The Cost of Greenland

We are all in uncharted waters as President Trump pushes to take over Greenland.  Greenland belongs to Denmark, one of our allies, so the most obvious conclusion is that the US is threatening one of our friends.  Since the beginning of the Cold War, all the countries of Western Europe have faced a threat from the East, first from the Soviet Union and now from Russia.  Those same countries looked to the West, to the United States, for support.

Now all that has changed.  This past week, in response to Trump ratchetting up threats to take over Greenland, our allies in Western Europe are sending troops to Greenland in hopes of forestalling his plan. 

For millions of people, overseas and here at home, this is a horrible nightmare that we never thought that we would see.  Picture troops from Germany, Norway, Sweden, the Netherlands and France—all countries like ours in NATO—who are now in Greenland preparing to face US troops.  That is the first and most serious cost to Trump’s bizarre plan.  If he invades, NATO will be over.

There is tremendous irony in this nightmarish scene.  Putin based his invasion of Ukraine on the belief that NATO was weak.  He thought his bold move would be over in weeks and looked for other countries to invade.  He was mistaken.  NATO countries, including the Biden administration, banded together and gave Ukraine such support that Putin is in a quagmire in Ukraine similar to the US in Vietnam in the sixties and seventies. 

The collapse of NATO that Putin couldn’t achieve could now be handed to him on a platter by Trump’s plan.  All our earlier worries from Trump’s first term that he was far too cozy with Putin now seem justified.

There is a second and equally serious cost to Trump’s Greenland plan.  In the lifetime of everyone reading this column, the US has stood and even fought alongside countries who were threatened by bullies.  We did that after WWII with the Marshall Plan to rebuild democracies in Western Europe.  When the Kremlin moved to take over West Berlin, we devised the Berlin Air Drop to keep that city free.  We did that in Korea to push back Communist aggression.  We supported Afghanistan when the Soviets tried to take that country over.

There have been serious and shameful flaws in US foreign policy, but taking all of our history into consideration, we have more often been on the side of freedom and democracy.  Put simply, the world could count on us.  Trump is close to changing all of that.

I name Trump, not historic Republican policy, for this regrettable shift.  What Republicans and Democrats have historically stood for is this:  the US best serves the world when our country is a reliable partner in alliances.

Alliance, not invasion.  That is what is missing in the current debate about Greenland.   The US already has a military base in Greenland.  Denmark allowed that because it was in the best interest of both countries.  Can our country not achieve its goals by working with Denmark to strengthen Greenland rather than threaten it?

If blame does not fall on Republican policy, we don’t have to look far to see the real threat to Greenland, Iceland, and even Mexico and Canada.  President Trump is a real-estate mogul, keen on buying up properties.  He does not have a track record of being a reliable partner in alliances. 

Until a decade ago, the names of nations who considered the US a friendly partner, a model of what they could become, would fill pages.  Now, the names countries who view Trump as a reliable friend can be counted on one hand.  Much like Xi Jinping and Putin, Trump would rather be feared than trusted.  How sad for our country.  How sad for the world.