By Joseph Mazur

Greenland matters. Understanding why is complicated by the U.S.’s fixation on owning the island instead of expanding bases and extending national security in the Arctic. Force, by any means, could be a loss rather than a win if NATO’s existence is at stake and world powers conspire for diverse motives. 

– Donald Trump (NBC interview,
March 30, 2025)

The “do it” in the epigraph refers to his potential plan to take over Greenland, which could be achieved through invasion, a tariff threat, or retribution for not receiving a Nobel Peace Prize (which has no connection to Denmark). Why not purchase? After all, in 1867, the U.S. purchased Alaska from Russia for less than two cents (about 50 cents in today’s currency) per acre.

Greenland seizure news seemed to have vanished this month, while the government’s embarrassments over the persistent Epstein Files keep popping up to draw our repeated attention. A year ago, after spending some time on thoughts of Trump’s alarming message on taking over Greenland, I wrote a piece suggesting that Canada and Greenland would eventually become the most habitable areas of the northern hemisphere. “There will come a time when rising temperatures will pose existential threats for some countries and turn others into havens of habitation, resources, and fertile soil.” My point then was to suggest that there will be a rush for countries to grab those colder territories to solve the oncoming climate change problems. America has its California wildfires, Nevada and Arizona’s unbearable temperatures, and floods will become existential threats to other states in the coming 50 to 100 years. ^[1] 

I may be wrong about why Donald Trump’s notion of taking over Greenland (a mineral-rich autonomous territory in the Kingdom of Denmark), Canada, and the Panama Canal might not be too ludicrous. It might seem too wild an idea in an era of territory respect. One thought is that such commandeering will not happen, at least not by sales or invasions. Since there are no patterns to give us hints of what he does and what he will do, we are left with one opposing thought that if Greenland is taken by force, a chaotic imbalance of trade, a mess of world order, and nuclear expansions would follow. He doesn’t care about how pressure in one hemisphere affects the other. He works by his impulsive emotions and need for power. Without concrete intelligence strategies or sensible patterns to follow, the inevitable result will be a chaotic and dangerous world order. For 80 years – from the end of WWII to the Russian invasion of Ukraine – the most powerful countries have been cautious in taking over independent territories. With climate-changing conditions, however, there will come a time when rising temperatures will pose existential threats for some countries and turn others into havens of habitation, resources, and fertile soil.

Old attempts of taking Canada

A U.S. takeover of Canada is not totally insane. It has been halfheartedly tried before by Congress when a bill was introduced to absorb Canada as a State. In July 1866, during President Andrew Jackson’s administration, a bill was introduced in Congress to annex Canada (then British North America) and all its provinces to become states and territories of the United States of America. ^[2] However, the Annexation Bill, as it was labelled, never passed the House of Representatives. It was sent to committee, but without a vote, it never came to the United Stqtes Senate. It was a bill that called for the admission of four States, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Canada East, Canada West, and three Territories, Selkirk, Saskatchewan, and Columbia. It was not meant to be an invasion but rather assumed to be an offer to take financial control of those State’s and Territory’s debts. Not a bad plan, though there were undercurrents that raised issues with Britain, which had been neutral during the U.S. Civil War. So, the Bill was simply a symbolic attack on Britain.

Again, a more recent attempt

From the end of WWI to the beginning of WWII, the United States had an Atlantic strategic war plan called War Plan Red (the color supposedly linked to British Redcoats) that had training exercises in logistical fighting a war with Britain. The plan, approved by Secretary of War Patrick J. Hurley and Secretary of the Navy Charles Francis Adams III, composed a campaign to invade Canada and occupy strategic ports and railways before British troops could send reinforcements to the Canadians. Those plans were meant to be explorative and preparatory in case Britain might consider using its Canadian colony bases as a launchpad for annexing the United States. In those years, Britain had the Royal Navy, the most equipped and advanced navy in the world. Such an invasion scenario seems ludicrous now, but in those bizarre times, the great powers still had imperial motives. Britain was an empire for almost 338 years. It lost a colony 135 years earlier, though it remained an empire well into the 20th century. The U.S. military plan was to fight a defensive battle to defeat the British by blockading Canadian port supplies. Of course, it did not happen. It is still debatable who would have won. ^[3]

