Why Didn’t Denmark Sell Greenland? | Hacker News Reader

Why Didn’t Denmark Sell Greenland?

gwern.net

115 pointszw123456159 comments

I think the answer isn't that Denmark is hanging on to its colonialism, but rather that we've gotten over it more so than most other countries, and feel remorse. I think we feel an obligation to the native Inuit people - we smashed their culture and introduced them to alcohol, which - much like many other indigenous people around the world - they haven't evolved the same tolerance toward as Europeans have, making them much more prone to alcoholism, which is still rampant to this day. Like other old colonial powers we owe a debt to the our colonies for the harm we've caused them, but unlike most we insist on actually paying that debt, because it's the right thing to do. (And don't tell me that's immoral like the article says in item 10 - we support plenty of NGOs in Africa, but Greenland was our colony, so that's the first debt we pay). And I think we know that to the Americans, the Inuit people would have been treated like nothing but a balance sheet like this article does (to me it looks like shareholder primacy raised to the national level, and I find it frankly pretty disgusting - that's no way to think about your fellow citizens). We've already seen how the Americans have treated their native population, and I think we can be pretty damn confident that they're better off with us (what would the Americans have done; let the Inuit build tax exempt casinos? I'm sure that would have worked wonders against the alcoholism...)

Denmark doesn't own Greenland so is not in a position to sell it. Denmark is together with Greenland (and the Faroe Islands) in a union, kind of like England and Scotland is in a union.

The union is sometimes called the Kingdom of Denmark and have a shared royal crown, and obviously Denmark is the dominant part having 100 times the population of Greenland. But in theory they are equal parties.

At the time the offer was made though, Greenlandic home rule was not established yet, so it was basically a province or colony of Denmark.

Native population were forcibly displaced (by Danish authorities) to make space for the American Thule Air Base, so I'm not sure the Danish at the time were morally superior in their treatment of the native population compared to the US. In the post-war the strategy was basically to treat Greenland as a Danish province and turn the Inuit into Danes - one of the approaches was to forcibly take Inuit children from their parents and let them grow up in Denmark. In the 1970'ies the strategy was changed to give Greenland partial independence.

How about the removal of Inuit children from their families and sending them to Denmark for re-education? [1]

This occurred during the same post War years(1951) as this proposed sale(1946.)

And it was the Danish government that removed people from their homes in Thule in order to make room for those American anti-aircraft defenses.

I think your suggestion of some superior Danish stewardship at that time is greatly misplaced.

https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-33060450

It would have been a violation of human rights to cede Greenland to the United States.

Having lived in Denmark for 20 years, I find this in many ways reprehensible. Cooking down the complex geopolitical problem of whether to sell a large piece of territory (with people!) to exclusively monetary concerns.

This is as culturally daft as asking "why is Ireland such a problem for Brexit? Just build a wall!"

As a Dane, I agree. Why don’t the US sell the Rust Belt to China? If people had any idea how much of the danish kingdom is already lost over the centuries, one would understand why the country will cling to the last remnants for no other reason that maintaining national cohesion.

While I see your point but as a person living in Denmark I can't help but consider the

> national cohesion

to Greenland and Faroe Islands for that matter to be minimal. It doesn't feel like "proper" Denmark with shipping more expensive, not being part of EU/Schengen, their own respective Kroner-like currencies. I know some Faroese coming to Denmark to study but that's about it. It is not comparable to the rust belt which is more comparable to eastern Germany, more to the Dutch Carribbean which similarly has probably minimal national cohesion with the Netherlands.

In a way it is like with Iceland. That ship has sailed and over time both Faroe Islands and Greenland will break away too, to hardly any change for people living in Denmark. I think Denmark will wish them well for their future endeavors and that chapter of colonialism will finally be closed.

As a Dane with Faeroese and Greenlandic friends, I consider them all as brother peoples, just like Swedes and Norwegians. Different in some ways, but connected by a common thread.

Denmark did sell the Virgin Islands though, including the population.

National territory has a psychological and strategic value that cannot be bought and sold. Countries have gone to war over infinitesimally tiny pieces of land (Gaza, Falklands, Northern Ireland)... we do not need to look to a crystal ball to see why Denmark holds onto a gigantic landmass like Greenland.

