Such as?

Presumably, you mean Pituffik Space Base[1], formerly Thule Air Base, and Thule Site J?

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pituffik_Space_Base

2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thule_Site_J

Thule/Pituffik is why the whole "buying Greenland" thing never made sense to me, no matter how you try to look at it or steelman it... Before they were threatened with being purchased and invaded, Greenland and Denmark were our allies, and it's not like Greenland had a shortage of (non-green) land. If it was about military access, we could have just asked to build another base.

No need to ask. As mentioned in the article, the U.S. has the right, by treaty, to build military bases in Greenland already.

Except when they want to build secret nuclear vaults.

Not sure about how Greenland compares to Alaska, but it also could be a perfect home for a private doomsday seed vault (like https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Svalbard_Global_Seed_Vault which is controlled by Norway)

Are there mineral/energy resources there to extract? That's the only thing that would make sense to me.

yes, significant amounts

It's the wrong question though! The US is sitting on piles of rare earth deposits—it still doesn't mine them. It can't compete on pure cost with the mining industry in China. It's discussed extensively (e.g. here[0]) that the mining, and particularly chemical processing of ores, is labor/resource-intensive, expensive, and hazardous to ecology and to humans. It has nothing to do with the raw availability—these are super abundant ores, not rare at all, despite the name.

Jack Lifton in [0] adds the perspective that rare earth processing involves a large amount of institutional knowledge, that would take time for the US to reacquire, since we forget everything when we stopped mining many decades ago. While in the interim, China has spent its time as the world's rare earth monopoly optimizing the chemical processes, widening their moat. It's like the manufacturing question, where's it about institutional knowledge and industrial ecosystems—nothing at all like oil/gas where it's solely about where the minerals are.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43953272

> labor/resource-intensive, expensive, and hazardous to ecology and to humans

This is exactly why Greenland could be needed to compete with Chinese production. With Greenland an offshore legal gray area like Guantanamo, you just need to add work camps stuffed with "Illegal Immigrants" and other Enemies of the State. In fact, why have prisoners on shore at all when it is more profitable to have them work offshore? With foreign news sources banned because of False News, the huddled masses will be educated that this is a good thing.

Fishing rights and control of the northwest passage are up there.

Greenland controls half of one end of the northwest passage. The other end is controlled by the US via Alaska and the Bering strait. Doesn't seem like there's much additional benefit to justify burning a bunch of international goodwill on the matter.

The northwest passage can be done by going through the Canadian archipelago. Greenland doesn't really factor into the northwest passage.

You can do it all via Canadian waters and you can't do it at all without using Canadian waters so no need to even consider greenland as they don't have any waters that would speed up the transit.

My wild guess is to make our adversaries and the world think we are capable of being a nation that attempts to conquer other lands. More so make our adversaries like Russia know we are not weak and we can conquer too and or we are now unhinged too don't even think about messing with us.

Whether my assumption is right or wrong its a different vibe then the peacemaker image/vibe previous administrations have followed.

Interesting assumption. Could be the administration is attempting to seem “relatable” before negotiating with Russia and China.

A Different take. Greenland is strategic to the security of North America. And had been severely neglected by Denmark. Just like all Nato countries, not contributing financially to security as required.

This saber rattling had the desired effect and result. More military investment in Greenland. But, using other ppl's money... Denmark.

And in Canada's case with becoming a 51'st state... they too are now committed to meeting NATO $ obligations.

So you're saying we're improving US security, by making our allies think we're actually their enemies so they beef up their militaries to fight us?

To defend themselves knowing the US won't be there to back them up but yes

Then I guess when we live in a world where lots of countries have powerful militaries and none of them are our friends, that means we've won.

The notion that current allies become enemies simply because they become required to pay a fair share of their defense is a dumb one. But if true, questions how allied such regions really were!

The notion that current allies become enemies simply because they become required to pay a fair share of their defense is a dumb one. But if true, questions how allied such regions really were, if their allegiance can be bought or disbanded by a few dubloons.

So I guess you haven't noticed Trump's very-thinly-veiled threats of military action against Greenland, Canada, and Panama. People in those countries, and Europe, have definitely noticed.

OK, I see it like this: you can set boundaries with your friends. Setting boundaries with friends doesn't make them enemies, that's dumb.

If you're a country, reserving the right to use military force is a way of setting boundaries.

Think of it like this, your friend Darald never pays for anything and expects you to foot the bill for all group activities, and even pay his rent and deal with his crazy ex-wife (paying his alimony, etc). Darald also talks shit about you every chance he gets, in front of your other pals. You eventually get fed up with enabling his destructive / lazy behavior and stand up for yourself. Do you: a) punch him in the nose; b) use court action to seize his assets to recoup some of your losses; c) go to his house and take the money he owes you out of his mattress, and push him off you when he tries to stop you; d) all of the above; e) do nothing, keep letting yourself get abused.

???

Agreed. Europe has been mooching off US military spend for decades. I also wouldn’t expect Denmark has the military capability to hold Greenland in a war.

Dependence on the US has been a great point of leverage, and not what I would call mooching. Also the EU and Canada have stood with the US and committed soldiers regularly to US led conflicts.

