Donald Trump's Pax Americana
And the hypocrisy of Great Power politics
Whether or not Mr Trump advised his voters that he plans to be a Caesar, he’s acting like one anyway. And his undiplomatic style tramples on relations with allies.
It wasn’t advertised before the election, nor in the dreaded Project 2025. And anyway, wasn’t Donald Trump supposed to be an isolationist who doesn’t start international conflict? But, even before assuming office, he’s declared imperial ambitions over Canada, Greenland and the Panama Canal. What’s going on?
Take a satellite’s view, and it’s not hard to see.
Alaska was purchased by the US from Russia in 1867 for two cents per acre. Then gold was discovered there, so it turned out to be a deal that paid off. The population of Alaska is now about 741,000.
Why stop there though? In 1868, the US negotiated with Denmark to purchase Greenland, but that deal didn’t close. American presence in Greenland, however, reached a high during WW2. The Americans still maintain a military base in the north-west of Greenland – which, back in the Cold War, was used for reconnaissance missions over the far north of the Soviet Union. You can be sure it’s still a spy base.
Now Trump has said he won’t rule out either economic or military coercion to take control of Greenland. That sets him in opposition to America’s own NATO ally, Denmark.
Greenland is an autonomous territory of the Kingdom of Denmark with a population of 57,000. It has its own parliament. A survey conducted in 2018 found that two thirds of Greenlanders were looking forward to independence from Denmark at some time in the future. This is especially understandable for indigenous Inuit peoples. But Greenland is mostly thick ice-shelf and has the population of a small city. Its people may not have been thinking that “independence” could mean falling into Mr Trump’s clutches, but Denmark can’t defend their island from the likes of Russia, and they certainly can’t defend themselves. Independence and isolation leave them vulnerable.
Could something similar happen to defenceless New Zealand when Great Powers start taking a greater interest in Antarctica?
The population of Canada is 40 million, just a tad more than the State of California. Ninety percent of Canadians live within 150 miles of the US border. Would the threat of trade tariffs be enough to make Canadians buckle and join the US as its 51st state? I doubt it. But can they fend off the US in the long run if the pressure persists?
Canada can’t defend those vast territories and islands above the Arctic Circle without the Americans’ support and (above all) military budget. As the ice melts and the seas become more navigable – especially for Russian, if not Chinese, vessels – it’s a new ball-game.
There’s a virtually unpopulated and poorly defended hinterland – and an ocean – in the far north. Someone who’s well aware of climate change must have advised Trump that something should be done to secure the area – without delay.
As for Panama: maritime trading routes between East-Coast US and Asia and those between West-Coast America and Europe/Africa go via the Panama Canal – or they have to go all the way around Cape Horn. It’s getting increasingly costly and difficult to keep the Canal functioning efficiently.
Let’s look now at that vast continental zone between Moscow and Beijing.
We’re looking down on the Eurasian Steppe – cauldron of world history. Ukraine, on the left of this image, is desirable for its arable lands, minerals and access to the Black Sea, and hence to the Mediterranean and North Atlantic, and not just as a battleground for the Kremlin to keep NATO at bay. Russia’s big strategic choke-point has always been secure sea lanes that are neither ice-bound nor controlled by hostile neighbours. Their imperial wet dream has long been to retake Constantinople for Christendom and to control the Bosphorus and Dardanelles Straits.
President Putin must have an eye on Greenland as well though. If you look down at the Arctic Circle, almost one half of it is spanned by Russia alone. According to Putin’s spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, “the Arctic is a zone of our national interests, our strategic interests”.
China too is increasingly interested in the Arctic Sea, but their next acquisition is Taiwan. The PLA has been stepping up its military harassment of the island.
We are witnessing Great Power politics at its ugliest.
Channeling Machiavelli, one asks, “Could a Trumpian ‘deal’ be struck with the world’s leading autocrats?” Russia gets to keep a chunk of Ukraine, especially Crimea with its naval base and the land-bridge that connects it to Russia; China gets Taiwan and control of the South China Sea; America gets Greenland and the Panama Canal. Maybe Cuba comes next. Canada may not need to be incorporated formally: it’s already an American vassal, subjected by economic arm-twisting.
Meanwhile, the UK is a shadow of its former self, and the EU jumps up and down and says, “They’re breaking the rules! (Remember those rules we set down at Westphalia back in 1648?)”
And yes that hypothetical three-way deal among the bad guys would not obey those rules that were subsequently elaborated, with the help of US Presidents Woodrow Wilson (League of Nations, national self-determination) and Harry Truman (UN assembly, international law), to deal with the aftermath of two wars in Europe, principally involving Germany, France, Britain and Russia.
The Americans only played by those rules when it suited them anyway. Remember Iraq? Hypocrisy always underpins Great Power politics: “Do as a I say, not as I do”.
Trump’s bombast is undiplomatic, but it reveals a kind of “truth” about the world.
Note for readers: I’ll probably be posting less frequently for the time being as I concentrate on a proposal for a new book. Thanks for your support.
I don't think the average person realises just how heavily interested and involved the US has been in Greenland since World War II, and in a perverse way we should probably be grateful to Donald Trump for suddenly drawing our attention to that long-overlooked part of the world. US strategic investment in Greenland in the Cold War period and afterwards has been quite extraordinary - not many people would know, for instance, that the logistics that went into constructing the US military base in northern Greenland have been compared to those used to build the Panama Canal.
You're quite right, by the way, to wonder about the day when the great powers start to take a greater interest in the Antarctic - and about New Zealand's geographical proximity to that future focus of great power interest.
Another pragmatic, unemotional post thanks Grant. Well worth reading. The USA are the least of our dangers: both China and Russia are belligerent. China more subtle/subversive; Russia bludgeoning.