Greenland, the largest island in the globe, is no longer remote. It is the ice-covered, cold piece of land amid the rapidly warming global strategic competition, mainly between the United States of America, China, and Russia. As the ice melts, the urgency to control its strategic location and the resources beneath it intensifies. Blind selfishness coupled with strategic shortsightedness on the part of the Kingdom of Denmark and the European Union has been destructively unhelpful. On the contrary, these amateurishly emotional reactions have greatly contributed to the increase in the many risk factors present in any attempt to exclusively control the area of the Northern Arctic.

The currently existing legal status of Greenland is as murky as the Danish government's illusory position at a chaotic intersection of local self-rule, Danish sovereignty, and intensifying global interests in the Northern Arctic. Greenland's population is smaller than the capacity of a medium-sized football stadium, but its strategic geography is outsized. Politically as well as legally, Greenland is self-governing in most domestic matters, while remaining part of the Kingdom of Denmark, with the latter retaining responsibilities for defense and major aspects of foreign affairs under the Self-Government framework established in 2009. In addition, this framework lays out a legal path to independence, based on Greenlandic decision.

As a result, Greenland's domestic and foreign policies are dominated by two intertwined questions: how to broaden economic options and how to manage diplomacy and security.........

© Townhall