A third attempt

Now, Trump is repeating his wishes to acquire Greenland, claiming the need for national security. A glance at a map of the Arctic, which connects the shorelines of the Northern Hemisphere, shows it to be tactically important for defense. Yet the geographical positions of Alaska, Canada, and Greenland encompass three-quarters of the Arctic Circle, a strong enough encirclement that could be put under NATO’s command with increased surveillance, expanded military bases, and airfields for air, naval, and space operations. The U.S. does not need to own Greenland for any of those strategic assets, so what can possibly be the motives behind Trump’s wishes?

A few conceivable veiled motives under obessions

Possible motive 1: As the world warms, so will the rush to territorially grab those colder territories, not for tourists but for the most dominant powers that will eventually feel their oncoming problems. If I can pick on the United States for a worry, California wildfires, Nevada and Arizona’s unbearable temperatures, and Florida floods will become existential threats to those states in the coming 50 to 100 years. How will the United States cope? Without serious worldwide government commitments to solve the carbon problem, land between 30° North latitude and 30° South latitude will be hardly habitable, if at all fit for human habitation. From that point of view, Canada and Greenland secure more than enough land mass for migration from southern states. As glaciers alarmingly disappear, those territories under ice for millennia are becoming more habitable.

Motive 2: Greenland is not only a future haven slowly thawing with minerals, oil, and the promise of a more habitable climate. Trump’s argument, though, was not about climate change; he does not care about what will happen to the U, S. fifty years from now. He might want Greenland’s minerals, but more likely, he cares more about the strategic position of the world’s largest island, almost directly north of Eastern Canada.^[4] If the U.S. can extend the base it already has, Pituffik, a Space Base in Greenland, by a defense agreement with Denmark, it can control the entire Arctic Circle. As can be seen in the aerial photo below, the U.S. Space Base is small compared to its size during World War II.

A U.S. Control of Venezuela and Colombia would encircle Central America and Mexico, a region that might be almost uninhabitable by the end of this century. Is Trump thinking about annexing Canada? That country is becoming warmer and will be pleasantly comfortable later in this century. It has the world’s longest coastline and a maritime topography that stretches between three vast oceans, a fortune the United States does not have.

Surely, a U.S. base that accommodates approximately 150 service members is not a threat to Canada, but it will be once the U.S. starts building enormous bases in preparation for isolating Canada and taking over the world’s second-largest country. Why take it over? It is a natural resource dynamo, a leading exporter of minerals such as gold and uranium. And let us not forget that it is the world’s fourth-largest oil producer and holds the world’s third-largest proven oil and natural gas reserves. ^[5] 

Hmm… Could there be another motive? One with reason?

Motive 3: Let’s consider another possibility. With polar ice caps thawing, Greenland could have new shipping routes through the Northern Sea connecting the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans from the Bering Strait to the coast of Norway. Ahh… Perhaps there is reason here, in thinking that Greenland matters. If we consider the geography in a different way, looking at the azimuthal equal-area projection map below, which shows the Arctic Ocean, we see the dominance of the Russian coastline.

Compare that view to what we see in a Mercator map of Russia. The animated map below illustrates the distortion between a Mercator projection (a projection of the Earth onto a cylinder wrapped around the equator) and a planar projection (a projection of the Earth’s surface onto a flat plane that contacts the globe at a single point). As with all map projections, the shapes and sizes are distortions of the true layout of Earth’s surface. We can see the projection exaggerations in areas far from the equator. the closer to Earth’s poles, the greater the distortion.

