If we exit the Antarctic treaty, then so will everyone else and there’s multiple competing claims.
> President Donald Trump has renewed his efforts to take over Greenland, and tapping into the Danish territory’s natural resources is a key part of the strategy.
It is not "taking over" or "annexing". It is invading. A military ally, at that.
And it is not "tapping into [...] natural resources". It is plundering their natural resources.
None of these hypotheticals are consensual. There is no plan for a freely agreed-upon bilateral agreement. This is about invading and pillaging a foreign land. Whether it is Greenland, Canada, or any other country.
There are a lot of people and they talk about lots of different things.
More consequentially it’s an attempt to destroy NATO so Putin can have his way with Europe.
The word on the street is that it's yet another step to try to keep the Epstein files out of the news.
The problem is that virtually the entire new world and much of the old world was acquired by force and threats of force that has been legitimized over time. So yes, I think this is clearly extortion and any sale that takes would be coerced.
But ever was it thus.
Threatening to invade (which the Trump administration has been explicitly doing) is about as damaging as invading in the long run, either way we have sent the message loud and clear that the US is no longer a reliable ally and everyone has to shift away from the post-WW2 world order.
It'd be interesting to understand how much the environment there increases the cost of mining. Anything is possible, but it'd be cool to know whether it makes any sense. (and yes, I think our leadership in the US is fully capable of causing an international crisis over mineral assets that would in financial terms be best left in the ground)
Actual subglacial mining has only been attempted a few times. Kumtor gold mine in Kyrgyzstan is in the middle of a couple glaciers and reshaped the landscape to redirect the glaciers a bit. Svea Nord in Svalbard ran tunnels under a glacier for coal. Canada's Granduc mine wasn't technically on or under a glacier, but it was just below one.
[0] https://archive.org/details/TheU.S.ArmysTopSecretArcticCityU...
I also wonder if there has ever been a real geopolitical obstacle to doing this stuff, since the Danes and Greenlanders seem amenable to doing business. It would seem the obstacles have all been financial.
As for "amenable", my experience is that people in the arctic are relatively unhappy about that sort of industrial development. They like the places they live.
However, the adjacent Canadian provinces (Nunavut & Northern Labrador) share many of the same geologic provinces, also without significant glaciation. There aren't a lot of big mines up there relative to the mineral wealth because it's simply too challenging. Constructing big infrastructure in the arctic takes resources approaching nation-state levels. Most mining companies can't muster that or maintain it long-term.
Start with a few bunker busting bombs, work outside of winter, dump ice, dirt into ocean. Sounds plausible.
But yes mines continue mining, is that somehow unexpected?
They extract oil from tar sands in Alberta, for example. Difficult things are done all the time that are costly, as long as the price exceeds the cost.
To be clear my post above is not supportive of the administration, but rather the feasibility of mining at high latitudes.
But it seems like a pretty long financial stretch to first pay for invading a country and then this.
Reply below: It's been under Danish control, and the Arctic is warming more quickly than other parts of the world.
I imagine it is a lot easier to just strip mine Australia.
But you can do both. It’s about marginal profitability, not absolute.
Do people think we must pick just one place to mine?