Yves here. Yours truly seems to be not alone in finding Andrew Korybko’s pieces to be frustrating, so I trust you will treat his latest as a critical thinking exercise. While he often marshals good information, he too often undermines that with simplistic assertions. A glaring one below is that the US would use its exploitation of Greenland to pay for Trump’s expansion of the military budget to $1.5 trillion.
As we explained in the context of the US’ wars against oil producing states, the US failed with Iraq, which then had the second biggest proven reserves, to extract its oil wealth. It looks set to fail again with Venezuela.
Some readers contested the report by former Ambassador to Saudi Arabia, Chas Freeman, that the US had not in fact gotten meaningful resource or financial benefits from its Iraq conquest by pointing to rules that required proceeds of Iraq oil sales to be deposited in US banks. Consistent with Freeman’s statement that China now controlled Iraq energy development, it has finessed payment via what amounts to barter, making direct investments in Iraq to compensate for oil deliveries. There may be other mechanisms to evade the US attempt to control payments, but this one, set forth by S&P, suffices to make Freeman’s case:
China has swooped into Iraq, unperturbed by an uncertain security environment and endemic corruption – and looking to meet its own domestic energy needs, analysts say.
PetroChina has taken over operations at Iraq’s major West Qurna 1 oil field – with a production capacity of 540,000 b/d – following ExxonMobil’s exit from the country.
CNPC, the largest Chinese investor in Iraq, holds stakes in Rumaila, Halfaya, Ahdab and West Qurna 1 fields, while CNOOC, Union, ZenHua and other minor players also have holdings in the country.
In Iraq’s latest upstream licensing round in May, Chinese companies were awarded all but three of the oil and gas blocks on offer.
Iraq and China signed in 2019 a controversial oil for reconstruction and investment deal. The 20-year contract includes a deal to supply Chinese companies with 100,000 b/d of crude in exchange for investment in infrastructure, with revenue from oil exports earmarked for funding development projects. Critics said the deal’s terms risked fueling corruption and waste and would leave Iraq in China’s debt.
And that’s before considering that any booty bennies are likely to go to Trump cronies as opposed to the public purse. From Greenland and the New Settler Colonialism: Network-State Geopolitics:
To put it simply, the tech section of capital that has so brazenly aligned itself with state power wants America’s national security state to, on their behalf, dispossess other peoples and even nation-states. That would permit the network-state oligarchs to establish semi-sovereign “company towns” that would extract and exploit whatever they will from the sites where they establish themselves.1 Greenland, dating back to 2018, was their ideal headquarters for utopia, the place they imagined unsettling so as to profit from carving up an already existing and governed place and render it into a frontier.
Snow Crash is looking more and more like an operating manual.
By Andrew Korybko, a Moscow-based American political analyst who specializes in the global systemic transition to multipolarity in the New Cold War. He has a PhD from MGIMO, which is under the umbrella of the Russian Foreign Ministry. Originally published at his website
Building more facilities there to complement Pituffik Space Base would further the US’ “Golden Dome” missile defense plans for obtaining a strategic edge over Russia while extracting more critical minerals from there would reduce dependence on vulnerable Chinese supply chains.
Trump recently reaffirmed his intent to annex Greenland on the pretext that this would supposedly preempt China or Russia from invading NATO member Denmark’s autonomous territory. Many believe that his main motivation, however, is to obtain control over what’s estimated to be the world’s second-largest reserve of critical minerals. The Daily Mail then reported that the US itself is actually planning on invading the world’s largest island, not China or Russia, who Denmark doesn’t consider to pose a threat.
Amidst this news, Bloomberg reported that “UK, Germany Talk NATO Forces in Greenland to Calm US Threat” ostensibly with the intent of deterring the US even though it’s extremely unlikely that they’d fight it over Greenland just like it was earlier assessed that France wouldn’t either. Greenland is basically Trump’s for the taking if he really wants it since neither NATO nor the locals can stop it, the latter of whom have no realistic way to block it from extracting resources or building more military bases there.
