Greenland is a semi-autonomous territory of Denmark. President-elect Trump apparently has strong geoeconomic and geostrategic compulsions to own it—either buy it or annex it! He has declared that the acquisition of Greenland is inevitable for the US’s national security and the freedom of the world. Denmark has already rebuffed a 2019 offer by President Trump to buy it. Greenland’s Prime Minister, Múte Bourup Egede, has also stated that his country is not for sale and has reinforced his efforts to seek independence from Denmark.
However, it is the geostrategic advantage that Greenland affords that makes it so vital for the defence of the US and Canada. Denmark, which oversees the security of Greenland, has warned of military confrontation in the Arctic driven by aggressive and threatening posturing by Russia. The route over the North Pole is the shortest path (for hostile missiles and air efforts) between Europe/Russia and North America, and Greenland straddles it, making it strategically vital for its defence. The US maintains the Pituffik Air Base here, which houses Ballistic Missile Early Warning Systems. Furthermore, the Arctic is considered to be of deep military and strategic importance as its thick layers of ice are conducive for nuclear-armed submarines to remain submerged and retain strategic reach into North America, Europe, and Russia. It is also suspected that Russia might allow China greater access to the Arctic, which might use it to bolster its military presence and role in the region. This could ostensibly imply a Sino-Russian military-nuclear-missile-submarine presence in the region—a clear and present threat to the US and North America per se. Furthermore, climate change will make the North Pole routes more navigable, and China has shown inclinations to exploit them for a Polar Silk Road/Route too.
Greenland has also been described as a virtual “security black hole” for the US and its allies. The US military’s presence in Greenland is considered vital and inevitable to deter Russia and potentially China as well. The US has well-defined goals to achieve from the acquisition of Greenland. First, it critically bolsters the US’s air defence through the Ballistic Missile Early Warning System at the Pituffik Air Base. Greenland could potentially be integrated into the US’s North American Aerospace Defence Command (NORAD). Second, this helps block/secure hostile air approaches of missiles, long-range strategic bombers, drones, etc., to North America. Third, it helps control the Greenland-Iceland-UK (GIUK) gap, which is critical for the maritime defence of the Eastern US as it prevents hostile navies from exiting the Norwegian Sea. Fourth, this would obstruct China’s Polar Silk Route ambitions. Fifth, the Arctic has been variously described as the “shortest and least defended threat vector” to North America. It is crucial for the consistent tracking of space assets, especially polar, sun-synchronous satellites, etc. Sixth, climate change could make the Northern Sea routes ice-free and conducive for all forms of maritime traffic, including hostile navies.
Regardless of the US compulsions, unilaterally expanding US territories is a non-starter and perhaps practically undoable as well. The use of force and/or browbeating nations into submission might become self-defeating in the long run.
In India, the Hindutva-inspired, supremacist BJP government has displayed the map of Akhand Bharat (Undivided India) in the Indian Parliament. Akhand Bharat is a concept that envisions present-day India, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, the Maldives, Myanmar, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and Tibet as one nation to be ruled by and from New Delhi. It does not take into account the varying aspirations of the multiple peoples it seeks to bind together as one nation. It does not explain how it will be manifested—through conquest, coercion, intimidation, or the voluntary abdication of freedom and independence by all peoples concerned. Nothing could be more bizarre, delusional, incredulous, and undoable than this concept of Akhand Bharat in the current geopolitical milieu.
India has already manifested its expansionist designs by subsuming Sikkim in 1975 as its 22nd state. India’s partition in 1947 left the issue of divided Kashmir unresolved. However, India has not allowed the UNSC-mandated and decreed plebiscite to be held in Kashmir for a fair, democratic solution. On the contrary, the BJP government is prone to vile rhetoric about snatching back “Azad Jammu & Kashmir (AJ&K) and Gilgit-Baltistan (GB)” from Pakistan. These are crude, fanciful expansionist harangues that go against ground realities, UNSC Resolutions, and international conventions. Indian military commanders are wont to parroting their government’s rhetoric too. However, they know better than their political counterparts that “conquering AJ&K and/or GB” is next to impossible. Pakistan continues to maintain a full-spectrum deterrence and a viable strategic balance to blunt all such Indian designs. Any aggression in AJ&K will result in an all-out war between two (if not more) nuclear-armed belligerents with horrendous consequences for the region and, by implication, the world. India’s expansionist designs, its ambitions to become a regional-global imperial power, the world’s third-largest economy, and a very formidable military-nuclear-missile force could rapidly come to naught were it to initiate such an ill-advised full-spectrum war!
Imperialism and expansionism, regardless of the rationale or motivation, may no longer be viable in this modern world. Conquests of states or their parts are no longer feasible. The current attempts to do so by Israel in the Middle East, Russia in Europe, India in South Asia, and the US’s professed intentions to do so in North America and the Arctic are unlikely to succeed. Unrelenting efforts to that end by such imperialist powers will only bring war and untold miseries for peoples, entire regions, and the world!
Imran Malik
The writer is a retired brigadier of the Pakistan Army. He can be reached at im.k846@gmail.com and tweets @K846Im.