George Friedman
U.S. President Donald Trump has demanded that Denmark turn Greenland over to the United States. This raises the question of why Greenland matters. It’s true that Greenland has some natural resources, including rare earths, that would benefit whoever controls them, but it’s also true that the island is strategically and militarily important – and this latter point is far too often overlooked.
During the Cold War, NATO had a contingency plan whereby, in the event of a Soviet invasion, it would block Moscow’s advance to the west while keeping open German and French ports on the Atlantic. The strategic logic was that the U.S. would use these ports to reinforce and resupply the troops it already had in Europe. The reinforcements – and especially the logistical support – were the basis of winning a prolonged conflict with the Soviet Union because in Washington the belief was that the longer such a conflict dragged on, the more likely it was that Moscow would lose. In short, NATO’s strategy to block an initial Soviet attack depended on a foundation of reinforcements and resupply.
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