Landmass is sometimes valued much lower than we might expect. In the eighteen century, France perceived Guadeloupe (an island in the carribean) as more valuable than Canada [1] and chose to keep the former over the later. Voltaire is often quoted to have dismissed Canada as "Quelques arpents de neige" (a few acres of snow).

Granted, France lost a war and had limited saying in what to keep, but the difference in perceived value is interesting.

[1] https://utpjournals.press/doi/10.3138/chr.91.4.637

I'd honestly agree with that assessment given the situation at the time. Canada is more valuable than Guadeloupe in a vacuum, sure, but in the context of geographic and naval concerns Guadeloupe was likely more of a net positive to France. The primary output of sugar was much more economically important, and the relative size just adds defense costs for Canada. Also, while the main port in Guadeloupe is relatively unsheltered and poor, it is well-situated strategically in the Carribean against their main rivals (English and Dutch).

Very very interesting link. Thank you so much for bringing it to my attention.

Denmark did sell the Virgin islands to the US in 1917, so it's not unheard of.

I think that back in the day, Denmark was keen to have a US base on Danish soil, hehe :) (Also selling land and citizens probably became tabu, as is today)

I would suspect that later it became the reminder of former glory...

But in future, we'll likely have to give it up, if it ever becomes profitable on it's own.

(Unless, Greenland somehow becomes profitable by using it's ties to Denmark, for trade, etc..)

Agreed. Greenland is 836,300 mi², while Denmark is 16,577 mi². Imagine the effects of climate change in 200+ years - Greenland could be VERY valuable and important then.

The issue is that if Greenland was valuable, Denmark wouldn't be able to hold it.

Denmark itself is a pretty valuable strategic asset. What with controlling the seaways into the Baltic. If Greenland is valuable, then Denmark would likely be guaranteed to own it. In the same way, that Denmark has remained independent.

During the Second Schleswig War in 1864, the King of Denmark offered Otto von Bismarck thrice that Denmark - instead of relinquishing Schleswig - would join the German Confederation - which Bismarck would later turn into the German Empire.

All three times, Bismarck rejected the offer for two primary reasons: 1) He did not believe Danes would join a pan-German state and 2) (more importantly) the other great powers would have a big problem with Denmark being German.

In the same fashion, the fight over Greenland would lead to the compromise solution that Greenland remain none of the great/super powers. The US would never accept it falling into Russian hands, but they could accept Denmark keeping it.

Some country would invade it? That seems unlikely these days…

Nobody stopped Russia from invading Crimea... I doubt anyone is going to stop them from invading Greenland.

Denmark is part of NATO. Very different scenario. Invading Greenland would be declaring war with 29 countries.

That works against non-NATO countries. If the US decided to turn its military basing agreements into ownership, there's not much anyone could really do to stop them. (If I had to do it, I'd follow the general pattern of greatly expanding those bases and the surrounding communities and eventually holding a referendum on whether the island should remain Danish or join the US - a referendum in which all the island's residents could vote, including US military)

Why would the US do this? They are the incumbents and there's no advantage (and possibly only disadvantage) to owning this territory.

My personal view is that the current geographical extent of the United States is static; there is no political will to change this - and why would you, when you can get all the benefits without the problems?

> there's not much anyone could really do to stop them

I would suggest that significant % of the remaining 28 members of NATO (including the nuclear armed Belgium, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, and Turkey) would come up with a few ideas.

I don’t think any of those countries have their own nuclear weapons, unless you’re referring to US weapons controlled by US troops in those countries.

The UK and France are both NATO members and have their own nuclear stockpiles.

How about American citizens consider removing their heinously destabilising military bases from other sovereign states, and instead using those resources to make the lives of their own citizens better?

The world is tired of the USA bully thug politics involved in its placement of military bases around the world, and the arrogance of those who support these imperialist actions is very telling. These bases are not making the world more stable - they are, however, making the 1% of America's lifted military-industrial-pharmaceutical classes more wealthy.

America is the worst. Except for all the world powers that came before. Be careful what you wish for.

Things can get a lot, lot better than what America has to offer the world. Don't lose hope.

In what way. The way I see it if America pulls back, the alternative is either China picking up the mantle of a superpower and enforcing its world view ... or anarchy where local despots enforce a regional order as they see fit. Did you ever wonder why there was/is a proliferation of democracies and the lack of regional wars between local despots?

I'm genuinely curious what you imagine would replace the present American world order.

>I'm genuinely curious what you imagine would replace the present American world order.

