266. American Greenland: Nazis, Secret Nuclear Bases, & Trump (Ep 4)

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0:29Hello and welcome to Empire with me, Anita Arnens. And me, William Durimple. You're echoey because you're not at home. Where are you? I am in Scotland. I've just been to my nanny's 99th birthday party. And she's now almost completely blind and as deaf as a post. It was an odd lunch. An odd lunch. Lots of shouting and bonhomie. Lots of shouting, bonhomie and fish and chips from Dino's in North Berwick by the beach. Can I just say this little vignette into your life makes you sound both very posh, but very lovely. So both of those food groups Speaking of very lovely We're delighted to be joined again by Daniel Imovar Author of How to Hide an Empire He has been on this podcast before He's an absolute superstar And the reason that we've called you back We've lured you back Is all thanks to your president, President Trump So we've got him to thank for you coming back on You must be delighted with him, Daniel Do you feel that he has spoiled your thesis That America had a hidden empire Or has he made your entire career and brought you on every chat show in the land?

1:35It's not that hidden at the moment. His imperial desires are not hidden at all. No. And it's even worse than that because, I mean, for me, for my thesis, because I had said that there was a trend away from seizing large land masses toward a more insidious strategy of lots of little bases. I called it the pointillist empire. Yes. And now we're back. You're back. I mean, we're still going to look back. because I think it's really useful because he's drawing so much on figures that he appreciates and approves of from America's history. And so that's why we're going to take you all the way back to 1823, because I think it's really important to talk about the Monroe Doctrine, which was the first time that America started thinking, you know what, spheres of influence, not pointillism, but big, great pledges on a map is what we need.

2:25So to remind people, what is the Monroe Doctrine? Who was President James Monroe? And what does President Trump draw from him? I unfortunately am going to offer a revisionist take on the Monroe Doctrine. So historians sometimes get a little snippy about how this gets used. This sort of one-line Wikipedia thing is the Monroe Doctrine was the moment when the United States declared its domain over the entire Western Hemisphere. In fact, it was not any kind of announcement to world leaders. It was a message in front of Congress, and it was not known as a doctrine at the time. It was non-binding. It was non-committal.

3:02And it was just part of a sort of evolving conversation where after a lot of Latin American countries had received their independence, so actually a lot of American countries had received their independence, including the United States. This was one of those American countries saying, you know, it looks pretty much now like the countries on this side of the world are independent of Europe. That's not totally true. There's still some European colonies. And this is 1823. So only about 20 years earlier, less than 20 years earlier, the British had burned down the White House. It was just a moment of kind of naming these United American nations, which included Latin American ones, wouldn't welcome further European colonization.

3:40There were still European colonies in the Western Hemisphere, but that was kind of a just sort of, here's where we are at the moment. You're talking about rebranding it as the Monroe Musings, not a doctrine. That's right. Well, it wasn't. No, that's right. No one called it a doctrine. no one recognized it as a doctrine at the time. It was not a huge deal. It became important around the time that the United States started snatching up other colonies because then it got sort of re-read, not as we would not welcome for the European colonization in the Western Hemisphere, but in fact, this is the US domain, that the US is in charge of this entire hemisphere, which is not really part of what Monroe was saying.

4:17Oh, interesting. Okay. We love having you on because you turned everything upside down and inside out, which is what Donald Trump's done to your hidden empire. I mean, it's just fair, I suppose. This is all very violent. Are you planning another volume, the unhidden empire or the empire revealed? Or is there a companion volume in the press? I sincerely hope not. I mean, you know. Please go. We have no idea what it's going to look like in the next, you know, a couple of years. It could be nothing. It could be everything. It could be everything. It could be the Gaza Riviera. Mass ethnic cleansing.

4:48I mean, the thing is that Trump is known for saying a lot of things that don't happen. That's something we got used to in the first presidency. And then in the second term, we're getting used to him saying things that do happen. And it's unclear what bucket this one falls into. And then things that happen that he then changes his mind about a week later too. Exactly. Let's take him at his word just for now that he is going to take Greenland and it is going to be his. And whether the Danes like it or not, or the people of Greenland like it or not, it is going to be his. Now, this is not the first time that America has toyed with ownership, as if it were a secondhand car, of another country called Greenland.

5:26Can you take us back to the first time? And this is 1867. And you've had the US on a buying spree anyway, because they've already purchased Alaska. That's in their basket. They've beeped that through. And they've now got their eyes on Greenland. Why back in 1867 was Greenland important to them? I mean, it's not just Alaska. The United States had expanded extraordinarily by taking formerly Mexican lands. So there's a guy, William Henry Seward, who has a vision that there's no reason that this needs to be restricted to contiguous space or even to the North American continent. But it's the same idea.