Therein lies the goals that the US would advance since more facilities to complement Pituffik Space Base would further the US’ “Golden Dome” missile defense plans for obtaining a strategic edge over Russia while extracting more critical minerals would reduce dependence on vulnerable Chinese supply chains. Moreover, annexing Greenland would help build “Fortress America”, which is the “Trump Doctrine’s” plan as enshrined in the National Security Strategy for restoring US hegemony over the hemisphere.
Achieving this grand strategic goal would eventually help subsidize Trump’s proposed 50% increase in the defense budget to $1.5 trillion next year (and whatever more after), thus enabling the US to more muscularly contain China, and ensure that the US survives and even thrives in the (for now far-off) scenario that it’s expelled from the Eastern Hemisphere or withdraws from there. Greenland is the crown jewel of “Fortress America” for the aforesaid reasons so its annexation is imperative for the US.
That said, it’s also possible that some of Trump’s advisors convince him not to pursue since this might irreparably ruin ties with the EU and NATO, the first of whom the US envisages profiting tremendously from after last summer’s lopsided trade deal and the second of which it envisages leading Russia’s containment in Europe after the Ukrainian Conflict ends. Although the US would likely win a trade war with the EU, a protracted one could lead to less profits and more opportunities for China there.
As for NATO, without its full-fledged commitment to contain Russia after the Ukrainian Conflict ends, the US might balk at redeploying many of its forces from Europe to the Asia-Pacific for more muscularly containing China and thus undermine one of the tenets of the “Trump Doctrine”. Nevertheless, given the importance of the US market for the EU and most NATO members’ pathological fear of Russia, whatever damage the US’ potential annexation of Greenland inflicts on their ties should be quickly repaired.
For these reasons, it’s likely that the US will annex Greenland despite already enjoying full freedom of economic and military action there that neither China nor Russia ever will, in which case the US would remove any remaining doubt about its hegemonic intentions over its allies. Trump has never been deterred by concerns about hurting his counterparts’ feelings or their societies disliking the US, and the more that they talk about such consequences, the more he might want to do this just to spite them.
Trump plays the game of Risk while the tech bros play Catan.
Is there any real benefit to the US here? Resource extraction is going to be risky and expensive. Perhaps there’s an argument from a strategic military angle? The whole affair smells like a vanity project.
It’s totally a vanity project. The minerals are already available to US businesses and as an independent territory of Denmark I would suspect we could even have a special separate trade agreement with Greenland to make investing there even easier for American businesses. And as part of NATO adding new bases shouldn’t be too difficult either which then begs the question of why are we risking so many other things (like NATO) to take the island.
The Risk game board map is a Mercator projection. That’s all you need to know about the basis for elite territorial obsessions. Yes that also puts Canada in their sights. Nunavut is about the same area as Greenland, perhaps also hundreds of years hence when its coasts flood as Greenland melts away to a ring of islands.
Greenland is certainly not the Crown Jewell of Fortress America but just one big piece. There is yet Iceland to take but his Crown Jewell will be to incorporate Canada into this hegemonic block. After stealing Greenland, Canada will be surrounded on the east, the south and the west by America and would be hemmed in and squeezed but good. I expect a move on Canada before the end of 2028.
Speaking of Iceland, Stanislav Krapivnik – who appears from time to time on The Duran – has made the case on RT that Iceland will be next on the menu-
‘Iceland has rare-earth minerals. It has aluminum… And it has a huge amount of geothermal energy that Trump’s backers need for their data centers that they want to build. It’s a huge cheap energy source – localized energy source, of course.’
https://www.rt.com/news/630935-trump-grenland-iceland-krapivnik/
Yes, Greenland is but the prelude to the coming subsuming of Canada. 🥶
If MAGA is aghast at the behaviors against ICE in blue state/cities, wait until they see what’s coming from Canadians. Although the massive Indian population up there would provide a vast base for his revamped H visas and trump gold cards….
So the South Park film was prescient? Who knew.
I expect a move on Canada before the end of 2028.
Probably not a really good idea. An awful lot of Americans will die.