The present American world order requires: a) utter ignorance of its war crimes by its people, b) endless debt to pay for war and war machines, c) invalidation of sovereignty of foreign nations according to American political expediency, d) the pretence of a society governed by systems of democracy while factually being run by a cabal of oligarchs, e) more spent on war per week than on health care for its citizens per year, f) the continued degradation of cultures deemed inferior by the ruling cabal.

I'd be happier if the major world power was actually democratic and used its powers to increase peoples health and well-being rather than the wholesale destruction of, and mass interference with, states not towing the American line ..

You're very good at pointing all the things that you hate about America and you're very good at wishing for an Utopia. Guess what! So is everyone else. Every human is a little arm-chair general about everything. What's hard is building something in a complex, gray world.

So I ask again, what do you think will ACTUALLY happen if America collapses or pulls back to only concern itself with what happens within its border?

Exactly. The counter factual to the world order that prevails now is not utopia. It is hegemony by some other superpower. The current candidate is China, a country ruled by a government that doesn’t even pretend to care about liberal values.

Please let me know when China has demolished a sovereign state, at the same order of magnitude as America has in the last 20 years.

China isn't great, and has its low scores in many ways, but America is far, far worse in terms of its sheer destruction of sovereign states.

Just because the iron fist is wrapped in a velvet glove doesn't make it any better for those being smashed in the face by it, and there is a huge, huge pile of dead bodies behind the American smashing...

A counterfactual is something that has not happened, but could reasonably. The question is not what China has done, since China has not been a world superpower, but how they are likely to behave once they are a superpower. When you argue against the U.S., you have to compare it against what is likely to happen, not what you would like to happen. I think Russia, the last superpower, is probably a good example of how China will behave. And there the comparison makes the U.S. look somewhere between ambiguous to relatively benevolent, depending on how you weigh various wars and geopolitical maneuverings.

My point is that the common thread throughout history is that world super powers have been incredibly brutal. The sun never sets on the British empire, as they say. For all of its faults, and there are many, America has been a relatively benign superpower.

>My point is that the common thread throughout history is that world super powers have been incredibly brutal.

Huh??? That's the opposite of what happened. Ages with empires are characterized by peace, trade, and cultural and scientific development. War was the default state in the interim time between empires.

And yes, the American empire (if you want to call it that), has been the most prosperous and benign in history.

How many innocent people has America murdered in illegal wars since 2003?

Illegal? To have something be illegal, means there are a set of laws and a body to enforce them. There is no supernational government. There is the UN, a loose confederation of nations to provide a platform to discuss and solve issues on a volunteer basis. This is why it tolerates the existence of authoritarian and autocratic governments as members and why powerful nations even bother with it at all.

Maybe you wish there was a democratic global government, but that isn't the world we exist it and it will not be a world we live in any time soon.

Game of Thrones has a nice metaphor of "summer born", people like you and me who have been born in a time of peace and prosperity - an outlier period in human history - but who think this is the default state of the world.

One more point ... Do you disagree that the American 'Empire' has been the most prosperous and peaceful in human history? If so, which one was better?

American wars are illegal even by American law standards.

There is no declaration of war that makes what America is doing in Niger legal, by American legal standards. There certainly isn't any legal cover for America's illegal occupation of Syria. Not to mention, support for genocide in Yemen is absolutely illegal.

Its just that the people remain ignorant of this fact - and its politicians - choose not to enforce those laws for their own purposes (war profit, intolerance, hatred, etc.)

> Huh??? That's the opposite of what happened. Ages with empires are characterized by peace, trade, and cultural and scientific development. War was the default state in the interim time between empires.

I know. But peacetime can be brutal. As a superpower, America has not taken slaves, nor engaged in genocide, nor established colonies. In those ways it’s hegemony has been much less brutal than all the world superpowers who came before.

Why would it be unlikely? And invasion is too strong a word. Nations could simply ignore Denmark, the way they ignore Canada's claims to the Northwest Passage. Like Canada, Denmark is too weak and inconsequential to do anything about it.

Denmark is a member of Nato, so the question is if Nato would be able to hold it.

Canada is a member of NATO and yet it cannot assert its sovereignty over the Northwest Passage.

Because it is water, not land. The Nato partners consider it international water and does not accept Canadas claims. I don't think Nato would go to war to prevent anybody sailing past Greenland in international waters either.