Greenland matters, and here is why: Mineral commodity. U.S. Geological surveys show that Greenland has 1.5 million metric tons of proven rare earth minerals, and a total potential exceeding 36–38 million tons. That puts the island in 8th position in the ranking of all global territories, with China ranking number 1 at ~44 million metric tons, Russia ranking number 5 with ~3.8 million metric tons, and the U.S. ranking number 7 with 1.9 million metric tons. Any mining of those minerals is a long way away; besides, the U.S. can easily mine its proven rare-earth minerals that it already has in Alaska.

1. China (~44 Million Metric Tons)
2. Brazil (~21 Million Metric Tons)
3. India (~6.9 Million Metric Tons)
4. Australia (~5.7 Million Metric Tons)
5. Russia (~3.8 Million Metric Tons)
6. Vietnam (~3.5 Million Metric Tons)
7. United States (~1.9 Million Metric Tons)
8. Greenland (~1.5 Million Metric Tons)

We can see from these numbers that China is not in it for rare-earth minerals, and likely neither is Russia, except that those minerals could be sold for a very high price. So, what is the game? All possibilities under motive 3 risk damaging trans-Atlantic relations, so the most selected question must be: is it worth it? Rebuilding alliances that have been solid for almost a century might take decades to rebuild. In the meantime, if there is a rupture in NATO, Russia will be the winner in a U.S.–Greenland policy. So, that leaves us with the Arctic Ocean issue. Without NATO, who will defend Europe once Russian submarine fleets command the coastline surrounding Western Europe?

–Rebecca Pincus, director of the Wilson Center’s Polar Institute

There is an ambiguity

If the U.S.–Greenland policy, according to Trump, is for national security, while ignoring the risk of dismantling NATO, the plan is to protect the Americas while leaving Europe helpless against Russia.  

With the ice melting, there will be a mining hunt for critical minerals. Russia could be a threat to Greenland with its latest advanced nuclear submarines, as the ocean temperatures rise and pathways open. Those submarines could reach the Atlantic from any part of its 24,140-kilometer Arctic Ocean coastline, with access to the Norwegian archipelago. China and Russia are working together, presumably, on science in the Arctic, which does not appear to be a threat. However, when I listened to Heather Conley, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, speaking on Foreign Policy Live, I felt something was missing with respect to Arctic security. With just 150 military personnel at Pituffik Space Base, the U.S. should consider more serious and effective Arctic security if Russia’s and China’s presence in the region becomes persistent.

1942: U.S. had agreements with Denmark

1949: NATO  

1951, Bilateral instruments with 10,000 U.S. forces.

No one is sure about what Trump is seeking; is it national security? There has been talk about a Golden Dome, a nuclear watch, and early warning radar, all to make sure that Greenland could detect Russian submarines, drones, and ships. To be sure, Greenland has always played a strategic role. So why now? And what is the U.S. Arctic policy? In his first term in office, there was talk about acquiring Greenland. Now, in his second term, the talk has moved to execution.

Greenland says it needs more surveillance and security, and European leaders agree. Emmanuel Macron, President of France, shares that view. “Given Russia’s stance in the Far North, China’s economic presence, and the strategic consequences of this rapprochement, we agree on the need to strengthen our defense posture in the Arctic,” he said. If there is a policy, perhaps a NATO plan, it must include persistent surveillance of the Arctic that is prepared for Russian and Chinese interferences regarding European and North American territorial waterway issues. In that policy, there should be cold-weather NATO marines ready as a deterrent against geopolitical messing. That escalates the risk of half a dozen Chinese icebreakers in the thawing waters of the Arctic. We do not control the Arctic, but we see that Russia and China are preparing to navigate sea floor mining. With tensions between Europe and the U.S., the strongmen say, “I will take control of our space,” meaning half the coastline of the Arctic that Russia controls with tens of modernized military bases.

