The Greenland Purchase

~ Clarissa

This is an excellent idea:

https://twitter.com/i/status/2011726621007626743

I don’t know who can possibly think it’s a bad idea and why. I especially don’t understand people who agree that Russia is an enormous threat to world peace and hates the US but are opposed to this security move. For years, they were repeating that we need to do something about Russia. Finally, Russia is being kicked in the teeth, and they are still unhappy.

Alaska was acquired, and it turned out great. I’m not seeing any downside at all to acquiring Greenland. People are being defeatist for no reason.

I also have to mention that the post-WW2 world order fell apart in 2014. People who are  hand-wringing about it in 2026, like they only just noticed, sound either clueless and dishonest. Russians are sending drones to one European airport after another. It is conducting aggressive sabotage in most European countries. The authorities of those countries know that, say it openly and… do absolutely nothing. Europe has been funding Putin’s war against itself with oil and gas purchases for 12 years. This is the Europe to which we are supposed to leave our security. Nah, thanks, doesn’t look great.

Only an absolute moron refuses to see that Russia is preparing to do to the US what it’s been doing to Europe. Testing the waters first and then being more and more aggressive is the strategy. If there’s a plan in place to prevent it other than the Greenland Purchase, let’s hear it. There was over a decade to unveil it.

It’s very annoying that everybody has a long-term strategy except the West. We are supposed to be sitting there, feeling guilty for existing and not developing a plan at all.

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Published by Clarissa

59 thoughts on “The Greenland Purchase”

  1. We should definitely work with the Danes on acquiring that territory. But should definitely not take it by force, that would put us in the same place as Russia and permanently alienate Europe and others.

    Let’s see what happens.

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    1. There is no way the Danes will ever agree. So much for all this this talk of nationalism and borders on this blog.

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        1. Looked it up on purpose. The percentage of foreign-born population in Denmark was 3% in 1980 and 16.3% in 2025.

          Let’s talk some more about nationalism and borders.

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  2. “I don’t know who can possibly think it’s a bad idea and why”

    I don’t know why it’s supposed to a good idea….

    The US can already build as many military bases as it wants.

    Mining possibilities are not cost effective at present.

    There’s no indication the people there want to be bought by the US.

    They people there already have a centuries long relationship with Denmark which has had its ups and downs but there’s no clear evidence that either side wants to break things off.

    Denmark has been a reliable ally to the US for decades.

    It might possibly be a good idea if the other side thought so and was willing, but as it is, it looks like a plan to inflate Trump’s tiny widdle ego by buying an island that isn’t nearly as big as it looks like on the Mercator projection.

    What am I missing?

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    1. The US has been building military bases around Europe for 80 years. It clearly brought zero results. Nobody can do anything with the Russian threat. It only gets worse every day.

      If there’s an alternative plan, what is it? Anybody who had it could have revealed it a long time ago. But people say on the one hand that the Russian propaganda has captured entire political parties in Europe but then on the other hand we should trust Europe to defend us from Russia. Well, it clearly didn’t defend Ukraine. It’s not defending itself much.

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      1. “If there’s an alternative plan, what is it? “

        But what is buying Greenland supposed to accomplish? What will it do that the US can’t already do?

        My alternative plan involves stepping on russian toes, including deporting all russian citizens who don’t want to give up said citizenship and subject themselves to scrutiny before being allowed to stay in any other country. Confiscate russian resources. Arm Ukraine appropriately, lose the fear of ‘escalation’… etc

        Whenever the west gets in russia’s face they back down, it’s when the west tries to treat it like a normal country that it pulls russian crap…

        Trump seems to have given up everything except chasing business deals which will never pan out…

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        1. I am afraid occupying Greenland will not impress Putin enough. Thus, taking your argumant to the logical end, the US must occupy all of its NATO allies.

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          1. It’s not just my argument. It’s the NATO’s argument. They are refusing to defend themselves. This might mean that they are either expecting to be defended by the US while they pout or are fine with being taken over by Russia.

