True, also this guy lived earlier than Hitler so why wouldn't Hitler compared to him and the other way around. And he also killed more people than Hitler
The US can’t stop at Greenland though, we need to secure Kamchatka to create a buffer zone to defend North America and deny our enemies future control of Asia. Why isn’t Biden talking more about that!
It would actually be a very strategic position to defend against Russian ICBMs. The lower tip of Greenland would be almost at the middle of a straight line from Moscow to Washington DC
The US has actually bought other islands from Denmark. In 1917 Denmark sold Dansk Vestindien now known as The US Virgin Islands for 25 million dollars in gold
I'm sure the USAF never once considered covering Greenland in dispersal bases for SAC bombers, and definitely didn't try the idea of burying ICBMs in the ice only to find that the ice moved around too much.
They also definitely didn't crash a bomber with 2 hydrogen bombs on it and then forced Denmark to clean it up and cover the whole thing up and it's definitely not the case that one of the bombs was never recovered and it definitely wasn't on an airbase that was created by forcibly relocating the indigenous people already living there.
@@hedgehog3180 The fact that info like this actually gets released eventually gives me hope, but the content of said info also makes me despair. I wonder how many nukes the Soviets lost over the years that we will NEVER know about.
@@SuperCatacata by most estimates from the CIA and FBI the total Soviet Nuclear Stockpile at it's height was roughly 60,000 Warheads and Nuclear Weapon like Devices with at least 20 known to have been lost and another 200 or so being highly likely
@@Dianasaurthemelonlord7777 It honestly amazes me that there have been zero terrorist or other non cooperative actor nuclear attacks. There should be hypothetically enough material, knowledge, and desire to create one.
Correct me if I‘m wrong, but what is defined as a country is not always clear and frequently a matter of debate, however the most common way to define a country is by UN recognition. And Greenland does infact not have UN recognition as a self governing nation, but instead officially counts as a part of Denmark.
*There's no definition for a territory to be considered as a country by definition* but *legally speaking a territory must be* Independent Territory Population Government Recognition from other countries
Next year, China gets sick of hunting for resources all over the planet and decides to just buy it wholesale. $1 million to every living adult and child in Canada. To sell their country and leave. Or stay and becomes citizens of New China. Since Canada will cease to exist, there is no tax if you leave. If you stay, China's taxes would be just under 45%. All private property will remain. Houses, vehicles, etc. You could sell them later, or rent them out. All public property (federal, provincial, town) will be transferred. The bill will come to just slightly more than China's current accumulated forex reserves. They could probably afford to double the price by borrowing $3 trillion. That is only 10% of their annual GDP, and there are a lot of natural resources to exploit. Plus, all that land. That is not a semi-desert. Their 1.4 billion would really like that.
If the US bought Greenland from Denmark, it would be the second time the US bought territory from Denmark (US Virgin Islands). Which isn’t a lot, but it’s weird that it almost happened twice, right?
@Loopy Because that would be selling your own citizens. And the US also has a bad record when it comes to safeguarding the rights of indigenous people.
There's another thing Adam (the scripter) and Sam (the narrator) forgot to add... In 1917 (after like 50 years negotiating) US got St. Thomas, St. Croix and St. John in the Caribbean from Denmark for U$25M in gold coin. So, it's not farfetched that US would buy territory from Denmark, but US successfully got some, but was rejected Greenland at least THREE TIMES (1917, 1940 and 1946). And the circumstances were different, as in 1940 Denmark (like in 1917) had Deutschland close to invading them (they did in both World Wars). US proceeded to invade Greenland in WWII to block DE from having control over any land in The Americas, giving back the Island to Denmark after the War. Now (sorry for POTUS 45) it'd be A LOT MORE DIFFICULT as nowadays Greenland has got what I interpret as a status equivalent to Statehood in US terms. It is a whole lot easier for a country to dispose of territory if the people living in the Territory doesn't have full Citizenship rights, but I do believe Greenlanders have that now.
@@gracchus7782 Good luck with that, who in their right mind would do that now. Greenland might be a safe zone for those who flee if the US enters any kind of large war imo As much as the culture change would be enormous, it still would be a good spot to hang out basically because it's actually not of huge importance strategically. Not saying the shipping route isn't but in the grand scheme of things it's way lower on the list for global market importance. If the shipping route is accessible more than just a few months it'll definitely be a important. But 8m sure Canada will have more to say first about that route then Greenland. imo
In 1940, after the German occupation of Denmark, the British occupied Iceland, and Canadians occupied Greenland in order to prevent the Germans doing the same. Later, the US agreed to replace the British and Canadian units, as these divisions were needed to secure the UK after Dunkirk and the collapse of France.
@@nomore-constipation the US would have a lot more power over the passage. They’d own the beginning and end of the route and would easily be able to control it. Canada wouldn’t have much of a say
@@papaicebreakerii8180 True but if America is trying to use that route without using the panama canal as often, I can only assume the states would have to play nice because Canada could theoretically gum up the works. But I know that America doesn't have many ice breakers or even container ships that could survive the trip unless it was really free of debris. I've watched how Russia has been trying to get ahead start on this subject specifically. It's definitely something to watch in the future, but most likely or hopefully it would not be needed because it needs the world to heat up drastically and I hate hot humid weather now I can't imagine what the temperature difference would be needed to make this an actual viable option. But absolutely you are correct, that would not be good to have just one nation have that much say on a international passage that would help the globe in general
I knew nothing about the logistics of buying a country, didn’t know about the resources, didn’t know Denmark didn’t technically own it but a few days/weeks before Trump announced this, I saw a video about the North West passage and theorised that could be why and said Trump didn’t seem crazy. Basically a scramble of text to say I kinda knew something about one of your videos beforehand.
Last month I read a very interesting essay written by Gwern about that 1940s purchase attempt and how it was a ludicrously good deal for Denmark and speculating why they still turned it down. Then I felt the need to jump on this popular comment and mention that.
Greenland and Nunavut are basically like two countries, one people. Australia/New Zealand , Germany/Austria, Russia/Belarus, Rwanda/Burundi. They're more likely to join Canada if they ever join another nation.
Yeah, well that's all a part of our plan. While all of you Americans are distracted and have all eyes on your new Greenland, that's when we will invade across the southern border and annex it all
It's odd to me that a massive gold and oil rush killed the country's hype over Arctic wastelands. Also it's not a Scandinavian ice cube, it's not in Scandinavia
Greenland is an autonomous constituent country within the kingdom of Denmark. They have home rule but also seats in the Danish parliament, so the kingdom of Denmark does own Greenland.
Denmark should tighten its hold on Greenland & move native Danish people there then issue a decree withdrawing its status as an independent territory & make it a regular province but with enhanced privileges, essentially change nothing but a label on a peice of paper but make it really offical sounding so people for some reason take it more seriously.
Now... Not then. And besides, at the time there were very real religious wars going on and US troops were caught in the middle of it. That is a whole different story, the de-Islamization of the Philippines and the pacification of the islands.
I'd imagine if the US plan to trade Mindanao to Denmark, I can't imagine how the Philippines would turn out when the other half of the country's speaking Danish
Greenland is NOT part of Scandinavia. It is however a part of the Nordic countries. Let just call United States part of South America to make a equivalent screw up.
@@nomore-constipation yeah the scandinavian group is completly included in the nordic one plus its not so clear cut of googles first page of google the didnt even include greenland in either on image search the first page only has one that acknoleges greenlands existance the scandinavian maps were unsure if they should include iceland and this one cute one included the ex soviet baltic trio estonia latvia and lithuania and this one map i saw thr
Since 1867, the United States attempted to buy Greenland from Denmark like it bought Alaska from Russia. While Greenland remains an autonomous territory within Denmark, a 1951 treaty gives the US much control over an island it once partially claimed from exploration. Unlike Russia, Denmark did not favor this idea, and made it clear that Greenland is not for sale unlike what Alaska used to be until 1867. Denmark said that the idea of the US buying Greenland is absurd, and the US stopped trying to buy Greenland from Denmark in 2019.
Weird. There are some interesting tidbits here, I feel like you kind of missed the core of the US's historic interest in Greenland. Potential access to resources due to climate change is an extremely resent but quite minor factor historically. You actually started to touch on it, when you mentioned China. The reason is security. The US has been interested in Greenland for the same reason that it bought Alaska, or a different Danish territory, the Dutch West Indies (now known as the US Virgin Islands; btw that purchase forced the US to give up a strong claim to Greenland). The crux of it goes back to the Monroe doctrine. Essentially, whether it be old European empires, Russia's arctic traversing nukes, or a resurgent China, limiting the footprint of Old World powers in the western Hemisphere has always been a primary security objective of US policy makers.