Finally, Greenland would fall under NATO protection so who exactly would Denmark need to protect them from?

The US has been one of the biggest pushers for European nations to rely on NATO.

The US isn’t making most NATO members in Europe not hit their defense spending targets.

Most likely they are actually, every country will have a certain "% of GDP" threshold where once they go above that number, it makes more sense for them to spend the money in their own home grown defense industry vs buying US made weapons.

It has also certainly served US interests to keep certain European countries "down" and have them reliant on the US for their security for other reasons too.

The idea that the US decided to "subsidize" European defense for multiple decades, out of their own generosity is.... nothing short of completely laughable imo.

...biggest pushers for European nations to rely on the US, to be precise. If that's no longer the objective, fine, but there's no need to rewrite history and call it "mooching". It was a strategic choice, to avoid a repeat of WWII.

Relationships change over the course of a century. The 2% GDP defense spending agreement came about during the Riga summit in 2006. So the objective did change twenty years ago and many member nations never abided by that agreement; much to the frustration of both Bush and Obama. What you're espousing is more of a history rewrite by assuming we have had a static relationship going back to the end of WW2 and that this defense spending agreement is newer than it actually is.

So the correct response to that is brownian motion in foreign affairs?

The Netherlands during the cold war had an entire tank division stationed in Germany waiting for the USSR to invade.

Where does this idea come from that Europe wasn't spending any money on defense?

Won't alienating all your allies lead to increased US spending in the end?

The “allies” aren’t even hitting their NATO spend targets and probably haven’t ever. Beef up their military and the US doesn’t have to stop policing their world so much (currently the US is keeping European shipping open by bombing Houthis nonstop).

> currently the US is keeping European shipping open by bombing Houthis nonstop).

Keeping it cheaper.

When the Suez was blocked by a sideways ship[0], some of shipping went around Africa[1].

The USA also notably made it clear to the European powers that European powers absolutely didn't have any right to be the powers who controlled the Suez[2].

I also note that the official position of the Houthis is their attacks on shipping are supposed to be about Israel, the problem from the perspective of everyone else in Europe is that they're idiots hitting unrelated ships as well[3].

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021_Suez_Canal_obstruction#Ec...

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cape_Route

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suez_Crisis

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Houthi_attacks_on_commercial_v...

So let's invade Greenland and Canada. That'll fix it.

"Europe has been mooching "

All of this complaining about NATO, or WTO, or IMF, etc... Any globalization.

People forget -> The US designed and setup these systems. These were all founded and built by the US, to project US power and interests. How can we complain now for things we designed and wanted.

It sounds like a bunch of whining. "Oh Boohoo, We got what we wanted. I'm the most powerful country on the planet because we forced globalization on everybody and now I don't like it, boo hoo."

USA is the only country that actually used NATO article 5 to drag others into the war. The mooching complaint is ridiculous since it was USA actively getting benefits.

Yes, and hopefully investment will be predominantly in European/Canadian companies.

Yeah I'm not certain what the end goal is, but I am certain that the entire thing is theater, meant for someone's consumption. My best guess is we want the world to believe we won't be there to defend them because it's the only way to get them to spend on their own defenses.

"attempts" is certainly accurate

the latest example being Afghanistan

I think that if the president wanted to make Russia know they are not weak, the reasonable first step would be to stop giving Russia literally everything they want.

Instead, current administration favors Russia and do what Russia asks them to do.

Greenland has been under intense pressure from China and Russia trying to gobble up anything they can.

Just one example. There are others of China and/or Russian interests buying up British, Dutch, Australian, etc companies that have existing contracts and then switching it over to their control.

https://www.euronews.com/next/2021/11/23/greenland-mining-ch...

Commercial mining has little to do with Denmark withdrawing from treaties in favor of military partnership with our adversaries. And your link is about Greenland expelling a Chinese mining firm, so it seems like things were going reasonably well for the US on that front too.

That the firm was allowed in and then needed to be expelled is the issue. How many operators are still there but undetected, or so embedded that they cannot be easily expelled?

So are you saying that the US should make military threats against any ally where a Chinese-controlled firm sets up a mine, even temporarily? Or where it might have happened without being detected?

All Chinese or Russian firms should be considered, at least at first glance, as military or intelligence apparatus.

Yeah but I'm wondering whether we should make it that easy for China and Russia to ruin our relationships with our allies.

I think that is more to do with the current administrations "style" of state-craft (basically the "big stick" method)

> he current administrations "style" of state-craft (basically the "big stick" method)

Trump is the antithesis to "speak[ing] softly and carry[ing] a big stick" [1]. He's constantly blustering and retreating from his own lines.

The last big-stick President we had was probably Obama, though Bush and H. W. strike closer to the mark.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_stick_ideology

OK there's that (Site J is fascinating). But there's also another in-mountain base near Helheim Glacier, and an under ice research base midway between Helheim and Jacobshavn Glacier (Site G or H?)

lol given your background you should probably definitely know!

The most interesting ones are probably secret.

“Helix” was a fictional TV show about a bio lab in the arctic.