Acquiescence, And We're Better Off for It

On January 11, the "showdown over Greenland" was

at a “fateful moment,” Denmark’s prime minister warned, as President Donald Trump renewed his threat to seize the Arctic island "one way or the other”….

Trump has insisted that the U.S. must take control of Greenland to prevent Russia or China from doing the same — an argument Beijing dismissed as "an excuse" to pursue his territorial ambitions.

“I am not going to let that happen,” Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One late Sunday of allowing America's geopolitical rivals to control the vast, mineral-rich territory.

Asked if there was any deal either Greenland or Denmark could offer to prevent military action, Trump said he would love to make a deal. “It’s easier,” he said, adding: “But one way or the other, we’re going to have Greenland.”

Europeans were not amused. Consequently, as of January 16, they had

begun to complement their strategy of engagement with deterrence. The idea is to raise the stakes of any forceful U.S. action on Greenland and demonstrate that annexing the island will not be an easy win, but have “unprecedented knock-on effects,” as French President Emmanuel Macron put it. Europeans hope that Trump is just testing the boundaries of how much resistance he will evoke, and that standing firmly united will make him back off.

To achieve this, European leaders are working with members of the U.S. Congress with the hope of future legislation that would make it more difficult for the president to make a move on Greenland. A bipartisan congressional delegation currently visiting Denmark and the island is meant to convey the message that there is no interest whatsoever for a U.S. takeover. In addition, Europeans are signaling to Congress that the possession of an island that is much smaller than it appears on the standard Mercator projection map is not worth the dissolution of NATO.

Europeans are also weighing their economic and military options to deter Trump’s threat. On the economic side, the use of limited sanctions, further punitive measures against U.S. tech companies, and the European Union’s (EU) anti-coercion instrument—which was already considered but discarded as a response to U.S. tariffs—are back as actions of last resort. However, Trump’s threat to use tariffs once again over Greenland may discourage some Europeans for fear of escalation.

On the military side, France, Germany, Norway, and Sweden have deployed a small number of troops to Greenland to deter a fait accompli from the U.S. side (and France has proposed sending more). However, Europeans are fully aware that a military conflict with the United States would be a disastrous scenario that they will only lose. Other “nuclear options,” like limiting U.S. access to bases in Europe, are technically available. But this tactic would assume that the transatlantic relationship is already irreparably harmed.

Donald Trump heard this loud and clear and after his speech at Davos, announced on Wednesday that he and NATO Secretary Mark Rutte had "formed the framework of a future deal with respect to Greenland and, in fact, the entire Arctic Region."   "One way or another, we're going to have Greenland," the President had said. Europe called his bluff, and now we've agreed to negotiate.

Yet Glenn Beck, asking "what is the key to what happened yesterday,"  holds fast to his crush, remarking

I can guarantee you he- Donald Trump- or someone said to Mark, a message from the President, "Mark, you've gotta make this happen, you've gotta tell the truth and I'm not making a threat. I'm making a promise to you.

You bet that wasn't a threat, if such a conversation did actually take place.  "One way or another, we're going to have Greenland," the President earlier had boasted, Europe countered, and Donald was in no position to make the threat for a second time.

According to Beck, Trump or his respresentative added

If we don't get Greenland, if this doesn't happen, if we don't find a way so that we have control over the things that we have to have control over in Greenland, I'm out of NATO and you won't survive.

If NATO had not survived that, Donald Trump would have been the assassin and Vladimir Putin the beneficiary. Beck continued

And I won't say that, embarrass NATO, I can't say it aloud but I'm telling you that this is the end game here. We're out of NATO because it's worthless. I can guarantee you that's what happened. Everything in me says that's what happened.

It’s just a theory, but I bet Trump promised NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte that the U.S. would leave NATO if a Greenland deal isn't made. That's how Trump changed NATO’s mind so fast: Negotiate or you're on your own. And Rutte would know he's not bluffing. pic.twitter.com/MaP7hRJdh8

— Glenn Beck (@glennbeck) January 22, 2026

We can't be sure this did not happen, though clearly if it did, it was not Trump himself. "And I won't say that, embarrass NATO, I can't say it aloud" is something which never would be uttered by America's, nay the world's, leading narcissist. If Trump can't be the center of attention, he can't be anything.

If there had been no announcement of negotiations, er, uh, a "framework," for a deal, Glenn Beck and his fellow travelers would have proclaimed it a total victory for the great dealmaker. President Trump's confrontational style would have persuaded those awful people across the Atlantic to back down, we would have been assured.

But that's not what happened. Instead, someone stood up to the demonic force. As Beck argued, the military might of NATO minus the USA would not have been able to withstand an onslaught from the USA. However, that onslaught would have been short-lived, for a reason Beck overlooked..Had there been an American casualty, Americans would have been out. Death would have been the key.

After his visit to the White House last March, Bill Maher pleaded "one good thing about Trump: he really, really doe not like war." Yet, the President's aversion may be not to war itself, but to the possibility of Americans dying in battle. Sensitive to public opinion, he is keenly aware that the instinct to rally around the flag rapidly loses its appeal once American deaths enter the picture.

In either case, when NATO nations faced President Trump down, he backed down. His prior bluster was belied by the willingness to talk and make a deal for what the President could have achieved without the controversy and distrust his shtick incited. That was no problem for the man who must always be the center of attention. This will be a problem for allies and for the United States of America itself.

