Arctic March of Folly? Misperceptions and Apprehensions Torpedo America’s Goodwill Mission to Greenland After Stunning Election Turnabout

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Homepage of Trump’s White House website from January 2025. Photo: whitehouse.gov

When historian Barbara W. Tuchman chronicled the cascading series of escalations that resulted in the calamity of World War I, she brilliantly (and famously) described it as a “March of Folly” in which a series of disconnected but ill-timed events cascaded into a systemic collapse the consumed a generation of young men and devastated the heart of Europe. Her premise held true for future generations and gave birth to escalation theory during the Cold War, when nuclear weapons made future marches of folly far more lethal and potentially extinction-inducing. While diplomatic tensions in the Arctic remain a far cry from this order of destructive magnitude, events in Greenland since national elections were held on March 11th routed the ruling coalition of Inuit Ataqatigiit (IA) and Siumut, whose fortunes greatly dimmed (IA won 37.4 percent of the vote in 2021 for a surprise first place finish, dropping to 21.4 percent in 2025 for a third place finish and losing 5 of its 12 parliamentary seats, while Siumut went from its strong second place showing of 30.1 percent in 2021 to just 14.7 percent in 2025, losing 6 of its 10 seats). Their electoral collapse was mirrored by the rise of two smaller pro-independence parties, surprising not only most pundits but their own party chairmen: Demokraatit, a pro-business centrist-right party, rocketed to first place with 29.9 percent of the election’s vote and gaining 7 additional seats in parliament (for a total now of 10), up from its fourth place finish in 2021 with 9.3 percent of the vote when it won only 3, while pro-independence Naleraq rose from its third place 2021 showing with 12.3 percent of the vote to its strong 2025 second place finish with 24.5 percent of the vote, winning 8 seats compared to 4 in 2021. Fifth-place finisher Attasut won 7.4 percent of this year’s vote, retaining its two parliamentary seats, while newly formed pro-independence party Qulleq (founded by veterans of both Siumut and Naleraq) did not win any seats in parliament.

Just as the tectonic 2024 American election signaled a profound political realignment and retreat to a more nationalistic isolationism for America, Greenland’s election amidst these most turbulent of times and mounting concerns over the intensifying interest in Greenland expressed by newly re-elected President Donald J. Trump signals as significant a vote for change and a rejection of the status quo. But political elites in Nuuk have tried valiantly to interpret election results in favorable terms. After all, they reason, Naleraq didn’t take first place, and Demokraatit (which did take first) didn’t win an outright majority, so a coalition would once again be formed – indicating to some a reassuring sense of continuity, and not the change that voters actually embraced. But Greenland’s tilt to the right has not been fully reflected in the outcome of the coalition negotiations that followed the March 11th election. Instead of victorious Demokraatit joining forces with runner-up Naleraq with their combined 54.4 percent of the vote, and welcoming a new era of change Greenlanders voted for so decisively, Demokraatit instead formed its coalition with all of the other parties except Naleraq, which withdrew from coalition negotiations to become the sole opposition party. While this new super coalition represents over 75 percent of the electorate, it overlooks the will of the nearly 25 percent of voters who elevated Naleraq to its second-place finish in 2025, thus empowering in the next government the election’s most dramatic electoral decliners while effectively disenfranchising one of its most successful gainers.

The April 1 local election results, however, showed a deceleration in the decline in electoral support for Greenland’s historically leading parties, Siumut and IA, with Siumut polling ahead of Demokraatit, with 33.97% of the local vote and holding onto its 31 municipal council seats, experiencing only a small decline in support (down a modest 2.15% since 2021). Demokraatit came in a strong second, with 25.29% of the local vote for 21 council seats, up four from its prior 17 with an 18.41% increase in its vote. IA delivered a strong third-place finish, with 21.63% of the vote – holding onto 16 council seats, albeit down significantly by 16 seats with a 15.89% decline in votes from its 2021 victory. Naleraq took 11.2% of the vote, winning 4 seats, up 1 seat (and 0.49% of the vote) from 2021. Attasut, with 6.44% of the votes, won 4 council seats, for a net decline of 2. Qulleq, Greenland’s newest party formed in 2023, took 1% of the local vote but did not win a seat, remaining out of power at both the local and national level.