1. Mark Carney has been a continentalist his whole career. He has been an advocate for a North American Union. His show of patriotism has been purely a matter of election tactics.
Our entire elite are composed of compradores.
2. The overwhelming majority of the Canadian population is concentrated in a handful of urban areas, which are wholly dependent on outside supplies of everything needed by human beings to stay alive. It is logistically impossible for Canadians to resist for long.
An enemy doesn’t have to occupy Canada–cut the gas and the electricity in mid-winter, and Canada falls in a few weeks at most, with barely a shot fired.
Yeah, there will be various terrorist incidents by random hotheads, but the retaliation against the vulnerable Canadian population would be unanswerable. There is no good outcome for Canada in such a conflict. Pure disaster.
It is difficult to imagine a people less suited for guerrilla warfare than the Canadians of our time. The nation of today has been deliberately built for globalization and macro-system dependence. Canadians are the furthest thing from Vietnamese peasants as is possible to conceive.
But unfortunately my people are over-proud and foolish. We are ripe to get beaten, and beaten badly, because our mouths will write cheques that our butts can’t cash.
The problem is two faced here. How will the Americans and the US military react to the idea of invading Canada if there is opposition? And then the details, the details. Imagine Canada is absorbed with so many new “states” which none would go for the democrats/republicans party structure and in fact allow or foster the creation of new parties in the original 50 states? And then the 50 will look with glee at the non bankruptable and portable medical system up close… Does the US oligarchy think they can easily tame the Canadians? Yes, there will be compradrors, but their (political) life will be short and always regarded s traitors, including in Alberta.
Sorry mate. My people are likely to be a bit more forceful.
If necessary we dispose of the government and go from there.
The USA has not fought a war on North America since the US-Mexican War in the 1840s and never against someone who looks and sounds almost exactly like them and knows how the US military works.
Just think of the potential for sabotage and assassinations throughout the USA. :)
I agree.
Golden Dome is turning into an enormous shared hallucination, with no significant criticism from Congress or the mass media. Now it has become the basis for an even more stupid idea: the annexation of Greenland. How high does this rickety tower of fantasy have to get before it collapses? Will it be annexation of the moon?
The Nobel committee should have just given him the Peace Prize. Might have saved Europe some trouble.
Trump does not have to own Greenland to bury trillions in Golden Dome there! Extend the half trillion in research spent since Reagan’s SDI!
See how defense of Kiev is going.
Thule Air Base was one of those remote assignments young captains used to scare new shavetail LT’s with a “year in Thule”….! The significance of Thule has been since the early 1960’s the BMEWS radar station now upgraded to Upgraded Early Warning Radar (UEWR). Constantly being upgraded. It does have a nice view down into missile sites in Russia. UEWR technology was paid by SDI.
From a strategic standpoint other than a site for radar, Greenland pales in comparison to the value of Iceland in controlling the Greenland Iceland UK (GIUK) gap ocean corridor. During the cold war USN and USAF resources controlled the sea-lanes!
Tom Clancy’s Red Storm Rising had Soviet SOF grab the big airbase…..
IIRC the issue with critical minerals supply chains is refining with expensive, ugly processes.
As to tilting with China and Russia in the Arctic regions the big problem is the 11 to 1 icebreaker gap.
Trump thinks otherwise and has said so repeatedly. He keeps banging on about how ownership confers rights he believes he cannot get any other way….like going down in history by greatly expanding US territory.
He has just said so again:
Is there a detailed breakdown of what it would take to actually do anything in Greenland? I’m guessing there’s a reason millions don’t live there.
And maybe orange douche should ask the Palestinians if ownership really confers rights.
So if oil wasn’t the reason for the invasion of Iraq, what was?
Perhaps it was the neocons and Israel’s Yinon Plan?
We posted this yesterday. The speaker is former general Wesley Clark at a 2007 conference:
The military is a self-licking ice cream cone.
That’s definitely the result.
I had a friend back then that was convinced the main reason for Iraq was that Saddam had discovered the Tomb of Hammurabi, with all the mythical power that entails, and had to be stopped. Of course, the looting of the Baghdad Museum was a bonus for the western oligarchs.
