Taking Greenland Seriously
What JD Vance’s speech means for the future of European security.
1. Empire
The visual was kind of hard to miss. The vice president of the United States, flanked by American soldiers in combat fatigues, talking about turning Greenland into an America possession.
And he did this from the ground in Greenland.
There’s no way to read this except as an act of belligerence. Perhaps not quite at the level of Vladimir Putin publishing “On the Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians” in 2021. But in the same basic category.
Putin argued that Ukraine had historic ties to Russia; was vital to the security needs of Russia; and had been compromised by an evil political leadership who forced Russia to act.
Vance argued that Greenland has historic ties to the United States; that Greenland was vital to the security needs of the United States; and that Greenland had been compromised by feckless political leadership in Denmark.
This is how expansionist powers talk. They don’t say, “We want it.” They say that they have historical claims; that the coveted territory is vital to their “security”; that they’re just trying to keep the peace. That someone else is forcing their hand.
That was literally Putin’s rationale for sending troops into Luhansk and Donetsk in February 2022: “peacekeeping duties.” A couple days later those peacekeeping duties became a full-scale invasion.
Do you think Trump would launch a full-scale invasion of Greenland?
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