Intriguingly, mapping Greenland’s 2025 national election results by municipal council appears to reveal a regional fault line, with northwest Greenland (the region that Robert Peary once frequented and which he anticipated would be colonized by America, widely known as Pearyland) leaning toward Naleraq (including, from north to south, Avannaata, Qeqertalik, and Qeqqata) while Greenland’s southwest and southeast leaned toward Demokraatit (including Sermersooq and Kujalleq), indicating two distinct regional approaches to independence.

But the degree of this regional divergence appeared to fade by Greenland’s April 1 local elections. After the controversial, high-level American delegation had come and gone, Naleraq’s unpredicted surge in support on March 11 greatly softened. Its notable decline in performance after such impressive national election support could indicate that its tilt toward Washington in the wake of the political and diplomatic fireworks between the March 11 and April 1 elections as anti-American sentiment intensified, while an asset in the March 11 electoral contest, quickly became a liability at the local level. Washington’s muscular interest, perceived as election interference by Greenland’s political elites, thus appears to have backfired, helping to unify its fractious political landscape in opposition to President Trump’s ambitions for the island. Moreover, Naleraq withdrew from coalition talks resulting in its exclusion from the governing coalition (representing every other party with parliamentary seats), which found itself re-aligned with Copenhagen in opposition to President Trump’s ambition to “get” Greenland – giving Greenlanders the opportunity to reconsider their vote three weeks earlier. At the same time, Siumut’s fortunes quickly rebounded, less than three weeks after its major electoral setback on March 11 upon which it joined the governing coalition and its chair, Vivian Motzfeldt, retained Greenland’s powerful foreign ministry portfolio. IA, however, did not recover as much ground, giving the local election results an overall rightward tilt even as sentiment toward independence cooled.

High Tensions at a High Latitude

With America’s intensifying interest in Greenland now part of the political conversation in Greenland, tensions are high in a region famous for long having “high latitude, low tension,” so high that the ingredients for an unintended escalation and potential cascade that could destabilize the entire region with its own Arctic “march of folly” now seem present.

Just two days after Greenland’s national elections were held on March 11th, ushering forth change, President Trump fatefully met with NATO’s Secretary General Mark Rutte, and while reiterating his recognition of Greenland’s strategic importance in a warming Arctic, once again mentioned his expectation that Greenland would eventually be annexed by the United States, a sentiment he had expressed before, most famously during his address to a joint session of the U.S. Congress on March 4th, just a week before Greenland’s 2025 election. As the alliance leader of NATO, the United States has long been counted on for the defense of democracy across Europe, so it ruffled many an alliance partner’s feathers to hear the Commander-in-Chief talk openly (and longingly) of annexing the territory of a fellow alliance-member, in particular during talks with the Alliance’s Secretary-General. That this was just two days after the election, and 43 days before the deadline when the coalition itself must be determined, Greenland was understandably concerned. The timing indeed looked awful.

But as the American electorate has long known, President Trump is prone to hyperbole, and his casual use and misuse of language has become an accepted fact of life, enervating advocates of free expression with every faux-pas that he makes.

However, Greenlanders are perhaps more European in their political culture than America despite their inhabiting the northeastern flank of North America, and as such could be described as more “woke” (as is currently in vogue) or “politically correct” (as earlier generations decried) than the so recently unleashed Americans, and as such Greenlanders are understandably quite sensitive to such frequent Presidential use of the word “annex” in conjunction with the words “America” and “Greenland” after over 80 years of strategic partnership and military protection. But with Trump, there are few surprises given his consistency and, curiously enough, transparency, telegraphing his often controversial positions without apology, reminiscent of a political style that may seem dated, in a world that has grown accustomed to self-censorship and self-restraint in public discourse. After all, it was Trump that made peace with America’s sworn enemy, the Taliban, even after its complicity in the deadly 9/11 attacks, which targeted his home city of New York in its mass casualty attack. If Trump could find his way to a lasting peace with and the restoration of sovereignty to a Taliban-ruled Afghanistan, it is intriguing to imagine what sovereign form Trump will ultimately embrace for Greenland, knowing how accepting he ultimately was of unorthodox sovereign visions last time he had the opportunity. If one looks past the language, and rises to the moment, there could be an historic opportunity here for both Greenland and America, as discussed below.

