Annexing Greenland: Six Questions
Abstract:
Greenland has taken center stage since the start of the second Trump Administration, becoming the object of intensifying strategic competition between the United States and its NATO partner the Kingdom of Denmark, which colonized and remains sovereign over Greenland today. With the polar thaw now widely accepted as a geographical and climatological fact of life, the United States is positioning itself for strategic predominance in an effort to secure the vulnerable northeastern flank of North America, shifting from a long-held trans-Atlantic to a newly articulated hemispheric security concept where the center of mass has shifted from protecting Atlantic sea lanes to defending the more remote, lightly populated, and newly accessible North American Arctic archipelago. As tensions rise and diplomatic competition within the Western alliance intensifies, the specter of a U.S. invasion and annexation of Greenland grows less implausible. This analysis considers what an American takeover of Greenland could look like.
Question 1: Could America Rule Greenland?
Yes. What was floated in 2019 as an out-of-the-box Presidential policy idea but not pursued (due in part to competing demands of presidential attention, such as ending the war in Afghanistan and battling the Covid-19 pandemic), has reemerged in Trump 2.0 as part of a grand strategy to reframe American defense and security through a hemispheric, “America First” lens that departs from over 75 years of a trans-Atlantic, alliance-centric security concept. This now places the “Greenland purchase” concept at the top, and not periphery, of American defense, security, and foreign policy from the start of the new administration. But it does not necessarily mean that the U.S. would become the formal sovereign, or official leader, over Greenland, even if the policy is presently perceived and described that way. Much depends on the response by Greenland and Denmark, as well as the NATO alliance, and in addition of Canada, if a Greenland expansion/annexation is accompanied by an American expansion to/annexation of part or all of Canada.
Could America become the leader of, and sovereign power ruling over, Greenland at the end of the day? Yes. And could Greenland become a 51st state, or a new island territory comparable to our island territories in the Caribbean and Pacific? Yes. Statehood usually follows a period of political and economic maturation and modernization as a territory, as we saw with Alaska and Hawaii. But sometimes it leads to a permanent territorial status, federally governed but without full state powers (as we see in Guam, Samoa, etc.). In other cases, it leads to quasi-independence under a Compact of Free Association (COFA), as we see in Micronesia, the Marshall Islands, and Palau. (The COFA structure is not entirely unlike what Greenland has incrementally achieved through Home-Rule (1979) and later Self Rule (2009) with Denmark, though presumably Greenland would gain even more power, and more investment and financial support, to switch from Copenhagen to Washington.)
The journey is only just getting started, and so far, the Danes and Greenlanders have been reluctant to engage in the conversation America seeks. So it is not yet clear what the final sovereign form would be, which could range from a COFA with a (quasi-) independent Greenland under American defense protection, to various territorial structures, to a 51st state.
Question 2: Could an American Become Greenland’s Leader?
Because the takeover of Greenland will be a complex, a multi-step process involving the cessation of Danish sovereignty, potentially aligned with a move toward sovereign independence in Greenland under elected Greenlandic leaders with popular support and electoral legitimacy, the leadership will likely remain Greenlandic with, at least initially, its present party structure. (New parties and merged parties may result from the empowerment of pro-independence voices in Greenlandic politics, and new opposition with loyalty to Denmark may also emerge.) If Greenland’s leadership negotiates a COFA with the United States, they will likely enjoy the initial fruits of the COFA but in time, if local conditions worsen or do not improve measurably, they may lose political power with critics of the COFA coming to power to revise its terms. There may also emerge a more radicalized independence movement to break free from the American hegemony, with loyalty to Denmark or perhaps Canada and/or Iceland (neighbors to its west and east) that seeks to weaken or sever the ties to Washington.
One can also imagine the US cultivating a pro-Washington leader in Greenland who has the charisma to hold onto power, like many of the leaders of the newly independent, former Warsaw Pact member states. Eastern European leaders after the Cold War, such as Lech Walesa or Vaclav Havel, had moral authority to change their nations’ trajectories after the old system collapsed. This may happen, with Danish-aligned political elites discredited after the collapse of Danish sovereignty over Greenland.
