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foreign affairs
Aug. 21st, 2019 09:57 amSo now we've had to live through DT's blue-sky plan of purchasing Greenland. To those who pointed out that this is a crazy idea, I've seen the response, "People thought purchasing Alaska was a crazy idea."
This is the "They laughed at Einstein" fallacious argument. In fact they did not laugh at Einstein, and while some did scorn the purchase of Alaska in 1867, others acclaimed it. What makes the purchase of Greenland a crazy idea is not the notion of acquiring a vast frozen wasteland. The US valued Alaska for its resources, and Greenland has the same value. Once all that ice melts, there's plenty of minerals down there we can strip-mine, assuming we're still around to do it.
No, what makes the Greenland notion crazy is the manner of its floating. DT just brought it up out of the blue on his own initiative because he's a real-estate dealer, and this would be the biggest real-estate deal ever. In fact, unless you went for an entire continent, there's literally nothing bigger. But he didn't ask the Danes first if Greenland was for sale.
In his business career, he'd often do this: declare he wanted something without having found out if he could get it, hoping to tempt the owner into making an offer. It was crass then, it's diplomatically disastrous now, because that's not how these things work. The Danes were offended then, and got even more offended when DT unilaterally cancelled his trip there, having made it clear that Greenland was the only thing he was interested in talking about.
Also, Denmark doesn't own Greenland outright. It's autonomously governed, which means its own inhabitants have a say in its fate. Nobody'd checked in with them either.
That's what makes the difference with Alaska. The US didn't sidle up to Russia and say, "Wanna sell Alaska?" No, Russia made the offer first. Their fur trade was overextended, basically, and they wanted to pull back. Entirely different situation. And in those days the natives had no voice in which foreign power claimed sovereignty over their territory.
Something similar had happened with the Louisiana Purchase. Here the US had opened negotiations with France, but what the US was interested in was some way of guaranteeing western US shippers access to the Mississippi River and the port of New Orleans. This might involve some small purchase of territory, but France - also eager to free itself of an awkward burden - asked, "Want the whole thing?" and the Americans, who previously hadn't been thinking that big, had the nerve to say yes.
But has Denmark, or Greenland itself, ever offered the territory to anyone? No. It's a nutty idea.
On another topic: this article says enough about what's wrong with DT's strictures on Jewish voting behaviors, except for one thing: support for Israel (as a nation with a right to exist) is not the same thing as support for Netanyahu's government and what they're doing about it. Any more than patriotism for the US means support of DT.
This is the "They laughed at Einstein" fallacious argument. In fact they did not laugh at Einstein, and while some did scorn the purchase of Alaska in 1867, others acclaimed it. What makes the purchase of Greenland a crazy idea is not the notion of acquiring a vast frozen wasteland. The US valued Alaska for its resources, and Greenland has the same value. Once all that ice melts, there's plenty of minerals down there we can strip-mine, assuming we're still around to do it.
No, what makes the Greenland notion crazy is the manner of its floating. DT just brought it up out of the blue on his own initiative because he's a real-estate dealer, and this would be the biggest real-estate deal ever. In fact, unless you went for an entire continent, there's literally nothing bigger. But he didn't ask the Danes first if Greenland was for sale.
In his business career, he'd often do this: declare he wanted something without having found out if he could get it, hoping to tempt the owner into making an offer. It was crass then, it's diplomatically disastrous now, because that's not how these things work. The Danes were offended then, and got even more offended when DT unilaterally cancelled his trip there, having made it clear that Greenland was the only thing he was interested in talking about.
Also, Denmark doesn't own Greenland outright. It's autonomously governed, which means its own inhabitants have a say in its fate. Nobody'd checked in with them either.
That's what makes the difference with Alaska. The US didn't sidle up to Russia and say, "Wanna sell Alaska?" No, Russia made the offer first. Their fur trade was overextended, basically, and they wanted to pull back. Entirely different situation. And in those days the natives had no voice in which foreign power claimed sovereignty over their territory.
Something similar had happened with the Louisiana Purchase. Here the US had opened negotiations with France, but what the US was interested in was some way of guaranteeing western US shippers access to the Mississippi River and the port of New Orleans. This might involve some small purchase of territory, but France - also eager to free itself of an awkward burden - asked, "Want the whole thing?" and the Americans, who previously hadn't been thinking that big, had the nerve to say yes.
But has Denmark, or Greenland itself, ever offered the territory to anyone? No. It's a nutty idea.
On another topic: this article says enough about what's wrong with DT's strictures on Jewish voting behaviors, except for one thing: support for Israel (as a nation with a right to exist) is not the same thing as support for Netanyahu's government and what they're doing about it. Any more than patriotism for the US means support of DT.
