So You Want to Own Greenland?: Lessons from the Vikings to Trump

Geopolitical analyst Buchanan (Red Arctic) provides an insightful and witty examination of what makes Greenland such desirable but difficult to maintain real estate. The world’s largest island, Greenland is 80% ice sheet, is strategically located between the Old and New Worlds, and has massive stores of natural resources. Its incongruous name was coined in 982 CE by Erik the Red to entice Viking settlement; for around 500 years, two Viking colonies eked out an existence among the island’s (to this day) largely Inuit population, before rather ignominiously disappearing. During WWII, Greenland provided the Allies atmospheric data that aided air raids. Postwar, the Americans quietly built Camp Century—composed of 26 tunnels and powered by a nuclear reactor—below Greenland’s ice sheet, as well as Project Iceworm, a secret missile installation only revealed in 2024. Today, global warming is causing the ice sheet to recede, with the meltwater dramatically altering the Arctic marine ecosystem. Greenland remains a self-governing administrative division of Denmark (the post-Viking Scandinavian claimants since 1380), a complicated relationship with shifting parameters, especially as superpowers eyeball the territory and Greenland’s own independence movement gains steam. In an entertaining final segment, Buchanan cites The Art of the Deal to quell fears of invasion, noting that Trump’s own dealmaking guide advises backing down from threats; she does, however, foresee Greenland falling further under America’s sphere of economic interest. It’s a breezy overview of serious international developments. (Sept.)