@@compassroses @Compass Rose Totally get that. I thought about that too. But the video is literally called 'Why the US Keeps Trying to Buy Greenland' lol. Honestly, I've found this channel to do a great job at educating in an approachable and entertaining way. A video like this undermines that reputation unfortunately; and that's a shame because they generally do great work imo.
@@facio1000 Agreed. I subscribed because this channel does well at describing the technicalities of logistical questions. This one? Far too clickbaitish and shallow. No channel can win 'em all.
And if China outbids the US for Greenland or Canada? Why is it that only the US gets to buy land? And if that doesn't happen, give it two more generations. In 50-75 years, India's population is going to be 5 billion. It will be more crowded that Tokyo, and they would be richer than China, with the US left far in the dust. They will need more land.
In the *literal infobox* of the wiki article on Scandinavia (don't even have to read a SINGLE word of the actual text to find it!) it clearly states: "Nordic territories which are NOT part of Scandinavia: Greenland" Come on, man. That's just lazy and there's no way around it
"The key of being the best sugar daddy in town is being thirty billion Dollars in debt" "It was all Ice until the oil companies of the world banded together to right this grave injustice" "And if our heros at Chevron keep it up, we might get also to see the theoretical Transpolar Sea Route get some use for at least a couple of years before we all die" I love this guy that exactly sounds like Wendover Productions
I don't know how you are defining the word "country" but Greenland is most certainly not a sovereign state. It is an autonomous region that is owned by Denmark, and while they have full autonomy over their internal affairs, this does NOT make them an independent country. They operate functionally more like Hong Kong in China (minus the illegal government interference in elections). So, while Denmark would be kind of sidestepping 50,000 people, technically they have the full right to sell Greenland at any time. Most of the people that thought Trump was an idiot for offering to buy Greenland had no idea what they were talking about.
You’re right at most part, but some other is not really true. It’s kinda like the UK “country inside of country” thing and since it’s democratically, if people want it (which is very unlikely), if they don’t then they can’t have Greenland.
@@palladianaltruist8047 There was a small, uninhabited island in the territorial waters of both Canada and Greenland. They've agreed to just split the island now, but before Canada and Denmark took turns sending a small military expedition to the island to take down the other country's flag and plant their own in its place. Apparently the expeditions often left gifts of stuff like brandy, chocolate, and maple syrup for the other country to take as well.
Greenland is just like Alaska, if you understand Great Circle shipping routes. Control of both of them means USA controls key parts of both the North Atlantic and North Pacific.
They're a country in a vaguely similar sense that Scotland and Wales are 'countries'. Greenland is a mostly autonomous, self-governing entity within the Kingdom of Denmark, which is made up of Denmark itself, Greenland, and the Faeroe Islands.
They haven't declared complete independence, but they have made a number of moves that give them a great degree of autonomy. They have their own legal system, police force, and coast guard entirely separate from Danish control. They have control over their own foreign relations and trade, with representatives in some national capitals separate from Denmark's ambassadors. So while they're not truly and wholly independent per se, they have almost every freedom that a fully independent nation is able to exercise. At this point, they are less a part of Denmark and more an autonomous nation for whom Denmark provides a degree of protection and economic stimulation for. It's more comparable to the attitude of the British Crown to the smaller commonwealth nations.
They're a constituent country. One of 2 within the Kingdom of Denmark outside of Denmark itself in fact, the other one being the Faroe Islands. This essentially means they still have their own governments and can make local laws, though some high order affairs like justice, foreign affairs, and finance are still handled by the Danish state. Greenland and the Faroe Islands themselves aren't financially sustainable and so receive aid from Denmark to keep them and their local economies going for the wellbeing of the residents. And though there are some neat minerals up there, trying to unearth all that stuff is likely gonna be a environmental disaster in the making which many Greenlanders, as well as Danes are not keen about. Still Greenland and the Faroe Islands can make their own laws on several points, which for instance is why Whale slaugther is ok in the Faroe Islands (something which Denmark got a ton of hate for despite having no say in the matter, since this was one of the areas the Faroe Islands could rule on their own and interfering would break their own constitution), and why Greenland and the Faroe Islands aren't part of the EU when Denmark itself is. But yeah its not the only constituent country out there. Heck the UK has Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland. And Finland has Åland, just to name a few examples.
Greenland legally has the right to declare independence at any time it wants to. It's just that the vast majority of the population want to wait with independence until the economy has been significantly expanded, it's a minority who support independence right here and now.
We didnt buy them. We TOOK them after we kicked Spain's ass back to Europe. Forget about the fact that the Maine exploding that started the whole thing was almost certainly a false flag attack.
There was a scramble for colonies in the far east at the time and the Philippines was America's foothold in the region. The influence America projected in the region from the Philippines goaded the Japanese into doing Pearl Harbor
@@AdistuffRBX The treaty of Paris (1898) which ended the war specifically includes the United States giving Spain $20 million for the Philippines, so it was less a conquest and more…buying something at gunpoint. Around $714 million in todays money so Spain didn’t make off too bad.
The thing is, Greenland isn't a real country. Greenland is a constituent country like the UK "countries." Meaning they are just states with a bit more pride. They are like states that choose to shop at Target over Walmart.
Regarding 2:10 "...a country could theoretically 'sell' itself to another country, but..." The Dominican Republic actually tried to sell itself to the United States in the 1870's. Pres. Grant thought it was a great idea, as he figured freed slaves could move there and not face discrimination. Furthermore, when it became a state, it would likely become a stronghold of the Republican Party. Congress was sort of apathetic to the idea, though, so the US didn't go through with it.
I find it disappointing that Canada didn’t get a mention especially considering WE CURRENTLY (and forever hopefully) OWN THE ISLANDS THE NORTHWEST PASSAGE GOES THROUGH
Would be sad to imagine a time in the future in which after having agreed to an international land* border with Denmark (Hans island (look it up VERY interesting !)) Canada suddenly lost that and got back to only having the US as an official neighbour.
In 2019, most of us didn’t think it was silly to see if Greenland can be part of US, but silly to try to buy it from Denmark as if Greenland has no rights. It’s like someone trying to make Puerto Rico part of their country but asking the US how much money it would cost rather than asking Puerto Rico if they want to join.
not exactly a good comparison as Puerto Rico is an unincorporated territory of the US whereas Greenland is a Country albeit under the Danish Realm. If an offer is given there's no problem with the US selling but Greenland is it's own entity like Scotland to the UK
If someone wanted to buy Puerto Rico it is exactly what they would do, Puerto Rico is a colony so asking them for permission is useless compared to the US (it would only be a formality).
@@alexboxstadium98 if the Danish set Greenlands foreign policy, responsible for defending it and provide financial support -are they truly an independent country? NO. Greenland is a dependency of Denmark, but has its own government which manages the island's internal affairs. so this video is WRONG Puerto Rico is a Commonwealth Territory of the US and was seceded to the USA in 1898 after the Spanish American war. The people of Puerto Rico have had five times since the 1960's (four of them after '93) to become independent and the citizens voted it down.
Not exactly, nobody wants to mine iron out of glaciers in Greenland and even if the northwest passage does open up, it will only be for a few months out of the year. The real value of Greenland is as a strategic base for the United States to detect and intercept nuclear attacks on the homeland (or to potentially launch such attacks against hostile powers). It's unlikely that the US will actually manage to buy Greenland, but, at the same time, Thule AFB isn't going anywhere, no matter not even if Greenland or Denmark tell the air force to leave; de jure issues aside, it's already a de facto US territory.
With Thule, there is no point in buying it for strategic reasons. And with satellites and the fact Canada is the defense partner anyhow, buying Greenland doesn't make much sense military wise. Resource wise it isn't really easy to get all that out if Greenland AND it isn't like the Danes would not sell to a NATO partner ... There is no real reason to "buy" it....
England is the main reason the USA never bought Greenland. Back when Willam Seward tried and when we tried again a few years ago. England said they will stop Denmark from ever selling it to the USA if tried. During the first attempt England stopped it and also bribed British Columbia at the same time to join what would be Canada. They would Buy it, Cancel all their debts, and Connect it with a Railroad to the east of Canada. Before hand BC was close to joining the Union and was even favored by the people doing so. Plan for the union was to add BC as a state and connect Alaska to the rest of the nation by rail while also decreasing British dominance.
