by Barry Scott Zellen
When historian Barbara W. Tuchman chronicled the cascading series of escalations that resulted in the calamity of World War I, she brilliantly (and famously) described it as a “March of Folly” in which a series of disconnected but ill-timed events cascaded into a systemic collapse the consumed a generation of young men and devastated the heart of Europe. Her premise held true for future generations and gave birth to escalation theory during the Cold War, when nuclear weapons made future marches of folly far more lethal and potentially extinction-inducing.
While diplomatic tensions in the Arctic remain a far cry from this order of destructive magnitude, events in Greenland since national elections were held on March 11th routed the ruling coalition of Inuit Ataqatigiit (IA) and Siumut, whose fortunes dimmed (IA won 37.4% of the vote in 2021 for a surprise first place finish, dropping to 21.4% in 2025 for a third place finish and losing 5 of its 12 parliamentary seats, while Siumut, which fell to IA in 2021, went from its strong second place showing of 30.1% to just 14.7% in 2025, losing 6 of its 10 seats). Their electoral collapse was mirrored by the rise of two opposition parties, surprising not only most pundits but their own party chairmen: Demokraatit, a pro-business centrist-right party, rocketed to first place with 29.9% of the vote and gaining 7 additional seats in parliament (for a total now of 10), up from its fourth place finish in 2021 with 9.3% of the vote when it won only 3 seats, tripling its prior tally, while the more stridently pro-independence party Naleraq rose from its third place 2021 showing with 12.3% of the vote to its strong 2025 second place finish with 24.5% of the vote, winning 8 seats compared to the 4 it won in 2021. Fifth-place finisher Attasut won 7.4% of this year’s vote, retaining its two parliamentary seats.
Just as the tectonic 2024 American election signaled a profound political realignment and retreat to a more nationalistic isolationism for America, Greenland’s election amidst these most turbulent of times and mounting concerns over the intensifying interest in Greenland expressed by newly re-elected President Donald J. Trump signals as significant a vote for change and a rejection of the status quo, voting out of leadership both IA (at the helm since 2021) and Siumut which had won previously in what Americans can rightly perceive as a resounding vote of no confidence in their ability to guide Greenland through the current diplomatic tempest.
But political elites in Nuuk have tried valiantly to interpret election results in favorable terms. After all, they reason, Naleraq didn’t take first place, and Demokraatit (which did take first) didn’t win an outright majority, so a coalition would once again be formed – indicating to some a reassuring but illusory sense of continuity, and not the change that voters have actually embraced. This hunger for electoral change cannot be denied, as it is reflected in the electoral outcome. It’s just change of a Greenlandic (and inherently parliamentary) sort, not like that experienced in American elections where its two-party system produces a sense of administration whiplash when there’s a party turnover, in contrast to parliamentary systems when a minority government is formed with a coalition.
Indeed, Greenland’s tilt to the right has not been fully reflected in the outcome of the coalition negotiations that followed the March 11th election among the parties elected to parliament (which can have up to 45 days to complete, but under the pressures of recent events, concluded just ahead of the arrival of the Second Family to Pituffik) on how to balance the contending interests of speedy independence (favored only by Naleraq) with a more gradual and union-prolonging approach (as favored by all Greenland’s other parties, left or right in addition to the Danish government in Copenhagen), or to reflect the stunning electoral success of both Demokraatit and Naleraq as compared to the steep losses inflicted by voters upon the previously dominant parties. Instead of victorious Demokraatit joining forces with runner-up Naleraq with their combined 54.4% of the vote, and welcoming the new era of change Greenlanders voted for so decisively, Demokraatit instead formed its coalition with all of the other parties except Naleraq, which withdrew from coalition negotiations to become the sole opposition party. While this new super coalition represents over 75% of the electorate, it also ignores the will of the nearly 25% of voters who elevated Naleraq to its second-place finish in the 2025 national poll, thus empowering in the next government the election’s most dramatic electoral decliners while effectively disenfranchising one of its most successful gainers.