Oh, Trump will eventually declare victory, in his signature fashion, exalting himself and deriding others. However, notwithstanding what Glenn Beck contends, President Trump overplayed his hand. He (apparently) believed he could and would intimidate Denmark into capitulating to his demand to turn Greenland over, perhaps for mere pennies on the dollar.

Donald Trump didn't completely capitulate. But he did stand down and the coalition of the free, here (thus far) and abroad, weakened, survives for another day.

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Insidious Intent

Predator (Merriam-Webster): 

1) an organism that primarily obtains food by the killing and consuming of other orgnaisms; especially, an animal that preys on other animals;

2) one who injures or exploits others for personal gain or profit.

This is repulsive:

Rep. Ogles: "It's important that we have a stake in Greenland, that they are quite frankly a protectorate of the US. They've been in relationship with Denmark -- that needs to end. We have spilled more blood protecting Greenland than the Danes ... we are the dominant predator… pic.twitter.com/uAtHMMV0hL

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) January 7, 2026

The USA does have a stake in Greenland. However, Danish involvement has been deeper and more lengthy. And according to Mikkel Runge Ollesen of the Danish Institute for Inernational Studies

When the monarchy of Denmark and Norway broke apart in 1814, Denmark kept Greenland. Danish-Greenlandic colonial relations in the 19th and early 20th centuries were characterized by a Danish paternalistic policy for cautious development, ensuring that Greenland would be a profitable colony. In 1916, Denmark’s rights to Greenland were confirmed by the United States, as part of a deal that facilitated the American purchase of the Danish West Indies. A controversy concerning a Norwegian claim to parts of Greenland ended in 1933, when the Permanent Court of International Justice, founded by the League of Nations, ruled against Norway.

Allen Frazer on the Military.com website explains that as combat reached the Arctic in 1943, the Danish-led  Sledge Patrol comprising Danes, Norwegians, and Greenlanders, was formed. Using its reports American planes bombed the German base on Greenland and later went to destroy the camp. However, they found it abandoned, merely capturing a lone German staffing the station. Then 

In October 1944, USCGS Eastwind seized the German weather station on Little Koldewey and took twelve German prisoners. Eleven days later, she boarded and captured the trawler Externsteine, taking seventeen more prisoners and ending Germany’s weather operations on the coast. These were the only direct engagements between American and German troops on Greenland.

That was the first presence of the USA in Greenland and, Ollesen notes, in

1949, the United States and Denmark became allies through NATO. During the Cold War and the decades after, the U.S. safeguarded its security interests in Greenland: tracking Russian missiles, bomber planes, and nuclear-armed submarines from that location. This became the basis for the “Greenland card” in U.S.-Danish relations: the idea that base rights in Greenland constituted an important contribution from Denmark and Greenland to the U.S. and NATO.

So the USA, as well as Denmark and Norway, collaborated to throw the Nazis out of Greenland in world War II. This apparently transpired without a staggering loss of life, or "blood spilled" as Representative Ogles of Tennessee would put it.  This is not- or, rather, should not be- a competition as to whether Danes or Americans have "spilled more blood protecting Greenland."

Merriam-Webster, again; a "protectorate" is "the relationship of superior authority assumed by one power or state over a dependent one."  Obviously, President Trump and adviser Stephen Miller wouldn't be threatening to gain control (in whatever way) over Greenland if the latter were already a protectorate of the USA. Presumably, Representative Ogles invoked the term "protectorate" because it harkens back to the word "protect" and implies, incorrectly, that helping to protect a territory results in the latter being a protectorate. "Protecting" may be necessary; it is not sufficient.

The USA has no nationals security interest in acquiring Greenland because our national security interests already are promoted by our presence in Greenland. The New York Times reported early last year that the Air Force and Space Force personnel at Pituffit Space Bse (formerly, Thule Air Base), "handle missile defense and space surveillance and the Upgraded Early Warning Radar (which) can detect ballistic misslies in thir early trajectory of flight."  A Danish deefense analyst says the base is "where the U.S. can detect a launch, calculate the trajectory and activate its missile defense systems." 

Consequently, the status quo helps Greenlanders, but especially USA national security. If they want to opt out, they can do so by referendum. A poll taken twelve months revealed majority support for becoming independent, yet with 45% opposing independence if the standard of living would be at all harmed.  That would be likely because

the Greenlandic government remains dependent on a yearly block grant from Denmark of roughly $600 million, as well as on the Danish state supporting services in areas such as defense, coast guard, and law enforcement. Greenlandic independence, therefore, depends on substantial continued Danish assistance after independence, something the Greenlandic government has yet to convince Denmark to accept.

What kind of a person would argue in full view that his country is the "dominant predator"? A supporter of Donald Trump would. The head of the Washington, D.C.-based security think tank Artic Institute believes it would "mean the end of NATO" (and the "U.S. would be .... shooting itself in the foot and waving goodbye to an alliance it has helped created." A former commander of U.S. troops in Europe argues that also a "loss of trust by key allies.... culd result in a eduction in their willingness to share intelligence with the U.S. or a reduction in access to bases across Europe. Both of these would be severely damagint to America's security."

Destructive to NATO and damaging to America's security? That sounds like a win-win to a President who believes his country is "evil" and a congressman who craves recognition as a "predator."

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