            Take Spain. A complete refusal to invest into the NATO. Extreme hostility to Ukraine. And to the US. And this is right after the constitutional crisis that almost split Spain apart and was entirely funded by Russia. And after the real estate collapse of 2009 where Russian mobsters were implicated to an extraordinary degree.

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            1. I think many western people my age (40) and younger don’t really have a fear of Russia. How do you explain to them (us?) that Russia is bad and being occupied by Russia would make our lives worse? Not rhetorical question. I just don’t have an answer.

              In social circles it’s a conundrum for me because If I say something bad about Russia/Russians/Russian culture, if people believe me, the most likely consequence to me would be that people decide not to like/trust/associate with me because I’m “Russian” (ex-soviet russian speaker).

              -YZ

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              1. This is a very interesting question. I am also a Russian speaker, although I identify with my country of birth which is not Russia. It was not my experience that people stop interacting with me because I am a Russian speaker very critical of Russia.

                and, look, if you cannot explain, despite knowing Russia first hand, what is wrong with Russia and why one should be afraid of it… then you are just not an appopriate person to explain it and perhaps Europeans should indeed be cautiuous with you.

                I was actually baffled by what you said and I am wondering if you are channeling the sentiments of your European acquaninances or your own… I kind of understand people who believe that Russia will only take the FSU but not Western Europe including Spain. I understand but I disagree. But you took it several steps further, questioning why one should be affraid of the Russian occupation.

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              2. Occupied by Russia means Russian soldiers go door to door and rape every family there, including infants and old people. Then they shoot everybody in the head and move to the next house down the street.

                I hope this answered your question.

                What do people think military occupation means? “Vibes, papers,essays”? Your children get raped in front of you and you get tortured for months is what it means.

                But yes, this is precisely what the young generation of Germans said on the most recent survey. “We prefer to be conquered by Russia than go to war.”

                Such valuable allies. What will we do without them?

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  3. May I remind you that Putin justified attacking Ukraine by “security considerations” (NATO approaching Russian borders)?

    Would it be OK for Putin to buy Ukraine if he offered a good price?

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    1. Russia did buy Ukraine. The entire leadership of the Ukrainian secret service were Russian citizens. There was no border. I’d still be living there if I saw anything other than a complete anti-nationalist sellout by almost the entirety of Ukrainians.

      And guess what? Russia still started bombing. Because it’s not about what anybody says. It’s about the fact that Russia will continue being aggressive in perpetuity. In 100, in 200 years, people will be sitting here, talking about who else Russia is bombing.

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      1. My questiuons were rhetorical, Clarissa. I keep pushing the opinion that Trump (and his supporters) and Putin (and his supporters) are very much alike. Same way of thinking.

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  4. Trump just threatened sanctions if they don’t let him have Greenland. This is just ridiculous now. This is transactional diplomacy without any care for long term consequences and planning.

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    1. “should explain to readers of this blog the concept of Russkiy Mir”

      I know about that all too well…. but…. I still haven’t heard of one thing the US can do if it owns Greenland (against the will of the majority) that it can’t do now.

      That’s all I want to know: Why alienate a reliable ally? For what?

      To me, it seems like flop sweat. Trump is floundering in terms of domestic policy and he thinks making the US bigger will counteract that…

      If anything I’m prone to thinking this is Trump appeasing russia by destroying NATO…

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      1. Trump has a point that without NATO, and by extension the USA, Denmark just cannot defend Greenland from China or Russia, so in a way USA is indirectly subsidizing their ownership of this land.

        However, like you said USA can get just about any concessions right now to put as my troops or do as it wishes militarily in Greenland. So it really seems like such a dim view of the world where the USA just cannot fathom helping what was once a steadfast ally. It just tells me Trump doesn’t give a shit at all about allies, NATO, or anything like that. Which is troubling because in times of trouble it does count to have allies, and to me it’s a shame that he is so callously trying to throw this all away. I like Europeans even if I disagree on a lot of things and I really want to remain allies with them; Trump trying to destroy this relation for almost nothing is really troubling.

