President Trump is right to recognize the growth of Greenland’s importance as a potential national security asset. But seizing Greenland from Denmark will nonetheless significantly damage rather than enhance American national security, and that dog our Free World allies in Western Europe. The best course of action he can take is to use and build on the arrangements developed by previous American presidents with the government of Denmark for the use of Greenland as the site of American facilities. To do otherwise is to throw away the benefits to collective security provided by Danish cooperation.
President Trump’s intense interest in using Greenland to enhance our national security makes perfect sense. With the shrinkage of the polar icecap, the Arctic Ocean is becoming more accessible and navigable for the Russian and Chinese navies. To better monitor them and, if necessary, counteract their maneuvers will require a greater American presence. Moreover, if America could mine and extract Greenland’s great mineral wealth, it could thereby diminish its reliance on China for rare earths and other vital resources. In short, greater control of Greenland could lead to greater American national security as well as greater security for our NATO allies, too—depending on how that control is acquired.
And President Trump’s initial offers to purchase Greenland from Denmark were by no means unreasonable. After all, President Truman, in 1951, offered Denmark $100,000,000 to buy Greenland.
But the Danish government turned down Truman’s offer. As an alternative, it agreed to an arrangement granting the United States the right to establish numerous radar installations and other military bases, with no upward limit on the number of U. S. troops which could be sent to Greenland.
Throughout the Cold War, the arrangement worked well. Our one major base in Greenland today is the Pituffik Space Base, formerly the Thule Air Base, with a 150-member staff. Its main function is to monitor for possible missile and space weapon attacks. But at the height of the Cold War, the United States had numerous weather stations, radar facilities, and air bases and up to 15,000 military personnel in Greenland. Trump is right to want to once again expand our presence there, and thereby increase our capacity to monitor and, if need be, repel hostile Russian or Chinese activities.
But how Trump wants to do so has become increasingly irrational and threatening to our national security. Throughout the Cold War, the Danish government willingly collaborated with and accommodated the establishment of the numerous American bases, and for good reason. As an original and loyal member of NATO, Denmark recognized as clearly as America did the need to counteract the Soviet threat to Free World security, and thus the importance of the American presence in Greenland. And the Danish government has consistently and persistently signaled its willingness to keep supporting American efforts to use Greenland—as long as America continues to recognize Greenland’s status as an autonomous possession of Denmark.
Yet rather than getting greater access to Greenland for American facilities by continuing to work with the Danish Government, Trump wants to seize Greenland against Denmark’s will, to the detriment of our national security and, indeed, that of our Western European allies as well. Denmark’s Prime Minister has warned that an American hostile takeover of Greenland would constitute an attack by one NATO ally on another and produce the collapse of NATO. The leaders of Great Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and Poland have all endorsed Denmark’s continuing opposition to possible American takeover efforts. Discussions to send Danish, British, French, and German forces to Greenland have begun.
The end of NATO as we know it would be a geopolitical catastrophe, especially in light of growing Russian aggression. After all, NATO was initially established to counter the Soviet Union’s threat to the Western European democracies following World War 2, and successfully kept the Soviet Union at bay until it collapsed in 1991. Given Putin’s drive to restore Russian geopolitical power to Soviet-era levels, the collapse of NATO will once again make the Western European democracies more vulnerable to Russian efforts to dominate the continent.
The degree to which President Trump understands, or even cares about, the fate of Europe and NATO is unclear. He performed a great service by successfully pressuring NATO member countries to spend more on collective defense and security. But otherwise, he has been dismissive of NATO’s value as a guarantor of collective security. He may care little for its future.
But if Trump truly understands the need to defend the West against Russian and Chinese power, he must abandon whatever schemes he may be developing to seize Greenland by force and thereby weaken, and possibly destroy, NATO and its ability to counteract authoritarian aggression. He should build on our traditional relationship with Denmark and accept Denmark’s willing and invaluable assistance, rather than discard a mutually beneficial arrangement and the security it has provided against foreign aggression.
Malcolm L. Cross has lived in Stephenville since 1987 and taught politics and government at Tarleton for 36 years, retiring in 2023. His political and civic activities include service on the Stephenville City Council (2000-2014) and on the Erath County Republican Executive Committee (1990-2024). He was Mayor pro-tem of Stephenville from 2008 to 2014. He has served on the Board of Directors of the Stephenville
Economic Development Authority since 2018, and as chair of the Erath County Appraisal District’s Appraisal Review Board since 2015. He is also a member of the Stephenville Rotary Club, the Board of Vestry of St. Luke’s Episcopal Church, and the Executive Committee of the Boy Scouts’ Pecan Valley District. Views expressed in this column are his and do not reflect those of The Flash as a whole.
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