Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Technology and Society, War Commentary

Stop Using Mercator Projection

57 Comments

Why Greenland is important.

I’m pretty sure that Copenhagen is not capable of defending it.

[Update a while later]

[Thursday-morning update]

The unfortunate Greenland kerfuffle.

[Bumped]

57 thoughts on “Stop Using Mercator Projection”

  1. One very important site in Greenland is Thule which housed some of the original BMEWS systems and now houses one of the PAVE PAWS/ UEWR phased array radars which is critical to missile launch detection as it’s field of view is pointed right at the Russian missile fields and the paths over the North pole. Fyligndales in the UK also sees some of the same field, but is far closer to Russia and more vulnerable to an early attack. Thule is needed for our defense, Denmark is likely already toast in any scenario where we need UEWR.

  2. I can’t believe this needs to be explained but:

    The problem is not that it needs to be explained, but rather that it needs to be explained by Trump not a rando on the internet. Then the explanation would be based on Trump.

    And that last bit is a ludicrous explanation from the point of view of Greenlanders. They will throw off the yoke of their Danish oppressors only to embrace the yoke of US oppressors? What’s in it for them to go through the effort?

    I think it would be better to negotiate in good faith with both Denmark and Greenland. Then everyone can get what they want.

      1. Yes. And once again in any negotiation you don’t start with the maximum amount you’re willing to offer each of the 57000 men women and children in Greenland. In other words expect the offer to almost certainly go up.

  3. Although Murmansk Oblast hosts a great deal of military value, the Strategic Rocket Force is scattered across Russia. So, no, most of the trajectories do not cross Greenland.

    1. Swing that magenta limits arc across most any part of Russia you’d like to, and tell me that what you said is true.

      1. Plot a great a circle route from Krasnoyarsk (ICBM silo field nearby) to Los Angeles (route is 9600 k) and tell me which part of it passes over Greenland. It doesn’t. You’re allowed to move both ends of the arc. I’m surprised you don’t know how this stuff works. The map is crude propaganda and its underlying fact (that Russian ICBMs are all on the Kola Penn,) is wrong.

        1. Irkutsk missile base to Washington DC comes close (over Baffin Island) but narrowly misses Greenland. Most trajectories pass over Canada. I hear we can buy it from the First Nations.

        2. I didn’t say all of them. I said most.

          Don’t try and move the goalposts. But for most westward fired ICBMs it does

          1. If you’re looking only at ground tracks, you’re missing the point. ICBMs are not low altitude machines. Reaching just about anywhere in the US from anywhere in Russia – especially from the southernmost – SS-19 fields requires trajectories so high that radars in Greenland can see all of them.

  4. The map says “Russian Federation”

    It took me several readings before it stopped saying “Soviet Union”.

      2. We all really need to get over that. Russia today is not the USSR. Not entirely sure what it is, but it’s not the bogeyman of 1980. Those who view it as unchanged do ourselves a disservice.

        1. Not the Soviet Union Russia under Putin currently trying to annex Ukraine and has had designs on the Arctic area for some time including Greenland

        2. I’d agree to some degree, if Russia today wasn’t ruled by elite of the former USSR. In particular, it shows remarkably poor judgment to elect former KGB to anything beyond the responsibilities of dog catcher.

          1. It’s a greasy pole to the top of Russian politics. Whoever is there is there because he’s the most ruthless.

          2. It’s a greasy pole to the top of Russian politics.

            In Russia it’s well understood, be the second to climb the pole, carrying a pistol pointed upwards.

  5. We should just offer to relocate Greenlanders to Minnesota and help them set up day-care centers. (Have the Somalis there show them how it’s done.) The weather there will be similar to what they are used to, and I’m sure they can adapt to eating lutefisk instead of whale blubber. No beaches, but then they aren’t much into surfing in Greenland, or so I’m told.

  6. None of this Greenland business makes any sense to me.

    We already have a Space Force base located in Thule. It was an Air Force base before that and had been for decades.

    If we want advanced missile defense systems in Greenland, under Danish sovereignty, we can just negotiate an agreement to put them in. Just like we did with Thule. H*ll in fact, at one point, in 1960 we even installed a nuclear reactor there (Camp Century) for a few years.

    As far as defense is concerned, Denmark is a member of NATO. An attack by Russians against Greenland is an attack against NATO. Simple.

    3. The unfortunate Greenland kerfuffle.
      I saw and read this independently on substack and couldn’t agree more with Cdr. Salamander.

    4. There’s a genuine strategic case for increasing U.S presence and control of Greenland . . . but if we are being honest, a great deal of Donald Trump’s motivation is that getting Greenland in toto would put him on the short list of presidents who added major real estate to the sovereignty of the United States of America, with special mention in the first paragraph of encyclopedia entries on them.

      Concomittant with that impulse is that Trump, and for that matter his inner circle of advisors have a great deal of contempt for the capabilities and willpower of European allies, Denmark not excepted. And if you a) think Greenland is essential, and b) do not want to have to rely on any of those allies in any way for what you want to do in Greenland, then outright ownership gets seen as the one sure way that you get what you want.

