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| Geographic Guide - Greenland |
"We do not think that military force is ever going to be necessary," Vance said, perhaps attempting to sound reassuring.
But the vice-president's overarching message remained stark and intimidating: the world, the climate, and the Arctic region are changing fast, and Greenland needs to wake up to threats posed by an expansionist China; long-standing Western security partnerships have run their course; the only way the island can protect itself, its values and its mineral wealth is by abandoning weak and miserly Danish overlords and turning instead to the muscular and protective embrace of the US.
"We need to wake up from a failed, 40-year consensus that said that we could ignore the encroachment of powerful countries as they expand their ambitions," Vance told US troops at America's Pituffik military base.
"We can't just bury our head in the sand - or, in Greenland, bury our head in the snow - and pretend that the Chinese are not interested in this very large landmass."
If you look at a map of the world that has the north pole at its centre, rather than the equator, it is easy to see how Greenland suddenly switches from being an easily overlooked smudge of uninhabited territory and into a key strategic landmass. It is at the heart of what many analysts now accept as an emerging power struggle between China, the US, and Russia, for control of the arctic, its minerals and its shipping lanes.
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| South China Morning Post |
But the speed and contempt with which the Trump White House has rejected its traditional reliance on Western allies – Nato in particular – has left its partners bewildered.
"Not justifiable," was the bristling response of Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen after hearing Vance attack her government as he stood on its sovereign territory.
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