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This is a very strange and unconvincing article. Greenland is massive; and, while it's very hard to give 'worth' to part of a country (and potentially misguided

This is a very strange and unconvincing article. Greenland is massive; and, while it's very hard to give 'worth' to part of a country (and potentially misguided to attempt to do so in most cases), $2bn is pocket change for a wealthy country, and the potential upsides of owning such a vast tract of land are much bigger over time. If I was offered $2b or such a large swathe of land, I know which I would take. (The argument becomes crass anyway when you consider that real people live there.)

exelius 9y ago
Sure real people live there, and selling it to the US wouldn’t change that. Real people live in many US territories. Life for a resident probably wouldn't change all that much under US rule. It’s a huge amount of land, but most of it is covered in kilometer-thick glaciers. It’s not really all that usable; plus its strategic location in the North Atlantic shipping lanes makes it a liability in the event of war. Even if the US and Denmark have a falling out, an aggressive American military would likely make Greenland its first target. In any case, the US gets what it wants for free; the Danes seem happy with the current arrangement, so it’s water under the bridge. This is a pretty convincing pragmatic argument, but pragmatism goes out the window when national pride is involved.
dghughes 9y ago
> Greenland is massive It's not as big as you think. Greenland's land area is 2.1 million sq. km about the size of Saudi Arabia. But looking at it on a map you'd think Greenland was nearly the size of Canada (~10 million sq. km).
- rimliu 9y ago
  Still about 50x of the size of the Denmark.
erk__ 9y ago
It does also not take into concidaration that denmark was at "war" with norway because of greenland few years earlier.[0] [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erik_the_Red%27s_Land https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erik_the_Red%27s_Land

exelius 9y ago

Sure real people live there, and selling it to the US wouldn’t change that. Real people live in many US territories. Life for a resident probably wouldn't change all that much under US rule. It’s a huge amount of land, but most of it is covered in kilometer-thick glaciers. It’s not really all that usable; plus its strategic location in the North Atlantic shipping lanes makes it a liability in the event of war. Even if the US and Denmark have a falling out, an aggressive American military would likely make Greenland its first target. In any case, the US gets what it wants for free; the Danes seem happy with the current arrangement, so it’s water under the bridge. This is a pretty convincing pragmatic argument, but pragmatism goes out the window when national pride is involved.

dghughes 9y ago

> Greenland is massive It's not as big as you think. Greenland's land area is 2.1 million sq. km about the size of Saudi Arabia. But looking at it on a map you'd think Greenland was nearly the size of Canada (~10 million sq. km).

rimliu 9y ago
Still about 50x of the size of the Denmark.

erk__ 9y ago

It does also not take into concidaration that denmark was at "war" with norway because of greenland few years earlier.[0] [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erik_the_Red%27s_Land https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erik_the_Red%27s_Land