Greenland is an independent country it is not for sale.

@Phaethon I wonder if Russia is also investing heavily in its own far East: at closest Alaska with its oil is only 70 miles from the very remote NE tip of Siberia; but presently at least that area of Russia is more or less totally wild.

The USA does not need take Greenland at all. It already has a USAAF base there, and enhancing that would normally be a matter of civil agreements between NATO allies. Just as the USA has umpteen bases in Europe (including three in England).


Oddly there is a Russian-born, Russian university educated businessman based in Alaska, who is reviving an old idea for a railway tunnel across the Bering Straits. Apart from the formidable technical obstacles and sheer cost it would require close co-operation between the USA, Canada, Russia and China. It is extremely unlikely ever to be feasible, but either he is a very naive dreamer, a shares-fraudster on a grand scale or he has discreet pals High Up in Washington, Moscow and Beijing. Reportedly he has discussed it with Elon Musk, but I don't think we can count that as important.

@ArishMell Not only does the USA have a base on Greenland but used to have many, many, more. In addition both Greenland and Denmark have said repeatedly that they were perfectly happy for the USA to have such bases.

@ninalanyon I wonder who if anyone advises the man, within his own government, civil-service and military?


I looked at the military c.v. of each of James Vance, Peter Hegseth and Donald Trump.

Vance was a military journalist, in the Army but non-combatant.

Hegseth has served on active Army duty.

Trump's "military" experience is limited to school or college cadet forces.

@ArishMell It doesn't really matter what the military necessities are. Retired US generals have pointed out in interviews even on the infamous Fox news that Trump doesn't need to annex or buy Greenland in order to have bases there. This is something that anyone with the slightest interest in the region has been aware of for half a century. Trump is not interested in the welfare of the USA or of any other country, only in his own wealth and his standing with those people who can make him feel good.

What really worries me is that much of his behaviour is enabled by the US constitution (that doesn't mean that it is lawful) and this combined with the more or less religious attitude to the document in the US probably means that now that Pandora's box has been opened that there might be no way to close it, not even to keep hope. So even if we can assume that Trump will not be able to serve a third term there is no guarantee that subsequent governments of either stripe will fix the problems. Being able to wield this kind of power will be attractive to all subsequent presidents, or at least their hangers on, regardless of their nominal politics.

@ArishMell Vice President Vance is a US Marine, was assigned as a combat correspondent during an overseas deployment, saw combat

@sunsporter1649 He was, yes. I wondered what sort of military advice the President can call on from his most senior politicians.