Di Leo: Greenland, the Arctic, and the Case for Outsourcing

Why do people who are perfectly competent in their own specialties – as doctors or dentists, architects or Customs brokers, chefs or entrepreneurs – still hire someone else to manage their retirement funds and other investments?

Because no matter how talented and intelligent we may be in our own professions, most of us are amateurs at the complicated world of stocks, bonds, commodities, and other investment vehicles. And our retirement funds and other investments are too important to us to entrust to someone who is an amateur in that world. Even if we pay a couple percent of our profit in fees to a respected professional, it’s worth it because of how superior we expect our money’s growth to be in his hands.

This is all the more important when we consider the level of risk in the investment world today. We’ve all read about the corrupt investment schemes that have enveloped, and even bankrupted, famous people who should have known better, from the original Charles Ponzi himself to more recent con men like Bernie Madoff and Sam Bankman-Fried.

We don’t want to join that club of con artists’ marks, so we hire advisors with the resources and experience to build safe strategies and steer clear of the con men.

The more land, people, resources, and funds for which a government is responsible, the more the risk.

We entrust our governments to look out for many aspects of our security, our financial well-being, and our standard of living. We count on local, state, and national governments, in different ways, to build our roads, bridges, and schools, to defend our borders and neighborhoods with armies and police, and to do a thousand other things for us. We pay them taxes to cover the cost, and we leave the management of these constitutional duties (and sometimes unconstitutional ones too) to our elected officials and the bureaucrats they select.

But no matter how big a government you have, it can never have so many of the right people, with the right professions at the right time, to do all this themselves, as well as they need to. So we expect them to hire outsiders too – construction companies to build the roads, I.T. consultants to build security into the systems infrastructure, university researchers to develop the munitions, and a thousand other types of expertise as well.

All this outsourcing increases the odds that shady characters will get into the bidding process, and the smaller the government, the greater the risk that con men and crooks will permeate the firewall, endangering everyone.

Greenland is a small country in population and GDP, a large country in natural resources and geography (the world’s 11th largest by acreage), and an incredibly significant country in terms of location.

Greenland is blessed with rare earths (certain minerals and ores, some of which are actually plentiful, but very labor-intensive and cost-intensive to mine and process). Just as petroleum was around forever, but only became valuable in the late 19th century because of technology, rare earths too have been around forever, but only started to become valuable in the 20th century.

Now, all of a sudden, practically every modern motor, power source, or appliance is dependent on rare earths like lithium, neodymium, and uranium, and Greenland has them in spades. Greenland is, in fact, the second largest potential source of many rare earths after China.

Then there’s transportation. If the world were flat, the most direct route between the USA and Europe would be directly across the Atlantic, and the most direct route between the USA and Asia would be directly across the Pacific.

But the world isn’t flat. Due to the curvature of the earth, many of the most direct routes across the northern hemisphere go through, or even across, the Arctic circle. Far too dangerous a route to be considered even a century ago, again, technology has changed the environment so that trans-Arctic shipping is now somewhat practical, and will likely become even more so, as ships and planes are ever better able to handle Arctic conditions. Greenland’s position as a potential transportation hub and refueling location grows every year.

Consider military positioning. A major enemy of the west for most of the past century has been Russia, and Russia sits in much of the Arctic circle. The nations with territorial presence within the Arctic circle are the United States (because of Alaska), Canada, Greenland, Norway, and Russia. Iceland too, if you count the tippie-toes of its northern glacier. Of these countries – no insult intended – which of them can stand up to a Russian attack? Which could defend not only itself, but also everyone in the path, if Russia were to use the Arctic as one of its attack routes, in case of a war? (not to say that Russia is expected to start a major war, but it’s always possible with Russia, and dissuading them from attacking is always a better choice than having to defend against an attack you’ve allowed/encouraged them to start, as Europe is learning from the Ukraine conflict).

Finally, we have the biggest enemy nation on the planet, the one that has focused all of its energy over the past few decades on accumulating both willing and unknowing client states all over the world, through a combination of its money, its manufacturing dominance, and its Belt and Road Initiative. China has convinced dozens and dozens of countries all over the world to hire China to build or rebuild their ports, their railroads, their bridges, their power stations, usually on terms that make it impossible to pay back so China is able to use the old mob approach of just taking over the operation when the client defaults. As a result, China has a foothold – economic, population, and military – in dozens of countries, on every continent except Antarctica.

It may not be particularly dangerous to the security of the world that China runs ports in Angola, Djibouti, or Thailand. Maybe it is, maybe not. But it’s certainly dangerous that China runs ports in Kuwait, Israel, and Greece; these and many more are key points in global commerce. And it’s certainly dangerous that China controls ports in Australia, Thailand, South Korea and the Philippines. In case of a war between China and Taiwan, these are the countries we would expect to support Taiwan; how will they do that if China can shut down their major seaports?