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      2. You saw Carney, right? Slobbering all over Xi. They are ideological twins. Tomorrow, we’ll elect our own Carney. We will, won’t we? It goes in waves. If at least we have an additional stretch of land between us and these bastards, that’s better than nothing.

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        1. You saw Carney, right? Slobbering all over Xi.

          Actions should never have consequences. We’re allowed to use tariffs and economic pressure, but everyone else has to politely smile, absorb the damage, and never adjust their behavior, never form new allowances. Denmark joined the war in Iraq, got their people killed disproportionately, spied on neighboring countries for US, did everything the US told them to do. And look where it got them.

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          2. Trump practically handed Carney his win in the election. I have no idea why Carney, of all people, should be upset with Trump. He’d be “Carney who?” today without Trump’s efforts.

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            1. You haven’t responded to anything I said. We impose tariffs and other countries react to them. What seems to be the problem? Maybe the trump administration should have thought of second-order effects of their policies. He’s tariffing the entire world! Surely that would result in some reorganization in international relations, no?

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              1. The countries react to the tariffs and we react to their reaction. If Canada wants to bring China to our doorstep, we shouldn’t sit there, waiting for it to happen, should we?

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        2. I actually did not mind Canada following the US in the past. But this only works when the stronger ally continues respecting the weaker one. The respect is either mutual, or there is non at all. Or it is as useful as unrequited love… The moment respect is no longer there, the weaker ally should find some balance between different centers of power. Am I concerned about Chinese influence in Canada? Sure. But I am also concerned about US influence in Canada. Ideally, the job of the Canadian government is to make those influences (and other external influences – Russia, Israel, India, etc, no exceptions) cancel each other.

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    2. I could explain that concept, but my version of that explanation will make you very unhappy because I will start making parallels between Putinoid version of Russky Mir and what Trump is doing.

      But I have done enough provocative things for today so I’ll just join you in asking Clarissa to explain it.

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  7. Germany has committed national suicide by giving up cheap energy which was the backbone of their industrial growth, to align with US geopolitical priorities. That’s still not enough for you. They should be shat upon by americans at every opportunity. Yeah, nick fuentes is entertaining but this is such an ugly sentiment, this hatred of europe. When we know many of their problems directly result from US influence. They have never been independent post-WWII, and I’m glad Trump is doing whatever he can to make europeans realize that US is not an ally in any meaningful sense.

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  8. Also, you can’t make the argument that Ukraine is winning, Russia is losing AND then claim that europe is in existential danger of being conquered by Russia. If Russia can’t inflict defeat on a single country what hope does it have of conquering an entire continent?

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    2. If Russia ever invades some NATO country, and indeed it will be one or all of the Baltic states, it will be not to conquer territory or people, it will be to demonstrate that NATO will not be able (or worse yet – not willing, along the lines of “why should our boys die for Lithuania”) to protect one of its members. Which obviously will weaken NATO. Nobody will take it seriously any more, no matter how much military equipment will be preserved in the Western Europe.

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      1. No, it will be in order to murder people. I find it very hard to understand how after observing what’s been happening people can still honestly think that “it’s about the NATO.”

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          1. We are talking about somewhat different things.

            Of course both Putin’s army and some fraction of the local Russians will use this opportunity to exercise their sadistic impulses. But the reason Putin may give that order in the first place will be more calculated and this calculation will include reducing credibility of NATO. Or of the West in general.

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            1. If NATO had never been formed or had been disbanded in 1998, do you think Russia would have invaded Ukraine and done the exact same things it’s doing now?

              I believe that yes, absolutely. What do you think?

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              1. With all due respect, Ukraine and Baltic states have a differrent place in the grand scheme of things. Baltic states are members of NATO and at least theoretically article 5 applies to them. (I personally do not have particularly high hopes about that, that’s why I believe Baltic states have to establish an alliance with Poland, Czech Republic and other like minded countries, and collaborate with them on everything, up to and including developing nuclear capability. But this is a whole other story.) Ukraine is not a member of NATO.