> The Nato partners consider it international water and does not accept Canadas claims

Or to out it another way, NATO partners don't respect Canada's sovereignty claims because the Northwest Passage is too valuable and Canada can't enforce its claim. Contrast that to Taiwan, a nation that should be independent, (and is not 'international waters') but no major country is willing to recognize it as such.

Greenland would be the same way.

And by the way, Alaska and Louisiana purchases were executed because Russia and France respectively knew they were never going to be able to hold those territories and ceded it for cash.

> Greenland would be the same way.

No, because Greenland is part of NATO and none of the member states disputes that.

We're going in circles now.

It is straightforward though: NATO is an organization for collective defense. The set of territories covered is well-defined, but does not include all territories claimed by each individual member states. For example Hawaii is not included, nor is the Falkland Islands, which is why NATO was not invoked in the Falklands War. But Greenland is included.

A response to an attack is decided on by the NATO council, not by the individual member states. So unless NATO is dissolved (which could of course happen one day but which is certainly not in the cards currently), Greenland is defended by the NATO alliance.

Taiwan is of course not a member of NATO so that example is irrelevant.

Why sell it?

agreed. A long term lease would be acceptable to both sides, but at this point there's no such offer as US already has a presence there, much cheaper.

> Greenland is believed by some geologists to have some of the world’s largest remaining oil resources. [1]

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petroleum_exploration_in_the...

Good thing Denmark owns it then. Less likely to exploit it

Denmark does not own Greenland though, haven't for half a century.

Perhaps, but we are already drilling oil out of the north sea.

The Greenlandics decide not the Danish.

Buying and selling of large territories between countries has been very common throughout history, so a blanket statement like this doesn't hold much weight. Much of the United States was bought rather than conquered, and China is doing the same today.

China is doing the same today? How so?

While there aren't any borders officially being redrawn, China is rapidly buying exclusive rights to territorial waters, ports and agricultural land from countries across SE Asia, Hong Kong, Sri Lanka, Australia, Africa, Argentina and more, where they operate semi-autonomously.

Yeah. As much as I respect gwern, I think here they’re underestimating the importance of the human aspects like national pride.

Yes, if the people identify as Danish you can’t just change the flag and expect them to be Americans. When I went to the Falklands it was very clear that it didn’t matter how badly Argentina wanted the islands. Even if Argentina managed to conquer the islands militarily the islanders had decided they were British and that was that.

Especially following WWII, in which Denmark offered no resistance.

Maybe that statement is a bit ambiguous and probably by a lot of views incorrect:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danish_resistance_movement

Okay, fair point, we can then say little resistance.

My point was that few Danes we're proud of this, and had something to prove. Thus, selling Greenland was off the table.

Why should Danes have resisted in WW2?

Because they were occupied by Nazi Germany?

Was that bad for Danes?

Typically it is expected that sovereign states resist attempts at undermining their sovereignty.

Expected by who? The original comment I replied to said that Danes offered no resistance to Nazi occupation, as if that were to be expected without stating why.

some of them, very bad.

Maybe you're mixing that up with Poland? Nazi rule in Denmark was popular and internment camps there we're similar to US ones of Japanese, Italians and Germans, and similarly in the US there was no resistance either.

I think, in hindsight, it will turn out to have been an exceptionally good call to retain Greenland.

They have an interesting setup - there is no land ownership other than by the state, and you can only get permission to build by winning a lottery. There are minor exceptions for building small hunting cabins in the fjords, but this is negligible. The reason is to prevent private ownership from hindering possible opportunities for the state in the future.

So, why a good call?

Climate change.

1) Greenland has vast reserves of fresh water. This resource will become increasingly valuable as clean fresh water grows scarcer globally.

2) agriculture and habitation. If Greenland continues to melt, in centuries to come there will be vast planes of glacial till - good, fertile land. As the climate warms, the arctic waste will potentially become far more hospitable than (dis)temperate latitudes.

3) strategic dominance. The Arctic is going to be exceedingly important as ice clears for both transportation and resource extraction. Greenland has vast untapped mineral reserves, never mind the territorial waters.

> Greenland has vast untapped mineral reserves

So does Northwest Canada, which is much nearer to well-maintained infrastructure for actually moving those resources to places that want them. Siberia is chock-full of places where the mining industries shut down not because they ran out of things to mine but because it was no longer feasible to do so once the subsidies stopped.

