Most of the time, nobody pays much attention to Greenland. It’s pretty much out of the way, tucked to the East of Canada and WAY up north. It’s a big island but it’s almost all covered with glaciers, ice, and snow. While indigenous people (mostly Inuit) have been there for thousands of years (a testament to human adaptability), it came into the European orbit with the Norse explorers in the 10C (the famous “Eric the Red”) and has been part of Denmark since the 13C.
But the times are changing and things are no longer moving merely at glacial speeds. Global warming has increased the navigational significance of the Arctic region and melting ice and snow have uncovered stunning amounts of minerals (including strategically important rare earths) that are now extractable.
The resulting geopolitical competition has attracted the attention of all the leading global players, including HWSNBN, a latter-day imperialist, who suggested that the US just buy the place or, perhaps, invade and conquer. His buy-out proposal was soundly jeered at by both the Danes and the local government. But, you can never tell with him, especially since it would be a real estate deal (on which he is the world’s leading expert) and he wouldn’t have to submit a personal financial statement to float the mortgage. He could be just trash talking (there’s some precedent for that), trying to scare the Russians/Chinese away or leveraging the Europeans to step up their defense spending. While we have had military bases there since WWII, I don’t think we’re quite up to unilateral annexation or creating the 51st state; much less attacking a NATO ally. (Of course, he has a habit of talking loudly and carrying a little stick. He might be trying to scare the Greenlanders into staying with Denmark and then leaning on the Danes to give us a good mineral-access deal).
Meanwhile, the Greenlanders are restless. Their locally-elected government is dominated by pro-independence parties who are planning a referendum this year. Shades of Scotland! Another nail in the coffin of European imperial domination of the globe (pretty much of a dead duck in any event!). The prospect of a new state raises several interesting points.
First, from a geopolitical perspective, Greenland and its newly-accessible minerals could become a bit of a beachball, getting whacked at by both superpowers and global mining behemoths. It’s heady stuff and a lot of money is likely to be dangled in front of the locals, who have depended on fishing for the bulk of their economic activity. However, they’ve been subsidized by the Danes for decades (currently almost $10K/person or about 18% of GDP), not to mention the payments and economic stimulation from long-established US military bases which would be at risk if the Chinese or Russians were to come nosing around (for an engaging fictional take on all this, see the most recent season of “Borgen,” the Danish political thriller on Netflix). All in all, it’s hard to imagine these folks successfully playing in the “big leagues.’ In this way, Greenland is much like other natural resource dependent countries; let’s hope they figure it out better than most.
Second (and more fundamentally), we have to ask what the hell is a place with less than 60,000 people doing being a country to begin with? To be sure, there are a dozen or so smaller countries scattered around the world (mostly post-imperial cast-offs on islands in the Caribbean or Pacific), but, I mean, really…? It’s one-seventh the size of the population of Iceland. There are more people in my electoral district that chooses one of eleven seats for the Board of Supervisors here in San Francisco.
Since Greenland already has autonomous self-government under Danish sovereignty, they don’t have to handle/pay for defense or foreign affairs. Even buying a decent one-bedroom apartment in NYC to be the Greenlandish Embassy/UN Mission would set them back $20/head (not counting utilities and maintenance). Where are they going to get the people/expertise to handle everything on their own? Or are they hoping the (pretty rich) Danes will continue to throw money at them? Indeed, it’s hard to imagine they would be considering independence if they couldn’t shelter under the EU and NATO.
This problem of micro-states arose with the wave of independence mid-20C as European empires unraveled (there were a few that pre-date that era, leftovers from the Holy Roman Empire (Luxembourg, Liechtenstein) or fringes of unconsolidated France (Monaco, Andorra) or Italy (San Marino). In the 20C, a fair number of places were so minute that they stayed as formal colonies (with new names) or were formally integrated with the home country. But many insisted on independence to be ‘au courant,’ and have usually remained on someone’s dole. Being independent allows—I guess—a certain degree of self-respect (carrying a flag at the Olympic Opening Ceremony and all that), but not much else.
After all, we live in a world of states, each of which expects everyone else to take on the same form/status. As I have noted elsewhere, this often doesn’t work out because there was no coherent political community from the get-go or the nature of the community or economy underwent significant change and the trading/community patterns don’t match the land boundaries anymore.
The micro-states don’t have those problems (most are islands), but they’re not capable of functioning at the international level. In other words, they pretend to independence, but are functionally (and usually financially) dependent either on their historical ‘owner’ or whatever multi-national trades in whatever they have to offer in world markets. The rich/big countries throw some money at them out of general principles, but the people are usually stuck (either physically or metaphysically).
