'If You Sweat, You Die.' Winning In Greenland Was Always Going To Be Very Hard For The Invading U.S. Army.
Geography and climate are on the side of the defenders.
U.S. Pres. Donald Trump appeared to back down from his threat to invade Greenland on Wednesday. After having what he described as a “very productive meeting” with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte, Trump announced “the framework of a future deal with respect to Greenland.”
The 10% tariffs Trump had threatened on any country supporting Greenland are off the table, Trump said. U.S. forces would presumably expand their presence on the Danish island in support of a new missile defense system Trump calls “The Golden Dome.”
U.S. forces already had wide permission to operate from Greenland under the terms of a 1951 agreement. Gaining nothing new while destabilizing NATO and further isolating the United States from its former allies, Trump has managed—yet again—to sow chaos for chaos’ sake.
It’s possible the market’s pessimistic reaction to Trump’s threats spooked Trump into backing down. It’s possible the threat of a French aircraft carrier inserting itself between U.S. forces and their main targets in Greenland was also a factor in Trump’s retreat.
But it’s also possible someone in the Pentagon finally explained to Trump or his staff just how risky a U.S. invasion of Greenland would be. Rugged, sparsely populated and lacking in major infrastructure, the vast Arctic island—sprawling across 836,000 square miles of ice and rock—is as dangerous to an invading force as the island’s garrison is likely to be.