Annexation Vexation: The Word That Shook the World (and Re-aligned Nuuk with Copenhagen)

Within a day of Trump’s dropping the “annexation” bomb in conversation with the NATO Secretary-General, on March 14th the party chairmen of all five Greenlandic political parties represented in parliament issued their own (and seemingly first) joint statement condemning Trump’s cavalier (and in their view, inappropriate) use of the word “annexation,” finding it a “threat” that was, simply put, “unacceptable.” They even called upon international support, suggesting that diplomacy and domestic unity had failed (when in fact, Trump’s provocative language has helped to unify Greenland’s fractious political landscape more than ever, rather similar to the high and determined energy that Putin’s invasion of Ukraine brought to NATO’s unity.)

And one day later, on March 15th, the chairmen of the contending political parties, Mute B. Egede of IA, which was just voted out of the Prime Minister’s office, and Jens-Frederik Nielsen of Demokraatit, which was just voted in, jointly led a mass rally of 1,000 Greenlanders (the biggest protest in Greenlandic history) to the (then empty) American consulate, with protestors carrying signs stating “Yankee Go Home,” and some wearing MAGA-inspired hats with the newly coined (and quickly viral) expression “Make America Go Away.” It was an impressive show of unity – an under-appreciated benefit of this diplomatic tempest at the top of the world that paradoxically is strengthening, not weakening, Greenland under the perceived pressures of America’s imperial interest.

As if in response, but perhaps a result of America’s own naïve misunderstanding of Greenland’s parliamentary politics (having until recently largely ignored the island for the better part of three quarters of a century, even while defending it from aggressors), the United States announced an uninvited and unofficial delegation of high government officials to the island, initially to be led by the Second Lady, Usha Bala Chilukuri Vance, who cast her visit as an opportunity to learn about and celebrate Greenlandic culture and unity (a unity the venomous reaction to her trip has incidentally strengthened), along with the President’s National Security Advisor, Mike Waltz, and his Secretary of Energy, Chris Wright, the latter who planned to visit the air base in Pituffik (previously known as Thule).

The trip, originally planned for March 27-29, was preceded on March 23 by the arrival of a US advance team to Nuuk (quite clumsily arriving in two Hercules military transport planes, conveying perhaps the wrong signal at the wrong time given the tensions of the moment) to set up the logistics, which in turn precipitated the deployment of 100 Danish police from Copenhagen and three K9 units, to the dismay of Danish taxpayers who would end up footing the bill for what they perceived to be a very offensive charm offensive by America’s most diverse Second Lady in history.

The Danish and Greenlandic governments emphasized they had neither invited the Second Lady nor the President’s National Security Advisor or Energy Secretary, and that the trip was a private matter. But soon outgoing/interim Prime Minister Egede, fresh from his March 14th statement of unity with his fellow party chairs and his March 15th march on the US consulate, lashed out in condemnation of what he perceived as naked political interference in Greenland’s internal politics and an assertion of American power, stating, “Enough is enough!”

Noting that Greenland was still within its 45-day window to negotiate the composition of its next governing coalition, and that local elections were yet to take place (with that election coming on April 1, just three days after the Second Lady’s planned visit, and wearing his transitional hat as interim Prime Minister (his party having been routed in the national poll on March 11) was now loudly asserting a new role as Greenland’s vocal opposition. The timing, he argued, was inappropriate. “We are now at a level where it can in no way be characterized as a harmless visit from a political wife … What is the security advisor doing in Greenland? The only purpose is to show a demonstration of power to us, and the signal is unmistakable.” Showing solidarity with the newly ousted IA chairman Egede, victorious Demokraatit chairman Nielsen echoed the sentiment and the condemnation: “When someone threatens us, looks down on us or speaks badly of us, we stand together.”