Intriguingly, mapping Greenland’s 2025 election results by regional municipality shows a very clear regional fault line, with northwest Greenland (the region that Robert Peary once anticipated would be colonized by America, and was thus widely called Pearyland) becoming Naleraq country (including, from north to south, Avannaata, Qeqertalik, and Qeqqata) while Greenland’s southwest and southeast has become Demokraatit territory (including Sermersooq and Kujalleq). And yet, Demokraatit’s chairman ultimately included members of all parties except for Naleraq in his governing coalition, effectively turning his back on Greenland’s northwest – planting a seed, potentially, for the future Balkanization of Greenland in the event international tensions rise. (As of this writing, it is not yet known how voters will respond in local elections on April 1, and if we will see a further reinforcement of these electoral trends.)
High Tensions at a High Latitude: Battle for Greenlanders’ Hearts and Minds Go Global
With America’s intensifying interest in Greenland now part of the political conversation in Greenland, tensions are high in a region famous for long having “high latitude, low tension,” so high the ingredients seem present for unintended escalation and a potential cascade that could destabilize the entire region with its own Arctic “march of folly.”
Just two days after Greenland’s national elections were held on March 11th ushering forth change, President Trump fatefully met with NATO’s Secretary General Mark Rutte, and while reiterating his recognition of Greenland’s strategic importance in a warming Arctic, once again mentioned his expectation that Greenland would eventually be annexed by the United States, a sentiment he had expressed before, most famously during his address to a joint session of the U.S. Congress on March 4th, just one a week before Greenland’s 2025 election. As the alliance leader of NATO, the United States has long been counted on for the defense of democracy across Europe, so it ruffled many an alliance partner’s feathers to hear the Commander-in-Chief talk openly (and longingly) of annexing the territory of a fellow alliance-member, in particular during talks with the alliance’s Secretary-General. That this was just two days after the election, and 43 days before the coalition itself must be determined, Greenland can understandably be concerned. The timing is indeed awful.
But as the American electorate has long known, President Trump is prone to hyperbole, and his casual use and misuse of language has become an accepted fact of life, enervating advocates of free expression with every faux-pas that he makes. Indeed, since President Trump’s seemingly unlikely rise from reality TV star and real estate mogul to American President (mirroring the very same trajectory to power of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy who got his start as a television comedian playing a president), political speech in America has transformed from woke political correctness (and a progressive tyranny that hid behind it) to a democratically uncouth revival in uncensored political discourse.
But the Greenlanders are more European in their political culture than America despite their inhabiting the northeastern flank of North America, and as such could be described as more “woke” (as is currently in vogue) or “politically correct” (as earlier generations decried) than the so recently unleashed Americans, and as such Greenlanders are quite sensitive to such frequent Presidential use of the word “annex” in conjunction with the words “America” and “Greenland” after over 80 years of strategic partnership and military protection.
Annexation Vexation: One Word That Shook the World (and Re-Unified Nuuk and Copenhagen in Opposition to American Plans)
Within a day of Trump’s dropping the “annexation” bomb in conversation with the NATO Secretary-General, on March 14th the party chairmen of all five Greenlandic political parties represented in parliament issued their own (and seemingly first) joint statement condemning Trump’s cavalier (and in their view, inappropriate) use of the word annexation, finding it a “threat” that was simply put “unacceptable.” They’ve even called upon international support, suggesting that diplomacy and domestic unity had failed (when in fact, Trump’s provocative language has helped to unify Greenland’s fractious political landscape more than ever, with the same high and determined energy that Putin’s invasion of Ukraine brought to NATO’s unity.)
And one day later, on March 15th, the chairmen of the contending political parties, Mute B. Egede of IA, which was just voted out of the Prime Minister’s office, and Jens-Frederik Nielsen of Demokraatit, which was just voted in, jointly led a mass rally of 1,000 Greenlanders (the biggest protest in Greenlandic history) to the (then empty) American consulate, with protestors carrying signs stating “Yankee Go Home,” and some wearing MAGA-inspired hats with the newly coined (and quickly viral) expression “Make America Go Away.” It was an impressive show of unity – an under-appreciated benefit of this diplomatic tempest at the top of the world that paradoxically is strengthening, not weakening, Greenland under the perceived pressures of America’s imperial interest.