      (I am not endorsing anything here, just trying to understand and explain how I think Donald Trump’s brain works.)

      1. “I am not endorsing anything here, just trying to understand and explain how I think Donald Trump’s brain works”

        Yes. After all Trump did make most of his money originally in real estate so he would naturally tend to think of it that way. Greenland: strategic location and trillions dollars mineral wealth. Argentina: “securing” the oil for primarily US usage and denying to China changing a “narco-terrorist” anti-American regime. Alberta: oil (primarily) same deal US control and or near exclusive access. Of course Trump cares about his place in history what president doesn’t? Every head of state on the planet tries to negotiate deals/treaties/etc. for the advancement of his nation, why should Trump not do the same for America? And Trump makes no bones about his belief that are “allies” have been free-loading off the United States for a large percentage of their national defense for decades. He’s stated recently that well no wonder they can afford their generous social welfare state (and idea hardly original to Trump).

      2. I don’t think expanding the real estate holdings is Trump’s interest.

        I think you’re seeing his oft-used negotiation method of asking for the universe – not that he wants it but to get the others to the table where they can come down to more reasonable deals.

        1. Why have a negotiation in the first place? I don’t see any reason for any of the three regions to be at the table. This is a Trump deal not a US deal. And frankly, I think we need to look at how he is profiting from this to understand his motives.

      3. If you want to understand how his mind works, read The Art Of The Deal. After that nothing is a surprise.

  7. My take on the Greenland business is that from Trump’s point of view you never negotiate from your floor that is the least of what you want you always start higher. Start negotiation with the idea Greenland purchased from Denmark becoming a Territory of the United States possibly a state and then negotiate down to what he really expects. Which is a vote in Greenland heavily juiced by the United States promises of largess for Greenland’s citizenry to get the Geenlanders to agree to independence. Subsequently there would be a treaty between the United States an independent Greenland a treaty would simply give them autonomy as far as their local government etc for the United States we would have exclusive assets as far as military bases and/or mineral rights.

    1. That’s why Trump took control of Venezuela…so he could get hold of their voting machines, and make Greenland use them in their vote for independence. That would make the vote just as unquestionably valid as it did our own 2020 Presidential election.

  8. So while the Democrats are busily crafting some war powers resolution to force Trump to not invade Greenland (which he has no intention to do anyway). The actual deal setting up the vote for independence on the part of the people of Greenland referendum to be juiced by the goodies promised to them in the treaty that they will be made aware of which was really his plan all along. Said treaty only needing the Senate’s approval and can written any way both sides want.

    1. So while the Democrats are busily crafting some war powers resolution to force Trump to not invade Greenland (which he has no intention to do anyway).

      Would you have said the same of Trump a year ago with respect to Venezuela?

      Among other things, it’s a Obama-style diplomacy reset. That could have made some sense when dealing with a former enemy in a changed world, but it doesn’t with a sincere US ally. Why is Trump disregarding decades of goodwill?

      And who knows? Maybe he really thinks that invading Greenland is an option. That would be an explanation for why this keeps coming up.

      The actual deal setting up the vote for independence on the part of the people of Greenland referendum to be juiced by the goodies promised to them in the treaty that they will be made aware of which was really his plan all along. Said treaty only needing the Senate’s approval and can written any way both sides want.

      I still haven’t heard why this is supposed to be appealing to Greenlanders or the Danish. For a glaring example, who will protect Greenland from the US, if Denmark is out of the picture? Another glaring example, Denmark has a good negotiation position with the US now. Lose Greenland and the US has almost no reason to care about Denmark or do anything for them.

      1. No. Venezuela was an obvious problem and the Biden regime’s hunger for foreign criminals and parasites it could “citizen-ize” played right into Maduro’s hands – among others. What is mildly surprising is not that Trump put the grab on Maduro but that he didn’t do it much sooner.

        Trump doesn’t see “decades of goodwill,” he sees decades of European sponging off of the US taxpayer because neither Bush Sr. nor Clinton had the wit to see that we no longer had to bribe up an alliance after 1991. Far from ending the freebies to Europe, Clinton kept them going and excused the NATO “allies” from even pretending to live up to their obligations.

        I don’t think Greenland is as crucial to future US interests as Trump seems to think it is, but it is not at all important to the future of Denmark. That Denmark still has Greenland is an accident of history. Absent Trump’s interest in the place, the normative Dane would go years without sparing a single thought about Greenland. The Danes don’t do anything consequential with it and seem bent on preventing its actual inhabitants from doing anything much with it themselves – an analogy to how the Eastern US states treat much of the Western US or how Ottawa treats the Prairie Provinces.

        Money would appeal to Greenlanders. It already seems to appeal to a lot of them. The Danes are typically Euro-Green-pecksniffian about the prospect of Greenlanders exploiting their abundant mineral resources. There is no particular confluence of opinion between Danes and Greenlanders about the future of Greenland.

