Greenland, Iceland, the Monroe Doctrine, and Western Hemisphere Security HoonTing 20260118

Greenland, Iceland, the Monroe Doctrine, and Western Hemisphere Security    HoonTing 20260118

Although Donald Trump is often portrayed as a highly pragmatic and transaction-driven political figure, his grasp of national strategic logic and historical context is, in fact, strikingly lucid and uncompromising. Confusing grand strategy with mere tactics—or failing to situate contemporary events within their deeper historical framework—inevitably leads to distorted judgment and repeated miscalculation. Trump’s publicly ridiculed proposal in August 2019 to purchase, or otherwise acquire, Greenland vividly illustrates this dynamic.

In reality, the United States has long regarded Greenland as a critical strategic asset, a perception dating back to the late nineteenth century. By the early twentieth century, under the Rainbow War Plans—particularly Rainbow 4—Greenland was explicitly designated, alongside the French Caribbean islands, the Dutch Antilles, and portions of Canadian territory, as a potential target for preemptive occupation to secure the Western Hemisphere against external threats.

The strategic significance of Greenland cannot be separated from the historical trajectories of other North Atlantic dependencies, notably Iceland and the Faroe Islands. These territories acquired their overseas status through the fourteenth-century Kalmar Union, a personal union linking Denmark, Norway, and Sweden. Following the 1814 Treaty of Kiel, Norway was separated from Denmark, while Greenland, the Faroes, and other possessions remained under exclusive Danish administration as integral components of the Danish Realm; by contrast, the Svalbard archipelago passed to Norwegian sovereignty.

The decisive turning point occurred on 9 April 1940, when Nazi Germany invaded and occupied metropolitan Denmark. This occupation severed Copenhagen’s effective command over its overseas territories and created a power vacuum in Greenland. Simultaneously, German forces established clandestine weather stations along Greenland’s east coast to supply meteorological intelligence for U-boat and Luftwaffe operations in the North Atlantic—directly threatening North American security and Allied supply lines.

In response, the United States invoked the Monroe Doctrine at the July 1940 Meeting of Consultation of American States in Havana. Asserting that Greenland lay within the Western Hemisphere—and therefore beyond the legitimate reach of European powers—the conference adopted the Act of Habana (Convention on the Provisional Administration of European Colonies and Possessions in the Americas). This instrument provided the legal foundation for U.S. action against Nazi ambitions in Greenland. Its core provisions included collective provisional administration should European sovereignty be extinguished, suspended, or endangered by transfer; the establishment of an emergency committee to examine appropriate responses; joint exercise of temporary governance until restoration of the status quo ante or final settlement under international law; and the designation of any non-American state’s attempt to impair the territorial integrity or sovereignty of an American state as an act of aggression against all signatories.

Against this backdrop, Greenland’s two governors—Eske Brun of North Greenland and Aksel Svane of South Greenland—invoked emergency clauses contained in a 1925 Danish statute to assume full administrative authority, explicitly repudiating directives from Nazi-controlled Copenhagen. Concurrently, Denmark’s minister to Washington, Henrik Kauffmann, operating under a self-styled “Free Denmark” mandate, secured the governors’ concurrence and, on 9 April 1941—the first anniversary of the invasion—signed the Agreement on the Defense of Greenland with U.S. Secretary of State Cordell Hull. The agreement reaffirmed Danish sovereignty over Greenland while authorizing the United States, in light of Denmark’s inability to exercise free authority under occupation, to assume responsibility for Greenland’s defense. This included the construction and operation of military bases, airfields, radio stations, and meteorological facilities. Crucially, the preamble recorded the concurrence of the “Greenland authorities,” underscoring that the agreement was not merely an American security measure but also a step toward Greenland’s postwar evolution in autonomy and self-determination. Although the collaborationist Danish regime in Copenhagen repudiated the agreement, the United States and its Allies consistently upheld its legitimacy.

Greenland’s wartime experience closely paralleled that of Iceland, further demonstrating the Monroe Doctrine’s extension into the North Atlantic. Iceland, which had attained full sovereignty in domestic affairs under the 1918 Danish-Icelandic Act of Union—a personal union sharing a monarch, with Denmark handling foreign affairs and defense by delegation but subject to Icelandic override—found itself strategically isolated after Germany’s occupation of Denmark in 1940. Britain preemptively occupied Iceland under Operation Fork in May 1940 to prevent German control; responsibility was later assumed by Canada and the United States. On 7 July 1941, Iceland concluded a provisional defense agreement with Washington permitting the stationing of U.S. forces. In 1944, a national referendum abolished the union with Denmark, terminated the monarchy, and proclaimed the Republic of Iceland, severing all constitutional ties to Copenhagen. After the war, the 1946 Keflavík Agreement ended the 1941 arrangement, withdrawing U.S. troops while retaining civilian airport operations; this was followed by the 1951 Defense Agreement, under which the United States—and later NATO—assumed responsibility for Iceland’s defense until the final U.S. withdrawal in 2006.

In sum, the Monroe Doctrine has constituted an enduring pillar of American national security strategy—not merely as a nineteenth-century barrier against European colonial expansion, but as a twentieth-century strategic imperative sharpened by Denmark’s rapid capitulation to Nazi Germany. Recognition of the Greenland–Iceland–United Kingdom Gap (the GIUK Gap) as the critical maritime and aerial chokepoint defending the Americas elevated the doctrine to new strategic prominence during the mid-twentieth century. In the twenty-first century, Trump perceives thawing Arctic sea routes, aggressive Chinese land acquisitions and resource surveys in Iceland and Greenland, and detailed Sino-Russian hydrographic probing of the GIUK Gap as hostile encroachments. By placing Greenland squarely on the strategic agenda and urging renewed NATO vigilance, he seeks to revive America’s longstanding responsibility to defend the Western Hemisphere—effectively updating the Monroe Doctrine into what might be termed a Trump Corollary, or colloquially, the “Donroe Doctrine,” aimed at preserving Western civilization’s strategic integrity against revisionist powers in the High North.