Yes, both England and France definitely played major roles, this ties greatly back to the Napoleonic Era. Around 19th century was an interesting period of newly found enlightenment, Nationalism, delegalized slavery, forced neutrality(1864,Denmark), and end to European Monarch. The Brits also helped invent a term, "Copenhagenize", while terror-bombing Copenhagen. A term United States had no desire becoming accustomed to :).
To be fair to Trump, when he said Denmark "owns" Greenland he was talking about Denmark being sovereign over Greenland... which it is. It's technically just a autonomous part of Denmark, but has more authority over itself than normal
Nobody - neither Sam nor the commenters - mentioned the citizens of Greenland and their opinion. I do not know much about them but I definetly know that I would not want another country buy my homecountry. Especially not if this state is far inferior regarding several aspects of life quality and freedom.
Hi Sam - could we turm the background music down a few notches? I don't mind a bit of bass, but at this volume it makes it hard to fully engage, especially when listening in noisy environments.
The United States could buy Greenland if the Danish government accepted. There isn't any constitutional statute preventing that. However the government won't accepted because why would you give up land.
For money. Thats why Russia "gave up" Alaska and Denmark "gave up" what is now the US virgin islands. Almost all of the now US was bought from someone at some point. The only land that wasn't bought was the original 13 colonies.
@@crazy_mind-ox8if "For money" - Not wrong, but a very simple way of looking at it. Alaska was hard to defend and didn't have much value, so Russia decided to sell before another country potentially could take it for free. The Danish West Indies was far from Denmark, no real shared history, and had become an economic burden. A part of the deal was that USA basically had to accept Denmark's rule over Greenland. A reason for the long delay was England not wanting USA nearby.
Hey Sam, good job on this!! Even if a few details were a bit off, you clearly put in a lot of effort to understand a complicated topic, and I appreciate you.
Didn't the US "buy" the Phillipines from Spain after invading under the pretense of "liberating their peoples?" It also makes it funnier when they try to trade off one of the isles to Denmark.
The U.S. got the Phillilpines, Guam, Puerto Rico and maybe one or two other little islands from Spain in 1900-ish in exchange for the U.S. to stop kicking Spain's ass. You may notice a lot of Spanish sounding names and Catholic churches in Manila and Guam. Even over a century later, the influence remains.
I’m excited for Greenlands future when that ice path opens up… kinda cool that the entire world economy could shift that drastically to involve them more. I wish it wasn’t a product of our planet dying of a fever, but you gotta look on the bright side for our buddies in Greenland at least.
Id rather Canada have greenland than Denmark controll it bruh. Denmark is wierd asf. China, being a litteral imperial authoritarian fucking crazy ass country hellbent on world domination, asking for greenland is pretty fucking scary. As an indian, im frustrated with how Europe is so keen on getting ass fucked by China for no apparent reason
Comparing buying Greenland to the purchase of the Congo is rather intellectual dishonest. Problem one: Greenland is owned by Denmark and is a dominion of and isn't a colony in Africa. Issue two: only 50,000 people live on Greenland.
Population density isn't the main problem. It's the fact that you're trying to buy the country out from under the feet of the inhabitants. By paying somebody else. You should really be offering $10 million to every one of the 65,000 people on Greenland. That comes up to only $650 billion. Slightly less than 10 walls. It's a bargain.
@@danielch6662 $10 mio is not going that far, if you trade free healthcare and free education and an annual national subsidy from Denmark to an all American system.
What about the Louisiana Purchase? Napoleon sold that to the US, and that was essentially buying a country-sized territory. It's not suprising they'd try it again, given how that worked out super well.
2:05 um greenland isnt a country? its a very large island owned somehow by denmark when it should be owned by canada? it was granted part home rule/autonomy but denmark still handles finances and foreign policy and tries to advise/interfere on local laws passed so um it would be just like buying alaska from russia or that gadsden purchase from mexico just larger scale. still surprised it was left alone and left as denmarks for so long since you'd think it would belong to canada.
Yeah, Canada is already shipping through our portion of the Arctic, we too share the NorthWest Passage. It isn't just Greenland that is involved. Also, Greenland having such close ties with Denmark, which is an awesome Country, I doubt they'd want to have anything to do with the craziness that is the United States.
Every land that was sold to the US today has literally been put to its max potential and is making billions. Of course a Canadian would know nothing about that since you’ve always relied on someone telling you what to do.
@@azulaquaza4916 Exactly who is telling us Canadians what to do? I assure you, we don't need anyone to tell us what to do. And if you think those "territories" of yours are happy being taken over by the U.S., you might want to re-think that process. We don't have territories outside of our land, we've thought about having others join Canada, but decided the economic impact wasn't viable. You Americans just steal from others, but then again, you never were able to annex Canada. Didn't go well for the Yanks. Spoiler alert, Canada won, see the war of 1812, dummy.
If you made everyone on Greenland a millionaire, no one would be a "millionaire", it would inflate the country and you'll see people buying loaves of bread for $100.
@@Vortecus you could spread the payments out over x number of years and/or allow them to move to anywhere in the US and/or allow them to import any goods that their economy can’t handle
If the U.S. wants to expand its territory, there is one place I'm confident they could get for *FREE* The U.K. is desperate to get rid of Pitcairn Island in the Pacific Ocean (population 45). If America politely asked for it, I'm confident Britain would be happy to give it to them, along with the large exclusive fishing zone that goes with it.
As an American Nah we have enough access to the Pacific Ocean with California Alaska Hawaii and Guam. And no offence to people living on Pitcairn but compared to Hawaii Alaska and Guam there pretty much useless to own it doesn’t give us much strategic importance Although I do support if the UK sold Bermuda to us
I've never once heard that the UK wants to give up the Pitcairns. It costs the UK next to nothing, the islands are more dependent on New Zealand and French Polynesia than the UK and from an emotional point of view the Pitcairns are the reason why "the Empire on which the sun never sets" is technically still true. If anything the islands could be transferred to Australia or New Zealand, but probably not the US. And in the 21st century you could not possibly do that without the consent of the islanders.
@@bradley8575 >American >spells offense as “offence” Pick a side. Sure, Pitcairn is useless, but to the British, it’s the reason the sun literally never sets on their empire. There’s a certain satisfaction in taking that power away from them. Pitcairn could be our 2nd Palmyra Atoll: completely useless, but for whatever reason, anyone born there is a citizen and can run for president. Seriously, look up “Palmyra Atoll.”
Greenland is part of denmark they have danish citizenship and greenland never declared independence from denmark, they also don't have a foreign policy of their own
Denmark does own Greenland. When you need someone's permission to leave, you aren't really an independent country. Greenland is no more independent than Iraqi Kurdistan. The Danes are just nice about it.
3:35 Fun fact: The reason that America's fighter keys don't do anything is because the rest is the world is terrified of them. We built the F-15, then we wanted to make something better, so we made the F-22, and when we benchmarked it, it didn't have to beat SUs, it didn't have to beat MiGs, or had to beat the f-15. Because nothing else in the world could touch the f-15, and if we wanted the f-22 to be the best, it had to beat the best. You best hope that our fighter jets continue to do nothing, because once someone gives us a reason, ordinance and aircraft are going to start falling from the sky like snow flakes.
Honestly I kinda find it funny you go "they don't own Greenland" but proceed to say that Denmark is literally their military and decides most of their foreign policy. Greenland to Denmark is like Puerto Rico to the United States.
Not quite, Greenland is a country with a devolved government within the Kingdom of Denmark, similar to how Scotland is a country within the United Kingdom. Puerto Rico is a territory that behaves more like a semi-autonomous colony rather than a country
That's not actually weird, Iceland also doesn't have a military and relies on NATO and neither does Palau who rely on the US. It's really not that uncommon for small country to just leave the military up to some trusted ally. Also Denmark doesn't actually decide on foreign policy, it can't just force Greenland to do whatever it wants, it has to negotiate with the Greenlandic government as well because it's rare that things can be cleanly divided into foreign policy and internal policy. Like for example when China wanted to build an airport in Greenland, Denmark and the EU objected to that but it ended up happening anyways because the decision was up to Greenland and Denmark couldn't really do anything to stop it. Also unlike Puerto Rico Greenlandic citizens have full Danish citizenship and can vote in Danish elections, if you're gonna compare it to anything it'd make more sense to compare it to an actual state rather than a territory that constantly gets shafted by the US.