Since the turn of the millenium, the Chinese have engaged in a quiet and diverse program of interest in Greenland, bidding on multiple projects, only occasionally being stymied by Danish or American pressure. Some of China’s mining activities in Greenland, having been welcomed in by the Greenland government, failed because China didn’t do them successfully. They weren’t stopped by anyone at all, it is only due to China’s bad luck (and therefore good luck for the rest of the world) that China’s footprint in Greenland isn’t already much larger than it is.

The kinds of people who like to minimize President Trump’s concerns tend to stress the fact that Chinese efforts were stopped, perhaps hoping readers won’t notice that in order for an effort to be stopped, it first had to be attempted.

The evidence is therefore that China has indeed been interested in Greenland, for military reasons, for rare earth reasons, and for its general global footprint reasons, for a long time, and that Greenland has often welcomed China’s interest, requiring Denmark and the United States to be the adult in the room and say No. And with China’s ongoing efforts to add to the importance of its own rare earths, we know – without a doubt – that they will continue to try to control the competing rare earths of other countries as well.

Now, back to where we began: When the most important things to you, and to those who depend on you, are areas outside your specialty, you need to hire professionals. You need to outsource.

Just as the worker looks for a professional investment advisor to handle his retirement fund, and just as the local police station hires expert software engineers to manage its I.T. security, a government as small as Greenland’s needs to hire the services of a competent outsider to protect its own internal agencies from making dangerous deals and allowing the enemy’s nose under the tent.

That’s not just smaller than most countries, it’s less than a tenth the size of the USA’s smallest state (Wyoming, at 580,000). In my area of northwest suburban Chicagoland, it’s smaller than most of our towns and villages.

Would we entrust the village boards or city councils of our local towns with the security of the entire country – both economic and military – with our aldermen and mayors?

Well, leaving Greenland’s security up to Greenland’s government is the equivalent of leaving the security of the Northern Hemisphere up to a local township chairman or city councilman.

This is not an insult. No offense intended. But no matter how smart, dedicated, and wise such people may be, Greenland as a country plays too monumental a role in the world today, for Greenland alone to be granting building licenses, development deals, and public-private partnerships with foreign countries more than 10,000 times bigger than they are. They need help.

The new security supervisory deal between the United States, Denmark, and Greenland will do more to secure the economic and military safety of Western Civilization than most treaties, initiatives, or wars in the past few generations.

By the United States now having, essentially, an absolute veto over foreign meddling in Greenland, we can protect not only Greenland, but the free societies of the West, from the con men of the world who could otherwise take advantage of gullible, well-intentioned, but ultimately insufficiently cautious local stewards.

And the mainstream media, naturally, are denouncing this deal as either bullying or unnecessary, which only goes to show that the press is every bit as much of a gullible mark as many governments are.

John F. Di Leo is a Chicagoland-based international transportation and trade compliance trainer, speaker, and consultant. His book on vote fraud (The Tales of Little Pavel), his political satires on the Biden-Harris administration (Evening Soup with Basement Joe, Volumes I, II, and III), his first nonfiction book, “Current Events and the Issues of Our Age,” and his brand new collection of stories about the heroes of the American Founding, “The Founding Generation: The Patriots Who Built America,” are all available in either eBook or paperback, only on Amazon. His trade compliance training practice is available either in person or by webinar. And as a member of the Chicagoland theatre community, his next performance will be as Archie in Brigadoon from October 3 through 18, 2026.

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There is no new agreement before ratification by the parliaments of Denmark and Greenland. No sovereignty has been ceded, and the United States will have no sovereign power in Greenland outside of outrageous press releases. Essentially, the United States will be able to create new bases as provoded for in the old 1951 agreement. The United States used to have several bbases but some time back chose to close all but one.

