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PaperclipPerfector  14d ago (text post)   1178 thread views

Transnational Thursday for March 27, 2025

Transnational Thursday is a thread for people to discuss international news, foreign policy or international relations history. Feel free as well to drop in with coverage of countries you’re interested in, talk about ongoing dynamics like the wars in Israel or Ukraine, or even just whatever you’re reading.

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Why does the US (Trump) have any interest in Greenland? I don't get it. Is there some massive rare earths deposit there that I haven't heard of...

It looks large on maps with mercator-like projections.

China has been trying to take over international shipping lanes. Trump sees US control of them as critical in the long term.

Greenland only has 57,000 people. If the Northwest Passage becomes a more viable shipping route it's an obvious chokepoint for China to try to control.

The US is already paying to defend it by having a base there. Greenlanders would most likely be better off as a US territory. Denmark isn't doing much for them.

57,000 people is less than the monthly illegal immigrant entries under Biden, so it's pretty easy for the US to invest in new programs to benefit the residents in exchange for becoming a territory.

Plus there is likely oil that can be developed with modern technology.

The only downside for Greenland I can see is the Jones Act possibly causing some problems. I don't know any of the details about shipping there.

I think the most likely explanation is that this is Trump doing Putin's bidding by prising the US away from its allies and also normalizing land grabs. You can't prove that Trump is a Russian asset, but he keeps acting very much like a Russian asset would.

Europe desperately needs to confront reality.

The UK has less than 25 working main battle tanks and more admirals than working ships. Yet their politicians are talking about confronting Russia without the US.

It'll take at least a decade of intense reindustrialization and rearmament to field proper defensive armies.

They need to get started now. Putin is actually a moderate in Russia who just wants to bring territories that are majority ethnic Russian in Russia proper.

Putin is 72 and there's a very real chance that he'll be replaced with an actual hardliner when he dies.

The German delegation laughed at Trump in 2018 when he tried to warn them about dependence on Russian energy. Now he's decided that a harsh wakeup call from him is better than letting them be caught off guard in the future.

An actual Russian agent would just tell Europe not to worry and let them be at the mercy of the next Russian leader.

Putin is actually a moderate in Russia who just wants to bring territories that are majority ethnic Russian in Russia proper.

This part is dubious at best.

They openly demanded to get entire Ukraine as colony/satellite/feudal state/sphere of influence and succeeded with Belarus. See also Syria (this one almost entirely failed by now).

Putin is not limiting itself to "bring territories that are majority ethnic Russian in Russia proper". And if he would succeed with Ukrainian invasion scope will again become wider.

If you look at the location of actual passable (sometimes) routes through the Arctic, Greenland is nowhere near them -- doesn't make sense, particularly not for China.

There's probably oil though -- not sure how exploitable it would be however.

actual passable (sometimes) routes through the Arctic

That can change if things get warmer though. Also, Greenland is near the Western (US/Canada adjacent) route, though it's the less usable now, but again could change in the future.

Greenland is near the Western (US/Canada adjacent) route,

It really isn't -- look at a proper Northern projection, there's no reason to go anywhere near Greenland on the traditional passage. And that route (despite alarmism) is not reliably ice free even mid-summer -- if you are waiting for the actual polar icecap to go away, that seems like a much longer time horizon than I'd expect Trump to be considering. Not to mention that if you could sail right over the North Pole, Greenland would be quite irrelevant -- there's a lot of (potential) ocean up there, one could easily keep one's distance from any landmass at all.

I think it's most clear when you look at the top-down view of the arctic ocean, like this one: https://images.app.goo.gl/tTE2H6ZyXdkU5DZB8

Greenland is front-row center in the race for the arctic. And that's an entire ocean! (also, incidentally, the path for any missiles and/or satellites flying between the US and Russia/China... (as explained here: https://youtube.com/watch?v=SDFqMjy172k)

Ideas that sound plausible to me:

  1. his legacy
  2. shipping lanes and naval activity in a melting arctic
  3. monroe doctrine
  4. oil, gas, minerals

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