6:05The United States is expanding. It's distributing homesteads to settlers. And he has a kind of rosy view of the temperature in both Alaska and Greenland. And so these are all potential ways for the United States to expand. And he's also interested in islands. So there's a list. Can you remind us how much did the United States purchase Alaska for? Because they bought it from the Russian Empire. I mean, it was nothing. It was peanuts, wasn't it? And a year later, they found oil there and it became an incredibly valuable asset. I think all of this is a reminder that these claims, both Russian and US claims, are fairly notional, right?

6:42It's not like either of them has or is about to have a large settler presence. These are still made of lands. And a lot of American space in the Western Hemisphere is held by and controlled by indigenous peoples through the 19th century. So there is this kind of game that European powers play is this mine, is this yours? And they get to call her on the map, but that doesn't mean that they're there on the ground. But Stuart has a ballpark figure, certainly for Greenland from Denmark. So he says, I shall give you$5.5 million in gold. What do you think? What do you think, Denmark? There are questions about what counts as currency in the 19th century and gold is a good one.

7:19So that's part of it. But doesn't it just sound like such a good supervillain plan? I mean, honestly, if this was in vision, I'm doing my sort of, you know, Dr. Evil little finger in mouth. $5.5 million in gold. What does Denmark say to this incredibly generous offer? I mean, does it rhyme with mugger off? I mean, a little bit like that, I think it sounds like. Does that mean then, okay, Seward says, I will buy this. And they say, we're not selling it. Nice of you. Thanks for coming. But no. So is that the end of the story or do they still? And why Greenland? It's not in the thoroughfare of the world at this point, is it?

7:58It's not in the thoroughfare of the world at this point, but it is. If you're dividing the world up conceptually between the Eastern and the Western hemispheres, Greenland is kind of in the middle. And there's not a lot of places that are in the middle. So it could seem like the outermost frontier of the Western hemisphere if you're trying to control a hemisphere. It could seem in some ways like a bridge to Europe. if your intellectual world is an Atlantic one, it's a big, enormous space in the middle of the Atlantic. But no mineral deposits at this point are a driving force. There's no suspicion that this could be some kind of treasure trove for things that the United States would find useful.

8:38Okay. So just think about this. The United States negotiated a peace after it won a war with Mexico. And within days after annexing Mexican land, including California, it discovered gold there. The same happened to Alaska. I think within literally two years after Alaska, they found a major oil deposit. Yeah. And I think that's all another way of saying is that Europeans and settlers don't really know what's going on in these spaces. So it's not to say that they have a clear sense of, you know, we're going to unearth this there. But all these spaces are kind of pure potential for them. Right, so we could explore it and who knows what will turn up.

9:16So Denmark says mug a boff about Greenland, but there is another deal to be made in 1916. And this is a treaty the United States strikes up. A rather more attractive option. The Virgin Islands get offered. Yeah, which are also Danish and Seward had also been interested in. And this time the Danes bite. This time the Danes bite. And one of the things that makes this more attractive from the Danish perspective, is that in these days of technically we own it, but who knows what's going on there, the United States had advanced some a little more than notional claims to the northern part of Greenland on the grounds that they had sent explorers there.

9:57And so it wasn't clear what that meant. Was the United States going to back these claims? No one was up there from either the United States or my understanding is from Denmark. But the United States agreed to back off Greenland. That was part of the deal in exchange for, we'll take the Danish West Indies, which become the US Virgin Islands. I mean, they offered a little more than 5.5, I was keeping the face now, that Dr. Evil, a little more than the 5.5 million in gold. This time for the Virgin Islands, it's 25 million. So I mean, they do sort of, they buck up the offer substantially by 1916. This is another 40 years later, so prices have risen.

10:32And it's also a World War I thing. Greenland is useful because it connects America to Europe. Weirdly, the Danish West Indies are useful because they're in the Caribbean and they're an approach route to the Panama Canal, which connects the Pacific to the Atlantic. Another thing on the shopping list. Well, it's another thing the United States controls, but Woodrow Wilson, who's president at the time, is nervous that the Germans might be able to get a foothold in the Caribbean and thus take the canal in the context of World War I. So this is a way of sort of buffering up US control of that region.

11:03But what they do say, I mean, as you said just a second ago, they promise Greenland, if you give us the Virgin Islands, we promise not to bother you, take your Greenland, go happy, we're not going to bother you anymore. Well, it's not we promise never to ask for it again, but we promise that whatever notional sovereignty claims we've made, we're not going to be enforcing those. But the Danes don't formally declare sovereignty over Greenland until 1921. So you've got a Greenland finally in 1921 saying, this is all ours. Look, this is absolutely, and we're drawing a ring around it. And you promised, you promised United States you're going to butt out and this is all ours now.