                Baltic states and Ukraine also play somewhat different parts in Russian imperial mythology. There is more acceptance of them being Other than of Ukraine being Other (and not Russia’s leg that for some unfathomable reason decided to do its own thing and develop its own agency). In case it comes to a long occupation (as opposed to just making a point that NATO could not defend the Baltics), Russia will not attempt to “reeducate” the Baltic peoples, Russia will kill enough to scare the majority into excile.

                When the Russians left Baltic states in the early 90-ies, they did not leave the weapons of the Soviet army behind, like they did in the rest of the FSU. So Baltic states did not have the large stockpiles of Soviet weapons, like Ukraine. They had to build their militaries from scratch.

                I do not know if you know, but Baltic states joining NATO in 2004 already involved some deal with Russia. Namely, the Baltic states were free to arm themselves in any way they could afford for 2% of their GDP (NATO norm of that time), but there were no permanent bases of Western allies. NATO got around it by rotating small units belonging to different countries. Which were so small that they were basically glorified hostages. After 2014 somewhat larger units were rotating. I think only after 2022 NATO developed some more permanent presence there.

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              2. If the idea is that the piece of paper that represents Article 5 will have a larger effect than the piece of paper that was the Budapest Memorandum, this is not an idea that I share. The idea that Russia invaded Ukraine because it’s Ukraine and not because Russians want ti kill is also alien to me.

                The only part of what you say that I agree with completely is that the Baltic people will not fight for anything and will prefer to relocate deeper into Europe. Until that part also gets invaded.

                I sincerely don’t know what can stop them. But I’m certain that it’s not agreements or business deals.

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  9. I’m tired of this moronic and ugly argument that America foots the bill for NATO and Europe should be grateful for this charity. It was always in US interests.

    It locked europe into US military systems, intelligence, and nuclear protection, and created long-term leverage for america.

    It kept europe from becoming an independent military rival with its own great-power ambitions.

    It guaranteed stable markets for US exports and investment after WWII.

    It let the US shape global rules (IMF, World Bank, etc.) according to their own interests with europe practically forced to toe the line.

    Tons of that “defense spending” goes straight to US arms manufacturers anyway.

    European bases are used for US operations in the middle east, northern africa, and eastern europe.

      America gets a LOT more out of NATO than it has invested.

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        1. Once again, a complete non sequitur.

          Things that are imaginary: a future russian invasion of lithuania.

          Things that are real: a NATO member forcing another member to abandon cheap energy and commit economic suicide. A NATO member blowing up that member’s pipeline. A NATO member dictating other members on who they can trade with. A NATO member being a major cause of migrant flows into other members. A NATO member threatening an armed response to force another member to cede territory, then imposing punitive tariffs to economically squeeze it into accepting the “sale.” Which, by the way is such a perfect contract with no coercion involved! They should teach it in the contract law class in law school. Might as well send a severed horse head along with the offer to make sure the Danes cannot refuse.

          This is what the NATO is.

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          1. “a future russian invasion of lithuania.”

            Hardly imaginary…. russia is building up military along its border and its internal dialogue is all about ‘taking back’ territory. It might not start with Lithuania (I’m thinking Estonia or Latvia) but it’s happening.

            A russian invasion of a NATO country is completely inevitable at this point. It could have been avoided but the chances of stopping it now are minimal.

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            1. Completely inevitable, yes. And it will still follow the same path of people denying that it’s happening and once it’s impossible to deny justifying it by explaining how Russia was provoked into doing it. The EU will be expressing profound concerns and the US will be in the midst of yet another internal debate about race and won’t notice.

              We will go in circles like this for all of infinity.

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    • Trump has effectively hobbled right wing movements in europe. He already fucked canada over but apparently that’s not enough.

      Who wants to be associated with this clownery?

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        1. One of my favorite lines from The Thick of It: “The problem is that you are shifting from the man people love to hate to the man people just hate.”