Greenland may have mineral resources, but they are nowhere near the top of untapped resources when sorted by economic exploitation abilities.

So far Greenland is a relatively poor and miserable place, with a population of only 56,674.

Comparatively, Alaska offers a much better role model for arctic governance.

Alaska is much warmer. Only a few sheltered coastal bays on Greenland can sustain any trees at all. Meanwhile, Sitka and Ketchikan often enjoy snowless winters. This is due, I believe, to the Aleutian ridge blocking the transport of cold water from the Arctic (contrast with the Labrador current).

Don't you think using two points along the narrow strip of land at the southwestern tip of Alaska as indicative of the overall Alaskan climate is just a wee bit dishonest?

They are apparently the 4th and 5th largest cities in the state, so not a terrible example [1].

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cities_in_Alaska

They're also unreachable by road from the Alaska "mainland".

Anyway, however you think about the state, those cities are clearly not part of the Arctic.

Indeed. Also consider that vikings managed to colonise Iceland but not Greenland.

But they did colonise Greenland. They were there for 500 years.

And Greenland is still Danish, so the decendants of the vikings did manage to hold on to it, even after their settlements died out, they came back.

Well, they had a struggling little outpost. Greenland is vast.

Edit: i'm wrong, they did spread out some.

> miserable place

How are you assessing that?

I lived there for 5 years.

One interesting thing about Greenland is that climate change is making it increasingly rich in a resource that’s rapidly getting scarce elsewhere on the planet: sand. To be precise, the sort of sand that’s useful for making concrete and asphalt.

quality sand is incredibly abundant and cheap everywhere I lived. It wouldn't be economically feasible to export sand from Greenland.

Maybe everywhere you have lived. Meanwhile, they're already exporting sand from Australia to places like Saudi Arabia.

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/07/01/climate/green...

Fresh water literally falls from the sky unless you live in a desert. I question the value of exporting water from Greenland.

large, and very populated, parts of the world rely on slow ice-melt from winter snows on mountains (California, India). Global warming may mean that that slow-ice-melt won't be so slow any more, and that can mean possibly flooding followed by drought.

It even falls in the desert some times, there’s just not features to retain it.

1. It’s cheaper to desalinate sea water than transport it in ships.

2. You don’t need land for agriculture. Plenty of crops can grow in water.

3. Greenland has lots of gold. That’s about it.

How much of that water is glacial though and will be gone when Greenland melts?

Forget the melting - how do you even make any use of glacial fresh water? You're not going to start growing wheat in Greenland, that's for sure, so you're not getting much use out of it on the spot. Move it elsewhere? No one's ever accomplished the 'tow an iceberg to sell it' thing before (and icebergs are much more convenient than glaciers), and if they do, it'll be a relatively tiny industry since it has to compete with stuff like reverse osmosis.

> You're not going to start growing wheat in Greenland

Why not? People grow wheat right now at the same longitude in Finland, all you need is for it to get a bit warmer.

soil, or the lack thereof.

Without checking who wrote the article I can see they're from the US because of the tendency to view everything just as profit/loss.

Newsflash: there are things money can't buy. Even the credit card companies said so :)

That's a big bit of stereotyping you just did there. Newsflash: not all people in the US are the same.

Yeah, the whole argument was pretty callous and based on a colonial view of territories. In modern times, once a population is ethnically characterised, selling their land is basically unethical.

The author compares Greenland to Puerto Rico, seeming to make the assumption that if somebody made a good offer, America would happily sell Puerto Rico. Can any other Americans speak to the truth of this? It seems absurd to me that a country would happily sell off a territory and make a whole bunch of citizens non-citizens just for the financial benefit. Are Puerto Ricans not Americans? Do americans really view Puerto Rico as a budget line item that could be cut if necessary?

> Are Puerto Ricans not Americans?

Well... sort of? The short answer is yes, of course they are. But I don't think they quite view themselves as the same as other US citizens exactly. Both US and Puerto Rican courts have repeatedly recognized Puerto Rican citizenship as distinct from US Citizenship, as does the EU. Spain, for an example, allows Puerto Rican citizens to become Spanish citizens after living in Spain only two years (as opposed to ten years for other US citizens). The CIA World Fact Book defines the people of Puerto Rico as "Puerto Rican (US Citizenship)", as opposed to the entry for the US which defines the people as "American".

