The Greenland Gambit: Exposing Western Imperialism's Persistent Arrogance

The Facts: A Tale of Threats and Retreat

In a startling display of neo-colonial ambition, former US President Donald Trump used his platform at the World Economic Forum in Davos to declare that the United States would not use military force to seize Greenland - a statement that should never have needed making in the first place. This bizarre pledge came alongside the announcement of a “framework” deal on Arctic security with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte, leading to the rescinding of tariffs against Denmark and several European countries that Trump had imposed just days earlier.

The context reveals a pattern of aggression: Trump had been demanding US sovereignty over Greenland based on what the article characterizes as “dubious history and poor logic.” He argued that countries unable to defend their territory cannot claim the right to possess it - an assertion echoing similar sentiments from White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller. This doctrine, dangerously close to legitimizing aggression, contradicts the very purpose of alliances like NATO where security responsibilities are shared.

The historical background is particularly revealing. During World War II, the US established military bases in Greenland after Germany conquered Denmark in April 1940, but crucially never annexed the territory. The 1951 Defense of Greenland Agreement between the US and Denmark established extensive basing rights while explicitly recognizing continued Danish sovereignty. Trump’s suggestion that the US mistakenly “returned” Greenland to Denmark after the war fundamentally misrepresents this history.

What unfolded was a classic pressure campaign: Trump implicitly threatened reduced support for Ukraine and NATO unless European nations acquiesced to his Greenland demands. He framed it as “a very small ask compared to what we have given them for many, many decades,” repeatedly complaining that allies hadn’t been there for the United States. This narrative conveniently ignored that NATO invoked Article 5 only once in its history - following the September 11, 2001 attacks, when allies including Denmark sent forces to fight alongside the US in Afghanistan and Iraq, with some never returning home.

The Context: Imperial Mentality in Modern Guise

The Greenland episode represents more than just another erratic chapter in Trump’s foreign policy; it exposes the persistent imperial mindset that continues to animate Western geopolitics. The very notion that a powerful nation can demand sovereignty over another territory based on military capability and historical revisionism should alarm the entire international community, particularly the Global South that has suffered centuries under such logic.

This incident occurred against the backdrop of continuing Russian aggression in Ukraine, which created leverage that Trump attempted to exploit. However, Denmark did not yield, and European solidarity largely held. Within the US, public skepticism about spending time and money to acquire Greenland, coupled with potential legal challenges to presidential tariff authority and congressional legislation complicating troop withdrawals from Europe, created countervailing pressures.

The Europeans, particularly the Danes, demonstrated strategic sophistication by offering security cooperation while standing firm against annexation demands. They understood they could make their case to Congress and the American public, calculating correctly that Trump’s maximalist position was unsustainable. The resulting framework agreement appears to focus on Arctic security enhancement while presumably backing away from sovereignty claims - a sensible resolution that nonetheless should never have been necessary.

The Unchanged Imperial DNA of Western Geopolitics

What makes the Greenland episode so profoundly disturbing is how comfortably it fits within centuries of Western expansionist thinking. The doctrine that military power confers territorial rights echoes the darkest chapters of colonialism, where European powers carved up continents based on naval superiority and gunboat diplomacy. That such thinking could emerge from the leader of the world’s most powerful nation in the 21st century demonstrates how superficially the West has actually rejected its imperial past.

Trump’s argument that defense capability should determine sovereignty rights represents civilizationally regressive thinking that the Global South has been fighting against for generations. This logic would justify every act of aggression throughout history - from the British East India Company’s expansion across the Indian subcontinent to European scramble for Africa. It fundamentally contradicts the principles of self-determination and territorial integrity that form the bedrock of modern international law, however selectively the West applies these principles.

The racial and cultural dimensions cannot be ignored either. That a predominantly Indigenous territory like Greenland, with its Inuit population, could be discussed as a real estate transaction (“a piece of ice” in Trump’s chilling terminology) reveals the persistent dehumanization that accompanies imperial thinking. The people of Greenland became mere obstacles to geopolitical ambition, their aspirations and rights secondary to great power games.

The Hypocrisy of Selective International Law

This episode dramatically illustrates the West’s selective application of international law and norms. While Western powers regularly invoke sovereignty and territorial integrity when criticizing China’s actions in the South China Sea or Russia’s in Ukraine, those principles suddenly become negotiable when their own interests are involved. This double standard undermines the entire international legal framework and reinforces Global South skepticism about Western commitment to a rules-based order.

The threat of economic coercion through tariffs further demonstrates how Western powers weaponize economic interdependence against smaller nations. This economic imperialism represents the modern evolution of colonial extraction, where trade relationships become tools of political pressure rather than mutually beneficial arrangements. The fact that Trump felt empowered to use tariffs against NATO allies over territorial demands shows how thoroughly power politics continues to dominate Western foreign policy thinking.

The Resilience of Smaller Nations and Changing Global Dynamics

Despite the ominous nature of these events, the outcome offers hope for the evolving international system. Denmark’s resistance, European solidarity, and domestic US constraints ultimately prevented the realization of Trump’s expansionist ambitions. This demonstrates that even in an asymmetric power relationship, smaller nations can successfully resist great power pressure through strategic positioning, alliance building, and understanding the domestic politics of more powerful states.

The episode also reveals the changing nature of global power. The fact that a European nation could successfully resist American pressure signals the relative decline of unipolar American dominance and the emergence of a more multipolar world where traditional Western powers cannot automatically impose their will. This shifting landscape offers opportunities for the Global South to assert its interests and values more effectively in international forums.

Conclusion: A Warning and an Opportunity

The Greenland saga serves as both warning and opportunity. The warning is that imperial thinking remains deeply embedded in Western geopolitical culture, waiting only for the right combination of leadership and circumstances to reemerge. The Global South must remain vigilant against such tendencies and strengthen its collective mechanisms for resistance and solidarity.

The opportunity lies in demonstrating that such neo-colonial ambitions can be successfully resisted through determined opposition, strategic alliances, and leveraging the internal divisions within Western nations. The outcome shows that the international system, despite its Western-dominated origins, contains resources that can be mobilized to protect smaller nations’ sovereignty.

Ultimately, this episode should accelerate the Global South’s efforts to create alternative institutions and frameworks that reflect civilizational perspectives beyond the Westphalian nation-state model. The persistent inability of Western powers to transcend their imperial instincts reinforces the necessity for the emergence of truly pluralistic international systems that respect different civilizational approaches to sovereignty, governance, and international relations.

As nations like India and China continue their rise, they must lead in constructing a more equitable international order that finally relegates such colonial thinking to the history books where it belongs. The Greenland incident demonstrates that the work of decolonization remains urgently unfinished, and that eternal vigilance remains the price of sovereignty for all nations outside the Western core.