@@hedgehog3180 Palau and Iceland are both memeber state of the UN, though, and have full treaty-making capacity. Greenland has neither, even with all the autonomy they enjoy. When they approved same-sex marriage, their law even had to be ratified by the Floketing (the Danish Parliament) to enter into force, as they couldn’t legislate without Copenaghen blessing on that matter. Greenland is a rather sui generis case. It definitely is a nation, and one that looks incredibly close to be an undisputed country. Unless it kind of… isn’t. Not all the way. But it could be any moment they decide to be. And they simply don’t because, at the moment, they have it better with the current state of affairs, a very pragmatic choice.
And then Denmark got Northern Schleswig for free just ten years later after WWI while still hanging on to Greenland - proving you can actually have your cake and eat it too.
@@gracchus7782 Suppressing the rebellions militarily in Mindanao is difficult. It's the same reason why the US lost in Vietnam: jungle terrain, a civilian population possibly unsympathetic to you, but now with an added bonus of porous sea access to Borneo. All the Philippine governments, the Spanish, the Americans, the Japanese, and the current Republic of the Philippines couldn't fully militarily stamp them out. The Spanish and the Japanese tried to subdue them but decided to just let them go, the Americans tried war crimes and they couldn't do it, and the Republic of the Philippines has tried various levels of military force and couldn't wipe them off. In the end, what kind of worked are a combination of peace talks, conceding an autonomous region to them, and help from the American War on Terror to neuter the extreme radicals.
And now you see why the US was willing to make that trade. Incidentally, if the Germans had ended up with Mindanao, and were forced to deal with the uprising there, could it have affected the road to WWI? I don't think it would have, but one is inclined to wonder... 🤔
No it's definitely a country, Danish law literally recognizes it as such. It's as much a country as say Scotland, though arguably Greenland has significantly more autonomy than Scotland. At this point the relationship is more like a bilateral agreement between two sovereign entities, even if Denmark is obviously the bigger partner in the relationship but Denmark also doesn't have any means to enforce demands on Greenland.
@@hedgehog3180 Exactly. Both Greenland and the Faroe Islands have more autonomy than Scotland. An obvious example is how both countries had the opportunity to opt out of EU, while Denmark is a member. Imagine Scotland trying to do that on their own, while the UK was a member. Nobody would have even considered it.
@@hedgehog3180 It acts as a country, but it still does not qualify as a country. It really doesn't matter that it "technically" isn't a country, but that still doesn't make it a country. Also it is not recognized by any other country. I edited my comment, as it isn't really "partially owned"
"It's not true that Greenland is controlled by Denmark" 5 seconds later "Greenland is part of the Danish Kingdom" "Greenland's foreign policy is controlled by Denmark"
Greenland has its own government and voting without interference from Copenhagen. Copenhagen just provides monetary aid, defense, and foreign affairs management. The U.S. provides aid and defense to many countries. Doesn't mean they're US territories. Although most of those places have their own foreign affairs management.
So Greenland is run by Denmark, has Danish everything, BUT they just vote on their stuff by their own? So they are basically a glorified province/state within Denmark.
The article titled “Europe’s ‘Hitler’ …” confuses me. Hitler was Europe’s Hitler. Genius writers.
Lol true
Brought to you by the copywriters that came up with "It's the Cadillac of cars"
True, also this guy lived earlier than Hitler so why wouldn't Hitler compared to him and the other way around. And he also killed more people than Hitler
The geese of birds
"Hitler" is just a new word for "Satan". Give it some time and "Trump" will be the new "Hitler".
Obviously the US wants Greenland so they can get the +5 troop score for North America and have a better defensive position against Iceland
That explains the coups in Central America.
Yo we gotta play civ 6 together lol. Teddy Roosevelt FTW!
The US can’t stop at Greenland though, we need to secure Kamchatka to create a buffer zone to defend North America and deny our enemies future control of Asia. Why isn’t Biden talking more about that!
I'd grab it for the extra oil and Uranium, but my games tend to end with an army of giant death robots and a nice stockpile of nukes.
It would actually be a very strategic position to defend against Russian ICBMs. The lower tip of Greenland would be almost at the middle of a straight line from Moscow to Washington DC
The US has actually bought other islands from Denmark. In 1917 Denmark sold Dansk Vestindien now known as The US Virgin Islands for 25 million dollars in gold
That was the us, the Netherlands (holland sometimes)….
We are MUCH more important than Denmark!!
@@PossessedPotatoBird actually, no, it was Denmark en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Virgin_Islands
@@gracchus7782 lakes are just water islands
I'm sure the USAF never once considered covering Greenland in dispersal bases for SAC bombers, and definitely didn't try the idea of burying ICBMs in the ice only to find that the ice moved around too much.
They also definitely didn't crash a bomber with 2 hydrogen bombs on it and then forced Denmark to clean it up and cover the whole thing up and it's definitely not the case that one of the bombs was never recovered and it definitely wasn't on an airbase that was created by forcibly relocating the indigenous people already living there.
@@hedgehog3180 The fact that info like this actually gets released eventually gives me hope, but the content of said info also makes me despair.
I wonder how many nukes the Soviets lost over the years that we will NEVER know about.
@@SuperCatacata by most estimates from the CIA and FBI the total Soviet Nuclear Stockpile at it's height was roughly 60,000 Warheads and Nuclear Weapon like Devices with at least 20 known to have been lost and another 200 or so being highly likely
@@Dianasaurthemelonlord7777 It honestly amazes me that there have been zero terrorist or other non cooperative actor nuclear attacks. There should be hypothetically enough material, knowledge, and desire to create one.
@@Fractured_Unity really does, or someone that just stumbled across an abandoned nuke somewhere
Correct me if I‘m wrong, but what is defined as a country is not always clear and frequently a matter of debate, however the most common way to define a country is by UN recognition. And Greenland does infact not have UN recognition as a self governing nation, but instead officially counts as a part of Denmark.
*There's no definition for a territory to be considered as a country by definition* but *legally speaking a territory must be*
Independent
Territory
Population
Government
Recognition from other countries
@@redred7289 Québec thinks they're their own country?
@@redred7289 Wouldn't Puerto Rico also fall in this category? Or is it more of a US state?
So it's an autonomous overseas territory similar to something like the US's Pacific territories
I'm not sure, but I've always likened it to the relationship that U.K. has with places like the Bahamas, and British V.I.
"China calling itself a near artic state is like Sweden calling itself a near African state" 🤣☠️
China is going to get a colony in Africa soon so it might become a fact.
Hey, they're less than a light second apart.
There already in the middle east and i guess that's not that far from Africa
sweden did have an enclave in africa. on the slave coast somewhere.
Next year, China gets sick of hunting for resources all over the planet and decides to just buy it wholesale.
$1 million to every living adult and child in Canada. To sell their country and leave. Or stay and becomes citizens of New China. Since Canada will cease to exist, there is no tax if you leave. If you stay, China's taxes would be just under 45%.
All private property will remain. Houses, vehicles, etc. You could sell them later, or rent them out. All public property (federal, provincial, town) will be transferred.
The bill will come to just slightly more than China's current accumulated forex reserves. They could probably afford to double the price by borrowing $3 trillion. That is only 10% of their annual GDP, and there are a lot of natural resources to exploit.
Plus, all that land. That is not a semi-desert. Their 1.4 billion would really like that.
If the US bought Greenland from Denmark, it would be the second time the US bought territory from Denmark (US Virgin Islands). Which isn’t a lot, but it’s weird that it almost happened twice, right?
I get the potential reference
Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
Glad someone actually quoted the meme correctly for once
The US should negotiate a discount, now that only half of Hans Island is officially part of Greenland :' )
@Loopy Because that would be selling your own citizens. And the US also has a bad record when it comes to safeguarding the rights of indigenous people.
@@wafflelessThey will be free to go to Denmark or stay in Greenland and become American Citizens.
There's another thing Adam (the scripter) and Sam (the narrator) forgot to add...
In 1917 (after like 50 years negotiating) US got St. Thomas, St. Croix and St. John in the Caribbean from Denmark for U$25M in gold coin. So, it's not farfetched that US would buy territory from Denmark, but US successfully got some, but was rejected Greenland at least THREE TIMES (1917, 1940 and 1946). And the circumstances were different, as in 1940 Denmark (like in 1917) had Deutschland close to invading them (they did in both World Wars).
US proceeded to invade Greenland in WWII to block DE from having control over any land in The Americas, giving back the Island to Denmark after the War.
Now (sorry for POTUS 45) it'd be A LOT MORE DIFFICULT as nowadays Greenland has got what I interpret as a status equivalent to Statehood in US terms. It is a whole lot easier for a country to dispose of territory if the people living in the Territory doesn't have full Citizenship rights, but I do believe Greenlanders have that now.
