agreed. too little attention for this point.
Buy Greenland? Take It? Why? An Old Pact Already Gives Trump a Free Hand. Analysts say the Cold War agreement allows the president to increase the American military presence almost at will.
Under a little-known Cold War agreement, the United States already enjoys sweeping military access in Greenland. Right now, the United States has one base in a very remote corner of the island. But the agreement allows it to “construct, install, maintain, and operate” military bases across Greenland, “house personnel” and “control landings, takeoffs, anchorages, moorings, movements, and operation of ships, aircraft, and waterborne craft.”
It was signed in 1951 by the United States and Denmark, which colonized Greenland more than 300 years ago and still controls some of its affairs.
“The U.S. has such a free hand in Greenland that it can pretty much do what it wants,” said Mikkel Runge Olesen, a researcher at the Danish Institute for International Studies in Copenhagen.
“I have a very hard time seeing that the U.S. couldn’t get pretty much everything it wanted,” he said, adding, “if it just asked nicely.”
...
The fear was that Nazis could use Greenland as a steppingstone to America. The Germans had already established small meteorological bases on the island’s east coast and relayed information for battles in Europe. American troops eventually ousted them and established more than a dozen bases there with thousands of troops, landing strips and other military facilities.
After World War II, the United States continued to run some bases and a string of early warning radar sites. As the Cold War wound down, the United States closed all of them except one. It’s now called the Pittufik Space Base and helps track missiles crossing the North Pole.
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at one time, the US had something like seventeen bases in greenland, although "bases" can be misleading as a few listening stations described as bases were likely a building or two manned by a handful o' people, but our understanding is that the people in greenland and denmark were, by and large, perfectly fine with the arrangement. no surprise as there isn't much meaningful industry in greenlandl, and the US presence meant there were business opportunities for greenlanders who is significant supported by government assistance programs.
this is all so stoopid... unless you accept the equal ridiculous suggestion that the greenland nonsense is due to the fact greenland appears extreme large on flat maps, and trump wants to add the huge island to his real estate portfolio. longitude demarcations at the equator is +111 km apart and at the north pole they all converge and therefore is 0 km apart, so on many flat maps, greenland appears much larger than it is in reality. trump sees acquisition o' greenland as akin to the louisiana purchase or alaska, and he is convinced acquiring the property would be a major benefit to his personal brand. based on reporting from folks such as susan glasser, trump was just as obsessed with greenland in term 1, but the sane folks surrounding the President always managed to deflect his attention to something more meaningful, but there is far less sanity to be found in trump 2.0.
this is all just so dumb, and yet republicans in Congress and the trump administration who know better has decided to unapologetic go all in on what should be a comical emperor's new clothes bit, but even Gromnir is having difficulty seeing the humor in this idiocy.
HA! Good Fun!