US.
That said, it’s also possible that some of Trump’s advisors convince him not to pursue since this might irreparably ruin ties with the EU and NATO, the first of whom the US envisages profiting tremendously from after last summer’s lopsided trade deal and the second of which it envisages leading to Russia’s containment in Europe after the Ukrainian Conflict ends.
Although the US would likely win a trade war with the EU, a protracted one could lead to fewer profits and more opportunities for China there.
As for NATO, without its full-fledged commitment to contain Russia after the Ukrainian Conflict ends, the US might baulk at redeploying many of its forces from Europe to the Asia-Pacific for more muscular containment of China, thus undermining one of the tenets of the “Trump Doctrine”.
Nevertheless, given the importance of the US market for the EU and most NATO members’ pathological fear of Russia, whatever damage the US’s potential annexation of Greenland inflicts on their ties should be quickly repaired.
For these reasons, the US will likely annex Greenland, despite already enjoying full freedom of economic and military action there, which neither China nor Russia will ever have. In this case, the US would remove any remaining doubt about its hegemonic intentions over its allies.
Trump has never been deterred by concerns about hurting his counterparts’ feelings or their societies’ disliking the US, and the more that they talk about such consequences, the more he might want to do this just to spite them.
By Andrew Korybko, Substack
References
- EuroNews: Mining, climate and smokescreens: What’s driving Trump’s interest in Greenland?
- RT: ‘Delusional’ to claim Russia and China pose threat to Greenland – Danish MP
- Bloomberg: UK and Germany discuss NATO forces in Greenland to calm the US threat
- Andrew Korybko: France Won’t Fight The US Over Greenland
- The AltWorld: The US’ New National Security Strategy Details How Trump 2.0 Will Respond To Multipolarity
- AP: Trump’s proposed $1.5 trillion defense budget sends military contractor shares higher