If the first step toward American control of Greenland is not through the cessation of Danish sovereignty amidst the empowerment of independence-seeking leaders in Greenland, but comes by an American forced takeover in the absence of a more friendly and negotiated scenario as described above, one can envision the creation of some sort of “provisional authority” as we saw in post-Saddam Iraq in 2003. Its American-imposed Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA), helmed by an American administrator, cultivated the formation of a new, friendly government (quite incompetently, fueling the insurgency that spread and soon engulfed American forces and ultimately gave rise to ISIS, making many Iraqis and even some Americans nostalgic for Saddam).
Easing the challenges of such a task in Greenland is its small population (under 60,000) spread out across 16 towns, and some 60 small, remote villages – with only one capital city, Nuuk, with 20,000 residents, and two smaller cities, Sisimiut and Ilulissat, with populations just over 5,000. Thirty of Greenland’s communities are villages with populations below 100, with fourteen having populations between 100-200, fifteen with populations between 200 and 1000, and nine with populations ranging from 1000-3000. Greenland’s abundance of small villages eases the burden of occupation considerably and makes interim proxy rule conceivable.
One can be hopeful that Greenlanders will make the most of the opportunity and work to leverage the new system in their favor, and build alliances with the Americans, as we observed most Afghanis doing in Afghanistan over two decades (with notable early successes that were ultimately undermined by repeated military mistakes that radicalized Afghanis once supportive of the Americans). If America doesn’t blow it through incompetent administration or corrupt contractors siphoning off resources (a problem to be watchful of, given the Arctic’s tendency for rampant cronyism and nepotism and contractors long experienced at overcharging governments and militaries for their services), it may never need to impose direct rule by an American administrator. That the Inuit in Alaska have successfully augmented their autonomy, leveraging the Alaska state constitution, American Indian law, and the United States Constitution, as well as innovative legislation such as that which brought forth the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act (ANCSA) of 1971 and the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act (ANILCA) of 1980, provides further hope that Greenlanders will find much opportunity in a union with the United States.
Question 3: Could Greenland Oppose US Rule and Protest America’s Expansion Efforts?
Yes. A backlash is already happening. The mass protest in Nuuk and its march of 1,000 protestors to the US consulate on March 15, led by outgoing Prime Minister Mute Egede (chair of Inuit Ataqatigiit) and incoming PM Jens-Frederik Nielsen (chair of Demokraatit), brought out 1,000 Greenlanders (5% of Nuuk’s population) carrying “Make America Go Away” signs and wearing MAGA-styled “Make America Go Away” hats, along with “Yankee Go Home” signs reminiscent of anti-American protests around the world such as during the Cold War and the Global War on Terror. The day before the mass rally, chairmen of all five political parties elected to Parliament in the March 11 national election signed a statement of unity condemning President Trump’s muscular talk of “annexation” in talks with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte on March 13.
But this “unity” may be largely among elites tied to the Greenlandic and Danish governments, and supporters of the welfare state Copenhagen has created. Outside of Nuuk and among those marginalized in Nuuk, there is potentially (and I believe, quite likely) a “silent majority” seeking change and more open to America’s interest and ideas on strengthening our partnership, whether through statehood, annexation, or COFA.
Behind the March 11 electoral turnabout, there was a groundswell of support for change, with two smaller pro-independence parties with two very different approaches to independence winning over half the vote. The pro-business Demokraatit party earned 29.9% of the vote, while the more populist pro-independence Naleraq party earned 24.5%. The two parties that had previously dominated Greenlandic politics, Inuit Ataqatigiit (with 21.4% of the vote) and Siumut (14.7%) were effectively voted out of power, but through the machinations of forming a parliamentary coalition government, Naleraq – with pro-America sympathies – was shut out of the government in what Americans can rightly perceive as an effort to undermine Greenland’s democracy through parliamentary procedures unfamiliar to Americans with their two-party system. Rather than the first and second place winners uniting to form a coalition of their own, Demokraatit turned its back on the change Greenlanders voted for decisively, partnering with those who would have been otherwise ousted from the governing coalition. The protests against Trump’s vexing “annexation” talk, and the unity that has been fostered by Danish and Greenlandic elites in opposition to America, have somehow overshadowed the revolution Greenland’s ballot box.
Question 4: Could America’s Pursuit of Greenland Cause a Rift with Denmark and/or NATO?