11:39But America still in the 20s and 30s, they're starting to classify bits of the map of the world and Greenland is categorized as Rainbow Four. So Rainbow Four is that if the US was attacked on multiple fronts, it would invade Greenland immediately. Rainbow Four, that sounds so jolly and lovely, but they would go straight into Greenland in order to protect North America. So there would be no ifs, buts, or even chatting to the Danish, they would just take it. And that was because there was an existential threat they were feeling at that time. So this is a moment when, if you're playing that map game, and increasingly in the early 20th century, in the interwar period you are, you start to think about which flank is undefended.

12:22And Greenland does look like an important place. It's a big space on the map. It's a big space on the map. And not necessarily for the Seward reason that you're going to send a lot of settlers there, because you have a misunderstanding of how warm it is. But yeah, it's useful in the great game of risk. The next development is 1940, when Nazi Germany rolls into Denmark. And so potentially the Nazis are now in Greenland. Yeah, this is the fear and the United States responds exactly as you would expect or exactly as planned. It brokers a deal with the Danish minister. The Danish minister in exile.

12:57Yeah, that's right. That's right. And it's not going to annex Greenland. It will just take it for the war. To use Trump's nice phrase, acquire. Yeah. But part of that deal really is a kind of lot of hand-waving about sovereignty. They're like, we're not taking it for ourselves forever. It's just... We're just looking after it for you. No, that's right. We're looking after it. You seem to be occupied by the Nazis right now. Yeah. Yeah. So we'll just keep it warm just while you're busy. That's exactly right. With the Nazis. While they're keeping it warm and cradling it, as a good neighbor would, they do discover that Greenland is replete with something called cryolite.

13:37Before, they may not have known whatever the hell was on this great expanse called Greenland, But cryolite is an important mineral that the United States thinks is going to be very useful for the manufacture of aircraft and weapons because it's used to produce aluminium or aluminium, as you would say. Yeah, please. In a way that we mock you relentlessly for. But, you know, so in the manufacture of aluminium, cryolite is, thank you, is very, very useful. So now suddenly this is not just something on a game of risk. This is something that can be exploited and useful at a time of war. So it turns into, we're looking after your rabbit while you go on holiday.

14:13We actually, we could eat this rabbit. We could do something here. We could do something with this rabbit. Grilled rabbit is very nice with a little bit of sage. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So does that explain why looking after the rabbit turns into a wholesale occupation, which really does start in 1940? Is it done by stealth or is it done with great fanfare that we're occupying? We the Americans are occupying Greenland for your own good now. I think that part is real. like they are just looking at who controls what territory and you know how can we defend against Nazi invasion on the other hand they are also not just looking at the map but looking at the map anew because as territories shift colors in the game of risk you then have to think oh like where do we get rubber suddenly Japan just took over Southeast Asia and so there's this weird calculation that both involves technology and territory where like a they're developing new technologies and they're like, okay, suddenly cryolite, we can do something.

15:08Yeah, we can use that now. A similar thing took place in the First World War with Soviet Union occupying Central Asia in order to get enough cotton to clothe the soldiers. Yeah, yeah. And what's interesting about the Second World War is that midway through the war, they're learning new uses for resources. So not only is the map shifting, but their sense of what's valuable is shifting as they figure out how to use various resources and different technologies. Then we have the post-war period. And there's a formal offer in 1946 from President Truman. FDR's just died. Truman is in charge. And he makes a formal offer to Denmark of 100 million.

15:48No, say it properly. 100 million dollars. In gold, if necessary. If you want gold, we'll do it in gold. But 100 million. We're not sad in your video. We can't see the little finger. The little finger going up to the corner of my mouth. The thing about Truman, which was interesting, we've just done a fair few episodes on the Yata conference and basically how Roosevelt kept all foreign policy a complete secret from Truman. Didn't tell him anything. He didn't know about the bomb. Day one, he confesses to the postmaster general, which by the way, you're like, why is he even talking to the postmaster general?

16:27Because these are the people that Truman talks to. And he confesses, he's like, I know nothing of foreign affairs. Right. Like, well, you're gonna have to figure it out real quick, man. 1946, an important year. So who's in his ear? Because if Truman is not a foreign affairs man, who is buzzing in his ear saying, you know what, we know you probably can't find this on a map, President Truman. But. But. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Day one, the White House has a map room. And it's like, you know, blacked out curtains, huge map, all that kind of stuff. And Truman has never been there. And Truman has this little World War I map from his Senate office, and he's trying to follow the war.