As if in response, but perhaps a result of America’s own naïve misunderstanding of Greenland’s parliamentary politics (having until recently largely ignored the island for the better part of three quarters of a century, even while defending it from aggressors), the United States announced an uninvited and unofficial delegation of high government officials to the island, initially to be led by the Second Lady, Usha Bala Chilukuri Vance – one of the most prominent Indian Americans and a figure who embodies diversity and tolerance in an administration that has been empowered by its base to dismantle what it perceives as an oppressive and racist assault on middle America in the form institutionalized (and unconstitutional) “Diversity, Equity and Inclusion” (DEI) policies – who has cast her visit as an opportunity to learn about and celebrate Greenlandic culture and unity (a unity the venomous reaction to her trip has incidentally strengthened), along with the President’s National Security Advisor, Mike Waltz, and his Secretary of Energy, Chris Wright, the latter who planned to visit the air base in Thule (now known as the Space Base in Pituffik).
The trip, planned for March 27-29, was preceded on March 23 by the arrival of a U.S. advance team to Nuuk (quite clumsily arriving in two Hercs, conveying perhaps the wrong signal at the wrong time given the tensions of the moment) to set up the logistics, which in turn precipitated the deployment of 100 Danish police from Copenhagen and three K9 units, to the dismay of Danish taxpayers who would end up footing the bill for what they perceived to be a very offensive charm offensive by America’s most diverse Second Lady in history. Oh what an uproar good intentions can bring.
The Danish and Greenlandic governments emphasized they had neither invited the Second Lady nor the President’s National Security Advisor or Energy Secretary, and that the trip was a private matter. But soon outgoing/interim Prime Minister Egede, fresh from his March 14th statement of unity with his fellow party chairs and his March 15th march on the U.S. consulate, lashed out in condemnation of what he perceived as naked political interference in Greenland’s internal politics and an assertion of American power, stating, “Enough is enough!”
Noting that Greenland was still within the 45-day window to negotiate the composition of its next governing coalition, and that local elections were yet to take place (with that election coming on April 1, just three days after the Second Lady’s planned visit, and wearing his transitional hat as interim Prime Minister (his party having been routed in the national poll on March 11) was now loudly asserting a new role as if Greenland’s vocal opposition. The timing, he argued, was inappropriate. “We are now at a level where it can in no way be characterized as a harmless visit from a political wife … What is the security advisor doing in Greenland? The only purpose is to show a demonstration of power to us, and the signal is unmistakable.” Showing solidarity with the newly ousted IA chairman Egede, victorious Demokraatit chairman Nielsen echoed the sentiment and the condemnation: “When someone threatens us, looks down on us or speaks badly of us, we stand together.”
And so, the Second Lady, excited at the opportunity to observe Greenland’s national dogsled competition, and to visit the island’s historic and cultural sites with her son accompanying her, and the National Security Advisor, excited to make a base visit to Thule (now Pituffik) with the Energy Secretary, keen to invest in Greenland’s potentially lucrative natural resource economy, were vilified as dastardly hegemons, imperial crusaders intent on conquering Greenland.
While it is true that President Trump does speak often and longingly about Greenland becoming part of America, and Danish military analysts compare Trump’s keen interest with Putin’s own longing for Crimea, and later Eastern, and finally all of, Ukraine, we instead find all the ingredients for a cascading march of folly that could tear an alliance apart, rob NATO of its military protector, and radicalize the long peaceful and predominantly Inuit populace in Greenland, which has long counted on America for their military protection whether from Nazis, Soviets or even today’s illusory bogeymen, Russia (an emergent strategic partner for the Trump administration with plenty of its own Arctic territory already) and China (whose interests in Greenland have been on the wane since 2019).
World War One It’s Not … But How Might This All End?
Greenlandic and Danish elites perceive Trump not just as Putin but more akin to the insatiable and genocidal hegemon Hitler, with the diplomatic showdown in and over Nuuk being today’s “Munich moment,” when the real danger is that this moment is more like Sarajevo in 1914, a powder keg of escalation awaiting detonation. While it may not come even close to matching World War I in its potential for fratricidal destruction, the repercussions of the potential collapse in regional order will be no less global. All because President Trump has spoken so freely, so openly, so uncensored about his dream of American expansion, and yes, of annexation of Greenland.
