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Arctic security expert says the world needs to look at Greenland from America's point of view
Donald Trump says he has a deal in the works for Greenland. And with that revelation, the U.S. president backed off on a threat to hike tariffs on European countries standing in his way.
Proclaiming America’s post-1945 grand bargain is over, Trump insists there’s a price for safety and security in the world — stay tuned.
U.K.-based polar security expert Tim Reilly suggests we take the president at his word, even if we don’t agree with him. And (while acknowledging that Trump doesn’t always act rationally or predictably), at least try to consider Greenland’s sovereignty and polar security from the perspective of America, one global superpower, doing battle with China, the other superpower.
“From a superpower point of view, (America) cannot indulge only in sovereignty and territory and human rights and the right or wrongs of an illegal invasion,” Tim offers. “It has to think about the bigger picture.”
While some political soothsayers say Trump is dragging the U.S. backwards in time — even to a revival of the 19th-century Gilded Age — Tim believes it is the Europeans who are fixated on Ukraine and Greenland “from a mentality of the 19th century, 20th century sovereignty, territory, ‘this is mine, this is yours,’ rule of law, human rights and all the rest of it.”
To his credit, in a stark speech to the Davos crowd this week, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney candidly acknowledged, “in an era of great-power rivalry… the rules-based order is fading.” But there are many in the European Union, Tim suggests, who need to wake up to this new world shakeup, at minimum, to try and understand how the Trump administration might be thinking.
A former associate of the Scott Polar Research Institute at the University of Cambridge, this Brit has insights into how Americans perceive polar security, including what makes Greenland so attractive to Trump. Last year, Tim was asked to review the updated U.S. Arctic policy — heavily space-oriented, he adds — and based on that review, predicts that NATO plans and strategies will change enormously in 2026.
Western middle powers also need to consider what people in Greenland might be thinking, Tim posits. “This is (Greenlanders’) opportunity to go independent,” he says, “which they wanted to do before, but they didn’t have the money.” With or without Trump, Greenlanders’ may come to see their circumstances in a different light.
Suppose that Greenland was to become independent, he cautions; there could be implications for Indigenous populations in other places. “Similar appeals from other Indigenous folks could then arise,” he suggests, for example, the Maori in New Zealand, Australia’s Aborigines, the Inuit in northern Canada.
I confess: Tim’s talk of America tipping the scale on an independence movement — in the Canadian Arctic, or anywhere — makes me queasy. In Alberta, where I live, a separatist referendum this year or next looks likely, and if successful, the Trump administration’s willingness to recognize the province’s unilateral declaration of independence from Canada could be a constitutional game-changer. I despair thinking what financial inducements might add to that mix.
To get our conversation back onto more comfortable turf, I ask the obvious question: Why would America be hell-bent on owning Greenland; if they already have access, why would they need to own the place?
America would need permissions to build up infrastructure in Greenland, Tim reports, and he agrees, they could do that without owning the place. But, he conjectures, with all these economic, security, and geo-political layers of strategies, “they need to be in the Arctic permanently… they don’t want to mess around.”
“You know,” he adds, “it’s like a billionaire saying that I can stay at the best hotels in London, but if I’m going to be doing major deals in the next ten years, I’m going to buy a couple of houses. I’m going to buy. I don’t want to rent, I want to buy. I’m serious. This is a signal that this billionaire is in town. You need to take me seriously.”
According to Trump, a deal with NATO over Greenland could allow America a permanent presence — via U.S. control of pockets of land for military bases. Denmark rejects any notion that Greenland’s sovereignty is negotiable.
And a superpower contest is ruthless, Tim elaborates; the aim is to strangle the other. “Maritime-wise,” he says, Trump wants to “crush any idea of a China-EU trade deal.… This is the ruthlessness that Europe doesn’t get; how ruthless America is, and superpowers always are.” Owning Greenland would allow the U.S. to signal to China and Russia: “the United States now is right in the centre of the European Arctic.”
Tim also explains the notion of strategic denial; America’s fear that “if we don’t have Greenland, those Chinese and Russians will somehow get Greenland.” It’s all about deniability, Tim reiterates; as a superpower, America needs to be able to stop China, the other global superpower, from getting a more entrenched foothold in the Arctic.
While the EU is focused on NATO, Tim suggests the Trump administration’s priority is updating NORAD (the North American Aerospace Defence Command established in 1957 between Canada and the U.S.) with the launch of the much-vaunted Golden Dome to cover the northern hemisphere.
NORAD is becoming outdated, Tim reports; existing radars can’t detect and knock down new hypersonic missiles as effectively as they could older ballistic missiles. “The hypersonic missiles are coming in at sea level, at Mach 10; the radars can’t get down to see them,” he says. “If you’re going at Mach 10, you can’t wait until (the missile is) 500 miles off the eastern seaboard of the United States; you’re done, you’re toast.” Defence installations on Greenland can defend against modern missiles, “because of the curvature of the Earth,” he adds.
The Iron Dome in Israel “is for a tiny, tiny, tiny little country,” Tim says with a grin; “America is gigantic.” The role of the Golden Dome is not just military, he elaborates: “Greenland is also a great place for space, in terms of putting links up and down to space. All the infrastructure to do with satellite systems, all that space-associated technology and infrastructure; Greenland is great for that.”
If you control the Arctic region, you control two oceans and three continents, Tim enthuses, explaining with not only words but wide hand gestures: “You’ve got the Pacific, you’ve got the Atlantic, you’ve got the North American continent, and you’ve got the whole of Eurasia. So you’ve got the biggest populations in the world, the biggest countries in the world, the greatest technologies in the world, the best transportation networks in the world, the best infrastructure in the world. You get it?”
I get it. Greenland gives America access to the entire northern hemisphere.
“So, it’s China and America; it’s not Russia,” he concludes, and it’s about their powers, “not only military, but it’s ownership of space, ownership of the service sector, ownership of resources, and then ownership of territories where those all come together.”
The world Tim describes is a bipolar world, not a multi-polar world. So, what does that mean for the rest of us? “We will just have to get into one camp or the other,” he says, with an audible sigh. “Middle powers will soon have to choose their poison.”
When I push back against the notion that there is no middle way, Tim acknowledges Taiwan — building chips that America and China both need — and to some extent, other exquisite technologies in Japan and South Korea. There can be a way, Tim agrees, “but it’s in the gift of the gods.”
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