And so, the Second Lady, excited at the opportunity to observe Greenland’s national dogsled competition, and to visit the island’s historic and cultural sites with her son accompanying her, and the National Security Advisor, excited to make a base visit to Pituffik (previously called Thule) with the Energy Secretary, keen to invest in Greenland’s potentially lucrative natural resource economy, were vilified as dastardly hegemons, imperial crusaders intent on conquering Greenland. While it is true that President Trump does speak often and longingly about Greenland becoming part of America, and Danish Prime Minister sees in Trump’s keen interest haunting parallels with Putin’s own longing for Crimea, and later Eastern, and finally all of, Ukraine. The Daily Beast’s David Gardner interprets comments made by Denmark’s Prime Minister, Mette Frederiksen, while meeting in Greenland with its newly elected Prime Minister, Jens-Frederik Nielsen just two days after its April 1 municipal council election: “‘When you demand to take over a part of the Kingdom of Denmark’s territory, when we are met by pressure and by threats from our closest ally, what are we to believe in about the country that we have admired for so many years?’ she asked. ‘This is not only about Greenland or Denmark,’ she added. ‘This is about the world order that we have built together across the Atlantic over the generations.’” Though she did not mention Putin by name, Gardner believes Putin’s example was foremost on her mind. According to Gardner, “Denmark’s leader questioned her nation’s future relationship with the U.S., sounding exasperated at Trump’s attempted land grab.”¹⁾David Gardner, “Danish PM Says Trump Greenland Grab Has Parallel With Russia,” Yahoo News, April 3, 2025, https://www.yahoo.com/news/danish-pm-says-trump-greenland-215248788.html. Accessed on 6 May 2025. We can thus find all the ingredients for a cascading march of folly with the potential to tear an alliance apart, rob NATO of its military protector, and radicalize the peaceful and predominantly Inuit populace in Greenland, which has long counted on America for their military protection whether from Nazis, Soviets or even today’s illusory bogeymen, Russia (an emergent strategic partner for the Trump administration with plenty of its own Arctic territory already) and China (whose interests in Greenland have been on the wane since 2019).

WWI It’s Not … But How Might This All End?

Recent events suggest to me that Greenlandic and Danish elites perceive Trump not just an American Putin, but more akin to the insatiable hegemon Hitler, with the diplomatic showdown in and over Nuuk potentially becoming a contemporary “Munich moment,” when the real danger is that this moment could in fact be more like Sarajevo in 1914, a powder keg of escalation awaiting detonation. While it may not come close to matching World War I in its potential for fratricidal destruction, the repercussions of a potential collapse in the regional order will be no less global in its consequences.

All because President Trump has spoken so freely, so openly, so uncensored about his dream of American expansion, and yes, of the annexation of Greenland. But President Trump came back to power not through any illicit machinations of insurrection but by popular mandate in an election that was both free and fair. He brings a decisive electoral mandate and an impressive diversity of political base with major inroads in both the Black and Hispanic vote, long supporters of the Democrats. He is the imperfect reflection of a changing America, one more concerned with hemispheric security than multilateralism, more focused on American prosperity than on globalization. He has moved quickly with claims to end a bloody war on European soil that risked not only nuclear catastrophe but the specter of world war, in a Ukraine desiring freedom. Trump’s words may be messy, but he has never been afraid to share his innermost thoughts, as unpolished as they may sound.

But his loose talk of annexation has fostered increased Greenlandic unity, and his delegation was initially to be led by a symbol of America’s diversity, and accompanied by two cabinet-level proxies who carry his implicit trust. This presented a bridge of opportunity for Greenland to seize and not shun, a charm offensive meant not to offend but to be met by Greenland’s own charm counter-offensive. The timing, however, between Greenland’s national and local elections, and amidst negotiations to form a governing coalition, seem to have been misunderstood by an American President newly re-elected in a system that greatly differs from Greenland’s parliamentary system – was admittedly terrible. As they say: no good deed goes unpunished.

But the intentions in this case need not be perceived as malicious or threatening. As in any real estate transaction, the property desired must be visited, once or twice, and then inspected, and then an offer must be negotiated that leaves both parties satisfied with the outcome. This is the way of Trump. When he led America out of its forever war in Afghanistan, he made peace with the Taliban, America’s sworn blood enemy tied to the horrific and tragic attacks on September 11th, America’s bloodiest day. He walked away from America’s own proxy and comrade-in-arms, leaving the government in Kabul to fall. The Danes may feel we are once again at such a precipice, and perhaps we are. But for Greenland, the road ahead is not that which doomed the government in Kabul, which led to the Taliban’s return. The road in Greenland leads to a truly Indigenous government with a truly authentic sovereign voice.

As Vice President Vance explained on March 25th in his announcement taking the helm of the Second Lady’s well-intended but increasingly controversial delegation to Greenland: “We think we can take things in a different direction, so I’m going to go check it out.” The Vice President, like the Second Lady before him, did not ask for permission from the Kingdom of Denmark to make this visit, with America’s Second Couple now travelling together to northwest Greenland more as allies and liberators than conquerors. Their delegation was accompanied by an Energy Secretary with the power to jumpstart Greenland’s moribund economy and a National Security Advisor with the power to keep Greenland secure on its road to freedom, whether as part of, or in alliance with, America. Importantly, the Second Lady now journeyed to Greenland in the company of the Vice President himself, who has not only the ear but also the gratitude of the President (even if briefly diminished after his less than enthusiastic support for the successful but controversial military strike against Yemen’s Houthis).