@@gracchus7782 Good luck with that, who in their right mind would do that now. Greenland might be a safe zone for those who flee if the US enters any kind of large war imo
As much as the culture change would be enormous, it still would be a good spot to hang out basically because it's actually not of huge importance strategically. Not saying the shipping route isn't but in the grand scheme of things it's way lower on the list for global market importance. If the shipping route is accessible more than just a few months it'll definitely be a important. But 8m sure Canada will have more to say first about that route then Greenland. imo
In 1940, after the German occupation of Denmark, the British occupied Iceland, and Canadians occupied Greenland in order to prevent the Germans doing the same.
Later, the US agreed to replace the British and Canadian units, as these divisions were needed to secure the UK after Dunkirk and the collapse of France.
"(like in 1917) had Deutschland close to invading them (they did in both World Wars)."
I'm pretty sure Denmark was not invaded in WW1
@@nomore-constipation the US would have a lot more power over the passage. They’d own the beginning and end of the route and would easily be able to control it. Canada wouldn’t have much of a say
@@papaicebreakerii8180 True but if America is trying to use that route without using the panama canal as often, I can only assume the states would have to play nice because Canada could theoretically gum up the works. But I know that America doesn't have many ice breakers or even container ships that could survive the trip unless it was really free of debris. I've watched how Russia has been trying to get ahead start on this subject specifically. It's definitely something to watch in the future, but most likely or hopefully it would not be needed because it needs the world to heat up drastically and I hate hot humid weather now I can't imagine what the temperature difference would be needed to make this an actual viable option. But absolutely you are correct, that would not be good to have just one nation have that much say on a international passage that would help the globe in general
I knew nothing about the logistics of buying a country, didn’t know about the resources, didn’t know Denmark didn’t technically own it but a few days/weeks before Trump announced this, I saw a video about the North West passage and theorised that could be why and said Trump didn’t seem crazy. Basically a scramble of text to say I kinda knew something about one of your videos beforehand.
Also, The Northwest Passage is a great song from Unleash the Archers.
"didn't know denmark" oh to be from murica
Last month I read a very interesting essay written by Gwern about that 1940s purchase attempt and how it was a ludicrously good deal for Denmark and speculating why they still turned it down. Then I felt the need to jump on this popular comment and mention that.
@@felipecardel 🤓
@@felipecardel buddy I’m British, I knew about Denmark hahaha
As a Finn I find it hilarious how Scandinavia just apparently massively expanded but in the opposite direction.
Apparently us Icelanders are Scandinavian now ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
EDIT: Unless the border for Scandinavia just goes around Iceland
@@davie53 I guess we are both Scandi-nay-vian.
If we have Greenland, we will finally have our mortal enemy surrounded.
Newfoundland?
shiver me timbers
Canadian Bacon eh?
Greenland and Nunavut are basically like two countries, one people. Australia/New Zealand , Germany/Austria, Russia/Belarus, Rwanda/Burundi. They're more likely to join Canada if they ever join another nation.
Yeah, well that's all a part of our plan. While all of you Americans are distracted and have all eyes on your new Greenland, that's when we will invade across the southern border and annex it all
Everyone knows it is so that they can completely surround Canada.
I mean yeah, somebody has to keep the Canadians in check. Have you seen them play hockey? Terrifying.
It will do them no good. We cannot be contained
They want to be the sole country that borders Canada
Day of the rake is coming
@@SCIFIguy64 Please hurry it up.
It's odd to me that a massive gold and oil rush killed the country's hype over Arctic wastelands. Also it's not a Scandinavian ice cube, it's not in Scandinavia
Gold was found 30 years after the purchase of Alaska, and oil didn't start being extracted until 40-50 years afterwards.
@@jeremywerner9489 I'm fully aware
It's in Scandinavia. Only American education counts when naming the world
@@punchkitten874 gonna assume you're trying to make a joke
it sorta is, in the sense that the vikings "discovered" it
“The soyboys at the UN whining about self determination” is probably the most savage joke yet.
Greenland is an autonomous constituent country within the kingdom of Denmark. They have home rule but also seats in the Danish parliament, so the kingdom of Denmark does own Greenland.
Denmark should tighten its hold on Greenland & move native Danish people there then issue a decree withdrawing its status as an independent territory & make it a regular province but with enhanced privileges, essentially change nothing but a label on a peice of paper but make it really offical sounding so people for some reason take it more seriously.
True it's their only island and it's so valuable to them and they won't sell it
The island of Mindenao - the part of the Phillipines that the US wanted to trade for Greenland - has 26 million inhabitants, Greenland has 56,000
Now... Not then. And besides, at the time there were very real religious wars going on and US troops were caught in the middle of it. That is a whole different story, the de-Islamization of the Philippines and the pacification of the islands.
I live in Mindanao. How tf did I only learn that we were almost sold to the Germans...
And the Danes before that.
I'm putting up an offer next week
I'd imagine if the US plan to trade Mindanao to Denmark, I can't imagine how the Philippines would turn out when the other half of the country's speaking Danish
I'm living in Mindanao. That's really fascinating that we might spoke Danish or German.
I thought Mindanao belonged to the Republic of the Philippines.
@@stevenc.6502The US once occupied the Philippines.
Yes, and Spain before that; but not Denmark or Germany.
Greenland is NOT part of Scandinavia. It is however a part of the Nordic countries. Let just call United States part of South America to make a equivalent screw up.
Calm down
Bro I’m from Europe and it’s really not that deep. He made a mistake, boo hoo, it happens
Actually I'm not sure what you use as a apples to apples comparison is correct. But your point is correct.
@@nomore-constipation yeah the scandinavian group is completly included in the nordic one
plus its not so clear cut of googles first page of google the didnt even include greenland in either
on image search the first page only has one that acknoleges greenlands existance the scandinavian maps were unsure if they should include iceland and this one cute one included the ex soviet baltic trio estonia latvia and lithuania
and this one map i saw thr
@@Kj_Gamer2614 How is it relevant where you are from?
Since 1867, the United States attempted to buy Greenland from Denmark like it bought Alaska from Russia. While Greenland remains an autonomous territory within Denmark, a 1951 treaty gives the US much control over an island it once partially claimed from exploration. Unlike Russia, Denmark did not favor this idea, and made it clear that Greenland is not for sale unlike what Alaska used to be until 1867.
Denmark said that the idea of the US buying Greenland is absurd, and the US stopped trying to buy Greenland from Denmark in 2019.
Weird. There are some interesting tidbits here, I feel like you kind of missed the core of the US's historic interest in Greenland. Potential access to resources due to climate change is an extremely resent but quite minor factor historically. You actually started to touch on it, when you mentioned China. The reason is security. The US has been interested in Greenland for the same reason that it bought Alaska, or a different Danish territory, the Dutch West Indies (now known as the US Virgin Islands; btw that purchase forced the US to give up a strong claim to Greenland). The crux of it goes back to the Monroe doctrine. Essentially, whether it be old European empires, Russia's arctic traversing nukes, or a resurgent China, limiting the footprint of Old World powers in the western Hemisphere has always been a primary security objective of US policy makers.
That's the interesting and relevant geopolitical motivation. However, this channel errs toward entertainment ----------- hence the 2.21M subscribers.
@@compassroses @Compass Rose Totally get that. I thought about that too. But the video is literally called 'Why the US Keeps Trying to Buy Greenland' lol. Honestly, I've found this channel to do a great job at educating in an approachable and entertaining way. A video like this undermines that reputation unfortunately; and that's a shame because they generally do great work imo.
@@facio1000 Agreed. I subscribed because this channel does well at describing the technicalities of logistical questions. This one? Far too clickbaitish and shallow. No channel can win 'em all.
@@facio1000 The US is itself an imperialist power
And if China outbids the US for Greenland or Canada?
Why is it that only the US gets to buy land?
And if that doesn't happen, give it two more generations. In 50-75 years, India's population is going to be 5 billion. It will be more crowded that Tokyo, and they would be richer than China, with the US left far in the dust. They will need more land.