Yes. Diplomatically, the clash with Denmark has already been underway since Trump’s cancellation of a state visit to Denmark in 2019 after he first proposed the idea of acquiring Greenland. Denmark has been stridently vocal in its opposition to Trump 2.0’s reiterated interest in Greenland, and in recent weeks has been aligned with the outgoing Greenlandic PM in its messaging against the annexation talk, an alignment that continues under the new PM
With the White House also changing its tone on NATO, shifting away from President Biden’s intensively cultivated alliance unity after Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine in 2022, and instead warming its ties with Moscow, it risks more than a minor intra-alliance spat and could spark the collapse of NATO.
For historic comparison, however, the intra-alliance spats between Greece and Turkey (which went to war in Cyprus in 1974, even as fellow NATO members) and between Iceland and Britain (which had their “Wars” while both in NATO, in 1958-61, 1972-73, and 1975-76) may be better illustrations – crises within the alliance that in time were worked out diplomatically. But as the US is the military guarantor for NATO, the stakes are even higher and risk greater chance of alliance collapse.
Question 5: Could the US Military Deploy Troops to Greenland? What Would an Invasion Look Like?
Yes. An American invasion of Greenland, should it be necessary to gain sovereign possession over Greenland, would likely be a quick and largely bloodless affair. It would be more like the invasion of Grenada (Operation “Urgent Fury”) in October 1983, which lasted about four days. Similar cases of the US quickly gaining sovereign control – Iraq in 2003, prior to the insurgency; Afghanistan in 2001 when the Taliban were quickly routed – prior to the insurgency that followed there; Kuwait in 1990 (a lightning-fast 100-hour expulsion of Iraqi armed forces), and Panama in 1989 where a corrupt American ally was deposed in favor of his democratic opposition – all come to mind. But these all faced more experienced and potent military opponents than faced in Grenada and resulted, in the case of Panama, a protracted stand-off, and in the cases of Iraq (2003) and Afghanistan (2001), protracted insurgencies, though Kuwait in 1990 was quickly liberated by overwhelming American force and a speedy occupation of southern Iraq. Grenada was, in comparison, as quick and easy as invasions get against an opponent with a small population and nearly non-existent military capability.
Because Greenland has long been an ally that has welcomed America’s role as its defender, an invasion could feel somewhat friendlier and face less armed opposition than an American takeover of a more hostile land with a longer tradition of anti-Americanism. It could (one may hope) feel more akin to the arrival of uninvited and initially unwanted American forces in Iceland in 1941 and the deployment of American forces all across the Canadian Arctic during World War II, unopposed and for the most part welcome but with locals and government officials concerned the Americans might never leave.
America’s takeover of Hawaii could also be helpful as a model for what to expect in Greenland, where U.S. commercial interests (mostly American plantation owners) aligned with American forces (Marines) to depose an indigenous monarchy by coup, one of our nation’s first regime changes. This was very much unlike, and therefore more pertinent to a Greenland takeover than, our negotiated 1867 purchase of Alaska, which was between America and Russia with Alaskans having no say in the change of sovereigns, and the negotiation was done in secret without any force required at all. Because there are likely domestic factions in Greenland who will welcome the change of sovereigns, one can even envision a coup-like dynamic unfolding quickly and bloodlessly.
But is an invasion likely? No, at least not at this time. The Trump Administration has been consistent in its messaging in wanting to acquire Greenland, which implies some give and take and a mutuality of consent, even if one party gets a better deal, and in dispatching high-level (albeit uninvited) delegations there to start a conversation with the people of Greenland – first, led by his son, and the second led by the Second Family – having been unable to get much buy-in from either the government of Denmark or Greenland thus far. While it is clear there is a desire in Washington for consent and a negotiated solution, this has thus far been met by much resistance among the ruling elites of Greenland and Denmark. If such a conversation can get started, we may see – instead of invasion – something more like the Taliban peace treaty where we drive a wedge between two domestic stakeholders (one a close ally and military partner, and the other once the target of America’s regime change policy) and switch our support from the former to the latter in the interest of long-term peace. President Trump made peace with the Taliban and abandoned America’s own client government it had installed in Kabul, which quickly fell as sovereign control quickly transferred to a Taliban-ruled Afghanistan. If we can make peace with the Taliban after the horrors of 9/11, a negotiated solution in Greenland with our own allies, as unhappy as they may now be, seems to remain inherently plausible.