But President Trump came back to power not through any illicit machinations of insurrection but by popular mandate in an election that was both free and fair. He brings a decisive electoral mandate and an impressive diversity of political base with major inroads in both the African American and Hispanic vote, long supporters of the democrats. He is the imperfect reflection of a changing America, one more concerned with hemispheric security than multilateralism, more focused on American prosperity than on globalization. He has moved quickly to end a bloody war on European soil that risked not only nuclear catastrophe but the specter of world war, in a Ukraine desiring freedom but which has become a prison to its men, captive to its own forever war. Trump’s words may be messy, but he need never lie because he is unafraid to share his innermost thoughts, as unpolished as they may sound. His loose talk of annexation has fostered increased Greenlandic unity, and his delegation was initially to be led by a symbol of America’s diversity, and accompanied by two cabinet-level proxies who carry his implicit trust. This presented a bridge of opportunity for Greenland to seize and not shun, a charm offensive meant not to offend but to be met by Greenland’s own charm counter-offensive.
But the timing – between Greenland’s national and local elections, and amidst negotiations to form a governing coalition, seem to have been misunderstood by an American President newly re-elected in a system that greatly differs from Greenland’s parliamentary system – was admittedly terrible, perhaps the worst one can imagine (if one could have foreseen the consequences). As they say: no good deed goes unpunished. But the intentions in this case need not be perceived as malicious or threatening.
As in any real estate transaction, the property desired must be visited, once or twice, and then inspected, and then an offer must be negotiated that leaves both parties satisfied with the outcome. This is the way of Trump. When he led America out of its forever war in Afghanistan, he made peace with the Taliban, America’s sworn blood enemy tied to the horrific and tragic attacks on September 11th, America’s bloodiest day. He walked away from America’s own proxy and comrade-in-arms, leaving his allied government in Kabul to fall. The Danes may feel we are once again at such a precipice, and perhaps we are. But for Greenland, the road ahead is not that which doomed the government in Kabul, it is the road that led to the Taliban’s return. A truly indigenous government with a truly authentic sovereign voice.
Outgoing, and now interim, Prime Minister Egede may feel that “Enough is enough.” But his party is the one that was voted out of power. His people have already spoken. But incoming Prime Minister Nielsen may have misperceived America’s intention when concluding that it was Trump who “threatens us, looks down on us or speaks badly of us.” As President Donald J. Trump and Vice President JD Vance (now leading the delegation to Greenland, with a decidedly more hard-power and less charm-offensive vibe) have stated without diplomatic niceties, this better describes Denmark, with its long and problematic history of racist colonial policies and its fostering in Greenland of a welfare state forever dependent on Copenhagen’s subsidies, so much so that the gradual, multigenerational, bilateral approach to independence under way for so long has become de facto shorthand for a forever-dependency that oppresses Greenland’s independent spirit.
As Vice President Vance explained on March 25th in his announcement taking the helm of the Second Lady’s well-intended but increasingly controversial (and attention-generating) delegation to Greenland: “We think we can take things in a different direction, so I’m going to go check it out.” The Vice President, like the Second Lady before him, did not ask for permission from the Kingdom of Denmark to make this visit, with America’s Second Couple now travelling together to northwest Greenland more as allies and liberators than conquerors.
According to both the original and revised plan, the Second Lady (initially planning to travel with her son, but as ultimately implemented, with her husband the Vice President) would be accompanied by an Energy Secretary with the power to jumpstart Greenland’s moribund economy and a National Security Advisor with the power to keep Greenland secure on its road to freedom, whether as part of, or in alliance with, America. But with the Vice President’s conveniently-timed escape to the Arctic (far from the simmering scandal in Washington over the infamous “Signalgate” chat in which he participated), the Second Lady journeyed to Greenland in the company of the Vice President himself, who has not only the ear but also the gratitude of the President (even if briefly diminished after his less than enthusiastic support for the successful but controversial military strike against Yemen’s Houthis).