The main purpose of acquiring Greenland is to install new hypersonic missiles there on east coast (when the US finally has them in 2030s). It will be just few minutes flight to Kola peninsula (Russian submarine basis) and Yamal LNG plants. Also these missiles will be able to block Northern shipping route when it fully opens up in 2030s. Here the issue is that US submarines will need another decade to accommodate these new hypersonic missiles as Russian experience shows. That would push their adoption by US Navy to 2040s. Greenland is not needed for US anti-balistic defence as more can be achieved by keeping several Arleigh-Burke class crusiers (they form backbone of US anti-ballistic defence) in area between Greenland and Narvik (northern Norway). What will be Russian answer to US move to Greenland? More missiles to be fired from inside Russia, more Avantgards, more Burevestniks, more Oreshniks (to destroy new US bunkers in Greenland).
*Sigh*
Not buying it. Russia has a Zircon trundling around on a frigate and its last Oreshnik strike was sea launched.
Quick question, what evidence backs up a strike from Oreshnik via the sea? When it was launched in 24’ it was launched from Kapustin Yar rocket complex in Astrakhan Oblast. Zircon is sea and land based but what of Russias naval assets could carry such a weapon? Are you implying that like a Borei class or something from the northern fleet could have launched it, because the only land attack missiles the Black Sea fleet possess are 3M14Ks and 3M22s(land based as well) and that’s combining both surface carriers like Krivaks and Grigoroviches and below surface like improved Kilos. If what your saying is true than it really is a major game changer :O.
Sorry I was going on what a YouTuber said. Gah. I really cannot rely on these YouTube reports.
However, the Kalibrs were launched from the sea which was reported as a first, all of the ballistic missiles coming from the sea:
https://en.defence-ua.com/analysis/uk_defense_intelligence_analyzes_second_combat_use_of_oreshnik_irbm_against_ukraine-17106.html
Given that a Zircon is on a frigate, it seems the Russians are seeking more and more to develop sea launch of formerly land-only systems.
It’s still unclear as to what missile the Oreshnik was based on – some sources still think it was based on a submarine based medium range missile – there are a number of technical reasons why this would make sense. If so, it could be modified to use (for example) older boomers, just as the US modified older boomers (Ohio Class SSBNs) as conventional cruise missile launchers. There is nothing new in this idea.
The South Koreans have led the way on this – their submarines are unusual in that they can launch medium range conventional ballistic missiles – the Hyunmoo 5 – from sea or air, so far as we know. The Hyunmoo 5 may actually have a performance and strategic design very similar in conception to the Oreshnik, but there is little open source material available on it. The Hyunmoo 5 may actually be a better (more compact, more accurate) missile than the Oreshnik.
The most common theory is that Oreshnik is based on the IRBM RS-26 Rubezh which would make sense given its MIRV capability and defeating kinetic damage. I’m gonna guess it’s strictly land based and is launched in a similar way most Russian ICBMs are launched which is mobile land launchers which backs up that it was launched from Kapustin Yar rocket complex.
Kalibr cruise missiles actually haven’t launched from the land at all yet. Only the Kalibr M has that capability and it hasn’t been rolled out en masse at all. The 3M14T and 3M14K(Varashyvanka based platform) are the only Kalibr variants that are really used at all. Most of Russias cruise missile capability comes from Tu-160M bombers and Tu-95s as well as of course large surface combatants and attack subs can launch them. Tbh land based cruise missiles aren’t the best idea(looking at you AEGIS ashore system) due to lack of redundancy and cheap kamikaze drones(Geran-2) can kill them quickly plus ISR can quickly discover these sites for land based cruise missiles. The American AEGIS ashore system is gonna be fixed in place and thus useless while Russias Kalibr M is going to use a TEL most likely which is safer for land use. Sea based missile platforms and air based missile platforms are overall just safer for the operators.
Back in the day the US installed nuke armed Jupiter IRBMs in Turkey* without having to acquire Turkey. What makes these new hypersonic missiles so special that all of Greenland has to be purchased or invaded? Why couldn’t these be installed under the existing treaty?
