"Any attempt by the United States to claim the island would quickly spiral out of control," argued Casey Michel of the Human Rights Foundation. "What alliance could survive something like this? What ally would ever trust the U.S. not to do the same in the future?"

WASHINGTON, Jan. 8 (Xinhua) -- "We do need Greenland, absolutely." U.S. President Donald Trump returned to his long-standing fixation on the world's largest island days after an audacious U.S. military operation in Venezuela -- one that ended with Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and his wife captured and taken to New York.

Trump and his allies doubled down. The White House confirmed that several options were being considered to acquire Greenland from Denmark, including "utilizing the U.S. military." Tensions escalated under the threat of force, raising global concern.

Why does Trump want Greenland so badly? And why is he willing to take it by force?

WHY GREENLAND?

"Location, location, location." The Associated Press invoked the real-estate mantra three times to explain Trump's enduring desire for Greenland.

Lying to the north-east of the North American continent, Greenland is the world's largest island that isn't a continent. It is an autonomous territory within Denmark, enjoying extensive self-rule, though defence and foreign policy remain in Copenhagen's hands. The United States already maintains a military base there.

Strategically, Greenland has long mattered -- during the Cold War, it was a crucial pillar of U.S. nuclear deterrence against the Soviet Union, and today it remains a key component of NATO's anti-submarine architecture -- the so-called Greenland-Iceland-UK gap.

Climate change is sharpening the island's significance. As Arctic sea ice melts, northern shipping routes are becoming increasingly viable, offering shorter transit times and alternatives to chokepoints such as the Suez and Panama canals, despite the harsh weather and treacherous seas that persist. Even so, control of Greenland would allow the United States to command access routes from both the North Atlantic and the Arctic into North America.

An analysis by Harvard University's Belfer Center reaches a similar conclusion: Greenland occupies a pivotal position along both major Arctic routes -- the Northwest Passage and the Central Arctic Route. Over the long term, the island could prove vital in preventing and responding to emergencies in the far north.

What may be even more appealing to Trump, however, is Greenland's resource wealth, said Klaus Dodds, professor of geopolitics at Royal Holloway, University of London.

"Incredible natural resources." That was how U.S. vice-president, J.D. Vance, chose to praise Greenland.

The island is rich in minerals indispensable to the energy transition and advanced manufacturing, including rare earths, graphite, copper and nickel. A 2023 study by the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland estimates that roughly 400,000 square kilometers of the island are ice-free, underpinned by a complex geological structure spanning nearly four billion years of Earth's history -- conditions well suited to mineral exploration.

According to the European Commission, 25 of the EU's 34 strategically important materials can be found in Greenland. The United States Geological Survey, for its part, judges that surrounding waters may also hold substantial oil and gas reserves.

Yet this wealth has long remained largely untapped. As of 2023, only two mining projects were in operation. As ice sheets and sea ice retreat, extracting resources on and around the island will become progressively easier, noted the Belfer Center.

It is this promise of abundance that has proved irresistible to some in the United States -- an allure strong enough to eclipse almost every other consideration.

OBSESSION TO INTIMIDATION

Trump has long argued that the United States must control the world's largest island to safeguard its own security. In recent remarks, he went further, hinting that Venezuela might not be the last country to face U.S. intervention to secure resources, while insisting that it was for others to decide what a large-scale U.S. strike against Venezuela might imply for Greenland.

White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, in an interview with CNN, made the administration's position explicit, calling it "the formal position of the U.S. government that Greenland should be part of the United States."

Katie Miller, the wife of Stephen Miller and herself a close Trump ally, posted an image on social media X of Greenland overlaid with the U.S. flag, accompanied by a single word: "SOON."

The fascination is not new. It dates back to Trump's first term, when he likened the idea of acquiring Greenland to "a large real-estate deal." His 2019 offer to buy the island was swiftly rebuffed by Denmark and dismissed as "absurd" by the Danish prime minister, Mette Frederiksen.

Nor is the U.S. interest in Greenland merely a Trump-era eccentricity. Owing to its strategic location and abundant natural resources, the island has attracted Washington's attention for more than a century.

In 1867, William H. Seward, the secretary of state who engineered the purchase of Alaska, also contemplated acquiring Greenland and Iceland. In 1946, Harry Truman went further, offering Denmark 100 million U.S. dollars in gold for Greenland as part of the U.S. early Cold War security strategy. Copenhagen declined, though the United States has maintained a permanent foothold on the island ever since, most notably through the Pituffik air base in the north-west.

This latest revival of territorial ambition has, however, provoked a political backlash at home. Jeanne Shaheen and Thom Tillis, the Democratic and Republican co-chairs of the Senate's bipartisan NATO Observer Group, issued a joint statement on Tuesday condemning Trump's rhetoric.

"When Denmark and Greenland make it clear that Greenland is not for sale, the United States must honour its treaty obligations and respect the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Kingdom of Denmark," it said, warning that any suggestion of coercion against a NATO ally would undermine the very principle of self-determination the alliance exists to defend.

INTERNATIONAL ALARM RINGS

"Our country is not something you can deny or take over simply because you want to," Greenland's Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen said on Tuesday, as European unease hardened into open opposition.

Leaders of France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Spain, Britain and Denmark issued a joint statement the same day, stressing that decisions concerning Greenland rest "with Denmark and Greenland, and them only."

The statement underscored that Arctic security remains a central concern for Europe and for the transatlantic alliance as a whole, noting that NATO has designated the region a priority and that European allies are increasing their presence there.

Diplomatically, Copenhagen has sought direct engagement. Danish Foreign Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen and Greenland's Foreign Minister Vivian Motzfeldt have requested a meeting with the U.S. Secretary of State in the near future, according to Greenland's government. Earlier attempts for a sit-down were not successful, the statement said.

Beyond official statements, analysts have described Washington's actions as a signal rather than an aberration. Asli Aydintasbas and Chris Herrmann of the European Council on Foreign Relations argue that the seizure of Venezuela's president highlights Trump's preference for force, his volatile diplomacy and his growing comfort with a world governed by spheres of influence rather than rules.

For Europe, analysts say the choice is stark: Accommodating Washington may preserve short-term transatlantic harmony, but would reward coercion; resisting it would be politically costly and strategically demanding, requiring an unusual degree of European unity. Failing to do either risks further encroachment and deeper divisions within Europe.

Some observers warned that the consequences could extend well beyond Greenland. Annexing the island, argued Casey Michel of the Human Rights Foundation, would amount to a strategic catastrophe for the United States.

"Any attempt by the United States to claim the island would quickly spiral out of control," Michel wrote in Foreign Policy. "What alliance could survive something like this? What ally would ever trust the U.S. not to do the same in the future?"

Others went further still. Sven Biscop of the Egmont Institute suggested that the danger for Europe lies in the possibility that the Trump administration has "abandoned even the pretence of upholding the international order."

When pressure comes not from an adversary but from the alliance's most powerful member, the question, he argued, is no longer whether Europe can avoid friction with Washington, but whether it is prepared to defend its own interests at all.

"In a world of imperialism, as the saying goes, appetite grows with eating," said Michel.