A dangerous game

All of this could be reasonable if planned the right way, but Trump’s real estate bullying methods are a horror show that will not succeed to his liking. He wants his name on anything he can own or lease – The Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Penn Station, The U.S. Institute of Peace, Washington Dulles International Airport, the government drug plan Trump RX, a rail tunnel that would connect New York City and New Jersey, and even a class of battleships labelled Trump. So, why can’t Greenland become Trump-land? I return to motive number 2 for a more serious, yet far more dangerous risk. It could all be part of an intimidation plan, but the AI-generated image of North and South America, shrouded in an American flag merged with a photo of a previous meeting with European leaders, clearly a fake image, was posted on Trump’s Truth Social account. The image showed a U.S. flag covering Canada, Greenland, and Venezuela, suggesting they were, or will be, U.S. territories. Is it a or self-forfilling prophecy, or expectation? Whatever was meant to cause a rupture with NATO, as tensions mount in trans-Atlantic relations. 

And that brings us to thinking about that covert December 28^th and 29^th phone conversation between Trump and Putin. Without a transcript, we have no notion of what was said and what deals could have been made between the two leaders. Could they have been plotting to partition the world into spheres of influence? You control your space, I control mine? In other words, erode the U.S.–Europe alliance and “rupture” NATO.  

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz speaking with Wolfgang Ischinger, chairman of the Munich Security Conference, on Feb. 13, 2026, in Munich, Germany said, “Great power politics turns away from a world in which increasing connectivity translates into the rule of law and peaceful relations between states. Natural resources, technologies, and supply chains are becoming bargaining tools in the zero-sum game between major powers. This is a dangerous game.” ^[7]

In 2026, at Davos, Switzerland, Mark Carney, the Prime Minister of Canada, used the word “rupture” in his second sentence. “Today I will talk about a rupture in the world order, the end of a pleasant fiction and the beginning of a harsh reality, where geopolitics, where the large, main power, geopolitics, is submitted to no limits, no constraints.” ^[8] In that one sentence, he packed an introduction that didn’t need another. His brilliance demonstrated his power of intelligent leadership by highlighting The Power of the Powerless, a protest manifesto for understanding and uniting a movement against a dictatorship written by Vaclav Havel in 1978, about a greengrocer and what Havel called “living with a lie.”  Now Carney is using Havel’s manifesto to demonstrate something that has little to do with Havel’s point but very much to do with how power comes to the powerless when values and respect for human rights, sustainable development and sovereignty holds firm.

Making sense of Trump’s moves are not possible in the rational world. As it is with almost every other Trump provocation, his Greenland hope might simply be the standard magician’s manipulation scheme, to make us look away from what he doesn’t want us to see. With not much Greenland news coming from Trump in the last few weeks, Danish Prime Minister, Mette Frederiksen on February 14^th at the Munich Security Conference said, “Everybody asks us, do we think it is over? No, we don’t think it’s over. We will see if we can find a solution and you can rely on us. You can trust us. We will do whatever we can.” ^[9]

A new type of realism

– Alexander Stubbm, President of Finland,
May 29, 2025, University of Tartu, Estonia.

At the The University of Tartu in Estonia, Alexander Stubbm, the President of Finland, presented his thoughts about what he considers a “value-based” realism shaping the future of liberal values the necessities to compromise those values with concessions to solve major global crises, such as ending wars, tacking climate change, and balancing economies, all being “only possible through dignified and respectful communication based on international diplomacy.” ^[10] By values, he means human rights, freedom of association and speech, the rule of law, and the protection of minorities. 

Is it possible to agree to a new world order in which values are compromised by the necessity of avoiding wars of the future through dignified and respectful diplomatic communication? It is a question referred to in several of my previous articles, a realism that rests on the belief that arguments must be balanced with concessions and settlements that bring peace and prosperity to both sides, not necessarily for glory or advancement. Applied to war, where territory or material is the goal, the notion of victory is not in the winning, but rather the settlement that brings peace and prosperity to both sides. “We will always be at war with one another; of the 195 countries that share the resources of this one planet, some will be winners that eventually become losers, and losers that later become winners in a cycle of power changes that continues until the sun becomes a white dwarf.” ^[11] Heads of State and their advisors should understand a new type of realism, one that mandates compromise to a balance level that benefits all sides. Otherwise, by new and old realism, both sides will lose by an unexpected catastrophe.

