If you ask the award-winning historian and author Anne Applebaum, there is still a long leap from Donald Trump’s belligerent rhetoric to an American military action against Greenland.
»In Venezuela, we effectively arrested the head of state and left the rest of the regime in place – at least temporarily. If Greenland were to become part of the United States, if it were to become an American colony, that would require a completely different type of operation. There would have to be an occupation force. You would have to force Greenlanders to become Americans – or American subjects«, says Applebaum.
But this is where fantasy meets reality. What was possible in Venezuela cannot simply be transferred to Greenland. The differences are fundamental, says Anne Applebaum.
»Greenland is a democracy. It is part of NATO and closely linked to a key American ally. It is a Danish territory, and Denmark is a founding and important member of NATO. Denmark has major investments in the United States and vice versa. It is not a rogue state. Any action against Greenland would have a completely different – and far more serious –significance than anything in Venezuela«.
A military conquest of Greenland, according to Anne Applebaum, would not only undermine the relationship with Denmark but would effectively dissolve NATO and simultaneously trigger significant political opposition within the USA – both among the American public and in Congress.
She emphasizes that Trump’s desire to bring Greenland under American control is real and should be taken seriously, but she struggles to understand what it would mean in practice.
»They believe they have economic and security-related reasons for wanting Greenland. But I suspect that the real driving force is Trump’s fondness for dramatic operations – they are simply easier for him than long-term strategic plans, which he does not like«.
American dominance
Trump has long talked about the need to breathe new life into the Monroe Doctrine from 1823, which originally aimed to prevent European powers from expanding their influence in North and South America.
Applebaum also believes that Nicolás Maduro was a problem from a more traditional American foreign policy perspective:
»Maduro brought Iranian, Russian, and Chinese influence into the region«.
Nevertheless, Applebaum does not believe that Trump’s actions can be understood as part of a coherent strategy – despite attempts to frame them as a new doctrine under the name ’Donroe Doctrine’.
»There are certainly forces that want the United States to focus more on the Western Hemisphere and pull back from the rest of the world. But Trump does not really think strategically, so I’m not sure it makes sense to place him in that context. Still, the idea of dominating neighboring countries and dramatically demonstrating American power is appealing«.
The USA has previously intervened militarily in Latin America and prosecuted foreign leaders. But Trump’s approach, according to Applebaum, differs significantly from previous patterns.
»What is strange here is the absence of any kind of legitimacy – both from an American and an international perspective. One could have built a coalition to help remove Maduro, because he really was one of the world’s worst dictators and caused enormous destruction in Venezuela. He destroyed a country that two decades ago was the richest in South America and that today is the poorest and has forced millions of Venezuelans to flee«.
The justifications for Trump’s intervention also don’t add up, she believes.
»The flimsiness of the charges against Maduro given that the the Trump just pardoned very recently the former president of Honduras who really was a drug dealer«, she says, referring to Juan Orlando Hernández, who in 2024 was sentenced to 45 years in prison in the USA for extensive cocaine smuggling.
In December, he was pardoned by Trump.
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