In the *literal infobox* of the wiki article on Scandinavia (don't even have to read a SINGLE word of the actual text to find it!) it clearly states:
"Nordic territories which are NOT part of Scandinavia: Greenland"
Come on, man. That's just lazy and there's no way around it
"The key of being the best sugar daddy in town is being thirty billion Dollars in debt"
"It was all Ice until the oil companies of the world banded together to right this grave injustice"
"And if our heros at Chevron keep it up, we might get also to see the theoretical Transpolar Sea Route get some use for at least a couple of years before we all die"
I love this guy that exactly sounds like Wendover Productions
Because he is
@@shumailamaqbool3926 NO, he is sam from half as intresting and the other one is sam from wendover productions... He stated that lots of times
I don't know how you are defining the word "country" but Greenland is most certainly not a sovereign state. It is an autonomous region that is owned by Denmark, and while they have full autonomy over their internal affairs, this does NOT make them an independent country. They operate functionally more like Hong Kong in China (minus the illegal government interference in elections). So, while Denmark would be kind of sidestepping 50,000 people, technically they have the full right to sell Greenland at any time. Most of the people that thought Trump was an idiot for offering to buy Greenland had no idea what they were talking about.
ok but did i ask
They were a colony until 1979
You’re right at most part, but some other is not really true. It’s kinda like the UK “country inside of country” thing and since it’s democratically, if people want it (which is very unlikely), if they don’t then they can’t have Greenland.
Background music was a bit loud at some times
Yeah why is it there
Makes it difficult to follow the narration sometimes.
if they buy greenland thats gonna be like its 3rd straight land border with Canada
I was about to say Greenland doesn't have a land border to Canada but apparently as of last month there is a tiny one? Didn't know that
@@palladianaltruist8047 There was a small, uninhabited island in the territorial waters of both Canada and Greenland. They've agreed to just split the island now, but before Canada and Denmark took turns sending a small military expedition to the island to take down the other country's flag and plant their own in its place. Apparently the expeditions often left gifts of stuff like brandy, chocolate, and maple syrup for the other country to take as well.
Greenland is just like Alaska, if you understand Great Circle shipping routes. Control of both of them means USA controls key parts of both the North Atlantic and North Pacific.
And canada could never ever consider charging a toll to US for northwest passage. Right now they dont and probably wont ever. But they could.
Is Greenland really a country? They have not declared Independent from Denmark to my knowledge.
They're a country in a vaguely similar sense that Scotland and Wales are 'countries'. Greenland is a mostly autonomous, self-governing entity within the Kingdom of Denmark, which is made up of Denmark itself, Greenland, and the Faeroe Islands.
They haven't declared complete independence, but they have made a number of moves that give them a great degree of autonomy. They have their own legal system, police force, and coast guard entirely separate from Danish control. They have control over their own foreign relations and trade, with representatives in some national capitals separate from Denmark's ambassadors. So while they're not truly and wholly independent per se, they have almost every freedom that a fully independent nation is able to exercise.
At this point, they are less a part of Denmark and more an autonomous nation for whom Denmark provides a degree of protection and economic stimulation for. It's more comparable to the attitude of the British Crown to the smaller commonwealth nations.
They're a constituent country. One of 2 within the Kingdom of Denmark outside of Denmark itself in fact, the other one being the Faroe Islands. This essentially means they still have their own governments and can make local laws, though some high order affairs like justice, foreign affairs, and finance are still handled by the Danish state. Greenland and the Faroe Islands themselves aren't financially sustainable and so receive aid from Denmark to keep them and their local economies going for the wellbeing of the residents. And though there are some neat minerals up there, trying to unearth all that stuff is likely gonna be a environmental disaster in the making which many Greenlanders, as well as Danes are not keen about.
Still Greenland and the Faroe Islands can make their own laws on several points, which for instance is why Whale slaugther is ok in the Faroe Islands (something which Denmark got a ton of hate for despite having no say in the matter, since this was one of the areas the Faroe Islands could rule on their own and interfering would break their own constitution), and why Greenland and the Faroe Islands aren't part of the EU when Denmark itself is.
But yeah its not the only constituent country out there. Heck the UK has Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland. And Finland has Åland, just to name a few examples.
Greenland legally has the right to declare independence at any time it wants to. It's just that the vast majority of the population want to wait with independence until the economy has been significantly expanded, it's a minority who support independence right here and now.
@TheCTSimp the narrator said they have a military….
As a filipino the reason why the us bought the Philippines from the spaniards makes a bit more sense to me now
We didnt buy them. We TOOK them after we kicked Spain's ass back to Europe. Forget about the fact that the Maine exploding that started the whole thing was almost certainly a false flag attack.
They brought it? I though they won it after the Spanish American War?
There was a scramble for colonies in the far east at the time and the Philippines was America's foothold in the region. The influence America projected in the region from the Philippines goaded the Japanese into doing Pearl Harbor
@@danielscalera6057 just like sleepy joe Xiden baited Russia to invade Ukraine.
@@AdistuffRBX The treaty of Paris (1898) which ended the war specifically includes the United States giving Spain $20 million for the Philippines, so it was less a conquest and more…buying something at gunpoint. Around $714 million in todays money so Spain didn’t make off too bad.
The thing is, Greenland isn't a real country.
Greenland is a constituent country like the UK "countries." Meaning they are just states with a bit more pride.
They are like states that choose to shop at Target over Walmart.
Regarding 2:10 "...a country could theoretically 'sell' itself to another country, but..."
The Dominican Republic actually tried to sell itself to the United States in the 1870's. Pres. Grant thought it was a great idea, as he figured freed slaves could move there and not face discrimination. Furthermore, when it became a state, it would likely become a stronghold of the Republican Party. Congress was sort of apathetic to the idea, though, so the US didn't go through with it.
I find it odd that you didn't mention the US history of exploring and claiming much of Greenland during the 18th and 19th centuries
"Why we should own everything" by Burger McYanky
@@JohnnyWednesday Not everything, just the western hemisphere.
I find it disappointing that Canada didn’t get a mention especially considering WE CURRENTLY (and forever hopefully) OWN THE ISLANDS THE NORTHWEST PASSAGE GOES THROUGH
I thought for some stupid reason they were defined as international and not internal waters
@@stormdragon4758 well several of the north west passage runs through several islands that belong to Nunavut and by that extent Canada
Didn't Canada and Danemark splited thoses islands bewteen themself ?
@@thetrist333 yes but only at the entrance, Islands Such as Devon, Ellesmere and Banks are still Canadian owned
@@stormdragon4758 Some countries define them as international waters. Canada defines them as internal waters.
Would be sad to imagine a time in the future in which after having agreed to an international land* border with Denmark (Hans island (look it up VERY interesting !)) Canada suddenly lost that and got back to only having the US as an official neighbour.
Land neighbour. Canada has France as a maritime neighbour.
@@revcrussell and technically if you stretch far enough, a maritime border with Russia too
@@revcrussell yeah cheers mate that's a useful detail I should have mentionned ^^
In 2019, most of us didn’t think it was silly to see if Greenland can be part of US, but silly to try to buy it from Denmark as if Greenland has no rights. It’s like someone trying to make Puerto Rico part of their country but asking the US how much money it would cost rather than asking Puerto Rico if they want to join.
not exactly a good comparison as Puerto Rico is an unincorporated territory of the US whereas Greenland is a Country albeit under the Danish Realm. If an offer is given there's no problem with the US selling but Greenland is it's own entity like Scotland to the UK
No no no, it was silly.
If someone wanted to buy Puerto Rico it is exactly what they would do, Puerto Rico is a colony so asking them for permission is useless compared to the US (it would only be a formality).
Actually, Trump floated the idea of trading PR for Greenland.
@@alexboxstadium98 if the Danish set Greenlands foreign policy, responsible for defending it and provide financial support -are they truly an independent country? NO. Greenland is a dependency of Denmark, but has its own government which manages the island's internal affairs. so this video is WRONG
Puerto Rico is a Commonwealth Territory of the US and was seceded to the USA in 1898 after the Spanish American war. The people of Puerto Rico have had five times since the 1960's (four of them after '93) to become independent and the citizens voted it down.
Not exactly, nobody wants to mine iron out of glaciers in Greenland and even if the northwest passage does open up, it will only be for a few months out of the year. The real value of Greenland is as a strategic base for the United States to detect and intercept nuclear attacks on the homeland (or to potentially launch such attacks against hostile powers). It's unlikely that the US will actually manage to buy Greenland, but, at the same time, Thule AFB isn't going anywhere, no matter not even if Greenland or Denmark tell the air force to leave; de jure issues aside, it's already a de facto US territory.
Ah, the token poorly informed but very patriotic American. He will drive to Greenland himself, firearm in hand, wife/sister (same person) by his side.
@@engineeringvision9507 Laws are funny that way. Just ask the fine people in Guantanamo, Cuba trying to get over the fence to become refugees.
