Pondering Greenland

I am not able to read the article, but the Wall Street Journal has an opinion piece today headlined “Greenland is Trump’s White Whale”. This seems like a succinct way to describe Trump’s derangement. Beyond that, the neo-royalist lens that I’ve discussed earlier is the best framework I that have found to make sense of what Trump is up to. There is no strategic or economic advantage for the United States in seizing Greenland; rather it is all about status-seeking and being able to provide lucre to billionaires in his clique. A takeover of Greenland will quite plausibly cause the economic ruination of the United States, as Europe starts to disentangle itself from trade with us. The prime minister of Canada Mark Carney gave an excellent speech at the Davos conference about how middle powers such as Canada are going to start routing around the United States as hegemon.

Everything I know about American history says that the Greenlanders will suffer tremendously under American rule.

There is far more going on than we are aware of. As the aphorism from the Tao Te Ching says — “those who know don’t tell, those who tell don’t know.” And military adventurists should always heed the quote from the title character in the movie “Elizabeth” — “I do not like wars. They have uncertain outcomes.”

The photo at left was taken somewhere over the eastern coast of Greenland in September 2017 on our return flight from Iceland.