by Mikhail Moshkin and Dmitry Gubin
[REGNUM] Since the end of World War II, Denmark has occupied Greenland in defiance of UN norms, Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry, Donald Trump's special envoy for Greenland, said on January 12.
Is that true? I’m not familiar with the history of that part of the world.The day before, Trump instructed the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) to develop a detailed plan for an invasion of Greenland. The American leader justified his intention to annex Greenland to the United States by citing the island's strategic location and mineral wealth.
It's clear why the US President needed the "biggest refrigerator on the planet." It wasn't a matter of great-power whim, but rather military-strategic considerations, primarily the United States' nuclear plans for the Arctic.
The second lure is also clear. Covered by an ice cap (though gradually melting),
| Nah — we’re back on the cooling side of the cycle… |
But the 47th US president isn't the first to draw attention to the military potential of the island "at the edge of geography." Plans were formulated long before Trump, in the 1950s.
And long before the advent of the oil and gas economy, Americans viewed Greenland as an economically viable purchase—first, in the 19th century, as a source of fish, game, and minerals.
FIRST AFTER ALASKA
Back in 1867, Secretary of State William Seward —the same one who organized the deal to purchase Alaska from the Russian Empire—immediately after concluding an agreement with St. Petersburg, he began negotiations with Copenhagen.
The talk was about the acquisition of Greenland, Iceland (which until 1944 also belonged to Denmark) and several islands in the Caribbean Sea – the Danish West Indies.
| My area of ignorance expands — I had no idea Denmark had colonies, as opposed to smallish Viking conquests in Dark Ages England and Normandy. |
Seward appealed to Congress and public opinion, citing fish, game, and the earth's mineral wealth. Most importantly (and in keeping with Trump's current agenda), the Secretary of State believed that the annexation of Greenland and Iceland would encourage Canada to join the United States.
Historians believe Seward stumbled over Congress, which rejected the treaty to purchase the Danish West Indies. Furthermore, the antipathy of the majority of the Senate and House of Representatives toward then-President Andrew Jackson played a negative role.
ICEBERGS ARE MORE IMPORTANT THAN PALM TREES
The next attempt came in 1910, under President William Taft, the successor to the famous Theodore "Teddy" Roosevelt (who is called a role model for Trump).
The plan was drawn up with Rooseveltian grandeur. The Danes were no longer offered money, but a trade: Greenland and the Danish West Indies in exchange for the southern Philippine islands of Mindanao and Palawan (the Philippines were then a US possession).
| Probably just as well Denmark did not take the Moslem parts of the Philippines at the time. What would they have done with a region of seething jihadis? |
| Ok. |
In the end, the Danes returned Northern Schleswig for free, following the German defeat in World War I. The Americans eventually purchased the Danish West Indies in 1917, and since then, it has been an "unincorporated US territory"—the US Virgin Islands, the infamous offshore haven.
| One less thing I know longer don’t know, so this entire article now counts in the win column. |
This happened in 1946, when the United States offered Denmark $100 million in gold bullion—$1.66 billion in today's dollars.
At the beginning of the Cold War, as now, the Danes were unquestioning accomplices of the US in their confrontation with Moscow (then communist), but on the Greenland issue they demonstrated truly "Viking" tenacity. As Jens Sønderup, one of the leading politicians at the time, stated in the Folketing (parliament) :
"There were rumors in the newspapers that America wanted to acquire Greenland. King Dollar, so to speak, was going to become the dominant force in all areas." The Danes were even willing to tolerate the Greenlanders' desire to secede from the kingdom—but "any form of financial deal was out of the question."
SQUID REMAINS
In fact, the Danish kingdom began to develop Greenland even later than the fertile Caribbean islands: the West India Company acquired the Virgin Islands in the 17th century, and new Danish colonies appeared on the icy island in the 18th century. What's the difference?
It seems to be a matter of "phantom pain." If Trump wants to make America great again, then the Danish state was great half a millennium before Columbus discovered America.
As we previously reported, Greenland and the Faroe Islands (an archipelago located between Iceland, Scandinavia, and Britain) are the still-unmelted fragments of the former Danish great power.
We're talking about the times when the kings of Copenhagen laid claim to the North Atlantic from today's borders of Canada to Norway. Denmark, the leading power of the Kalmar Union (14th–16th centuries), controlled the northern European expanse from Finland to Norway.