Considering that statehood movements in Puerto Rico have historically been dismal, I suspect they like to be straddling the line of being "American".

I'm not sure who would find financial or other benefit from acquiring Puerto Rico from the US, and independence votes there have been even more unpopular than statehood votes. So I don't think they'll be separating from the US any time soon. But after much rhetoric from Trump and other Republican politicians, I'm sure there are plenty of right wing folks that would delight in seeing them go.

A lot of Americans would offer money for someone to take Puerto Rico off out hands.

On a tangential note, moving to Puerto Rico is one of the better ways for a US citizen who doesn't want to renounce to lawfully avoid federal capital gains taxes. Domiciling on a tropical island for a year to avoid 15% can be pretty attractive even for relatively modest equity gains.

Edit: Puerto Rico Act 22[1] is the law in question.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Act_22_of_2012

How so? What law?

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/26/upshot/nearly-half-of-ame...

Speaking for myself (as an American), I’d find this problematic without a referendum of support from Puerto Rico.

Self-determination is important, and selling land with an entire culture and population based solely on a balance sheet seems shameful. That said, if the deal were mutually beneficial for Puerto Rico and the US (“We’ll invest heavily enough in PR to make them interested in approving the deal in a public referendum”) that would be fine.

Well, I don't.

Puerto Ricans seem split of statehood, but full independence seems far less popular, at least based on the 2012 referendum.

I'd like them to become a US state. I feel similarly about all territories under US control. I feel it would be ultimately better for them than independence, and better for US moral character.

I think you grossly over-estimate how much most Americans care either way.

If they want out I'm sure they could have out.

> Are Puerto Ricans not Americans?

They really aren't treated as such, particularly of late. I doubt many would be against it, though this is 100% an outside perspective and I agree with others that it should be self determination via vote if it was ever to occur.

After we sell Puerto Rico Illinois will be next.

Pretty sure that China would make an offer for Puerto Rico if they thought they could get it.

Denmark's people and (especially) leaders value what Greenland represents in terms of geopolitics. Greenland is a seat at the table for the Danes. Without it, they'd be like Luxembourg. With it, they're like Norway. This isn't mysterious.

Indeed. Fretting over the possibility that Greenland is easily taken is forgetting that it still must be taken. Denmark is stitched in to various alliances and treaties, and anyone who would take what Denmark has must withstand the ire of its partners. After all, what is power, but a lot of memories of agreeable conversations and the meaning we attach to ink stains on paper?

A thread from 2017: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16032401

2015: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10037132

> Greenland is a poor country. Perhaps Denmark simply wants to help out the many Inuit & Danes & descendants of both. This is ethically reprehensible. Greenland is poor, but compared to many African countries it is fabulously wealthy regardless of whether you take the $20k per capita at face value or discount subsidies etc to get a smaller number like $10k per capita

I strongly disagree with this line of reasoning. One's ability to have impact through altruism is closely linked to one's knowledge of where they're intervening. Denmark could easily have more impact in helping Greenland because they know more about what things need to be done in Greenland and can more easily get feedback on whether they've improved things. If you send money to a country that you have no connection to, how do you know that the money is being used effectively? How do you know that you're solving the right problem? How do you make improvements to your spending unless you're getting continual feedback?

There are limits to this of course and I think it can be okay to donate to international charity, but I think the impact of a well-targeted and knowledgable charity is much more certain.

Worth reëxamining in 50 years time when it’s a little warmer I reckon

"Endowment effect"? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endowment_effect

> As an American, would I say Puerto Rico is one of the very last things that ought to ever be cut in the federal budget? Heck no! Puerto Rico has repeatedly decided it’d rather not be a state, but at least it’s still genuinely ruled by the USA; if Puerto Rico decided to switch to full home rule, I think I and the average American would care even less about them.

Yeah this part is almost entirely wrong. First, Puerto Rico has repeatedly voted to become a state most recently a few months ago (edit: June 2017). Full home rule for anyone is hardly the American way, though I’d speculate the Marshall Islanders and Samoans have fairly significant self determination a la Hong Kong. Further, America would never cede territory to anyone for fiscal reasons either because, well, nationalism. Once you start ceding territory for fiscal reasons I speculate you’re viewed principally through an emperor has no clothes lens and you’re a few steps from being what’s left of the U.K.