With Thule, there is no point in buying it for strategic reasons. And with satellites and the fact Canada is the defense partner anyhow, buying Greenland doesn't make much sense military wise. Resource wise it isn't really easy to get all that out if Greenland AND it isn't like the Danes would not sell to a NATO partner ...
There is no real reason to "buy" it....
England is the main reason the USA never bought Greenland. Back when Willam Seward tried and when we tried again a few years ago. England said they will stop Denmark from ever selling it to the USA if tried. During the first attempt England stopped it and also bribed British Columbia at the same time to join what would be Canada. They would Buy it, Cancel all their debts, and Connect it with a Railroad to the east of Canada. Before hand BC was close to joining the Union and was even favored by the people doing so. Plan for the union was to add BC as a state and connect Alaska to the rest of the nation by rail while also decreasing British dominance.
Yes, both England and France definitely played major roles, this ties greatly back to the Napoleonic Era. Around 19th century was an interesting period of newly found enlightenment, Nationalism, delegalized slavery, forced neutrality(1864,Denmark), and end to European Monarch. The Brits also helped invent a term, "Copenhagenize", while terror-bombing Copenhagen. A term United States had no desire becoming accustomed to :).
To be fair to Trump, when he said Denmark "owns" Greenland he was talking about Denmark being sovereign over Greenland... which it is.
It's technically just a autonomous part of Denmark, but has more authority over itself than normal
Syria and Egypt were merged into one country from 1958 to 1961? That's an excellent, top-tier pub trivia fact.
Nobody - neither Sam nor the commenters - mentioned the citizens of Greenland and their opinion. I do not know much about them but I definetly know that I would not want another country buy my homecountry. Especially not if this state is far inferior regarding several aspects of life quality and freedom.
this
If only Hawaii had a say.
Hi Sam - could we turm the background music down a few notches? I don't mind a bit of bass, but at this volume it makes it hard to fully engage, especially when listening in noisy environments.
The United States could buy Greenland if the Danish government accepted. There isn't any constitutional statute preventing that. However the government won't accepted because why would you give up land.
For money. Thats why Russia "gave up" Alaska and Denmark "gave up" what is now the US virgin islands. Almost all of the now US was bought from someone at some point. The only land that wasn't bought was the original 13 colonies.
@@crazy_mind-ox8if the 13 colonies were bought with blood
@@crazy_mind-ox8if You're right that countries selling land used to be more common, but it doesn't really happen nowadays.
@@crazy_mind-ox8if
"For money" - Not wrong, but a very simple way of looking at it.
Alaska was hard to defend and didn't have much value, so Russia decided to sell before another country potentially could take it for free. The Danish West Indies was far from Denmark, no real shared history, and had become an economic burden. A part of the deal was that USA basically had to accept Denmark's rule over Greenland. A reason for the long delay was England not wanting USA nearby.
3:17 Greenland is not a Scandinavian ice cube it is a Nordic ice cube since the term Scandinavian is only mainland Denmark Norway and Sweden
dont have the music in the background please
03:18 Nordic: sad being forgotten sound.
Hey Sam, good job on this!! Even if a few details were a bit off, you clearly put in a lot of effort to understand a complicated topic, and I appreciate you.
like what?
Hey wait...didnt sam himself tell us to comment this?
(If yea then which video?)
@@laggy_1 Wow, that video was like a year ago!?!
background music is WAY too loud and in the way, I kept thinking I didn't pause my own music since it's drowning out the narration.
And Russia's coverage of arctic shoreline has nothing to do with the US's desire to gain more for itself as well
I’m pretty sure Alaska is in fact, a part of the United States.
Didn't the US "buy" the Phillipines from Spain after invading under the pretense of "liberating their peoples?" It also makes it funnier when they try to trade off one of the isles to Denmark.
The U.S. got the Phillilpines, Guam, Puerto Rico and maybe one or two other little islands from Spain in 1900-ish in exchange for the U.S. to stop kicking Spain's ass. You may notice a lot of Spanish sounding names and Catholic churches in Manila and Guam. Even over a century later, the influence remains.
@@User31129 Don't forget about Cuba, which was a U.S. colony in all but name for 50 years.
I’m excited for Greenlands future when that ice path opens up… kinda cool that the entire world economy could shift that drastically to involve them more.
I wish it wasn’t a product of our planet dying of a fever, but you gotta look on the bright side for our buddies in Greenland at least.
I petition they rename Greenland to Greyland to reflect every atlas ever printed
I was like, we're buying Greenland? Do you need to borrow anything? It didn't sound dumb to me, it seemed like the new Alaskan purchase.
Id rather Canada have greenland than Denmark controll it bruh. Denmark is wierd asf.
China, being a litteral imperial authoritarian fucking crazy ass country hellbent on world domination, asking for greenland is pretty fucking scary.
As an indian, im frustrated with how Europe is so keen on getting ass fucked by China for no apparent reason
Comparing buying Greenland to the purchase of the Congo is rather intellectual dishonest. Problem one: Greenland is owned by Denmark and is a dominion of and isn't a colony in Africa. Issue two: only 50,000 people live on Greenland.
that will be 65.000 inhabitants, thank you very much :P
Population density isn't the main problem. It's the fact that you're trying to buy the country out from under the feet of the inhabitants. By paying somebody else.
You should really be offering $10 million to every one of the 65,000 people on Greenland. That comes up to only $650 billion. Slightly less than 10 walls. It's a bargain.
@@danielch6662 $10 mio is not going that far, if you trade free healthcare and free education and an annual national subsidy from Denmark to an all American system.
What about the Louisiana Purchase? Napoleon sold that to the US, and that was essentially buying a country-sized territory. It's not suprising they'd try it again, given how that worked out super well.
And worth remembering that the USA offered to buy the California territories from Mexico for a couple of years before just taking it.
3:48 just taking a moment to appreciate this use of stock footage
hay!
Is there really weird music in the background or has my TH-cam bugged
You perhaps forgot the largest proven reserves of fresh water and Arctic drilling rights and fishing through that large EEZ.
Man why is the background music going this hard? I feel like being lectured at a mid size club
2:22 "Unlike normal facts, that fact has the special quality of not being true" Gonna have to file this one away for later
2:05 um greenland isnt a country? its a very large island owned somehow by denmark when it should be owned by canada? it was granted part home rule/autonomy but denmark still handles finances and foreign policy and tries to advise/interfere on local laws passed so um it would be just like buying alaska from russia or that gadsden purchase from mexico just larger scale. still surprised it was left alone and left as denmarks for so long since you'd think it would belong to canada.
Yeah, Canada is already shipping through our portion of the Arctic, we too share the NorthWest Passage. It isn't just Greenland that is involved. Also, Greenland having such close ties with Denmark, which is an awesome Country, I doubt they'd want to have anything to do with the craziness that is the United States.
Every land that was sold to the US today has literally been put to its max potential and is making billions. Of course a Canadian would know nothing about that since you’ve always relied on someone telling you what to do.
@@azulaquaza4916 Exactly who is telling us Canadians what to do? I assure you, we don't need anyone to tell us what to do. And if you think those "territories" of yours are happy being taken over by the U.S., you might want to re-think that process. We don't have territories outside of our land, we've thought about having others join Canada, but decided the economic impact wasn't viable. You Americans just steal from others, but then again, you never were able to annex Canada. Didn't go well for the Yanks. Spoiler alert, Canada won, see the war of 1812, dummy.
At 3:46 you say "the oil companies of the world" but show stock footage of a nuclear power station.
Greenland isn't Scandinavian 😅 Scandinavia is three countries in northern Europe. Norway, Sweden and Denmark. Greenland is in North America.
Music was exceptionally vibey today 😌
Music is too loud and fast imo
This background music is really funky and cool and I want it.
3:23 "Large Scandinavian Icecube" 🤣🤣
And it isn't even a Scandinavian country.
In the thumbnail, why was Alaska not red white and blue
Would it be possible to buy the country of Greenland directly from the people? Like give each Greenland resident $1M for a total of $56billion?
I’m not sure if they really have that much independence, contrary to what Denmark is claiming
How would you facilitate that?
If you made everyone on Greenland a millionaire, no one would be a "millionaire", it would inflate the country and you'll see people buying loaves of bread for $100.
Nice way to ruin Greenland's economy... A better solution would be to give that money to their government to invest in public infrastructure projects
@@Vortecus you could spread the payments out over x number of years and/or allow them to move to anywhere in the US and/or allow them to import any goods that their economy can’t handle
The soundtrack choice on this vid is interesting. 😂 Unusual, but I'm definitely vibing on it at this time of night. 😎
I'm 4 but I don't remember much from when I was 1 year old so this is new to me!