As the trip approached, its itinerary grew simpler and less controversial, and time span shortened from three destinations in three days to one destination in one, and in the end only included a base visit to Thule (Pituffik), where by mutual agreement with the Danes, American officials may come and go at will as part of their ongoing defense effort. Rather than an opportunity to engage with Greenlanders in Nuuk and Sisimiut as planned, and to learn about and celebrate Greenlandic culture as intended, the delegation has become just another diplomatic junket to meet the troops and wave the flag. America’s retreat from the original charm offensive’s grander ambition shows weakness in the face of Greenlandic unity, perhaps setting back America’s ultimate ambition to purchase Greenland for a while. But it also defuses a very tense escalation, helping to ensure it does not become another march of folly.
But while less risky, and more diplomatically sensitive to the Europeans (and in particular, the Danes) not to mention Greenland itself, it also misses an historic opportunity to engage in a necessary conversation on Greenland’s future and America’s place in that future. But the conversation that the team of high Trump administration officials had hoped to kick start is a conversation still worth having, one that Greenland’s electorate in voting for change clearly wants to have now. Focusing on the singular (and most unpopular) buzz word “annexation” or the vexing President whose use of words famously lacks precision even on the most delicate of topics, and whipping up a frenzy of anti-American sentiment as we witnessed in Greenland in those dramatic days after its national election, has only served to perpetuate Greenland’s continued colonial dependency on Copenhagen and forestall its eventual independence. America wants to offer Greenland a different path forward, one that may bring it closer to its own aspirations for independence. That’s Vice President Vance’s message even now. Why not instead seize upon the opportunity for change that America is offering, and join a conversation that has the undivided, undistracted attention of the President of the United States, with his most trusted and influential proxies, while the opportunity presents itself, rather than miss what may be a narrow window in which all Greenlanders’ dreams can come true, and surrender to the elitist interests in both Nuuk and Copenhagen that favor the status quo, and not the change so many Greenlanders voted for?
That conversation – which didn’t take place face to face in Greenland as the White House delegation had hoped it would – has begun playing out in the world’s media in the days after the Second Family’s controversial visit to Pituffik, amidst signs that the initial de-escalation provided by their scaled down itinerary and abbreviated time in Greenland had run its course, with a new round of escalation simmering in the wake of the Vice President’s critical remarks of Denmark while on the ground in Greenland lambasting Copenhagen’s stewardship of the island, which precipitated vocal responses from Denmark’s Prime Minister, Foreign Minister and King in addition to Greenland’s own foreign minister, along with a protest rally at the U.S. Embassy to Denmark in Copenhagen in the days that immediately followed the Vances’ departure. This was greeted in turn with a reiteration by President Trump of his “100 percent” certainty that America would ultimately triumph in gaining sovereign possession of Greenland, and that his use of force continued to remain on the table.
Amidst this next round of hardening feelings, however, could be found potential negotiation positions around which to discuss rebalancing the strategic relationship between the United States, Denmark and Greenland to meet the stated American goal of securing Greenland from external threat (the only one being, ironically, that posed by the continued specter of an American annexation, as Russia’s and China’s focus on Arctic trade and commerce has remained with the Northern Sea Route, with neither state particularly interested in Greenland nowadays). Indeed, on March 21, 2025, Nunatsiaq News reported that “China is no longer describing itself as a ‘near-Arctic state’ and might be redefining its northern policy against the backdrop of a warming U.S.-Russia relationship. ‘The Chinese have stopped using that term and I think we’ve seen a withdrawal or a significantly lower Chinese interest in the Arctic,’ the South China Morning Post reported March 16.”
