The recent offer of Donald Trump of paying Denmark to acquire control over Greenland was atrocious and for good reason was not even considered seriously by the Danish government. This even led to the cancellation of a planned visit of President Trump to Denmark. Although Denmark controls the foreign policy and security of this vast island, Greenland has been steadily moving towards autonomy and self-government. Greenland took a decision (much before Brexit) to move out of European Union while Denmark remained in EU.
However, it is not difficult to understand why the USA is keen to acquire Greenland. In fact, even President Harry Truman had made an offer in 1946 to purchase Greenland for $100 million. This offer was refused, but Denmark later succumbed to American pressure to set up military bases in Greenland, including a nuclear-powered station, Camp Century.
With its strategic location close to Russia as well as the USA, Greenland remains of great military interest to the USA. This is a factor which has acquired more importance recently with the accentuation of big power rivalries.
In addition, Greenland is a source of precious mineral sources, including gold and rare earths. The opening up of these rare earth deposits to China is something which the western powers would like to stop, given the fact that China already has high levels of control over rare earths.
Greenland has a population of just 57,000 people in its vast territory of 836,330 sq. miles and has the lowest population density in the world. This Arctic region is highly sensitive from the ecological point of view, a sensitivity which has increased further in times of climate change. As the ice sheets which cover vast areas melt under the influence of global warming, buried carbon deposits will be released and sea levels will rise. The region’s unique biodiversity including polar bears and seals will be badly threatened.
Hence there is a strong case for all of Greenland to be administered by the United Nations as a zone of neutrality, peace and environment protection. Under such an arrangement, ecologically protective livelihoods and basic facilities will be ensured by a UN administered programme which will treat the entire island as an area of ecological protection where any exploitation of natural resources will be strictly controlled, and no military installation will be allowed. In addition, there ought to be a careful and well-planned effort for undoing the damage already done.
As the snow melts with global warming, the remains of what was once a nuclear-powered military station (Camp Century) of the USA will open up, requiring a careful clean-up effort. An even bigger danger exists in the form of a nuclear weapon which was lost here in a bomber aircraft accident in 1968. This was during the peak of the Cold War when American bombers carrying nuclear weapons used to be in the air all the time and the Thule military base in Greenland was a special place for these operations due to the relative proximity of Russian targets from here. The accident took place when the American bomber containing nuclear weapons was approaching this military base in Greenland. USA had obtained the permission of the Danish government to set up this military base. But it is not certain whether the Denmark government, let alone the local communities, had been informed about the transactions here involving the transport of nuclear weapons.
Actually, the plane carried four nuclear weapons but three were salvaged. In the salvage operation in 1968 thousands of pieces of debris as well as millions of tons of ice, suspected to contain radioactive debris, were collected. Still one weapon could not be found despite the huge search effort. Workers employed in the clean-up work suffered from cancer later and have been claiming compensations till recently.
It is by now widely accepted that in this accident as many as four nuclear weapons were endangered. Three were found more or less intact but one hydrogen bomb was never recovered. One aspect of a UN-administrated protective future should be to be on constant alert for any tell-tale signs of damage from this so that a potential catastrophe can still be prevented.
The existing military installations particularly the Thule Military Base should also be dismantled as part of the efforts to establish Greenland as a zone of peace and neutrality. While the wider paradigm of future development should be based on ecological protection, protective livelihoods, peace and neutrality, local people should have the autonomy for decentralized governance. There should be a special programme of mental health and well-being to bring down the high rate of suicides and substance abuse in the region.