So, perhaps the Greenlanders will opt to raise their own (red-and-white) flag. Perhaps they will sell themselves to the orange-haired one. But I suspect they’d be better off laying low, sticking with the (generally friendly and good-natured) Danes, and staying home and warm. Despite global warming, when it comes to geopolitics, baby, it’s cold outside.
But the times are changing and things are no longer moving merely at glacial speeds. Global warming has increased the navigational significance of the Arctic region and melting ice and snow have uncovered stunning amounts of minerals (including strategically important rare earths) that are now extractable.
The resulting geopolitical competition has attracted the attention of all the leading global players, including HWSNBN, a latter-day imperialist, who suggested that the US just buy the place or, perhaps, invade and conquer. His buy-out proposal was soundly jeered at by both the Danes and the local government. But, you can never tell with him, especially since it would be a real estate deal (on which he is the world’s leading expert) and he wouldn’t have to submit a personal financial statement to float the mortgage. He could be just trash talking (there’s some precedent for that), trying to scare the Russians/Chinese away or leveraging the Europeans to step up their defense spending. While we have had military bases there since WWII, I don’t think we’re quite up to unilateral annexation or creating the 51st state; much less attacking a NATO ally. (Of course, he has a habit of talking loudly and carrying a little stick. He might be trying to scare the Greenlanders into staying with Denmark and then leaning on the Danes to give us a good mineral-access deal).
Meanwhile, the Greenlanders are restless. Their locally-elected government is dominated by pro-independence parties who are planning a referendum this year. Shades of Scotland! Another nail in the coffin of European imperial domination of the globe (pretty much of a dead duck in any event!). The prospect of a new state raises several interesting points.
First, from a geopolitical perspective, Greenland and its newly-accessible minerals could become a bit of a beachball, getting whacked at by both superpowers and global mining behemoths. It’s heady stuff and a lot of money is likely to be dangled in front of the locals, who have depended on fishing for the bulk of their economic activity. However, they’ve been subsidized by the Danes for decades (currently almost $10K/person or about 18% of GDP), not to mention the payments and economic stimulation from long-established US military bases which would be at risk if the Chinese or Russians were to come nosing around (for an engaging fictional take on all this, see the most recent season of “Borgen,” the Danish political thriller on Netflix). All in all, it’s hard to imagine these folks successfully playing in the “big leagues.’ In this way, Greenland is much like other natural resource dependent countries; let’s hope they figure it out better than most.
Second (and more fundamentally), we have to ask what the hell is a place with less than 60,000 people doing being a country to begin with? To be sure, there are a dozen or so smaller countries scattered around the world (mostly post-imperial cast-offs on islands in the Caribbean or Pacific), but, I mean, really…? It’s one-seventh the size of the population of Iceland. There are more people in my electoral district that chooses one of eleven seats for the Board of Supervisors here in San Francisco.
Since Greenland already has autonomous self-government under Danish sovereignty, they don’t have to handle/pay for defense or foreign affairs. Even buying a decent one-bedroom apartment in NYC to be the Greenlandish Embassy/UN Mission would set them back $20/head (not counting utilities and maintenance). Where are they going to get the people/expertise to handle everything on their own? Or are they hoping the (pretty rich) Danes will continue to throw money at them? Indeed, it’s hard to imagine they would be considering independence if they couldn’t shelter under the EU and NATO.
This problem of micro-states arose with the wave of independence mid-20C as European empires unraveled (there were a few that pre-date that era, leftovers from the Holy Roman Empire (Luxembourg, Liechtenstein) or fringes of unconsolidated France (Monaco, Andorra) or Italy (San Marino). In the 20C, a fair number of places were so minute that they stayed as formal colonies (with new names) or were formally integrated with the home country. But many insisted on independence to be ‘au courant,’ and have usually remained on someone’s dole. Being independent allows—I guess—a certain degree of self-respect (carrying a flag at the Olympic Opening Ceremony and all that), but not much else.
After all, we live in a world of states, each of which expects everyone else to take on the same form/status. As I have noted elsewhere, this often doesn’t work out because there was no coherent political community from the get-go or the nature of the community or economy underwent significant change and the trading/community patterns don’t match the land boundaries anymore.
The micro-states don’t have those problems (most are islands), but they’re not capable of functioning at the international level. In other words, they pretend to independence, but are functionally (and usually financially) dependent either on their historical ‘owner’ or whatever multi-national trades in whatever they have to offer in world markets. The rich/big countries throw some money at them out of general principles, but the people are usually stuck (either physically or metaphysically).
So, perhaps the Greenlanders will opt to raise their own (red-and-white) flag. Perhaps they will sell themselves to the orange-haired one. But I suspect they’d be better off laying low, sticking with the (generally friendly and good-natured) Danes, and staying home and warm. Despite global warming, when it comes to geopolitics, baby, it’s cold outside.
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