The media has widely reported on the apoplectic response by the Danes and Greenlanders to the Second Family’s visit to Greenland, with CBS News reporting on Saturday, March 29, 2025, that Danish foreign minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen “scolded” the White House for “criticizing Denmark and Greenland during Vice President JD Vance’s visit to the strategic island,” and that he posted on social media that “we do not appreciate the tone in which it is being delivered. This is not how you speak to your close allies. And I still consider Denmark and the United States to be close allies.” At the same time, Rasmussen began the very conversation on expanding America’s military presence in Greening by pointing out: “Since 1945, the American military presence in Greenland has decreased from thousands of soldiers over 17 bases and installations on the island, he said, to the remote Pituffik Space Base in the northwest with some 200 soldiers today. The 1951 agreement ‘offers ample opportunity for the United States to have a much stronger military presence in Greenland,’ the foreign minister said. ‘If that is what you wish, then let us discuss it.’” He added that Copenhagen has recently “increased its own investment into Arctic defense” and that earlier this year, “Denmark announced 14.6 billion Danish kroner (US$2.1 billion) in financial commitments for Arctic security covering three new naval vessels, long-range drones and satellites.” In addition, Greenland’s foreign minister Vivian Motzfeldt mirrored her Danish counterpart’s openness to negotiating with the Americans, informing CBS that “she wants cooperation with the U.S., not domination. ‘You just don’t take over. You speak and you talk. That’s all politics is about,’ she said.”
CBS has also reported that the Danish King, Frederik X posted on Facebook in regal (and perhaps somewhat Trumpian) fashion the following statement of unity with the people of Greenland: “We live in an altered reality. There should be no doubt that my love for Greenland and my connectedness to the people of Greenland are intact.” Whether this kingly love is a sufficient moral force to withstand President Trump’s intensifying courtship of the island remains, however, to be seen. Greenland’s newly sworn-in 33-year old Prime Minister, Demokraatit party leader Jens-Frederik Nielsen, continues to echo outgoing PM Egede’s stridency in rejecting outright Trump’s annexation ambitions: “President Trump says that the United States ‘will get Greenland.’ Let’s be clear: The United States will not get it. We do not belong to anyone else. We decide our own future.” But by the end of the weekend President Trump doubled down on his earlier predictions that Greenland will inevitably become part of America in an NBC interview. As described by Laura Kayali in Politico on Sunday, March 30, 2025, “U.S. President Donald Trump hinted he could use military force to take over Greenland — in the latest sign of Washington’s fixation with the autonomous territory in the Kingdom of Denmark. ‘We’ll get Greenland. Yeah, 100 percent,’ Trump told NBC. ‘There’s a good possibility it could be done without military force,’ he said, adding however that ‘I don’t take anything off the table.’”
What did Vice President Vance say during his speech at Pituffik? He had two key messages on Greenland’s future. One, criticizing Denmark, that has received a lot of media attention around the world. And one, praising the indigenous people of Greenland and supporting their sovereign aspirations, that has received much less media attention, despite its importance as we look ahead to what might come next. On this latter, under-reported message, Vance stated, “I heard a lot about the respect that our American troops show for the local Greenlandic population, the way that we make and create shelter for hunters and dog sledders, the way that we found ways to turn over traditional tribal land to some of the local populations in order to ensure that they’re able to live in accordance with their values. We respect, as the president said in his State of the Union address, we respect the self-determination of Greenland, Greenlanders, excuse me. We believe in the self-determination of the population of the people of Greenland. And our argument is very simple. It is not with the people of Greenland, who I think are incredible and have an incredible opportunity here. Our argument really is with the leadership of Denmark, which is under-invested in Greenland and under-invested in security architecture. That simply must change. It is the policy of the United States that that will change.”
But this message of support for Greenland and Greenlanders was overshadowed to a large degree by his rebuke of allied Denmark: “And now I want to talk about … what Denmark over the last 20 years has failed to do in some cases, because we know that unfortunately this place, this base, the surrounding area is less secure than it was 30, 40 years ago, because some of our allies haven’t kept up. … Now, when I pointed out a couple of weeks ago, that in some ways, with all due respect to our Danish allies, they had not kept pace. There was a lot of criticism from Denmark, a lot of attacks at the Trump administration, at the president, at me, at others in our administration for saying the obvious … And, you know, one of the things I heard was, well, what about the many Danes who lost their lives in the war on terror fighting alongside the United States? Well, look, we obviously honor the sacrifice of our Danish friends in the war on terror 20 years ago, just as, for example, the French honor the sacrifice of Americans in Normandy 80 years ago. But recognizing that there were important security partnerships in the past does not mean that we can’t have disagreements with allies in the present about how to preserve our shared security for the future. And that’s what this is about. There is no amount of bullying, no amount of obfuscating, no amount of confusing the issue. Our message to Denmark is very simple. You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland. You have underinvested in the people of Greenland and you have underinvested in the security architecture of this incredible, beautiful landmass filled with incredible people. That has to change. And because it hasn’t changed, this is why President Trump’s policy in Greenland is what it is.”
