Free Republic

President Trump is correct to want to exercise control over Greenland, but his methodology is problematic. The present situation is unworkable since we are forced to spend money and risk our personnel with little benefit to us during the immediate period. Ownership is not the only solution to this conundrum. There are several possible methods to fulfill the requirements that Trump seeks. One proposal would be modeled after the arrangement Great Britain had with China for Hong Kong, in which the former had a 99-year lease for the territory. There are many variations on this theme. Mineral resources secured could...

Donald Trump’s desire for Greenland is not just about access to oil, minerals and control of the new strategic and commercial corridors opening in the region. It’s also about data. Specifically, the most important data in the world. For decades, Pituffik Space Base – formerly Thule – in Greenland has been central to US space defense and Arctic strategy. It’s the US military’s only base above the Arctic Circle and their most northerly deep-water port and airstrip. It’s home to the 12th Space Warning Squadron. Its massive AN/FPS-132 radar has 240 degrees of coverage surveying the Arctic Ocean and Russia’s...

On Wednesday, after a closed-door meeting with American officials, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Vice President JD Vance, Danish Foreign Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen held a press conference. His remarks sounded cautiously optimistic. Denmark will join a high-level working group to discuss Greenland's future after talks at the White House with senior Trump administration officials. Danish Foreign Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen told a press conference Wednesday that the closed-door meeting, attended by Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, was a "frank but also constructive" discussion and an opportunity to "challenge the narrative presented by...

Trump’s property developer persona must salivate at getting the hugest property deal ever. The mini-continent of Greenland is likely worth many trillions of dollars in natural resources and development potential. Cagey negotiator Trump speaks of buying Greenland from Denmark for a few billion dollars, a typical, low-ball opening bid. Trump knows the USA is by far the best custodian for Greenland. And, its acquisition would address our serious security concerns about Russian and Chinese aggression in the Arctic. The European Union and NATO want to leverage Denmark’s current colonial “ownership” of Greenland into a European asset. We can evaluate a...

Washington, DC - Today, Congressman Fine (FL-06) introduced the Greenland Annexation and Statehood Act, landmark legislation focused on securing America’s strategic national security interests in the Arctic and countering the growing threats posed by China and Russia. As global competition intensifies in the Arctic, the United States cannot afford to allow adversarial powers to gain influence over one of the world’s most strategically important regions. “Greenland is not a distant outpost we can afford to ignore—it is a vital national security asset,” said Congressman Fine. “Whoever controls Greenland controls key Arctic shipping lanes and the security architecture protecting the United...

When President Trump sent American forces into Venezuela and walked out with Nicolás Maduro in handcuffs, the world took notice. Critics called it reckless. Supporters called it overdue. But while the chattering class debated the raid’s legality, the administration was already eyeing its next move on the global chessboard. The Arctic has quietly become one of the most contested regions on the planet. Russian vessels patrol waters they haven’t touched in decades. Chinese “research” ships appear with uncomfortable regularity near strategic chokepoints. And no, these aren’t fever dreams from hawkish think tanks — this is happening right now. Sitting in...

What do you think: is it manifest destiny that the United States acquire or at least exercise control over Greenland? That’s pretty much how we got Texas, California, New Mexico, Hawaii, the Philippines, Puerto Rico, Guam and American Samoa. Then there was the Louisiana purchase. In 1803, Thomas Jefferson doubled the size of the United States, paying France $15 million or a bit less than three cents per acre for a land mass that is about 26 percent of the contiguous United States. And let’s not forget about Alaska. A few facts about Greenland. It is big: 836,000 square miles....

The top Kremlin-installed official in the oblast, Yevgeny Balitsky, said Russia should also have its eye on the Baltic states, as well as Poland and Finland, all five of which are NATO countries... In the interview shared by Russia watcher Julia Davis, Balitsky seemed ready to take on the alliance as he spoke of how the Russian Empire that ended with the 1917 revolution had "lost its footing" as well as "great numbers of people." "I'm not even talking about territories. I understand that it includes Warsaw, Helsinki, also known as Helsingfors," he said... "I don't believe in any diplomacy...

The Danish have caved and will allow US bases in their territory. When US President Donald J. Trump expressed his desire to gain control of the island of Greenland, it took most by surprise, and generated a panic in the kingdom of Denmark. While the former colony and present semi-autonomous territory has belonged to the Danish for centuries, the geopolitical situation may cause a historical shift. Greenland is located between North America and Europe, making it vital for monitoring Russian military activities, particularly ballistic missile threats and naval movements through the Greenland-Iceland-United Kingdom (GIUK) gap. The U.S. already operates Pituffik...