Defense of Greenland: Agreement Between the United States and the Kingdom of Denmark, April 27, 1951
https://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/den001.asp
*This did end up resulting in the Cuban Missile Crisis, but that’s a separate issue.
Oh ja the footnote [1] from un-diplomatic.com in Yves’ intro “dating back to 2018” is what I wanted to talk about, good to know it’s not gone from the memory hole.
Greenland, along with New Zealand and a couple other places, have for years been bought up by squillionaires who want to build a bunker to prepare for Mad Max / Dune / Escape From New York / Children of Men / Food Riots or whatever. So the Greenland thing I don’t think is anything complicated, I think it is plunder, simple, base, selfish, Greed.
I couldn’t find another item from my memory hole, I seem to remember squillionaires hiring “Futurist” Ray Kurzweil (Mr Singularity) to build The Society of The Future in an abandoned missile silo, I wanna say in Minnesota … which is very tinfoil-hat-like to imply the militarization of Minnesota is to push out the plebes to protect the squillionaires, but, I mean, based on the past couple months, I don’t think there is any ideology at play at anything the US government is doing, I think it is entirely caveman fighting over a nice stick (apologies to cave people for comparing them to Tech Bros and politicians), with the big bully taking everything it can, because the bully knows it broke all the toys.
Minnesota didn’t have missile silos. The ICBMs were in the Dakotas, Montana and Wyoming
mostly, with a few old Titan liquid fueled ones in Missouri and Kansas.
On another note, Strategic Culture had a piece saying Starmer and Macron may be trying to
trade Greenland for US support for their ‘boots on the ground’ scheme in Ukraine, and the
Danes be damned.
Silo, you say?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silo_(TV_series)
American companies, on the average, are not very keen on investing, and the mining companies do have SOME projects, but one in Alaska has hard time satisfying environmental objections — copper project. Rare earth mining is trickier on environmental issues, more toxic stuff to take care of, and Alaska has a deposit situated on a tribal land, no serious attempt to invest there. Canada has most companies interested in “non-standard” mining in general and Arctic in particular.
So if we want rare earth elements from Arctic, best strategy is to leave it to Canadians and let them negotiate with Greenlanders after making a credible plan.
As far as monetary gain goes, taking over Bermuda and Cayman Islands would give more…
Hmmm…..
What if, instead of being the 51st star on the flag, Greenland just remains “owned” by the US dotgov?
Then, it gets made into a fort. Fort Trump, the BIGGEST most BIGLY fort in the whole dotmil system.
THEN, knowing – sometimes from personal experience – that environmental standards are somewhat lax within the military system, all the extractors can then go in, set up shop as government contractors (with the pay that can bring as well) and hoover out stuff to their hearts’ content.
Whatcha think?
Trump is not a strategic thinker and I’m guessing he has not thought much more about Greenland than he did about the logistics of reviving the Venezuelan oil industry.
I can’t, for example, understand the connection between the arctic, aka the Northern Sea Route (NSR), and US national security.
The NSR is basically a practical and efficient way to operate cargo ships. For example, the distance from Shanghai, China to Murmansk, Russia via the Suez Canal is nearly 14,000 miles. The distance via the NSR is 7,800 miles which means 15 days less travel time, enormous fuel savings, and less CO2 emissions. And with its investment in arctic infrastructure, China can easily connect with all of Europe via the NSR.
Russia has spent considerable time and money developing 6-arctic ports: Sabetta, Dickson, Dudinka, Khatanga, Tiksi, and Pevek. It’s capable of exporting timber, minerals, fuel etc., and importing food and other resources. From Murmansk to Yokohama, Japan it’s 14,800 miles via the Suez and 6,650 miles via the NSR. From its more eastern ports like Pevek, it’s significantly less time; I estimate less than 1,000 miles.
What will Trump do in Greenland? The NSR is all about commercial shipping lanes. Does he expect to seize Chinese and Russian ships? Trump has not explained the existential threat nor is there any rational reason for China or Russia to take Greenland for themselves.