As the trip approached, its itinerary grew simpler and less controversial, and its time span shrunk from three destinations over three days to one destination in one, in the end only including a base visit to Pituffik (Thule) , where by mutual agreement with the Danes, American officials may come and go at will as part of their ongoing defense effort. Rather than an opportunity to engage with Greenlanders in Nuuk and Sisimiut as planned, and to learn about and celebrate Greenlandic culture as intended, the delegation became just another diplomatic junket to meet the troops and wave the flag. America’s retreat from the original charm offensive’s grander ambition shows weakness in the face of Greenlandic unity, potentially setting back America’s ultimate ambition to takeover Greenland for a while. But this in turn has only further intensified the simmering tensions between America and both the Danes and Greenlanders.

While less risky, and more diplomatically sensitive to Denmark as well as Greenland, the abbreviated itinerary missed an historic opportunity to engage in a necessary conversation on Greenland’s future and America’s place in that future. But the conversation the team of high Trump administration officials had hoped to kick start is a conversation still worth having, one that Greenland’s electorate in voting for change clearly wants to have still. Focusing on the singular (and most unpopular) buzz word “annexation” or the vexing President whose use of words famously lacks precision even on the most delicate of topics, and whipping up a frenzy of anti-American sentiment as we witnessed in Greenland in those dramatic days after its national election, has only served to perpetuate Greenland’s continued colonial dependency on Copenhagen and forestall its eventual independence.

America wants to offer Greenland a different path forward, one that may bring it closer to its own aspirations for independence. That was Vice President Vance’s message in Pituffik: “We believe in the self-determination of the population of the people of Greenland. And our argument is very simple. It is not with the people of Greenland, who I think are incredible and have an incredible opportunity here. Our argument really is with the leadership of Denmark, which is under-invested in Greenland and under-invested in security architecture. That simply must change. It is the policy of the United States that that will change.” Why not instead seize upon the opportunity for change that America is offering, and join a conversation that has the undivided, undistracted attention of the President of the United States, with his most trusted and influential proxies, while the opportunity presents itself, rather than miss what may be a narrow window in which all Greenlanders’ dreams can come true, and surrender to the elitist interests in both Nuuk and Copenhagen that favor the status quo, and not the change so many Greenlanders voted for?

What comes next? According to Andreas Østhagen’s recent commentary at The Arctic Institute, the diplomatic crisis unfolding in in Greenland is “not really about Greenland” but instead a reflection of President Trump’s America First doctrine “that speaks to Trump’s voters and fan base” rather than “America’s long-term strategic interests,” and cares less “about melting ice in the Arctic or relations with Denmark” than “the image of a strong leader who promotes American interests and puts European countries in their place.”²⁾Andreas Østhagen, “Trump has misunderstood the Importance of Greenland,” The Arctic Institute, March 29, 2025, https://www.thearcticinstitute.org/trump-misunderstood-importance-greenland/. Accessed on 6 May 2025. Asks Østhagen: “What we all wonder is how far Trump is willing to go to pursue his desire to take control of Greenland.”³⁾Andreas Østhagen, “Trump has misunderstood the Importance of Greenland,” The Arctic Institute, March 29, 2025, https://www.thearcticinstitute.org/trump-misunderstood-importance-greenland/. Accessed on 6 May 2025. One can imagine wondering something quite similar to this back in 1914 as the original “march of folly” accelerated toward the unfathomable abyss of total (and yet entirely unwanted) war.

Let’s hope this time around we are blessed to learn from history rather than doomed to repeat it.

Barry Zellen, PhD, is a Research Scholar in the Department of Geography at the University of Connecticut (UConn) and a Senior Fellow (Arctic Security) at the Institute of the North (IoN). He is the author, most recently, of Arctic Exceptionalism: Cooperation in a Contested World (Lynne Rienner Books, 2024) He has lived in Inuvik, NWT (1990-93), Yellowknife, NWT (1994-98), Whitehorse, Yukon (1988-89 and 1998-99), and Akureyri, Iceland (2020), and has worked for the Inuvialuit, Dene, Metis and Yukon First Nations.