I come from Vietnam. People fight hard for inches of space. The country has dispute with bigger nations about tiny islands. They'd fight to the teeth. It's very irrational. I think land fight is highly related with survival instinct. The more threaten one feels, the more they'll fight for land.

Wild idea: I think we should turn Greenland into an into a new frontier nation with completely open borders for refugees and people who are up for the challenge of settling a new place. Sure, there's nothing there, but if you want to build something and there's nowhere else for you, have at it.

EDIT: Out of curiosity, I started looking at Greenland on Google Maps and found this sweet shadow of the buggy they used to street view (dirt-road view) it: https://www.google.com/maps/@67.0111595,-50.7379435,3a,75y,9...

That could be a solution for the asylum seekers in the US, too... settle them in the Alaskan wild. If you’re willing to go from Honduras to Nome that’s a clear cut sign that what you’re fleeing is a very real danger.

There’s free movement between Alaska and other states. No way to prevent them from moving to, say, New York.

Svalbard, at a similar latitude to Greenland, already has an open-borders policy [0]. It's not particularly attractive to refugees.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visa_policy_of_Svalbard

To try to articulate why this is an unfair and bad idea, it's very hard to subsist on Greenland. Probably it would involve generations-long learning from those who can already subsist there on their own.

If we're not talking self sustenance, then the settling people would be supported by the existing civilization on Greenland, and it's already small, so it can not support that many.

Kanger has the largest road network in Greenland. I once got to go on the road to the ice edge, which was a wonderful experience. The ice near the edge is so dirty you don't immediately realize you've transitioned from dirt to ice.

You know it's tough to live or grow anything there now, but I wonder what climate change will do to the summer temperatures in 10 years. Could we see summer temperatures being warm enough to support agricultural crops.

I heard that some Danes are proud of having the largest country in Europe. Selling Greenland would certainly change that.

But as I am not a Dane myself, take it with a grain of salt (and it might not be true either, depending on how you measure other countries e.g. Russia).

I’m sorry to be the classic HN “but wait” guy, but wait: technically isn’t Greenland in America?

The tectonic plate separating North America from Europe goes right through Iceland (the only place the Mid-Atlantic ridge is above water), making Iceland a “country on two continents”.

If a European country can count off-continent lands in its “biggest country” argument, don’t all overseas territories get that consideration? Are the Danes really the last large “empire” in Europe, if only by land area?

If Britain could count Commonwealth countries (they are technically all under the same sovereign), then Canada + Australia would keep GB in the top seat, I’d think.

>technically isn’t Greenland in America?

Yes it is, and to add to that, Greenland also isn't in the EU. French Guiana is France, and it is in the EU, it just happens to be in South America. Greenland/Denmark is more like Scotland/United Kingdom.

Also it would be more appropriate to ask: Should Greenland be independent? There's a whole list of problems with that, and until those issues are worked out, Denmark is Greenlands least worst option.

> French Guiana is France, and it is in the EU

Wow, I didn't know that and never noticed the small green part at the edge of the map:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Union#/media/File:Glo...

Commonwealth countries that have a monarch (which is not all of them) are under different crowns held by the same person. It's a somewhat technical distinction, but it does legally matter. She is the queen of Canada and the queen of the UK, not the queen of Canada and the UK.

Interestingly, and somewhat germane to the article, Denmark was once in a similar situation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kalmar_Union

The Commonwealth is an association of countries, some of which happen to have the same individual as head of state (not all). However for instance Canada has a Queen of Canada who happens to have lots of othe "jobs" too. I think comparing that link to the Greenland situation is not viable. I think some of the largely self-governing territories are more comparable (Channel islands, Virgin Island etc).

Geologically speaking, Iceland is a country on two plates, not continents, as the plate boundary runs right through it. Likewise Iceland is formed from oceanic crust, not continental.

However if you're talking geopolitically, not geological, then Iceland is usually included in Europe, and Greenland in north America, yep.

Click bait.

Greenland originally belonged to Norway, which entered a union with Denmark. Denmark then retained it later on. It would have been very problematic to transfer Greenland to a non-Nordic country unless the people living on Greenland strongly requested it. Which is unlikely.

This got me thinking about "things that were once okay but today are totally unpalatable." In this case, selling land occupied by citizens.

Could you imagine if there was a decision to sell part of Michigan that included Detroit to Canada?

Canada would gladly take them in but can we get all of northern Michigan?