In Greenland, we may thus see something similar to what unfolded in Afghanistan under the historic peace that President Trump achieved: where Denmark loses sovereignty over Greenland, in its place emerges an independent, indigenously self-governing Greenland under America’s direct protection. This may, in fact, be the optimal outcome, one where Greenlanders and Americans are both the winners and there is no need for invasion or annexation. A COFA would likely follow. It is even possible that Greenlanders may, once the conversation starts, find that being part of our constitutional fabric brings many advantages, as Alaskan Inuit have found since they began their long march toward empowerment in the 1970s with the formation of the Inuit Circumpolar Conference (now Council), the enactment and revision of ANCSA, and the formation of the North Slope Borough. Greenlanders may therefore choose this for their sovereign form, whether as a territory on a path toward statehood or as a state from the very start.
But given the anti-American backlash and strengthening unity displayed in Greenland after its March 11 election, such talks between Washington and Nuuk could collapse, and a Balkanization of Greenland into occupied zones could be one result, or an America-sponsored coup or direct ground invasion becoming another and more likely outcome. Intriguingly, mapping Greenland’s 2025 election results by regional municipality reveals a new regional fault line, with northwest Greenland (the region that Robert Peary once anticipated would be colonized by America, and which was thus widely called Pearyland) becoming Naleraq country (including, from north to south, Avannaata, Qeqertalik, and Qeqqata), while Greenland’s southwest and southeast has become Demokraatit territory (including Sermersooq and Kujalleq). And yet, Demokraatit’s party chairman joined with all of Greenland’s political parties that won seats in Greenland’s parliament except for Naleraq in his governing coalition (not for a lack of trying, but Naleraq withdrew from the coalition negotiations and is presently the only parliamentary opposition that remains) effectively turning his back on Greenland’s northwest and planting a seed, potentially, for a future Balkanization of Greenland in the event international tensions rise again.
Question 6: Has This Sort of Thing Happened Before? Can It Happen Today?
Yes. This type of thing was quite common in the 19th century and in the centuries before, as great powers expanded their colonial empires and carved up much of the world prior to the World Wars. Indeed, the birth of America in the 18th century is the direct result of foreign territorial expansion into indigenously self-governing homelands in the 16th and 17th centuries, often with brief and decisive skirmishes against indigenous resistance forces required before the formation of new settler states. In the 20th century, such behavior was not uncommon and is one of the direct causes of World War II, after Poland was jointly carved up by Germany and the Soviet Union, and in the aftermath of the Soviet victory of Germany in Europe’s east, Moscow quickly came to dominate the whole of Eastern Europe, setting up Soviet-styled puppet states that held power until 1989. America’s own history of proxy-warfare and client state formation in Central America likewise continued through to the same time period (and critics of American hegemony suggest continue to this day), as it does in the Middle East (where President Trump’s controversial proposal to takeover Gaza and depopulate it is but one contemporary manifestation of such behavior).
Vladimir’s Putin’s bloodless annexation of Crimea in 2014 after a month-long information operation (IO) campaign is another example, one quite recent, that shows how annexation can be achieved in our contemporary world. As a mode, it was remarkably efficient, well planned, and swiftly implemented, and so effective that it perhaps encouraged Putin to over-reach after his quick success, resulting in the subsequent hybrid war in Eastern Ukraine that was fiercely and successfully contested, and the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 that with NATO support was largely thwarted. Perhaps one lesson is when annexing, keep focused! If Greenland is the goal, don’t extend the campaign to Canada where a larger and less colonized population awaits to defend their homeland. One could say the same of America’s invasion plans during the Global War on Terror, where it shifted its strategic attention from Afghanistan to Iraq for no logical reason and suffered greatly because of the distraction.
If Greenland’s annexation does happen by force, the White House will need to engage in a more concerted IO campaign to win over hearts and minds in Greenland among those who are opposed to Danish rule, and who do not have faith in their political leaders to bring them the fruits of independence. Recent statements by President Trump and VP Vance that Denmark has not done a good job of protecting Greenland are, to a large degree, true. And while Denmark is responding to these criticisms with increased efforts, the White House can make a strong case that it has always been, and will always be, American power that keeps Greenland free.
This will find some level of support in Greenland, particularly given anti-Danish sentiments in the months preceding President Trump’s re-election, and the “Spiral Case” scandal (relating to past policies of suppression of native Greenlanders’ birth rate), and related offenses that brought shame to Copenhagen and did much to discredit their rule.
