Greenland Isn't Green

 

Most people probably already know that Greenland isn't green. But, if he didn't know it already, Vice President Vance presumably knows that now, after his chilly reception in Greenland. It was chilly in the literal sense. (Greenland is a cold place.) It was, perhaps more importantly, chilly in a metaphorical sense, in that the Vances had to scale back their plans because no local Greenlanders could be found who wanted to host them.

Greenland isn't green. Much of it is glacier-covered. It is no accident, then, that the King of Denmark's Coat of Arms includes a polar bear to represent his sovereignty over Greenland.  Recently, since the American threat to Greenland has become something to be reckoned with, Denmark's King revised his coat of arms to give Greenland's polar bear bigger space in a heraldic quadrant all its own. On can compare the older (on the left) and the newer (on the right) versions of the Danish royal coat of arms (above).

Of course, to a grifter, Greenland might appear green in a very different sense. There are natural resources there to be exploited and hence money to be made. And one thing America never seems to lack are Americans ready to exploit natural resources, regardless of the harm to the common good and to our common home. 

Greenland's location in the north Atlantic makes it significant for American and European security. But Greenland (via Denmark) is part of NATO, the north Atlantic's surest source of security, and the U.S. already has a military base on Greenland, guarding the sea lanes and the arctic air. For its part, Denmark has been a very loyal ally of the United States, actively supporting us in peace and war.

There are not a lot of Greenlanders. They are a very small nation, suddenly experiencing the classic bad behavior of great powers pushing their smaller neighbors around (as we have witnessed most extremely in the case of Russia's 2022 invasion of its smaller neighbor Ukraine). It appears that some, maybe many, local Greenlanders would like independence. If I were a Greenlander, I would probably prefer to remain Danish, with Danish and European Union social benefits and NATO's security umbrella. Denmark does, after all, repeatedly rank as one of the happiest countries in the world. But that is ultimately up to the Greenlanders and the Danes to sort out. Whatever Greenland's future, it should be the business of Greenlanders and Danes to determine.