Greenland, Canada, Cuba, Nigeria, Venezuela:\u00a0\u00a0the \u201cPax Americana\u201d that prevented a third World War for eighty years is at an end.\u00a0\u00a0The Trump Administration clearly wants a new era of expansionism. \u00a0It doesn\u2019t matter that Trump himself isn\u2019t going to be a \u201cKing\u201d.\u00a0\u00a0Imperialism isn\u2019t based on crowns and thrones, it\u2019s based on the root word of\u00a0\u00a0\u201cimperial\u201d.\u00a0\u00a0That\u2019s \u201cempire\u201d.\u00a0\u00a0And Trump is determined, far more than any other US President in history, to build an American Empire.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
To mirror history, just a little bit.\u00a0\u00a0Around the beginning of the Christian Era (\u201czero year\u201d), the Western World was dominated by Rome.\u00a0\u00a0The Romans not only were conquering the Mediterranean coasts, but also attacking deep into Northern Europe.\u00a0\u00a0And, in the process of building an empire, they lost their Republic, the \u201celected\u201d form of government that lasted for almost 500 years.\u00a0\u00a0A byproduct of these conquests was that the Generals became the Emperors.\u00a0\u00a0That\u2019s concerning, history \u201crhyming\u201d again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Empire building isn\u2019t new to the United States.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Even the Founding Fathers looked west to the vast North American continent, with Thomas Jefferson doubling the size of the new United States with the Louisiana Purchase.\u00a0\u00a0The US fought wars of conquest:\u00a0\u00a0the Mexican-American War, the Plains War against the Native Americans, the Spanish-American War.\u00a0\u00a0And the US pursued expansionist policies, Manifest Destiny of the 19th<\/sup>\u00a0Century. America purchased Alaska and land in the Southwest, took Pacific Islands as coaling stations, built the Panama Canal, and developed a large Navy to project power around the world (Teddy Roosevelt\u2019s \u201cGreat White Fleet\u201d).\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n America is the largest power in the world, and has been since the 1940\u2019s.\u00a0\u00a0In the past, that strength contained an obligation, to try to keep peace in the world, a peace we failed to keep after World War I.\u00a0\u00a0And before my more \u201ccynical\u201d friends attack:\u00a0\u00a0the United States has clearly profited from our strength.\u00a0\u00a0We have, time and time again, stepped into the internal affairs of other nations in order to gain economically.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In Orwell\u2019s novel about authoritarian government, \u201c1984\u201d; the government switches alliances in a single day.\u00a0\u00a0From war with \u201cEurasia\u201d, they flip to war with yesterday\u2019s ally, \u201cEastasia\u201d.\u00a0\u00a0Then the government claims;\u00a0\u00a0\u201cWe have always been at war with Eastasia\u201d.\u00a0\u00a0But in our real world, we\u2019ve never done this kind of \u201c1984\u201d style flip.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n Denmark is a NATO ally, nominally in charge of Greenland\u2019s foreign policy.\u00a0\u00a0The US already has treaties with Denmark and Greenland, giving full US military access to the entire island.\u00a0\u00a0There were fifty US bases in Greenland over the past eighty years.\u00a0\u00a0Today one remains, Pituffik Space Force Base (formally called Thule).\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0But instead of exercising rights and obligations under the current treaties, the United States is threatening to \u201ctake over\u201d Greenland.<\/p>\n\n\n\n That \u201ctake over\u201d would be an attack on Greenland and Denmark, a clear violation of the NATO agreement.\u00a0\u00a0US military action would require that the rest of NATO to invoke Article 5, and come to the support of Denmark\/Greenland against a US invasion.\u00a0\u00a0It is the end of NATO, the end of Pax Americana.\u00a0\u00a0And it plays directly into the hands of the true rivals of the United States, Russia and China.<\/p>\n\n\n\n There is plenty of speculation that this is some conspiracy by Trump and Putin to \u201cdivide the world\u201d to their own benefit.\u00a0\u00a0But, speculation aside; to what advantage is a \u201cfull possession\u201d of Greenland to the United States?<\/p>\n\n\n\n It\u2019s not about defense, even defense of the anticipated new sea lanes across the climate-changed Arctic Sea.\u00a0\u00a0What was once a full ice cap for most of the year, has shrunk enough that the fabled \u201cNorthwest Passage\u201d from Europe to the Pacific is coming into view.\u00a0\u00a0Trump spokesmen will say that we need to \u201ccontrol\u201d those new routes, and only \u201cpossession\u201d of Greenland (and maybe Canada) will assure it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But NATO already controls from the Norwegian border west to Siberia, the vast majority of the Arctic Southern coast.\u00a0\u00a0The rest is Russia itself.\u00a0\u00a0So if it\u2019s not military, not even commercial shipping; then why Greenland?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Is it just Trump\u2019s ego? Does Trump need to match Jefferson\u2019s Louisiana Purchase; match Seward\u2019s purchase of Alaska? Certainly that\u2019s possible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But, whispering in Trump\u2019s ear, are the \u201creal-politik\u201d voices of Project 2025.\u00a0\u00a0And they are telling him that the future isn\u2019t about Arctic passages.\u00a0\u00a0It\u2019s about access to minerals, the \u201crare earth\u201d that powers batteries and silicon chips and the future of artificial intelligence.\u00a0\u00a0China is the number one country in the world for \u201crare earth\u201d minerals.\u00a0\u00a0The United State is second.\u00a0\u00a0But assured supply of those minerals is assured access to the future economy.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n And as climate change continues, unabated by the now-fractured governments cooperating to control it, the Greenland icecap is shrinking. And what is likely underneath that ice? That\u2019s what Donald Trump really wants. <\/p>\n\n\n\n So when he talks about Greenland, he\u2019s really talking about assured mining rights.\u00a0\u00a0When Trump talks about supporting Ukraine, he really talking about the right to mine Ukraine\u2019s vast mineral wealth.\u00a0\u00a0When he talks about Venezuela, it\u2019s not just about oil.\u00a0\u00a0It\u2019s about the minerals buried\u00a0far beneath the jungle. The same is true about Nigeria, and even Canada.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Trump doesn\u2019t want to negotiate for those mineral rights.\u00a0\u00a0He just wants to take them, no matter the sovereign rights of the peoples there, or \u201cold treaties\u201d from other eras.\u00a0\u00a0His America not only wants an empire, it wants to rip the wealth from the Nations it conquers.<\/p>\n\n\n\nWar with Eastasia<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Why Greenland<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Real-Politik<\/h2>\n\n\n\n