Last month when I wrote about the Pieces of the Puzzle in the Caribbean, I pointed out that there never was an actual issue about drugs. The issue from day one was the oil. The bombing of boats was designed to elicit a response from Maduro that could be used as an excuse to take over Venezuela. When that failed, we chose to use the fact that there were criminal indictments against him in this country in order to extract him. It is interesting to observe that since we removed Maduro and decided that we now had the total right to “run” Venezuela, we have stopped interdicting boats running drugs.
Now we see the next step, Greenland, and we have heard Mr. Trump and the talking heads spout on about how Greenland is strategically critical to the U.S. We are soooo concerned about China and/or Russia taking over the Arctic that we have to have Greenland.
This is also nonsense. We have multiple bases on Greenland now. Denmark is a strong ally and a member of NATO who has allowed the US military to use Greenland. In this day of long-range missiles, planes, drones and smart armaments, land bases are far less important.
Here is what I believe is Mr. Trump’s strategy.
His method of extracting what he wants is to claim or threaten some outrageous thing with the assumption that negotiations will give him what he actually wants, at little or no cost.
Following that strategy, he threatens to “take” Greenland either the easy way or the hard way. What happens? The EU and NATO freakout. They now want to negotiate. What Mr. Trump wants, just like he wanted in Venezuela, is the lode of natural resources including rare earth metals that are in Greenland. He doesn’t care about the people or the nation. He expects that the settlement will be that the US gets to keep military bases in Greenland, maybe build a port or more bases, and get the rights to mine the minerals in Greenland to the advantage of the US.
Some may think this negotiating strategy is brilliant. I think it is not, and in the long run will damage the international reputation and worldwide reliability in America and its commitments to treaties and agreements.