The strategy is understandable, if you consider that it might be less about the getting, than about the denying.
Trump just imposed a permanent US veto power over Venezuelan exports, and the world did nothing. Even the Venezuelans didn’t fire a shot.
As a maverick, Trump got three nominations, and won the presidency twice–despite the most intense media and institutional hostility ever faced by an American politician.
He’s already put his name on an era. When are people going to stop underestimating the guy?
Ask yourself this: how many of his foreign policy measures are going to be reversed by his successors?
I think you’re missing a crucial point. Trump, imo, wants to get out of NATO largely because the US is spending a fortune and Trump views Europeans as parasites and adversaries.
However, the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2024, enacted on 22 December 2023, prohibits the President from unilaterally withdrawing from NATO without approval of a two-third Senate super-majority or an act of Congress; which will never happen.
Trump, again imo, thinks taking Greenland will cause the collapse of NATO and thus, the US will be free of it.
Trump is a real estate guy and his thoughts on Greenland are probably of that nature.
Greenland is big. Really big! Greenland is basically vacant land, should be cheap. Great deal! When the ice melts, the land will be more valuable. Better get in early!!
It’s been said that somebody in the Maduro government was cooperating with the US and sold him out. What if it was Maduro himself who cooperated to make it all happen? Would that change your mind about anything?
There is one eminently rational reason for China and Russia to take Greenland and, at the very least, making it a Protectorate with Chinese and Russian bases there if only to keep it out of the hands of a country that possesses a consistent inclination to elect the corrupt, the mentally and morally weak, and the utterly degenerate to high office.
If China or Russia take Greenland it will trigger a NATO Article 5 guarantee. From the point of view of the Chinese or Russians, taking Greenland just to keep it out of US hands, imo, the risk-reward ratio makes the whole thing not worth the trouble.
I’d wager he renames it Trumpland
I do wonder if Greenland is a legacy thing. Trump is at the age where a lot of powerful men begin founding charities and trying to launder their reputation and position themselves to be remembered as saints. Trump, of course, has no shame, never apologizes and always doubles down, so that wouldn’t be his style. An Alaska style land purchase (or conquest) that could still be in play 100+ years from now would seem to fit his particular brand of vanity.
And yes, probably the world will be unrecognizable geopolitically 100 years from now due to climate change, but Trump has convinced himself it’s not real.
Yanis Varoufakis was on Breaking Points yesterday. If I understand him correctly, he thinks that Trump is all about power-flexing in order to eventually sell the world on dollar-backed stablecoins as the new medium of international exchange — for the personal profit of him and his cronies who will get a cut of every financial transaction on the planet.
Not saying that it’s going to work, but I’m inclined to believe Varoufakis. Greenland is just another power move.
If Greenlanders were serious about keeping Trump out they could just change the name of their country to “Epstein Island” and Trump would forget all about it before lunch.
Greenland should demand Statehood, demand Statehood for DC and PR and announce once it’s a US State it’s name will change from Greenland to Trump Has Teeny Tiny Baby Hands And You know What That Means.
Skippy Escapes from Fortress America and the Golden Dome! – an animated movie the kiddies will love coming soon to a theater near you!
Overall, Korbyko seems intelligent, so it’s hard to understand why he takes Golden Dome seriously, especially since it’s gold spray-painted Iron Dome (which doesn’t work against Houthi missiles, much less Chinese and Russian hypersonic missiles).
Are immigrants really swarming into the US from Greenland? Russia has nuclear-powered, infinite-range, nuclear-capable missiles – they do not need to pass Greenland to get to the US – and this ignores submarines.
And rare earths are NOT rare. There is no need to go to Greenland to get them in the harshest environment on earth. What is rare is refining and manufacturing, and Trumpian efforts to bring manufacturing have only scared it overseas.
“This is not a good environment for planning.”
This is as good an explanation as anything:
How a billionaire with interests in Greenland encouraged Trump to acquire the territory
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/jan/15/ronald-lauder-billionaire-donor-donald-trump-ukraine-greenland
Just more billionaire grifting.