Here’s a puzzle. What is the connection between US President Donald Trump, a Chinese cargo ship called the Istanbul Bridge and the British port of Felixstowe? The answer is … Greenland.
The only prize for the correct answer is to understand why Mr Trump’s rhetoric may be, at times, unfortunate but his ambitions for a much bigger US interest in Greenland are urgent but also rational.
The authoritative Foreign Affairs magazine carries a fascinating article by an American China specialist Elizabeth Economy. She tells the story of the journey that the Chinese ship took to Britain in October last year by what, at first sight, seems a very odd route. Instead of travelling through the Suez Canal or by sailing around southern Africa, the ship reached Britain from China by a faster route through the Arctic Ocean, landing in England after just three weeks at sea.
The article noted that “Beijing hailed the journey as a geostrategic breakthrough and a contribution to supply chain stability. The more important message was unstated: the extent of China’s economic and security ambitions in a new realm of global power”.
Those sentences sum up why Mr Trump’s apparent obsession with Greenland is not a whim. It’s a recognition of a new way of thinking in an era of global warming. This is sometimes blurred by Mr Trump’s provocative language, which irritates and alarms America’s European allies. Saying he wants in some way to take over Greenland sounds to Europeans like a disaster for Nato and an ambition extending from regime change in Venezuela, and the possibility of regime change in Iran, to the annexation by any means necessary of this vast and often frozen Danish territory in the Arctic.
In one of Mr Trump’s more recent public statements on Greenland, he said: “I would like to make a deal the easy way but if we don’t do it the easy way, we’re going to do it the hard way. And by the way, I’m a fan of Denmark too. I have to tell you they have been very nice to me. I’m a big fan.”
The immediate reaction from European politicians and diplomats to these and other statements has ranged from alarm to astonishment. It seems bizarre for an American president to appear to threaten a friendly European ally in this way and put at risk transatlantic co-operation, Nato and potentially even European security.
European diplomats insist there is no reason for such rhetoric. There could easily be an amicable agreement between Copenhagen and Washington about the US upgrading military and other facilities in Greenland without public threats. Moreover, you might think that the US led by the self-described candidate for the Nobel Peace Prize might have enough conflicts to worry about already. Ukraine, Gaza, Venezuela, Iran, Nigeria and elsewhere are on that list in varying degrees.
So why does Mr Trump appear to pick a fight with allies? Some suggest he needs enemies the way others need friends. But put aside the rhetoric and think instead about that Chinese cargo ship. Why did it take such an odd route to deliver goods to the UK? And why does Mr Trump see Greenland as somehow cementing his place in history?
In the 19th century, big-power competition meant the “scramble for Africa”. It led to the invasion, conquest and colonisation of almost all of the African continent by the great European powers from the 1880s until the First World War.
The UK, France, Germany and Belgium carved up this vast land mass. If you have ever wondered why maps of Africa show divisions with many straight lines rather than complicated ethnic or natural boundaries, it’s because the lines were drawn by colonial powers in a sweeping annexation of resources. Even the names – Nigeria, for example, or former Rhodesia – were European inventions.
Nowadays, the 21st-century big-power scramble is between China, Russia and the US. Part of that is powered by competition over the Arctic.
During the Cold War in the 1950s and 1960s, American politicians including future president John F Kennedy talked of the “missile gap” between the US and the Soviet Union. The latter’s Sputnik programme, putting the first man in space, was interpreted as a threat. America responded with enormous investment in its own space programme to put a man on the Moon first.
Nowadays, there is an “ice-breaker gap”. It involves intense competition over the possibilities – commercial, strategic and military – in the Arctic. Russia has many more icebreakers than the US and China put together, with more than 40 vessels, including some that are nuclear-powered. China reportedly has six icebreakers. The US has only three operational icebreakers and so Washington has begun an accelerated programme for more.
The point here is that Mr Trump’s rhetoric over Greenland may seem annoying, contentious and even unwise to European leaders, but it is based on hard geopolitical calculations. His words may offend, but Mr Trump’s focus on Greenland is – for American security – not just realistic but imperative. His allies just wish he would do things without such heated rhetoric.
