How Trump’s designs on Greenland are testing the U.S.-Denmark alliance

This previous week Greenland was huge within the information. In fact, Greenland has at all times been huge. Thrice the dimensions of Texas, the world’s largest island dominates the arctic house between North America and Europe. Its title however, 80 p.c of Greenland is roofed in ice.

The title Greenland took place as a case of branding, in line with Robert Christian Thomsen, a professor of social sciences at Aalborg College in Denmark. Greenland bought its title, he says, from Erik the Crimson, a Viking who got here from Iceland and settled there round 985 A.D. Upon returning to Iceland, “He instructed the previous Norse that lived there, ‘There is a magnificent inexperienced land to the west of right here. It is best to go, it is best to come and be a part of us,'” Thomsen mentioned.

In 1814, Greenland formally grew to become a part of the Kingdom of Denmark. So, why all the eye to this principally desolate panorama?

First, there’s safety: “If you happen to have a look at a map, you will see that the shortest distance for a missile to journey between Moscow and Washington is straight away over the North Pole and Greenland,” Thomsen mentioned.

And local weather change has made Greenland much more coveted – extra navigable for business and army vessels, and simpler for mining its wealthy sources.

“The receding ice implies that there’s far more, significantly better entry to grease, to gasoline, to minerals, together with the uncommon earth components which are wanted for our computer systems, for our electrical vehicles, for batteries,” Thomsen mentioned.

American curiosity in Greenland is not new. In the course of the nineteenth century, across the time we purchased Alaska from Russia, the U.S. expressed curiosity in buying Greenland. Nothing materialized.

However in 1917 the U.S. did purchase territory from Denmark: the three islands within the Caribbean which are right this moment’s U.S. Virgin Islands. In return, the USA acknowledged Danish sovereignty over Greenland.

Then got here World Struggle II.

Thomsen mentioned the island was tremendously vital to the Allies through the conflict: “Denmark is already occupied by the Germans. And so, Greenland is type of floating on the market unprotected. The American administration mentioned, ‘We have to occupy Greenland to guarantee that the Germans don’t do it.'”

The Allies used the island as a refueling hub for army bombers. After the conflict, in 1951, the U.S. and Denmark agreed to a extra everlasting association which, Thomsen mentioned, states that “The U.S. just about has free entry [to Greenland]. It will probably do no matter it desires when it comes to establishing army bases, radar, you title it. The U.S. simply has to ask politely.”

However sufficient about its location and sources. Greenland after all additionally has folks – a tiny inhabitants of about 57,000.

Tillie Martinussen, a local Greenlander and former member of parliament, mentioned rising up in Greenland was fantastic: “I imply, it is a very, very protected nation to develop up in. We’re frolicking about within the snow.”

Martinussen, like nearly 90% of the inhabitants, is of Inuit descent. Requested what Greenlandic values are, she replied, “They’re we’ve to deal with one another. We have now to face collectively.  Very a lot community-driven, versus many of the Western nations, that are quite a bit individually-driven. We dwell in a society the place solely two generations in the past we’re used to folks going out searching to get their meals, and we’re used to sharing. It is form of nonetheless a frame of mind.”

Whereas polls present most Greenlanders do not need to be American, Martinussen says it is nothing private: “I truly love the USA; I like the American folks,” she mentioned. “Do not get me unsuitable in any respect. I imply, certainly one of my goals was truly going from east to west there in a automobile.”

However after President Trump’s aggressive rhetoric on Greenland and longtime ally Denmark [“One way or the other, we’re gonna have Greenland”], that love is being sorely examined.

Martinussen mentioned, “We have now been good allies for 80 years, which makes this treachery feeling so robust in us proper now. Youngsters that we’ve now are going to develop up and being afraid of the USA because the aggressor that we bear in mind.”

Thomsen mentioned, “There’s a sense, I believe, of betrayal. I grew up with – and most Danes I believe grew up with – the notion that the U.S. is our greatest buddy on this planet, you already know? So to, rapidly, understand that the unhealthy man, the one who desires to take one thing away from us and to harm this state and these folks, is just not the Russians, is just not China, however our greatest buddy.”

      
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Story produced by Amol Mhatre. Editor: Emanuele Secci. 

       
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