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          1. Yeah. We are drowning in unprofessionalism and lack of seriousness. You can see it on every level. Again, very small potatoes, but every talented employee in support staff left the university. We are fighting over secretaries because the best ones simply left in two large groups. One in December and another starting next week. These are highly qualified people who can easily find jobs elsewhere. Which they did. On Thursday, our amazing academic scheduling person told me she was hired by a large university in STL. I was almost in tears. Not only because I’m attached to her personally, which I am because I’m not a robot and I’ve worked with her closely for 1,5 decades. But also because nobody can take her place. Literally, nobody is getting hired to take her place. We are dismantling the entire structure of the university, piece by piece. The results are already catastrophic.

            This is just one smallish university, ok, whatever. But it’s happening on the level of the state apparatus, too.

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    • Are Greenlanders interchangeable with Americans now? Does the U.S. have the knowledge to not create an even bigger resentment from the indigenous people there? Does the U.S. have huge amounts of money to build and maintain the infrastructure there? Why, after all your worry about foreigners scamming your tax dollars, would you want to create a permanent obligation to send money to suddenly American foreigners?

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    • Are Greenlanders interchangeable with Americans now? Does the U.S. have the knowledge to not create an even bigger resentment from the indigenous people there? Does the U.S. have huge amounts of money to build and maintain the infrastructure there? Why, after all your worry about foreigners scamming your tax dollars, would you want to create a permanent obligation to send money to suddenly American foreigners?

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      1. Think back to the Cuban missile crisis. Did anything happen recently to make us think that people whose civilizational goal was to point missiles at the US dropped their plan? I believe that the exact opposite happened. The children and the grandchildren of those people have done their damndest to demonstrate that their goals haven’t changed. Are we going to sit there and pretend that the same Europeans who are saying they don’t understand why they should fight to oppose a Russian invasion of their own countries will defend us? Or should we do something else? What do you think? What is the next step to preventing us from experiencing what Ukraine is experiencing today?

        If somebody has an alternative vision, I’m extremely interested in hearing what it is. Because ok, maybe this is a bad plan. And ok, we all know that Trump is very likely to fumble this plan. But at least his plan recognizes this danger. Is anybody else at least trying to prepare for this scenario?

        Let’s bullshit Trump’s plan, absolutely. But let’s do it from the place where we recognize the danger and talk about how to prevent it. As of now, nobody tried to answer my question of what happens when Russia invades Estonia. All I’m getting is, “no, never gonna happen.” Like the invasion of Ukraine was never gonna happen.

        I want to discuss reality, not these head in the sand approaches. Which I’m not saying is your approach but please reveal what it is.

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        1. As far as Greenland goes, the plan is literally to leave everything as is. The US already has access to military bases in Greenland. Are you aware of any particular military activity that Denmark was preventing them from doing?

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          1. I know of a lot of military activity that nobody in Europe is preventing Russia from doing. It will be an absolute miracle if Ukraine survives February. The question is, what then? Do we leave everything as is because it has worked so great this far?

            In his signature clumsy way, Trump is saying “we understand that this will get more aggressive and dangerous soon.” But nobody else is doing even that.

            This is exactly as it is with Trump on every issue. Every issue. We keep hearing that the way he’s doing things is wrong, corrupt, bumbling, ineffective. And it’s true. I agree. It’s all that. But everybody else who is pointing out these very legitimate criticisms is not only failing to do anything differently, they refuse even to recognize that the problem exists. It’s true in immigration, welfare fraud, everything. It’s as if endless repetitions of how wrong Trump is getting it are the only engagement with reality they are willing to undertake. Yes, Trump is grievously mishandling Russia. Now that we have said and heard it about a trillion times, what’s the alternative? He’s mishandling deportations. Absolutely he is. What’s the alternative? He’s mishandling re-industrialization. What’s the alternative? He’s the only person who at least tried. He at least said that it needs to be done. Nobody else did.

            I’m experiencing this on a very tiny scale in my own leadership. Everybody has a billion criticisms of how I’m doing things. Most of them are completely legit. But I’m trying to drag us out of a hole created by people for the preceding 30 years. And nobody has an alternative to how I’m doing it. They want the status quo which is long dead and buried.

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