Among his recent jingoistic outbursts, President-elect Donald Trump stated in a social media post that American possession of Greenland is an “absolute necessity” for national security, and. in a subsequent press conference, said that if Denmark refused to sell it, he would not rule out military aggression for turning Greenland into an American colony, and also claimed in another post that Greenlanders are “MAGA” and would welcome American domination. So is any of this true?
Regarding the latter point, the Prime Minister of Greenland, Múte Bourup Egede, responded with a trilingual Facebook post, with the English-language portion stating:
Let me repeat - Greenland belongs to the people of Greenland. Our future and fight for independence is our business. While others, including Danes and Americans, are entitled to their opinions, but we should not be caught up in the hysteria and external pressures distract us from our path. The future is ours and ours to shape. We commit exercising our rights as people and fulfilling our duties with wisdom and care. Every day is spent on working to become independent. We can and we can cooperate.
What may not be immediately obvious to most Americans is that Greenland is, in fact, its own separate nation. Apart from having their own flag and anthem (figure 1), Greenlanders constitute a distinctive linguistic community that meets Ludwig von Mises’s definition of what a nation is. 90 percent of Greenland’s 57,000 residents are of mixed Inuit-Norse ancestry who speak some dialect of Inuit as their first language. Politically speaking, about two-thirds of Greenlanders want independence from Denmark, with large majorities also favoring socialism.
The most disputed issue in Greenlandic politics lately has been a proposed Kvanefjeld uranium/rare earth metals mine at a site near the southern tip of Greenland, which was to be run by a Chinese-financed Australian concessionaire that promised royalties of about $240 million annually, but also posed a threat of polluting a nearby village and local fisheries and would provide few, if any, jobs to Greenlanders. Egede’s coalition defeated the traditional ruling party (also socialist) on a platform of opposing the mine.
Denmark has not been able to buy the loyalty of Greenlanders either, despite its $600 million in annual subsidies propping up the local administration; forcible implantation of IUD birth control coils in Inuit women in the 1960s and 1970s probably being a major factor in provoking their strong anti-Danish attitudes. Likewise, the American military—which has occupied bases in Greenland since America invaded it in April of 1940 without a declaration of war against Denmark—has not endeared itself to Greenlanders, with Inuits in two villages being forcibly relocated to make room for one base and a case of a lost hydrogen bomb and a massive release of radioactive materials on ancient hunting grounds. Greenlanders are the polar opposite of “MAGA” in terms of how they view their ethnic identity, their politics, their evaluation of mining, and their feelings about America.
To be sure, Trump’s lip service about the alleged MAGA views of Greenlanders was not meant to concede the classical liberal principle that Greenlanders have a right of self-determination. Rather, it was meant to make Trump’s supporters—who sometimes like to think of themselves as defenders of human life and of private ownership—feel better about Americans stealing a valuable mine concession, poisoning Greenlanders and their fish, and letting the Pentagon continue to use Greenland as its secret playground.
So what about the claim that formal sovereignty over Greenland is a necessity for America’s national security? It seems unlikely that Greenland could ever gain its independence from Denmark without agreeing to let the Pentagon keep the Pituffik Space Base (formerly known as the Thule Air Base). Getting rid of the second flagpole outside the base—which currently flies a Danish flag under a 1951 treaty—is a cosmetic vanity project, not an absolute security necessity.
What’s really at stake then are the minerals. But is colonial control over mining concessions really an absolute necessity for national security? In connection with the “raw materials” rationale for colonies, Ludwig von Mises pointed out:
The most modern pretense for colonial conquest is condensed in the slogan “raw materials.” Hitler and Mussolini tried to justify their plans by pointing out that the natural resources of the earth were not fairly distributed. As have-nots they were eager to get their fair share from those nations which had more than they should have had. How could they be branded aggressors when they wanted nothing but what was—in virtue of natural and divine right—their own?
In the world of capitalism raw materials can be bought and sold like all other commodities. It does not matter whether they have to be imported from abroad or bought at home. It is of no advantage for an English buyer of Australian wool that Australia is a part of the British Empire; he must pay the same price that his Italian or German competitor pays.
The countries producing the raw materials that cannot be produced in Germany or in Italy are not empty. There are people living in them; and these inhabitants are not ready to become subjects of the European dictators. The citizens of Texas and Louisiana are eager to sell their cotton crops to anyone who wants to pay for them; but they do not long for German or Italian domination. It is the same with other countries and other raw materials. The Brazilians do not consider themselves an appurtenance of their coffee plantations. The Swedes do not believe that their supply of iron ore justifies Germany’s aspirations. The Italians would themselves consider the Danes lunatics if they were to ask for an Italian province in order to get their fair share of citrus fruits, red wine, and olive oil.
The most influential popularizers of the “raw materials” argument—American naval officer A.T. Mahan in 1890 and British geographer H.J. Mackinder in 1904—observed that an economically autarkic empire would also need a dominant navy to control the world’s oceans and the ability to project power over land into the Eurasian heartland in order to guarantee access to natural resources in their distant colonies and spheres of influence. But this means that economic autarky is achieved only at the expense of cutting off other major powers from these very same resources. Attempted encirclement of other major powers can only provoke arms races, scrambles for more colonies, endless wars, and ultimately enormously destructive global wars.
Anti-imperialist classical liberals of the Mahan-Mackinder era were well aware of the dangers of imperialism leading to endless wars. In 1899, Yale Professor William Graham Sumner, denouncing America’s recent conquest of former Spanish colonies, raised the issue in his essay “The Conquest of the United States by Spain”:
The doctrine that we are to take away from other nations any possessions of theirs which we think that we could manage better than they are managing them, or that we are to take in hand any countries which we do not think capable of self-government, is one which will lead us very far. With that doctrine in the background, our politicians will have no trouble to find a war ready for us the next time that they come around to the point where they think that it is time for us to have another. We are told that we must have a big army hereafter. What for; unless we propose to do again by and by what we have just done? In that case our neighbors have reason to ask themselves whom we will attack next. They must begin to arm, too, and by our act the whole western world is plunged into the distress under which the eastern world is groaning. Here is another point in regard to which the conservative elements in the country are making a great mistake to allow all this militarism and imperialism to go on without protest. It will be established as a rule that, whenever political ascendency is threatened, it can be established again by a little war, filling the minds of the people with glory and diverting their attention from their own interests. Hardheaded old Benjamin Franklin hit the point when, referring back to the days of Marlborough, he talked about the “pest of glory.” The thirst for glory is an epidemic which robs a people of their judgment, seduces their vanity, cheats them of their interests, and corrupts their consciences.
One can only add that taxpayers, thus deluded by such a thirst for glory, don’t receive the spoils of the conquest. It is cronies of the politicians, and maybe cooperative elements of the native ruling class, who would be granted the privilege of monopolizing whatever rents and royalties can be extracted from the land. Taxpayers merely get stuck with the bill.