China has “enforced maritime management and exercised sovereign jurisdiction” over an uninhabited reef in the disputed South China Sea, planting the country’s flag on the tiny sand bank just kilometers from a key Philippine military outpost. Photographs released by Chinese state-run media on Saturday showed China Coast Guard officers unfurling the flag as part of an effort to effectively seize Sandy Cay reef, which Beijing calls Tiexian Jiao, earlier this month. The reef, located in the flash point Spratly Island chain, is also claimed by Taiwan, Vietnam and the Philippines. Sandy Cay also sits just over 3 kilometers from Thitu...

Hamas has built “a labyrinth of tunnels under Gaza, as wide as a city,” CNN reported on October 14. The tunnels were used to facilitate the Hamas pogrom, and the 150 Israelis whom Hamas kidnapped probably are being held there. So how did Hamas acquire the cement, despite Israel’s blockade of such materials? Apparently Hamas had some help from former U.S. Mideast envoy Dennis Ross—according to Ross himself. Ross has been appearing as an expert commentator on major media outlets in recent days, including on NBC-TV’s “Meet the Press” on October 8, CNN’s “Amanpour and Company” on October 13, and...

Russian Security Council Deputy Chairman Dmitry Medvedev has not ruled out the emergence of new regions in Russia. "Actually, this experience (of Donbass and Novorossiya’s integration - TASS) may be useful in the future as well, if new but very close-by regions appear in our country soon. This is quite possible," he said at the 22nd United Russia party congress.

The official website of the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia had announced that it will be putting forward a motion in the Russian State Duma to relieve Ilya Ponomarev of his duties as an MP. Ponomarev became the only lawmaker out of 446 who voted against ratification of the treaty annexing Crimea. "On April 7th, the faction will introduce a motion before the State Duma to recognize that Ilya Ponomarev had lost the authority of a deputy, because he opposed the interests of the state, blindly obeying the Nazis who want to split the country " – was said in...

A Russian propagandist has called for the reinstatement of the Russian Empire, saying that's the country's ultimate goal. As Russia continues its military offensive against Ukraine, Russian propagandist Sergey Mardan alluded to a misconception that Russia wishes to restore the USSR, which collapsed in 1991, and instead suggested the country could rewind the clock back beyond the days of the Russian Empire. His comments come as President Vladimir Putin announced a new Russian holiday, the "Day of Unification," on September 30, to mark the illegal annexation of the Dontesk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions of Ukraine. Putin declared them to...

Russian President Vladimir Putin promised Friday to “immediately” order a cease-fire in Ukraine and begin negotiations if Kyiv started withdrawing troops from the four regions annexed by Moscow in 2022 and renounced plans to join NATO. Ukraine responded by calling Putin’s proposal “manipulative” and “absurd.”Putin’s remarks came as Switzerland prepared to host scores of world leaders -- but not from Moscow -- this weekend to try to map out first steps toward peace in Ukraine.They also coincided with a meeting of leaders of the Group of Seven leading industrialized nations in Italy and after the U.S. and Ukraine this week...

Putin is reportedly on the brink of a new land grab to defy the West by possibly announcing soon that Russia is taking control of a breakaway Moldovan region. There is speculation that unofficial state Transnistria is poised to make an appeal to Putin to join Russia. The landlocked strip along the Dniester River is wedged between Moldova and Ukraine. Putin already has a 'peacekeeping' force of up to 2,000 troops in the territory which Russia says overwhelmingly wishes to be incorporated by Moscow. There are also likely thousands of Russian paramilitaries on the ground. A fear is Putin will...

Russian President Vladimir Putin will visit Belarus on Monday for talks with his counterpart and ally Alexander Lukashenko, the Belarus leader’s office said. The Belarus presidency said Friday the pair will hold discussions at the Independence Palace, Lukashenko’s office, in Minsk during Putin’s “working visit”. -snip- Minsk said the pair will hold one-on-one talks as well as wider negotiations with their ministers on “Belarusian-Russian integration”.

Don't the Czechs want an aircraft carrier? Politicians and embassies also picked up on the joke about the annexation of Královec The joke about joining Kaliningrad, or Královec, to the Czech Republic continues to be picked up by top politicians and embassies. The American Embassy in Prague offers the Czech Republic an aircraft carrier, Deputy Minister of Finance Jiří Valenta jokingly plans that it will be necessary to increase the GDP of the annexed region after taking over Královec. Senator Miroslava Němcová proposes a letter in which the Czechia would inform the Russians about the accession of Kaliningrad to the...

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky called Russia’s annexation of four Ukrainian regions a “farce” on Sunday. “Recently, someone somewhere held pseudo-referendums, and when the Ukrainian flag is returned, no one remembers the Russian farce with some pieces of paper and some annexations,” Zelensky said in his nightly address. “Except, of course, law enforcement agencies of Ukraine,” he continued. “Because everyone who is involved in any elements of aggression against our state will be accountable for it.” Russia on Friday annexed four regions in Ukraine’s east and south, a major escalation in the seven-month war after Russian President Vladimir Putin called up...

Let's see Dementia Joe ever get such an exuberant crowd.