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** 'If the Bad Guys Start Shooting, it Comes Over Greenland' vs. Europe's Strategic Myopia ([link removed])
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by Pierre Rehov • January 23, 2026 at 5:00 am
* President Donald J. Trump saw what Europe could not, or perhaps would not: that Greenland is not a quaint curiosity; in the 21st century, it is an essential security asset and industrial necessity for the West.
* From the Arctic flight path of Russian and Chinese intercontinental ballistic missiles to the Arctic shipping lanes increasingly packed with Russian warships, Greenland's importance has surged.
* The European Union, sadly, still seems to be having trouble emerging from doctrinaire fantasies about its military preeminence, green transitioning, and the illusion that the "Great Replacement" of Europeans and their values -- by immigrants and their values -- is merely a "conspiracy theory." Instead, Europe is continuing to betray its industrial base and toss away strategic opportunities.
* Trump's push, no matter how undiplomatically articulated, was consistent with a straightforward reality: You cannot safeguard Western security or technological superiority if the strategic routes by land, sea and sky, as well as essential raw materials, are controlled by your adversaries.
* The great European flaw -- from which it hopefully will soon recover -- is that its political, economic and industrial policies are rooted in wishful thinking rather than in hard material realities.
* Europe's best move would be to allow the United States, which has both the will and the capability, to secure a foothold in Greenland that allows it, along with its allies, to shape and protect the future of the West.
* China's dominance in rare earth processing is not a theoretical risk — it is a concrete vulnerability for Western economies. Greenland offers a chance to diversify the supply and break dependence on a self-declared enemy.
* Europe's leaders, meanwhile, chase their vainglorious dreams.... just as these leaders still keep believing -- or pretending to -- that millions of immigrants from a totally different culture will adopt the laws and values of the West.
* Europe's dismissive reaction is more than incomprehension; it is symptomatic of a terrifying atrophy.
* In the Arctic, and beyond, Trump is right -- and Europe, once again, is too vain to learn.

President Donald J. Trump saw what Europe could not, or perhaps would not: that Greenland is not a quaint curiosity; in the 21st century, it is an essential security asset and industrial necessity for the West. Pictured: The US Space Force's Pituffik Space Base, in Greenland, photographed on October 4, 2023. (Photo by Thomas Traasdahl/Ritzau Scanpix/AFP via Getty Images)

For decades, the world treated Greenland as a sentimental footnote in Arctic mythology rather than a linchpin in global security and modern technology. This was strategic negligence with real consequences.

By contrast, President Donald J. Trump saw what Europe could not, or perhaps would not: that Greenland is not a quaint curiosity; in the 21st century, it is an essential security asset and industrial necessity for the West. "Everything comes over Greenland. If the bad guys start shooting, it comes over Greenland," he said.

From the Arctic flight path of Russian and Chinese intercontinental ballistic missiles to the Arctic shipping lanes increasingly packed with Russian warships, Greenland's importance has surged.

The US purchase of Alaska from Russia in 1867 was also ridiculed as a "folly."

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