        1. “I don’t think Greenland is as crucial to future US interests as Trump seems to think it is, but it is not at all important to the future of Denmark.”

          Don’t forget the valuable rare-earths supposed to exist in Greenland…right now we are to dependent on the Chinese for our source. The Tesla optima bots are dependent on a steady supply of such that could be cutoff by the Chinese. Just as in the case of Venezuelan (and Albertan) oil you don’t wait until there is an oil supply crisis to secure new resources you act proactively before you need them. Get your treaties/agreements made before say oil shoots up to >$80/barrel not afterwards. You don’t wait for the Chinese to (inevitably) decide that said rare-earths are a “strategic resources” (miliary aspects of mass-produced Tesla Optima bots) and cut you off or drastically limit your access.

          1. Those rare earths will stay where they are as long as Demark retains sovereignty over Greenland. The Danish Parliament is overwhelmingly lefty.

    2. Let’s hope things work out that way. I agree that that seems to be the likely end-game.

  9. This clueless braying by Trump has only encouraged Greenlanders to remain under Denmark indefinitely. I can’t believe you’d find it remotely plausible that it would have done the opposite.

    1. “This clueless braying by Trump has only encouraged Greenlanders to remain under Denmark indefinitely”

      If the “clueless braying Trump” offers them enough money/autonomy /incentives including US citizenship (if they want it) we shall see. Since it would likely be setup as a treaty after their independence vote only the President and the Senate are involved on the US end. Rather than Statehood or a territory said treaty can be carefully crafted to preserve their desired degree of local autonomy.

    2. If you asked actual Greenlanders, you would get a rather different take. The idea that Greenlanders are great Danish patriots is what is not remotely plausible here.

  10. If I was a Greenlander and was offered $1 million to become a citizen of the US and Greenland becomes a Territory of the US, I’d take the deal.

    1. Well..the population of Greenland is only about 57K people. Your $1 million dollar bribe per person amortized over 10yrs comes to about 6 billion a year total. How much is the mineral wealth of Greenland estimated at? Trillions of dollars? Likely.

    3. Yes, and that would be incredibly cheap for us, even if you bump it up to 2 million. Throw 100 billion at Denmark.

  11. I wonder if I could interest President Trump in another real estate deal for an even larger island. I’m sure we could work out payment terms. Greetings from Australia!

    1. I’m afraid Australia is considered a continent. “First president to purchase an entire continent …”? Naah, probably not.

    3. I sympathize but would have to oppose this for the same reason I’m not wild about the idea of acquiring part or all of Canada – too high a percentage of the Aussie and Canadian publics would be Democrat voters.

      1. The provinces in Canada breakaway like Alberta will vote to leave the Canadian union and then sign treaties with the United States specifically designed for economic benefit but not necessarily any political representation in the United States i.e. statehood or territoriality.

        1. That would be the best outcome. The Prairie Provinces are “right-wing” by Canadian standards, but the whole Canadian political spectrum is skewed far more to the left than is that of the US. We don’t need any more Blue states.

          Canada, as it stands, is rapidly approaching failed state status. The Prairie Provinces, separately or together, need to leave. Maybe take the interior of BC with them – though they would be best advised to hive off Vancouver as a Kaliningrad-style exclave of Ontario first.

          The new nation of Western Canada should take all of the territories that care to join it too – though some may not decide to do so.

          Ontario, Quebec, the Maritimes and any territories that don’t attach to Western Canada can do as they like on their own dime. Long-term, I suspect that means they will be eating one another for nourishment. So long as the rump nation of Eastern Canada – or Eastern Canada plus an “independent” Quebec – don’t play any footsie with the PRC – for as long as there remains a PRC to play footsie with – I’m content to let the Parasite Provinces go merrily to Hell in their own way. That trip will, I suspect, be a short one.

  12. The “… clueless braying by Trump” is letting Greenlanders know that there are alternatives to the Danes, the Russians and the Chinese.

    They are in the position of a lot of those Pacific island nations with a population of a few thousand, living in locations that much larger and more powerful countries covet, and they don’t even have the ability to attract tourists to their tropical beaches as a source of income.

    If the result is that they do decide because of clueless baying that the status quo is the best solution, that still beats having them become part of the Belt and Road.

    1. The Greenlanders would probably be well-advised to declare independence and arrange some cozy long-term deal with the US while the getting is good. The neutering of Venezuela and the fall of the Mullahs in Iran are going to materially shorten the life remaining to the Russian Federation as a going concern. Once Russia falls and is defanged, a lot of the military utility of Greenland to the US goes away.

      The PRC isn’t exactly in radiant good health either and the deletion of Venezuela and Iran from the Axis of Scumbags will hurt it too, though not so badly as Russia. As much as Beijing would like to stick a thumb in Uncle Sam’s eye by doing some kind of deal with a notional independent Greenland, I don’t see Washington letting that happen. Absent military advantage, I don’t see the PRC as particularly eager to take on more welfare cases.

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