Trump’s plans for Greenland are still unclear. Here are the key issues

Donald Trump has made no secret of his ambition to integrate Greenland into the U.S. If the President does get his way, what would that look like? Here is my analysis of the questions that are on everyone’s lips in the Arctic and beyond.

Could America rule Greenland?

Yes. The idea was floated in 2019 as an out-of-the-box policy idea, but it wasn’t pursued (due in part to competing demands on the President’s time, such as ending the war in Afghanistan and battling the Covid-19 pandemic). This year, it re-emerged in Trump 2.0 as part of a grand strategy to reframe American defense and security through an “America First” lens that departs from over 75 years of a transatlantic, alliance-centric security concept. This now places the idea of a “Greenland purchase” at the top of America’s defense, security and foreign policy.

But this doesn’t necessarily mean that the U.S. would become the formal sovereign owner, or official leader, of 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 potentially Canada. At the moment, all of these actors stand united in their opposition to the American plan, but whether the people of Greenland stand firmly behind the united stance of the governments of Greenland and Denmark remains unclear. Aspirations for independence in Greenland run strong, and could create an opening for American influence to help Greenlanders achieve independence from Denmark.

Could Greenland become America’s 51st state, or a new American island territory comparable to its 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 Hawaii and Alaska. 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 Self Rule (2009) with Denmark, though presumably Greenland would gain even more powers, and more investment and financial support, in a 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.

Could an American become Greenland’s leader?

The takeover of Greenland would be a complex, multistep process involving the cessation of Danish sovereignty potentially aligned with a move toward sovereign independence in Greenland. If Greenland’s leadership negotiates a COFA with the U.S., they will likely enjoy the initial fruits of the arrangement, but if local conditions worsen at some point 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 its western and eastern neighbors, Canada and Iceland.

If the latter situation arises, one can expect the U.S. would try to undermine the movement to keep it from electoral empowerment. If that fails, it could forcibly overthrow these anti-American pro-independence voices and thereby weaken Greenland’s independent-spirit in favor of U.S .interests.

One can also imagine the U.S. 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 countries in Europe after the Cold War (such as Lech Walesa or Vaclav Havel).  This might 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 in the form of a forced takeover, one can envision the creation of some sort of “provisional authority,” as we saw in post-Saddam Iraq in 2003. Easing the challenges of such a task in Greenland is its small population (less than 60,000) spread across 16 towns and around 60 remote villages.

The abundance of small villages would ease the burden of occupation considerably and makes interim proxy rule conceivable without the risks of urban warfare. Greenland’s largely undeveloped hinterland would also reduce the likelihood of a rural-based insurgency against an urban-based government, and could in fact help flip the script with more remote Greenland welcoming American forces as liberators to counterbalance the economic and political power of Greenland’s urban elites in Nuuk.

One can be hopeful that Greenlanders will work to leverage the new system in their favor, and build alliances with the Americans. as we observed most Afghanis doing in Afghanistan for over two decades. If America doesn’t blow it through incompetent administration or corrupt contractors siphoning off resources (it wouldn’t be the first time), it may never need to impose direct rule by an American administrator. That the Inuit in Alaska have so successfully augmented their autonomy, leveraging the Alaska state constitution, American Indian law and the U.S. Constitution, provides further hope that Greenlanders would find much opportunity in a union with the U.S.

Could the U.S. 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, more like the invasion of Grenada.

Since Greenland has long been an ally that has welcomed America’s role as its defender, an invasion could feel more like a liberation, perhaps like the arrival of uninvited American forces in Iceland in 1941, or the deployment of American forces all across the Canadian Arctic during World War II.

America’s takeover of Hawaii could also be helpful as a model for what to expect in Greenland. In this case, U.S. commercial interests (mostly 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 our negotiated 1867 purchase of Alaska, which was negotiated between America and Russia in secret and with Moscow’s full support. Because there are domestic factions in Greenland who oppose Danish rule, it is likely that some would welcome the change of sovereigns, making a violent coup less likely.

Is such 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. While it is clear there is a desire in Washington for a negotiated solution, this has thus far been met by much resistance among the ruling elites of Greenland and Denmark.

If such a conservation can get started, we may instead of invasion see something more like the Taliban peace treaty. where we drove 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. In Greenland, this would result in Denmark losing sovereignty over Greenland and, in its place, an independent, indigenously self-governing Greenland emerges under America’s direct protection. This may in fact be the optimal outcome, one where Greenlanders and Americans are both the winners with no need for invasion or annexation.

Once the conversation starts, Greenlanders may find many benefits of statehood and that being part of our constitutional fabric brings many advantages, as Alaskan Inuit have found.  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.

Has this sort of thing happened before? Could it happen today?

Yes. This type of event was quite common up until the 20th century, as great powers expanded their colonial empires and carved up much of the world. Indeed, the birth of America is the direct result of foreign territorial expansion to 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 common and was one of the direct causes of World War II, after Poland was jointly carved up by Germany and the Soviet Union. In the aftermath of the Soviet victory over 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 long history of proxy-warfare in Central America 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 take over 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 shows how annexation can be achieved in our contemporary world. As a model, 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 the full-scale invasion of its neighbor in 2022.

If Greenland’s annexation does happen by force, the White House will need to engage in a more concerted and better thought out IO campaign than is presently under way. There is much opportunity if the U.S. plays its cards right, and a long history of American interest in, and defense of, Greenland. But there is also risk of stumbling, which America has done many a time before when misreading the human terrain.

Recent statements by President Trump and Vice President Vance that Denmark has not done a sufficient 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 Trump’s re-election and the “Spiral Case” scandal (and policy of suppression of native Greenlanders’ birth rate), which have brought shame to Copenhagen and done much to discredit Denmark’s rule.

Barry Scott Zellen is a Research Scholar in the Department of Geography at the University of Connecticut and a Senior Fellow (Arctic Security) at the Institute of the North. He is the author of “Arctic Exceptionalism: Cooperation in a Contested World.”