https://meridianreport.org/article/greenland-defence-deal-2026

Control without sovereignty: what the US-Denmark-Greenland defence deal of 18 September 2026 actually changes
On 18 September 2026 the United States and Denmark announced a defence agreement covering Greenland, and within hours the two governments were describing it in incompatible terms. President Trump said the deal gives the United States 'permanent control' of Greenland. Copenhagen and Nuuk said no sovereignty had been transferred and that none can be without Greenland's own consent. The draft text has not been released; signing is expected at the UN General Assembly; ratification has not begun. This report establishes what is known about the agreement from primary statements, sets it against the 1951 defence treaty that already governs the US military presence in Greenland, quantifies the twenty-month pressure campaign that preceded it, and examines the deal's stated economic premise against the investment record. The verifiable finding is narrow and precise: nothing in the public record establishes that the agreement changes legal sovereignty, and much in it extends a bilateral military footprint that has existed since 1951.
By Muhammad Mehdi
Published 20 September 2026 at 08:00 UTC
· Updated 20 September 2026 at 08:00 UTC
An agreement covering the future of the world's largest island was announced on 18 September 2026, and by the end of the day the three governments whose signatures it will carry were describing it in three incompatible ways.
President Trump told reporters the deal "gives the United States permanent control over Greenland." Denmark's government said the agreement "does not and cannot transfer sovereignty over any part of the Kingdom." Greenland's government, the Naalakkersuisut, said its consent had been given for defence cooperation only, and repeated that the island's constitutional future "belongs to Greenlanders alone." The draft text has not been published. Signing is expected at the UN General Assembly the following week. No parliament has seen the document.
The gap between the President's wording and everyone else's is not a quirk of press coverage. It is the central fact about this agreement: the dispute over what it means began before the text was released, and the parties' own statements, read against the treaty that has governed the US military presence in Greenland since 1951, allow a precise account of what is actually known, what is genuinely new, and what remains unestablished.
That account matters beyond the Arctic. The agreement is the first time Denmark has formally expanded the US defence footprint in Greenland since 1951, and the first time an American president has publicly claimed a sovereignty effect from a bilateral defence instrument with a NATO ally. Whether the claim survives in law is checkable, against the text when it is released, against the ratification record, and against the constitutional process Denmark and Greenland follow. This report sets out the baseline for making that check.
What was announced, and what has not been
The verified sequence is short. On 18 September 2026, after roughly two weeks of final-stage negotiation, Washington and Copenhagen announced a defence agreement covering Greenland. Politico reported that the deal expands US military access and construction rights on the island, adds new radar and missile-warning infrastructure in the Pituffik area, and includes provisions on joint search-and-rescue and disaster response; NPR, citing officials briefed on the draft, reported an expanded US garrison at Pituffik Space Base and staged upgrades to civilian airports at Nuuk and Kangerlussuaq for dual military use. The parties confirmed the deal's existence and its general shape. They did not release the text.
Three things have not happened. The text has not been published, so no outside analysis can yet distinguish between rights that are new and rights that restate 1951. The agreement has not been signed; the ceremony is expected at the General Assembly. And it has not been ratified, in Denmark, a defence agreement of this scope goes to the Folketing for approval, and in Greenland the Inatsisartut is expected to debate its own consent, since the Self-Government Act reserves mineral-resource and, in practice, base-questions to consultative processes with Nuuk. Every characterization currently in circulation, including "permanent control", is therefore a claim about a document that has not been released.
What the parties did say is itself evidence. The US State Department's readout describes "expanded defence cooperation." The Danish and Greenlandic statements address only sovereignty, both say it was not transferred. Neither party has publicly contradicted the other's core claim. The contradiction is between the President's phrase and the treaty parties' statements, and it remains unresolved in the public record.
The words "control" and "sovereignty" in the same sentence
A sovereignty claim has a defined shape in law: title over territory, exercisable without the permission of another state. "Permanent control" has no such definition. Read narrowly, indefinite exclusive military use of agreed areas is a thing the United States has lawfully held in Greenland for seventy-five years. Read broadly, the phrase implies the extinguishing of Danish sovereignty, which would require instruments of cession that no party claims exist.
The 1951 baseline is the fastest way to see the difference. The Defence of Greenland agreement, signed on 27 April 1951 and still in force, grants the United States:
the right to construct, maintain and operate defences in agreed "defense areas";
stationing of US forces in Greenland;
US Jurisdiction, the treaty's capitalized legal term, over members of the US forces and certain civilian employees within those areas, subject to defined exceptions;
navigation of US vessels and aircraft "in and around Greenland without restriction" and, within defence areas, "without the concurrence of Denmark";
supply of its forces free of duty; and
an unqualified right to improve and enlarge the defence areas as circumstances require, in consultation with the Danish authorities.
That is the instrument under which Pituffik Space Base has been continuously US-operated since 1951, through every crisis in US-Danish relations since. It is, on any honest reading, already a form of permanent American military control over defined parts of Greenland, exercised under Danish sovereignty and NATO integration.
The analytical consequence is that the new deal cannot be assessed by asking whether it grants "control." The 1951 treaty already does. The assessable questions are narrower: whether it adds territory to the defence areas, whether it deepens exclusive rights beyond 1951's, whether it touches civilian infrastructure or mineral policy, both areas where Danish and Greenlandic law reserve decisions, and whether any provision purports to run indefinitely ("perpetuity" language would be new) or with a termination clause. None of these questions is answerable until the text is published. What is answerable now is that nothing in the parties' own statements describes a transfer of sovereignty, and that a transfer would be legally void without steps the record shows have not occurred.
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