Good for Denmark. A large arctic territory will be great to have once oil drilling becomes viable in the region. I have no idea what reserves can be found but that is the kind of thing that makes overseas territories valuable.

> holding on to Greenland is a bad idea

What do you mean "bad idea"? It's habitable land, there will not be more of it on this planet (except rather small landfills, and Denmark more than others knows the price of it).

Although the Chinese could be interested in it:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-46386867

> $100m in 1946 dollars is somewhere around $1b in 2011 dollars

Greenland is definitely worth a lot more than $1b today. So even the main argument that it doesn’t make financial sense doesn’t hold!

In today's value it's worth -16B according to this. If we're going to base things on how negative they are, then this article should assume that the United States land is worth -10K per acre (22 trillion debt with 2.3 billion acres of land). So negative values aside, the math to consider how much something is worth should never be based on the drain it has on society - otherwise why do we even have 22T of debt? So should we just call it all negative and sell it to china for 5B?

I know my math is ridiculous but so is considering selling 535M acres for $1 billion. 50 cents an acre... where I'm trying to buy land it seems it's around 50k/acre.

It's not just that your math is ridiculous (as you acknowledge), it doesn't make any sense.

Greenland has almost no economy, a mere $2.7b in GDP, and few assets. You can't use negative $22 trillion as the basis with the US while ignoring the $110 trillion in household wealth and massive corporate & government assets (stacked against $50t-$55t in total debt between household + corporate + government). That's the part that makes no sense.

The asset value of everything in the US is at least $150t in the positive after you remove all debt. That's while ignoring additional value that should be applied to the annual output of the economic activity - and considerations for future gains - within the US territory and any other fringe benefits that go with it all as a package deal (USD global reserve currency, US military, 50 top universities, etc).

Greenland has 56,000 people producing a GDP per capita of $48,000. The US has 330 million people producing a GDP per capita of ~$63,500 or so (about 119% higher than Europe's $29,000 per capita). You get the people with the territory in the US, and they're among the most productive on earth in terms of per capita output.

A better number would be $65,000+ per acre before you include consideration for annual output and other benefits. If you count everything, it'd be far over $100,000 per acre.

But if someone find diamond in the dark side of the moon, would you sell USA or just al to evil communist for money.

Would you sell your homeland?

>But if someone find diamond in the dark side of the moon, would you sell USA or just al to evil communist for money.

>Would you sell your homeland?

What does it mean for the USA to be my homeland? My family has been here for centuries but the government is working more for "new Americans" than those of us who built the country. In that sense my homeland has been given away without my consent.

Congrats on building the country! Oh wait, you didn’t, it was your ancestors. Not sure why you think you deserve something based on your lineage—that’s an unamerican idea if I’ve ever heard one.

Your idea that there is some deep conflict between immigrants and people already here is also basically wrong. Immigrants have always been a huge source of strength for America and a net benefit to those already here.

So if my ancestors building America means nothing to you then why do you say I should care if we start selling it off in part or in full? Our rulers are importing a new voter base so politicians can continue to target legacy Americans for tax extraction, businesen can suppress our wages while raising the cost of schooling and housing, without giving nearly as much back.

It does make me wonder what it would have been like if Denmark had not sold the US Virgin Islands. Although, I feel the islands might be doing better today than they are now.

As far as i understand Denmark didn't really have a choice. Either it was sold or it would have been taken.

An important detail of the sale was that in the agreement for buying the islands, it was actually written down for the first time that Greenland was part of Danish territory.

So if the virgin Islands hadn't been sold Denmark's claim to Greenland probably wouldn't have held until today.

Nobody wants to sell Alaska or the Louisiana Purchase again.

This sounds like the setup to a bad joke.

Why doesn't US sell Flint to the europeans or even the russians? Preferably in euros or rubles.

The Europeans would absolutely love to buy a piece of the USA if they could.

they can.. in fact most citizens of most countries can be foreign land holders.

But that wouldn't make it European land. The interesting part would be to buy a plot of land in the US, declare it EU soil which would be very interesting for airlines for instance due to flight rights.

You could pretend with a flag and treat yearly taxes as a bribe to protect yourself against a foreign power. I guess you would have to pick a EU country and get them on board. Easier to make your own and try to get EU membership. You would need to sign a treaty for it to be real.

It's value is going up, when those icecaps melt it will be very valuable.

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