Andreas Kluth: The US has Greenland (and foreign policy) exactly upside down

If you re sitting in Copenhagen or Nuuk and looking for bespoke lessons from the agreement war that President Donald Trump just declared on the world here are two First what this American president signals he also carries out Second it does not matter whether the object of his fixation is obviously self-defeating or nonsensical he ll press on regardless just because Put both insights together and you may conclude that when Trump says he ll get Greenland from Denmark with or without force he will try Among the latest indicators is the firing of Colonel Susannah Meyers She commanded the Pituffik Space Base formerly named Thule Air Base an American outpost in Greenland that monitors the Arctic skies for incoming enemy missiles At first blush Meyers might seem to be just one more victim in the ongoing purge of national-security and military authorities deemed disloyal to Trump or suspiciously woke In this development though the Pentagon specified that actions to subvert President Trump s agenda will not be tolerated What could have been Meyers transgression It occurred just after a visit to the base by JD Vance and his entourage during which the vice president wantonly snubbed the host country Our message to Denmark is very simple Vance revealed You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland Danes and Greenlanders were understandably offended So Meyers sent an internal email to all her staff including the American operation members and the Danish and Greenlandic contractors working with them reassuring them that Vance s concerns are not reflective of Pituffik Space Base And now she s out on grounds of subversion Washington meanwhile is abuzz with other planning The Office of Management and Budget has commissioned a cost-benefit analysis that balances such items as the expense of subsidizing Greenland s residents so that Trump can outbid the block grants that Copenhagen sends to its semi-autonomous Arctic territory against the value of extracting minerals from the frozen land Will the Pentagon draw up invasion scenarios next To grasp the insanity of these developments you need to appreciate the long and intimate relationship of the U S and Denmark in Greenland Its military roots date to World War II when the Third Reich overran Denmark and the Danes discreetly invited the U S to defend Greenland The Americans did just that building bases from which they took out Nazi planes and submarines in the North Atlantic The cooperation continued and deepened during the Cold War formalized in an agreement in It regulated the Thule Air Base but also about a dozen others with colorful names like Bluie West One and Bluie East Two Bluie was code for Greenland and the directions and numbers spared American aviators from mispronouncing Inuit place names The U S and Denmark also have five other defense agreements weaving together their logistics spying and fighting prowess A sixth was signed under Trump s predecessor Joe Biden impressively under the circumstances the Danish parliament just ratified it last week The Danes in short usually like working with the Yanks and have inevitably been open to doing more together Even so both Copenhagen and Washington like other Western capitals concluded after the Cold War that a peace dividend was due The Arctic seemed less threatening so the Americans closed all their bases in Greenland except Thule Pituffik More lately that liability milieu has changed again and as dramatically as the atmosphere which causes the Arctic ice to melt and frees shipping lanes for commercial and military craft Russia and China are now vying with the West for access and dominance in the region in what resembles a new Great Championship Moscow and Beijing are even teaming up for joint patrols in the Arctic In response NATO countries are boosting their defenses Norway is fortifying its Svalbard archipelago and Canada is modernizing and growing its forces in the region Denmark the U S and their partners are right in planning to do more Together that is That s as it has been since World War II and as it should be Canada s new defense investments for example go into the North American Aerospace Defense Command a bi-national operation between the U S and Canada in which each ally contributes its expertise That s the spirit in which Denmark s foreign minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen now appeals to the U S We do not appreciate the tone in which Vance and Trump talk to Copenhagen he says because this is not how you speak to close allies At the same time he agrees that the U S necessities a greater military presence in Greenland and offers that we Denmark and Greenland are very much open to discussing this with you Geopolitically and strategically Greenland is as key as everyone including Trump thinks For that reason the West requirements to do more to secure the territory and its waters and skies The good news is that the U S already has the time-tested friendships to do that The bad news is that the American president doesn t understand this Instead he alienates America s allies by bullying and threatening them increasingly resembling the imperialist adversary in the Kremlin that NATO should jointly stare down Trump has got Greenland like his entire foreign initiative exactly upside down Andreas Kluth is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering US diplomacy national defense and geopolitics Previously he was editor-in-chief of Handelsblatt Global and a writer for the Economist Related Articles David Fickling Dead bees are a symptom of modern farming David Brooks Time for a civic uprising Noah Feldman Here is Harvard s best argument against funding cuts Raj Tawney The Smithsonian is not a distorter It s a mirror Stephen Mihm The atomic bomb set the stage for the college funding fight