Whether it was Will Rogers or Tony Soprano, the old advice of “buy land, God’s not making any more of it” is good real estate advice, but it’s hardly an iron law. First of all, God does make more land from time to time. And so do humans. This raises a second famous piece of advice, also of unclear authorship. When it comes to real estate, only three things matter: Location, location, and location.
And that brings us to Greenland.
President-elect Donald Trump wants to acquire it. The last time he was president, he floated the idea and was roundly mocked for it. But not by me and I am hardly averse to mocking Trump. For myriad reasons, it would be in our interest for the United States to annex, lease, absorb or otherwise acquire the giant island. The most important of these reasons is, of course, location.
That’s why I’ve long thought acquiring Greenland — peacefully! — is a good idea. But my opinion doesn’t count for much.
James Stavridis, the former supreme allied commander of NATO and hardly a MAGA toady, agrees. He writes that the Mexico-sized island “is a vital element of the Greenland-Iceland-U.K. ‘gap’ that guards the northern approaches to the Atlantic Ocean from Russian naval forces.”
It’s also believed Greenland has huge deposits of crucial rare-earth minerals, essential to all high-tech industries China is trying to control or dominate, partly by establishing a near-monopoly on such resources.
The Truman administration recognized the value of Greenland and tried to persuade the Danes — who administered the quasi-independent nation — to part with it. The Danes politely declined. However, the issue was mostly resolved a few years later when Denmark became a founding member of the NATO alliance. It agreed to work with us on using it to bolster Western defences.
Trump claims that’s not good enough. In a recent press conference, Trump refused to rule out the use of force to take Greenland (and the Panama Canal).
“For purposes of national security and freedom throughout the world, the United States of America feels that the ownership and control of Greenland is an absolute necessity,” Trump insists.
The best defence of Trump’s rhetoric is that it’s a negotiating tactic: Start with an outlandish ask and find a compromise that would have been impossible without it.
Again, the problem is that Denmark and Greenland are already cooperating with the U.S. on national security issues. We have a vital military installation in Greenland already.
So, what could that compromise be? A special leasing deal for mining? Maybe. But, surely, there’s a better way to pursue that with a long-time ally than threatening military force?
Acquiring Greenland is a serious idea, but pursuing it in an unserious way is worse than not pursuing it at all.
If Trump went full-Putin and invaded Greenland or seriously threatened to by deploying ships to intimidate Denmark, it would likely spell the end of NATO. The supposed rationale for controlling Greenland is to deter Russia and protect the “freedom” of the world. But Putin would see the implosion of NATO as a small price for the transformation of Greenland into an arctic Puerto Rico (by the way, Trump floated the idea of trading Puerto Rico for Greenland).
Even more annoying is that Trump and his sycophants have spent the better part of the last decade insisting that the Republican party was kidnapped by “neocon” warmongers and imperialists hell-bent on “provoking” “foreign wars” for abstract goals like “freedom.”
Say what you will about the calumnies and blood libel against “neocons,” but none of them floated the idea of provoking a foreign war with democratic allies.
But when Trump threatens exactly that, well, that’s just so cool apparently.
The people who insist that Trumpian nationalism is a Very Serious Idea invariably find themselves having to bend their Very Serious Arguments to the fact that Trump doesn’t care about arguments and ideas. He’s just a real estate guy who likes putting his name on stuff.
Jonah Goldberg is editor-in-chief of The Dispatch and host of The Remnant podcast