In Their Position, Why Would You Not Want To Be An American Protectorate?

[ToraToraTora]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cx2r3d0r8z0o

Hardly anyone lives there, almost no GDP, almost no infrastructure, surely if a superpower wants you on board it's a no brainer? OK so they have Trump making a mess of a lot of things for now but he'll be gone in less than 4 years. Can you imagine the kids growing up and saying to their parents, "you had a chance to be US protected and you didn't take it? Are you mad?" - MAABOF.

[Untitled]

obviously my first preference would be for it to remain part of denmark. but i don't want america or russia getting their hands on it.

[Ellipsis]

They're currently attached to the EU, through Denmark. The idea of dumping that and then going to Russia or China would be nuts. The USA, maybe, but we have now seen that a superpower having a single leader rather than a federation has its downsides. My understanding is that their alternative to Denmark is independence, like say the Marshall Islands, rather than jumping out of a benign frying pan and into an unstable fire.

[Untitled]

i think it's very unlikely that they would last as an independent country. they have only 60,000 people and loads of resources that lots of powerful countries want. if it's independence it will be in name only.

if i were a greenlander i'd want no change. 

[tomus42]

Do you think that if China or Russia looked like they were about to invade Greenland the Americans would just sit and watch it happen?

It's protected already. It doesn't need to be owned by them.

[Canary42]

I can't imagine many Poles in the 30s thought "The chance to be protected by Germany and we didn't take it". 

[Untitled]

you don't always have to invade a country to take control of it. 

[Sinead_O]

Ultimately it's up to the Greenlanders.

[davebro3]

money talks - it's down to what Trump can offer them.

[1ozzy]

//There's fewer than 60,000 (less that half the number in my UK town) so it's not a big deal really.//

Guess the Falkland Islands with a population of how many? wasn't a big deal either

 

[davebro3]

not for me it wasn't

[ToraToraTora]

10:01 an ideal candidate for this:

https://www.theanswerbank.co.uk/History/Question1891117.html

 

[davebro3]

The Falklands means as much to me now as it did before the invasion - and I hadn't even heard of it then. If Argentina had put in a Mauritius/Chagos style proposal rather than invading we would probably have paid them to take it off our hands.

[fender62]

america would mine till it looks like swiss cheese, build some infrastructure for themselves plus a token school for the islanders, probably a military base? airstrip docks etc only useful till it's not viable anymore, then pull out. or build a huge prison for there hard core murderers terrorists etc.

[davebro3]

Greenland is BIG. Any mining would be fairly insignificant. Why would it be treated differently than other US states?

[1ozzy]

//Greenland is BIG. Any mining would be fairly insignificant.//

So they would only dig a few tiny holes?

//Why would it be treated differently than other US states?//

Probably wouldn't. 

That's the scary part.

[davebro3]

Wales is a tiny country that been extensively mined for slate, coal and to a lesser extent for minerals. It's still astonishingly beautiful.