One last motive

Motive 4: Remember Trump’s classified communication phone call with Putin on December 28th and 29th, 2025, possibly a hidden agreement behind a shared curtain of greed and certainly making deals without a care for moral considerations. Trump is seeing and envying a 19th-century worldview of kings and emperors searching for weak territories to subjugate. He sees far-right parties gaining control to change the world order. His foreign policy is an ambitious cuddle with Russia and a discontented thwack at Europe. Russia is loving it while the U.S. public is focused on Trump’s wild daily diversionary entertainment news tactics. Russia can now weaken NATO by creating a block where member states are stuck between the East and West powers.

Or just a whim

Or … Could there be no motive at all, but rather a whim of his sparky moments of expansionist dreams, disregarding Transatlantic alliances just before his eyes close at his Cabinet meetings? With his curious intentions, we can never be sure how the world will react to his antics. The danger of NATO’s rupture can set the world on fire in many ways, but understanding Putin and Russia’s ambitions means the world will tip eastward, benefiting the East and staggering the West. A friendly Russia and a broken NATO is Trump’s play to dig for more reactions that spread fame for him, no matter how bad things will come as a result. ^[12]  

Destroying the East Wing of the White House was as literal as it was metaphorical. Seeming to search for things to break while being the most powerful person in the world, he spotted NATO, an alliance that has kept Europe safe for over 80 years, and now he is fracturing it to become “a group of rivals ready to undermine one another.”^[13]

With all that is said, the result is likely to be a retreat from his threats against Greenland, though the damage has already been done by his flip-flopping thoughts about how to be tough without an undergraduate level of understanding of how diplomacy works. The initial Greenland threats will have high consequences for Europe, the fraying transatlantic alliance. NATO might not completely collapse, but bookmakers in London have a high level of concern about conflict and are already increasing the odds of a new war in Europe. If NATO does not completely collapse, it will surely be damaged or at least be under strain. The betting is on impactful hybrid attacks on critical infrastructure, the European Union Institute for Security Studies (EUISS) tells us, “Experts rate this as both the most likely scenario and one of the most impactful. Such an attack would not aim to defeat Europe militarily but to divide and weaken political resolve: subsea cable sabotage, a prolonged power-grid shutdown, or coordinated disruption across digital and transport systems could paralyze daily life, rattle markets, and trigger a crisis of governability.” ^[14] Surveys show that 43 percent of the UK public believes a new world war is “likely” or “very likely” to break out sometime in the next five years.

It is not what Trump wants. Without focusing on maintaining long-term policies that have worked pragmatically for almost a century, his foreign policy could destabilize the world. Without a plan, he can bring on the risk of wars, damage markets, disrupt the gains of free-market achievements, and send economies into tailspins.

With Trump ignoring the East, fancying plans for Greenland, and missing the consequences of what could happen in Europe once the war in Ukraine ends, or even if a cease-fire comes to fruition, a ruptured NATO would be his next problem, for he would have to protect Europe even though he cares little about the fate of the European continent. His Greenland antics could easily destroy NATO and bring the Russian battlefield to a wider part of Europe. With those Greenland tensions, now a war with Iran, and a full break with NATO would leave the entire European continent vulnerable to Russian aggression, and yet Washington would have to intervene against any reprisals. That is because, as Samuel Charap and Hiski Haukkala wrote in a Foreign Affairs article, “Transatlantic linkages are hard-wired into the U.S. economy, and American geopolitical heft would be greatly diminished if NATO collapses. Washington will inevitably be dragged into a conflict with Russia if deterrence fails.” And the French National Strategic Review warns of, “risk of open warfare against the heart of Europe.” ^[15] And now, Trump is boxed into his own Iran gambit. It is a crisis of his own making, an impossible position to extract a considerable concession that saves the lives of thousands of protesters.