The Danes inherited Greenland, a medieval Norwegian possession, from the Kalmar Union, even though the first European settlers, descendants of the Vikings, had died out by the 15th century and white people had returned there in the 18th century. Legally, the island still belonged first to the Kingdom of Norway and then to the Kingdom of Denmark.
Trump's special envoy, Jeff Landry, asserted that Denmark "occupied" the island after World War II, but it seems odd. Denmark was occupied by the Third Reich during the war and de facto lost its overseas possessions—Greenland, Iceland, and the Faroe Islands. The two islands and the archipelago were occupied by the Anglo-Americans.
Iceland declared independence in 1944, but Greenland remained a possession until 1953 (a status not contested by any UN member state, including the United States). In 1953, the former colony was elevated to the status of a full-fledged amt (county) of Denmark, and since 1979, the island has been a rigsdel, or autonomous territory.
IN TULA WITH HIS BOMB
The US military presence in Greenland, however, was indeed legally formalized during World War II. Unlike neighboring Norway, Denmark did not have time (or perhaps was unwilling or unable) to form a government-in-exile in 1940. King Christian X and his cabinet remained in occupied Copenhagen.
But the Danish embassy in Washington refused to recognize the occupation of Denmark by the Third Reich. Ambassador Henrik Kauffman sanctioned the American military presence on the island. After the war, the authorities in Copenhagen only had to retroactively approve this decision, even though Denmark was considered a neutral state at the time of the Kauffman Agreement.
But the times when the kingdom could explain to the whole world its rights to its ancestral possessions are long gone.
Denmark is "good" as a persistent and gratuitous sponsor of the Kyiv regime (since 2022, the kingdom has financed the Ukrainian Armed Forces with €10 billion, with gifts reaching up to 1% of GDP), to the greater benefit of the United States. But as an independent military force, Denmark is of little value.
In June 2025, amid Trump's latest wave of interest in Greenland, Copenhagen announced it would strengthen its presence in the polar territory: one frigate, two EH-101 helicopters, and an unspecified number of F-16 fighter jets. Not quite two dog teams, of course, but it wouldn't exactly be called a large force either.
The US has a much stronger presence in Greenland; one could say that militarily, the island is already American. And for quite some time.
In 1950, a large US Air Force base, named Thule after the nearby village, began construction in northwest Greenland.
By the 1960s, Thule had been expanded, and B-52 strategic bombers were stationed in Greenland. They carried out round-the-clock combat sorties to the USSR's Arctic borders, armed with nuclear bombs, as part of Operation Chrome Dome—a permanent standby in case of a nuclear war. We've covered this operation in more detail previously.
Let's recall the incident of January 21, 1968, when a fire broke out on board a bomber taking off from Thule Air Base. The plane crashed in close proximity to the base, and—most importantly—four B28 thermonuclear bombs were "lost" in the ice.
It was only in the 1990s that previously classified details were revealed, revealing that the American military had found fragments of three of the four bombs. The "Chrome Dome" was dismantled, but the Americans did not leave the island, although some of the structures were mothballed.
But with the new aggravation of relations with Russia (and in view of the confrontation with China), the Pentagon once again needed the northernmost military outpost of the United States.
In 2020, the Thule air base was transferred to the U.S. Space Force. Three years later, the Danish name Thule was changed to the Inuit name Pituffik. At the same time, the indigenous inhabitants, the Kalaalit Inuit, were evicted.
The 12th Space Warning Squadron, which manages the ballistic missile early warning system, is currently stationed here. Plans include creating infrastructure for the deployment of the latest nuclear-capable F-35 fighter jets.
This point, 1,500 kilometers from the North Pole, which is closer to Moscow than to Washington (3,760 kilometers versus 3,770 kilometers), is a crucial element of the American missile defense system. But it's not the only one.
Among other things, Thule-Pituffik can be used as a deep-water port, the northernmost in the world. Around 600 US military personnel are permanently stationed at the base, but Pituffik could theoretically accommodate up to 10,000. By comparison, the entire population of Greenland is 55,700.
It's noteworthy that the first modernization was carried out during Donald Trump's first term. Denmark, true to its NATO alliance obligations, did not object to American and American-Canadian exercises on its de jure territory or other US military activity. If Trump decides to ignore Copenhagen's opinion and establishes political, rather than military, control over Greenland, the former ruler of the polar seas is unlikely to be able to counter with anything stronger than deep concern.
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