What comes next? Will this recent re-hardening of feelings felt by Danes and Greenlanders for President Trump’s distinctive approach to alliance relations and Arctic diplomacy lead us toward an escalatory brink once again? Will President Trump’s reiteration of his ambition to annex Greenland, possibly by force, likewise pull the Arctic headlong into a new and inescapable “march of folly”? The answer to that has much to do with what the brouhaha is really all about. For helpful insights into that seemingly indecipherable rabbit hole, consider the perspective of Andreas Østhagen, as present in his recent commentary at The Arctic Institute in which Østhagen explains the diplomatic crisis unfolding in in Greenland is “not really about Greenland” but instead a reflection of President Trump’s America First doctrine “that speaks to Trump’s voters and fan base” rather than “America’s long-term strategic interests,” and cares not “about melting ice in the Arctic or relations with Denmark” but rather “the image of a strong leader who promotes American interests and puts European countries in their place.”
I find Østhagen’s analysis compelling in its parts but not its whole. I agree his keen interest in Greenland has much to do with “Trump’s voters and fan base” who voted for an “America First” reconceptualization of American foreign policy. But it misreads Trump’s vision of Greenland and the Arctic to suggest Trump’s persistent Greenland interest is not “about melting ice in the Arctic or relations with Denmark,” when in fact it has a great deal to do with both. Trump and his base view the very real and unmistakable “melting ice in the Arctic” as an economic opportunity that rises as the ice retreats, rather than either denial of this fundamental fact, or as the climate change community perceive as an emergency to forestall through collective climate action. One could laconically counter with a headline using Østhagen’s very same words, but in different order: “Greenland Has Misunderstood the Importance of Trump.”
Indeed, as the home page of Whitehouse.gov proclaims under the banner, “America is Back,” President Donald J. Trump has pledged that “Every single day I will be fighting for you with every breath in my body. I will not rest until we have delivered the strong, safe and prosperous America that our children deserve and that you deserve. This will truly be the golden age of America.” Østhagen argues that Greenland presents the White House with the “perfect opportunity to divert attention from what the Trump administration is actually doing at home,” but in fact, taking such a keen interest in Arctic North America refocuses on rather than diverts from such attention. Moreover, because Trump’s interest in Greenland has much to do with domestic American politics and the values of his MAGA base (which opposes foreign wars), this bodes well for a peaceful outcome instead of an inevitable descent into regional instability – if Greenlanders find their way to negotiate with Trump over their shared future and come to realize continued Danish colonization is not in their continued interest. Asks Østhagen: “What we all wonder is how far Trump is willing to go to pursue his desire to take control of Greenland.”
It’s a fair question, even for those of us who greatly disagree with the naysayers on the wisdom of Trump’s vision for an American Greenland. One can imagine wondering something quite similar back in 1914, as that original, and in every way tragic, march of folly accelerated toward an unfathomable abyss of total and yet entirely unwanted war, with its consequent generational bloodletting that defied either rhyme or reason over four long and destructive years that forever changed our world. Let’s just hope this time around we are blessed to learn from history rather than doomed to repeat it, and that this moment in history is neither Munich nor Sarajevo revisited, but something new and altogether different – an amicable expansion of American federalism to the far northeastern corner of Arctic North America, and the welcome addition of a 51st star to America’s flag.
Barry Scott Zellen, PhD, is a Research Scholar in the Department of Geography at the University of Connecticut (UConn) and a Senior Fellow (Arctic Security) at the Institute of the North (IoN). He is the author, most recently, of Arctic Exceptionalism: Cooperation in a Contested World (2024). Send him mail.
Isonomia Quarterly 