So we keep hearing from the Trump Regime about how the US must take over Greenland because it’s vital for National Security.
For example …
… we get statements like this:
“President Trump has made it well known that acquiring Greenland is a national security priority of the U.S., and it’s vital to deter our adversaries in the Arctic region. The President and his team are discussing a range of options to pursue this important foreign policy goal,” Leavitt said.
[…] Trump has repeated his position that the U.S. “needs” Greenland, and his claim that the Arctic island is surrounded by Russian and Chinese ships (the Danish official said that contradicts the intelligence assessments of both the U.S. and Denmark).
They make it sound like China (!) is about to launch a military invasion of Greenland. Not that this sounds at all likely (China’s navy, let alone air force, have no way of projecting power in the North Atlantic, and if Russian ships are swarming around Greenland, that’s a direct threat to the US in and of itself that I would think we would be taking action on).
That the US already has bases in Greenland makes another country invading there even less likely. Especially since pre-existing agreements let the US pretty much do what it wants in building more such bases. We can already make it into a fortress against hypothetical intrusion.
The problem is, as soon as any of the Trump officials finish saying anything about the Chinese/Russian menace, they keep talking, with a focus about how climate change and the reduction of polar ice (which, apparently, is okay to talk about when it comes to taking over Greenland, but not when it comes to fossil fuel policy) will make Northwest Passage-style shipping across the top of the Americas more likely.
Which makes it sound like they really expect (or want us to think they expect) to be having to fight a naval war, within air base reach of the US, which is a bit bonkers.
More importantly, they go on about the vast mineral wealth of Greenland under the tundra — again, becoming more exposed by climate change (which we still don’t talk about, got it? except when we do …).
And at some point the discussion shifts from “We have to intervene to stop the Commies Russians & Chinese from taking over a valuable military location” to “Boy, is there a lot of money to be made in Greenland, we should go take it.”
Which makes it less about “national security” and more about “conquest” and “piracy” and “stealing.” The same tune playing loudly in the background as the Trump folk talk about, yeah, Maduro was an awful guy and a narco-criminal and Hey, isn’t it cool how much oil we can now take from Venezuela? Oil that belongs to the people there, except, no, it really belongs to us, because we’re running things.
Sure, sure, access to some of those minerals is of “strategic” economic importance. Wouldn’t want China to cut off our supplies of rare earths, etc. And that would be a lot more believable if we were talking about protecting Greenland for Greenlanders and simply putting in bases to make sure that the Chinese didn’t invade, and making investments in the country’s infrastructure under a profit-sharing arrangement that ostensibly benefits everyone, including the locals.
But when we say, “Cool! Mineral wealth for the US!” the whole thing sort of loses any moral high ground. Indeed, if the Chinese and Russians are, in fact, looking to take over the country and exploit it, it doesn’t sound that much different than what we’re going to do, except for the colors on the flag.
Of course, there are plenty of folk in the Trump Regime who think that’s just fine — that the only moral justification comes at the end of a metaphorical bayonet, and the moral high ground is a good place to bulldoze and build a refinery on.
“We live in a world in which you can talk all you want about international niceties and everything else, but we live in a world, in the real world … that is governed by strength, that is governed by force, that is governed by power. These are the iron laws of the world that have existed since the beginning of time,” [Stephen] Miller told host Jake Tapper on CNN’s “The Lead” earlier this week.
Might Makes Right. How very … imperial.