Why the US Keeps Trying To Buy Greenland 

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".

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

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.

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

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

Greenland is not an independent state. But there are some countries that are countries without being independence. E.g. Scotland, Wales, Greenland and Quebec.

*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 get the potential reference

Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

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

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.

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

@@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 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.

@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.

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

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

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?

And the Danes before that.

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'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.

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.

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.

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.

Yeah why is it there

Makes it difficult to follow the narration sometimes.

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.

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

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.

It's a country just without its own military and international representation. Just like how Scotland is a country.

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.

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.

"Why we should own everything" by Burger McYanky

@@JohnnyWednesday Not everything, just the western hemisphere.

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.

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 :).

this

If only Hawaii had a say.

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 ^^

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.

hay!

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.

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....

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

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.

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!?!

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

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.

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"

And it isn't even a Scandinavian country.

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?

Don’t be mad then when US lands boots on it

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... 🤔