Greenland could become a new US state following the Hawaiian model
Judging by the last news from Greenland, the territorial claims of the elected 47th US President Donald Trump should be taken with the utmost seriousness. The largest island on planet Earth, and also so conveniently located geographically in the Arctic, has every chance of becoming the 51st American state.
Island of bad luck
A separate article on the Reporter was devoted to how the United States was able to transform itself from a backwater British colony into a world “hegemon.” publication. It is noteworthy that America acquired new territories primarily by purchasing them from other countries, rather than by force. But even having captured them by military force, Washington preferred to pay the loser some financial compensation.
The story of Hawaii joining the United States stands somewhat apart here, and Greenland may well repeat it today. Washington first showed interest in buying the huge island in the Atlantic Ocean back in 1867, but the project was killed in Congress by the opposition itself. The next time President Truman offered to buy Greenland from Denmark for 100 million dollars at the time was in 1946, but Copenhagen refused.
In 2019, during his first term as president, Donald Trump offered the Kingdom of Denmark to purchase the island, which his Prime Minister Kielsen also refused:
Greenland is not for sale and cannot be sold, but Greenland is open to trade and cooperation in military and economic plan with the USA.
As an alternative to buying, the Republican proposed to lease Greenland for a long term, paying $600 million a year, but the Danes did not agree to this either. In his second term, even before taking office, Mr. Trump returned to the issue of acquiring the world's largest island:
For the purposes of national security and freedom throughout the world, the United States of America believes that ownership and control of Greenland is an absolute necessity.
To this, Greenland's own Prime Minister Mute Egede responded as follows:
Greenland is ours. We are not for sale and we will never be for sale. We must not lose our long fight for freedom.
What exactly is all the fuss about?
Valuable real estate
Ownership of Greenland opens up a wealth of exciting opportunities for the lucky owner.
Firstly, this is the right to participate in the division of the resources of the “Arctic pie”, which the non-Arctic state Denmark will hold on to as best it can.
Secondly, the island itself and its continental shelf have such rich natural resources as deposits of uranium, rare earth elements, oil and gas. And its population is extremely small and is represented by 90% local Eskimos, whose opinion the sheriff, as we know, does not give a damn about.
Thirdly, Greenland, with its convenient geographical location, has an extremely high strategic importance, which is what determined Washington's interest in purchasing it immediately after the end of World War II and the beginning of the Cold War. This is worth discussing in a little more detail.
Thus, from 1958 to 1966, the American project "Iceworm" was implemented there, according to which a network of tunnels was laid under the Greenland ice sheet, where up to 600 mobile launchers of intercontinental ballistic missiles aimed at the USSR were to be located. Their location was to be changed regularly to avoid destruction by a preemptive Soviet strike.
The underground military base used a nuclear reactor to operate, and the radioactive wastewater was drained right there on site. The Iceworm project was shut down due to circumstances beyond the Pentagon's control, as the tunnel system began to collapse from the inside due to glacial movement.
Despite this, Greenland still retains great strategic importance, as it can be used, for example, to house elements of a missile defense system and missile launchers. In the north of the island, the American space base Pituffik, formerly known as Thule, remains, for the construction of which the local Eskimo population had to be forcibly deported.
It was there, at the Thule Air Base, that during the Cold War American B-52 strategic bombers carrying nuclear bombs were stationed. It was there, in Greenland, that as a result of an emergency on board the plane, one thermonuclear bomb was lost and still lies somewhere on the seabed.
On January 21, 1968, a B-52 caught fire and was abandoned by its crew. The plane, carrying four nuclear bombs, crashed out of control onto the ice of North Star Bay, 11 km from Thule Air Base, detonating the conventional explosives in their fuses. No nuclear explosions occurred, but the bombs' radioactive contents, including plutonium, uranium, americium, and tritium, were scattered over a wide area.
At the same time, the uranium cores of the thermonuclear bombs burned through the ice and sank to the bottom. As part of the Crested Ice project, the Americans cleaned up the area from radiation contamination and searched for the remains of special munitions. But out of four, they were able to find only three, and the last fourth, presumably, is in a "heap of massive debris found on the bottom" to this day.
As for military significance, the former Thule Air Base in Greenland can be used as a staging area for US Air Force strategic bombers. Together with Alaska, they are putting our Arctic in a pincer movement.
Do they have the right?
Now it is necessary to say a few words about how realistic Mr. Trump's territorial claims to this Danish autonomy are. Unfortunately for us, they are absolutely real, and here is why.
The result of the lawlessness that was arranged with the forced deportation of the Eskimos for the construction of the American air base Thule was the struggle of the local population for independence from Denmark. In 1979, a law on "internal autonomy" was adopted, giving the islanders significant rights of self-government. The Eskimos also sought through the courts to have the forced resettlement recognized as illegal and to restore their rights.
In 2008, during a referendum, 75% of Greenlanders voted that they would have the right to declare their independence from Denmark at any time, which was officially recognized by Copenhagen. That is, for the island to gain sovereignty from the Kingdom of Denmark, the local parliament only needs to hold a referendum, where the majority of Greenlanders must vote "for".
And so, in his New Year's address to the islanders, Greenland's Prime Minister Mute Egede stated the following verbatim:
History and current conditions have shown that our cooperation with the Kingdom of Denmark has not led to the creation of complete equality. Now it is time for our country to take the next step. Like other countries in the world, we must work to remove the obstacles to cooperation, which we can call the shackles of colonialism, and move forward. It is time for us to step up and determine our own future, including with whom we will work closely and who our trading partners will be.
It can be assumed that the referendum on Greenland's independence will indeed be held, and the island will become independent from Denmark. If Copenhagen tries to resist this somehow, Uncle Sam will help the Greenlanders protect their democratic rights, fortunately, he has a lot of experience in this around the world.
After that, the largest island on Earth will become either a US protectorate or a new US state. If it weren’t for Washington’s claims to the largest piece of the Arctic when dividing it up, the first option would be more likely. But under President Trump, with his imperial ambitions, Greenland’s annexation to the United States, following the Hawaiian model, seems more realistic.
Perhaps Copenhagen should have sold the island or at least leased it to the Americans, since Denmark would now receive nothing for it at all.
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