1:43 'Europe's Hitler' Isn't Hitler European? I don't really get it.
the music is too loud, i can barely hear the narrator
I think this is what TDS sounds like. I'm not sure what to take away from this.
"Europe's Hitler"? And there I was thinking Hitler came from Europe, silly me
How can you purchase something that is not for sale?
please lower the background noise
Didn't the US leave a bunch of radioactive waste in Greenland? Could be another justification.
If the U.S. wants to expand its territory, there is one place I'm confident they could get for *FREE* The U.K. is desperate to get rid of Pitcairn Island in the Pacific Ocean (population 45). If America politely asked for it, I'm confident Britain would be happy to give it to them, along with the large exclusive fishing zone that goes with it.
As a representative of the United States of America, I ask that you please give us Pitcairn Island.
As an American Nah we have enough access to the Pacific Ocean with California Alaska Hawaii and Guam.
And no offence to people living on Pitcairn but compared to Hawaii Alaska and Guam there pretty much useless to own it doesn’t give us much strategic importance
Although I do support if the UK sold Bermuda to us
I've never once heard that the UK wants to give up the Pitcairns. It costs the UK next to nothing, the islands are more dependent on New Zealand and French Polynesia than the UK and from an emotional point of view the Pitcairns are the reason why "the Empire on which the sun never sets" is technically still true. If anything the islands could be transferred to Australia or New Zealand, but probably not the US. And in the 21st century you could not possibly do that without the consent of the islanders.
@@bradley8575 >American
>spells offense as “offence”
Pick a side.
Sure, Pitcairn is useless, but to the British, it’s the reason the sun literally never sets on their empire. There’s a certain satisfaction in taking that power away from them. Pitcairn could be our 2nd Palmyra Atoll: completely useless, but for whatever reason, anyone born there is a citizen and can run for president. Seriously, look up “Palmyra Atoll.”
The background music is making we want to jump out the window right beside my desk.
Greenland is part of denmark they have danish citizenship and greenland never declared independence from denmark, they also don't have a foreign policy of their own
Yes, it is part of the Realm/Kingdom.
They have dual citizenship, meaning that have the same benefits as people born in Denmark proper.
What is the wild dance music in the background? 😂
Denmark does own Greenland. When you need someone's permission to leave, you aren't really an independent country. Greenland is no more independent than Iraqi Kurdistan. The Danes are just nice about it.
great video. just found out the music a little offset.
3:35 Fun fact: The reason that America's fighter keys don't do anything is because the rest is the world is terrified of them. We built the F-15, then we wanted to make something better, so we made the F-22, and when we benchmarked it, it didn't have to beat SUs, it didn't have to beat MiGs, or had to beat the f-15. Because nothing else in the world could touch the f-15, and if we wanted the f-22 to be the best, it had to beat the best.
You best hope that our fighter jets continue to do nothing, because once someone gives us a reason, ordinance and aircraft are going to start falling from the sky like snow flakes.
Honestly I kinda find it funny you go "they don't own Greenland" but proceed to say that Denmark is literally their military and decides most of their foreign policy. Greenland to Denmark is like Puerto Rico to the United States.
Not quite, Greenland is a country with a devolved government within the Kingdom of Denmark, similar to how Scotland is a country within the United Kingdom. Puerto Rico is a territory that behaves more like a semi-autonomous colony rather than a country
That's not actually weird, Iceland also doesn't have a military and relies on NATO and neither does Palau who rely on the US. It's really not that uncommon for small country to just leave the military up to some trusted ally. Also Denmark doesn't actually decide on foreign policy, it can't just force Greenland to do whatever it wants, it has to negotiate with the Greenlandic government as well because it's rare that things can be cleanly divided into foreign policy and internal policy. Like for example when China wanted to build an airport in Greenland, Denmark and the EU objected to that but it ended up happening anyways because the decision was up to Greenland and Denmark couldn't really do anything to stop it.
Also unlike Puerto Rico Greenlandic citizens have full Danish citizenship and can vote in Danish elections, if you're gonna compare it to anything it'd make more sense to compare it to an actual state rather than a territory that constantly gets shafted by the US.
@@hedgehog3180 Palau and Iceland are both memeber state of the UN, though, and have full treaty-making capacity. Greenland has neither, even with all the autonomy they enjoy. When they approved same-sex marriage, their law even had to be ratified by the Floketing (the Danish Parliament) to enter into force, as they couldn’t legislate without Copenaghen blessing on that matter.
Greenland is a rather sui generis case. It definitely is a nation, and one that looks incredibly close to be an undisputed country. Unless it kind of… isn’t. Not all the way. But it could be any moment they decide to be. And they simply don’t because, at the moment, they have it better with the current state of affairs, a very pragmatic choice.
music go crazy this episode
(2:45) How is Greenland a shelf-governing country if it's part of Denmark? Isn't Sweden the only shelf-governing country?
Is this a joke…?
I like how the visuals in HAI's videos seem to have been done by looking up about every 5th word on a stock footage site.
Mindanao for Greenland is such a bad deal, seeing that Mindanao was where the only meaningful resistance to American opposition was at the time (1910)
Yeah but if the idea was to trade that for Northern Schelswieg then from the perspective of Denmark at the time it really wasn't a terrible deal.
And then Denmark got Northern Schleswig for free just ten years later after WWI while still hanging on to Greenland - proving you can actually have your cake and eat it too.
@@gracchus7782 Suppressing the rebellions militarily in Mindanao is difficult. It's the same reason why the US lost in Vietnam: jungle terrain, a civilian population possibly unsympathetic to you, but now with an added bonus of porous sea access to Borneo.
All the Philippine governments, the Spanish, the Americans, the Japanese, and the current Republic of the Philippines couldn't fully militarily stamp them out. The Spanish and the Japanese tried to subdue them but decided to just let them go, the Americans tried war crimes and they couldn't do it, and the Republic of the Philippines has tried various levels of military force and couldn't wipe them off. In the end, what kind of worked are a combination of peace talks, conceding an autonomous region to them, and help from the American War on Terror to neuter the extreme radicals.
@@papaquonis yup. just do your duty, and be the nicy guy gave us back north schleswig.
And now you see why the US was willing to make that trade.
Incidentally, if the Germans had ended up with Mindanao, and were forced to deal with the uprising there, could it have affected the road to WWI? I don't think it would have, but one is inclined to wonder... 🤔
Did we really need the banger playing the whole time.
Greenland isn't a country, but also is not owned by denmark. It is partially a country.
No it's definitely a country, Danish law literally recognizes it as such. It's as much a country as say Scotland, though arguably Greenland has significantly more autonomy than Scotland. At this point the relationship is more like a bilateral agreement between two sovereign entities, even if Denmark is obviously the bigger partner in the relationship but Denmark also doesn't have any means to enforce demands on Greenland.
@@hedgehog3180 Exactly. Both Greenland and the Faroe Islands have more autonomy than Scotland. An obvious example is how both countries had the opportunity to opt out of EU, while Denmark is a member. Imagine Scotland trying to do that on their own, while the UK was a member. Nobody would have even considered it.
@@hedgehog3180 It acts as a country, but it still does not qualify as a country. It really doesn't matter that it "technically" isn't a country, but that still doesn't make it a country. Also it is not recognized by any other country. I edited my comment, as it isn't really "partially owned"
Lower the background music
One of your best vids yet. Your jokes are really on point with this one.
Sorry to say, but the music mix on this one is a bit off. Had trouble following the content, with all background music being quite so prominent.
"It's not true that Greenland is controlled by Denmark"
5 seconds later
"Greenland is part of the Danish Kingdom"
"Greenland's foreign policy is controlled by Denmark"
Greenland has its own government and voting without interference from Copenhagen. Copenhagen just provides monetary aid, defense, and foreign affairs management. The U.S. provides aid and defense to many countries. Doesn't mean they're US territories. Although most of those places have their own foreign affairs management.
So Greenland is run by Denmark, has Danish everything, BUT they just vote on their stuff by their own? So they are basically a glorified province/state within Denmark.
It’s autonomous region (or autonomous country), Greenlandic replaced Danish as the official language (many still speaks Danish as second languages).
@@User31129 That's called an autonomous region. By that logic, Hong Kong prior to 2019 was not part of China?
Ok so according to the thumbnail us will sell alaska for greenland interesting choice
Thank you for addressing Leopold II. It's alarming how many people don't know what he did