Frustrated over diplomacy with the Islamic Republic, Trump is hemmed in; on the one side, he vowed to rescue the protesters, posting on Truth Social, “HELP IS ON THE WAY”, and on the other he started a war that is not easy to end without enormous trouble for U.S. allies and military bases. With diplomatic impatience, he came to a decision: Bomb Iran and cause a crisis across the Middle East. Bombs are now falling.

The first few have fallen on Tehran, ostensibly to dismantle Iran’s nuclear program and force regime change. It is difficult to know exactly what he wants to accomplish: a return to the negotiating table or another endless war that will shift our focus from other disturbing wars and news. Stay tuned for more of his day-by-day deal-wandering impulses. Nobody knows how well this war will go.

About the Author

Joseph Mazur is an Emeritus Professor of Mathematics at Emerson College’s Marlboro Institute for Liberal Arts & Interdisciplinary Studies. He is a recipient of fellowships from the Guggenheim, Bogliasco, and Rockefeller Foundations, and the author of eight acclaimed popular nonfiction books. His latest book is The Clock Mirage: Our Myth of Measured Time (Yale).

Notes

^[1] https://worldfinancialreview.com/nuclear-weapons-a-last-try-for-abolition-before-it-is-too-late/

^[2] https://meduza.io/en/feature/2026/01/20/trump-s-greenland-gambit-gives-russia-a-historic-opportunity-but-could-be-a-mixed-blessing-for-putin-experts-tell-meduzahttps://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Annexation_Bill_of_1866#:~:text=a%20bill%20introduced%20on%20July,to%20committee%20and%20died%20there.&text=%5BPrinter’s%20No.%2C%20266.&text=H.R.,754.&text=JULY%202%2C%201866.,and%20ordered%20to%20be%20printed.&text=Be%20it%20enacted%20by%20the,the%20United%20States%20of%20America.

^[3] https://web.archive.org/web/20071230145455/http://www.history.army.mil/books/70-7_0.htm

^[4] Nathaniel Banks, “H.R. 754, A Bill for the Admission of the States of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Canada East, Canada West, and for the Organization of the Territories of Selkirk, Saskatchewan, and Columbia,” 39^th Congress, 1^st Session, 2 July 1866.

^[5] https://natural-resources.canada.ca/energy-sources/fossil-fuels/crude-oil-industry-overview

^[6] https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/oil-and-petroleum-products/where-our-oil-comes-from.php

^[7] https://www.npr.org/2026/02/16/nx-s1-5716050/us-europe-relations-munich

^[8] https://www.weforum.org/stories/2026/01/davos-2026-special-address-by-mark-carney-prime-minister-of-canada/

^[9] https://www.youtube.com/shorts/R9JvQizdOuY

^[10] https://ut.ee/en/content/alexander-stubb-value-based-realism-gives-space-foreign-policy

^[11] https://worldfinancialreview.com/diplomacys-narrow-bridges-to-peace/

^[12] https://meduza.io/en/feature/2026/01/20/trump-s-greenland-gambit-gives-russia-a-historic-opportunity-but-could-be-a-mixed-blessing-for-putin-experts-tell-meduza#:~:text=%E2%80%9CIt’s%20the%20icing%20on%20top%20of%20the,Between%20a%20rock%20and%20a%20hard%20place.

^[13] https://meduza.io/feature/2026/01/23/silnye-strany-mogut-tak-delat

^[14] https://www.iss.europa.eu/publications/commentary/global-risks-eu-2026-what-are-main-conflict-threats-europe#:~:text=Europe’s%20top%20risk%20in%202026,below%20NATO’s%20Article%205%20threshold.

[15] https://www.foreignaffairs.com/russia/europes-next-war-charap-haukkala