Is Donald Trump's Greenland strategy 'the path of most resistance'?

Those are assessments of seasoned (and surprised) foreign policy practitioners and experts about U.S. President Donald Trump’s renewed threats to acquire the Arctic territory, which is an autonomous part of the Kingdom of Denmark.

One hard truth is that taking Greenland by military force would be quite easy for the Americans.

“I would imagine it would be done very simply,” said Sten Rynning, a professor of war studies at the University of Southern Denmark. “Denmark cannot stop it.”

Another point of consensus is that Denmark’s international allies, including Canada and others who voiced support this week for Greenland’s territorial sovereignty, are unlikely to put their troops in harm’s way if called upon.

“Not to be too crass about it, but is the West going to go to war to protect Denmark’s claim over Greenland?” asked Kerry Buck, a former Canadian ambassador to NATO, the western military alliance of which both Denmark and the United States are members.

Buck said the same questions about defending against America’s unwanted advances can be extended to Canada, which Trump has coveted as his country’s 51st state. If Greenland were to be invaded, annexed or put under Washington’s control, Canada needs to prepare for the possibility that its own Arctic territory, which sits just to the west of the island, will be next in line.

“I’ve always thought it has been a threat, but maybe not in the pointy-ended way,” she said. “That would be wildly extreme.”

Canada can help itself by rapidly building up military capabilities in the Arctic to show Washington that the country is a robust and reliable partner in the north, something Prime Minister Mark Carney has committed to doing, but “we have to be ready for the unexpected things that make no sense,” Buck said.

This is particularly true as Trump’s outbursts congeal into a more coherent and focused foreign policy doctrine.

“He was always what I call a north-and-south president, more worried about immigration, the southern border, the threatened identity in the U.S.,” Rynning said.

“Now we see the north-south axis come out in earnest. It’s the hemispheric national security strategy. It’s this view of Panama, Canada, Greenland, Venezuela and perhaps next Colombia.”

With the release last month of Trump’s national security strategy, Rynning said, “it is now coalescing into a type of doctrine that I think is disturbing.”

It’s still unclear if the threat to take over Greenland is serious, or how it would be accomplished.

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio reportedly told lawmakers Tuesday night that it remained Trump’s intention to purchase Greenland from the Danes, while White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt issued a public statement saying that “the U.S. military is always an option at the commander-in-chief’s disposal.”

“It doesn’t mean he is serious,” said Buck. “It means we have to consider that he’s serious. We have to prepare for it.”

That applies to all of America’s western allies, but is a particularly important consideration for Canada, which shares a border and a continent with the U.S.

“Everyone’s got a lot at stake, but we have more because of our geography and because of our history,” Buck said.

She said Carney would be wise to stand firm in insisting that international law and countries’ territorial sovereignty be respected without picking a fight with the U.S. president.

“Why create a target of yourself if you don’t need to? But now the question is, when do you need to, right?”

That’s a consideration for countries around the world.

Most, when confronted with Trump’s tariffs, tantrums, threats and meddling, have stayed quiet or made concessions to stay on America’s good side.

One recent exception was the Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum.

After the American military operation to capture Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and bring him to the U.S. to face drug trafficking charges, her government condemned the intervention as a violation of Article 2 of the United Nations Charter, which calls for respect of the sovereignty of member states and the peaceful resolution of disputes.

Similarly, Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen warned the most recent Trump threats to take Greenland could spell the end of the NATO military alliance.

The alliance has provisions for collective defence, calling on all member states to come to the aid of another should it come under attack. But provisions and protocols have never been drawn up for one NATO country attacking another, as would be the case if America moves on Greenland.

Rynning said such a violation “would be a major invitation for Russia and China” to test the solidarity and resolve of the alliance.

“I think it would be the beginning of the end for sure.”

More perplexing, in his view, is that it is not at all necessary for the U.S. to blow up its relationship with Denmark and put the NATO alliance at risk.

“We are essentially opening all the doors in Greenland to the United States and we’ve been doing that all along,” he said, adding that Denmark has been open to greater economic and military co-operation or to deals that would secure American access to critical minerals.

“If that is the conversation, Denmark will absolutely have it,” Rynning said. “But if the subtext … at the end is that the objective is to wrestle Greenland from Denmark, then they will not have that dialogue.” 

There is an easier way, and a smarter way to take effective control of the world’s largest island, and win the support of its 60,000 inhabitants, most of whom are Indigenous and a segment of which support independence from Denmark, said Buck.

“It would be what I call ‘creeping annexation.’ Wait for a referendum where the Greenlanders say they’re not so keen about Denmark and then the U.S. has a lot of military protection and economic development it could offer,” she said.

The result would be de facto control over an island strategically located at the eastern edge of the Northwest Passage without the backlash, the confrontation, the condemnation.

“Not that I’m advocating this — I never would, because it goes against all sort of other rules of international law that I hold dear,” she said.

“They could take a smarter route to this, but instead they’ve chosen the path of most resistance.”