Andrew Korybko
Building more facilities there to complement Pituffik Space Base would further the US’ “Golden Dome” missile defense plans for obtaining a strategic edge over Russia while extracting more critical minerals from there would reduce dependence on vulnerable Chinese supply chains.
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. The Daily Mail then reported that the US itself is actually planning on invading the world’s largest island, not China or Russia, who Denmark doesn’t consider to pose a threat.
Amidst this news, Bloomberg
reported that “UK, Germany Talk 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 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 lies the goals that the US would advance since more facilities to complement Pituffik Space Base would further the US’ “Golden Dome”
missile defense 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.
Achieving this grand strategic goal would eventually help subsidize Trump’s proposed 50% increase
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 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 less 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 balk at redeploying many of its
forces from Europe to the Asia-Pacific for more muscularly containing
China and thus undermine 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’
potential annexation of Greenland inflicts on their ties should be
quickly repaired.
For these reasons, it’s likely that the US will
annex Greenland despite already enjoying full freedom of economic and
military action there that neither China nor Russia ever will, in which
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.