The Greenland Purchase

Allegedly, President Trump has inquired about buying Greenland from Denmark.  Most people mock this idea, but in fact I don't see anything wrong with it in principle.  After all, a large portion of the current United States's land area was acquired via four different sales:  the Louisiana Purchase, the Adams-Onis treaty (for Florida), the Gadsden Purchase, and Alaska.  Admittedly, the last of these was over 150 years ago, but otherwise they were similar to Greenland in being large (except Gadsden), sparsely populated areas that offered strategic advantages.  Since Denmark granted Greenland a significant degree of self-rule in 1979 and again in 2008, and since the population of Greenland are largely Inuits rather than ethnic Danes, the national allegiance of Greenland would not seem to matter much to its inhabitants.  The security of the island would surely be better protected by the United States.  From a Danish standpoint, apart from national pride, it is difficult to see what they get out of the possession; in fact, they spend considerable money on an annual subsidy to Greenland.

Whether the purchase of Greenland would be at all feasible is another matter.  It might well be a question of pride for the Danes, the Greenlanders, or both.  Then again, Trump has not (as far as I know) made any sort of international demarche on this question, only asking his advisors about it, so he cannot even be accused of hurting anyone's feelings.  (That privilege would go to the advisor who leaked the information.)  Surely any policy maker should be free to consider all options in private, including ones that he subsequently rejects as inappropriate.  I also can't say for sure if the purchase of Greenland would ultimately be a good idea for the United States; presumably the purchase price would have to be considered, and we have no information on what that is.  But it seems an imminently reasonable idea on the face of it.

While researching this post, I came across an interesting article from 2012 raising the very question of why no country sells land any more.  I'm curious if it might have prompted someone to think of land that the United States might want to buy, and, therefore, indirectly led to Trump's raising the question.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Science and Philosophy, Part I: Hume and Popper

I've been listening to a lecture series on philosophy recently, and, even though I haven't gotten past the Greeks yet, it has reminded me of a number of issues that trouble me about science. I want to take the opportunity to express my concerns here. Along the way, I will probably oversimplify philosophy a great deal -- not on purpose, but rather because I have only a simplistic understanding of it. I welcome responses to clear up my misconceptions. One of my issues with science is the famous idea of Karl Popper that it can never establish positive claims, only falsify wrong ones. The history of this goes back to David Hume, the 18th century Scottish sceptic. He shook up the philosophical world by claiming that science could never prove anything through induction -- that is, drawing conclusions about physical laws based on observations. The classic illustration is the sun's rising. Even though the sun has risen every day for our whole lives, and for countless human l
Read more

Country Music

I noticed a long time ago that there isn't much difference between the sound of country music and rock music nowadays. If I'm surfing my radio and I come to a station playing jazz, classical, or rap, I recognize it right away; but if I come to a country or rock station, I often can't tell which it is until the song is half over. Country songs often have screaming guitars that would fit equally well in a hard rock song, and only a minority have a recognizably country instrument such as a fiddle or a banjo. All the same, no one could listen to a country music station for more than a few minutes without realizing that it is definitely not a rock station. What are the differences? There are some stylistic differences. Country songs are more likely to have a boogey beat or certain western-sounding bass lines. They also tend to be more formulaic: if you can't predict how a country song ends, you probably don't listen to much country music. But those things aren'
Read more

What Are Pronouns For?

 Here's what I don't get about people defining their own pronouns (and I use "their" advisedly):  If I am talking to you, your pronoun is "you."  No one disputes that.  If I am talking about you to another person, the pronoun I use to reference you is none of your business.  I am in a conversation with someone else; you are not a party to it, and you are not entitled to impose rules on it.  Ideally, you will never know what we say -- but if you do find out, it doesn't matter because the pronouns I used were for my convenience, not for your feelings.  Heck, I may not even have met you, may not have any idea what you identify as or even what sex you really are (as sometimes happens when people have names like "Leslie" or "Ashley" that get used for both sexes, or foreign names that I am unfamiliar with).  So mind your business and there will be nothing to get offended about.
Read more