17:06And so Truman just starts going to the map room. And this guy, Admiral Weehy, is showing him everything. And they keep giving him all these reports. And I mean, he's a serious student. He reports reading so much every day that he's worried about doing permanent damage to his vision. But what he's trying to figure out is the risk game. He's trying to figure out, he's like, oh, I guess we have bases everywhere. I guess we have troops everywhere. And very quickly, he's just trying to sort of cram to the point where he can, you know, take over as president. Yeah, because he's not been briefed at all by the people who should have prepped him.

17:39So the war is still raging. FDR has died just after Yalta and Truman has taken over with pretty much no preparation at all. What is interesting, though, is he makes this deal for$100 million for Greenland again at this time. Almost his first sort of foreign affairs big deal that he wants to make. But nobody gets to know about this, Daniel. It is entirely secret. It is a secret deal that we only get to know about in 1991. Because, I mean, Time magazine catches wafts of this at the time saying, is there some sort of strange shopping expedition the president's on? Is he offering great sums of money for great swathes of land.

18:19And it sort of gets pushed away. But in 1991, we get to find out, yeah, no, it was true. So first of all, the deal doesn't go through, right? He doesn't get it. But the thing that he's thinking about is one of the new technologies that has really changed people's understanding of how maps work is aviation. Suddenly, Greenland is no longer large. It starts to feel really central. And you start to see people in the United States say, actually, there's this whole movement, a very bizarre cartographic movement against the Mercator map projection. They're like, this has screwed us up. This map is totally wrong.

18:58It puts Japan on one side and it puts the United States on another. And in fact, Japan attacked us over the edge of the map. And we were wrong about that. But they're also say something, which is I think really true. They're like, the Mercator map was really useful for the age of sail. And it's actually quite hard to show the quickest routes for planes on a Mercator map. But if you have a globe or you have a map that allows this, and you start looking at how would a plane get from, I don't know, North America to, I don't know, various capitals in Europe, it all goes over Southern Greenland. So suddenly they're like, oh, this place is really important.

19:32Not just as a kind of buffer in the moat against the naval attack, but actually everything is going to have to go through Greenland. You've said the word Mercator a few times. And just in case people don't know what this is, sometimes we just sort of assume everyone knows all the chuntering that we do on this program. But the Mercator map projection is kind of a cylindrical projection of the world map on flat. It was invented by a man called Gerardus Mercator in 1569. And as you say, it was a navigational map. It was for people who wanted sea routes. And so things are distorted and things are not where you would actually bump into them if you're flying around a round globe or sailing around Earth.

20:11So the Mercator map is close to the kinds of classroom maps that people know. And one of the things that just comes up in sort of fifth grade is you're like, gosh, Greenland looks enormous. And then the teacher's like, OK, no, no, no. That's like a distortion of the map projection. It's big, but it's not that big. So in some ways, the Mercator map overstates the size of Greenland, but it also puts it on the periphery. Just as it understates the size of things like India and Africa. That's exactly right. Brilliant episode of The West Wing. Have you ever seen it? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So a huge fan of The West Wing, but there is this wonderful thing.

20:46Where they come up with a Peter's map. And he's talking to CJ and saying, this is what actually countries look like in relationship to one another. and her brain is utterly blown by it. So Greenland's size is overstated, but its centrality is understated by that map. And so that's what the new kind of air consciousness is you're supposed to be able to see. You're like, oh, Greenland is actually really strategically important to the United States in an age of aviation. So, I mean, the war runs its course and when it is over and they have to give the rabbit back to Copenhagen. But they do it sort of in a really, I won't say grudging, but they won't let go of a foot But they kind of hang on to the rabbit's foot because they say, you know what, you can have it back.

21:30But I think a lot of us just like it and are going to stay. And so you've got American personnel, military personnel. And they refuse to leave. Yeah, they won't go. They're just saying, well, and Denmark says very politely, you know, thank you for looking after the rabbit. Could you go now? And they say, well, no, that's fine. We were really happy to do it. No, we're not going. What weirdness is that, Daniel? I mean, this is the weirdness of 1946. It's happening all over the planet. There's this great moment where Truman says, you know, the United States won the war. It is central to the peace.

22:00It is going to be the hegemonic power. And a lucky thing is that we, unlike other, you know, great powers that you might be able to think of, do not believe in empire. And we did not fight World War II for territory. And we covet no territory. And in fact, we're going to set our largest colony of the Philippines free. We're not that kind of country. We're the good guys. We're the good guys. Yes. And then there's this freak out in the military where they're like, did Truman just say we're not going to claim any territory? What about all the military bases? Like, oh, did he just give up all the military bases?

22:30Thousands of little airstrips that we've claimed during the war? And then Truman has to go back and say, okay, we're not, yes, we're not colonizing India, but yeah, we're going to keep all the bases. We're keeping the bits that we like very much and we're already there. And it is very, very funny we're going to take a break fairly shortly but suffice to say Denmark does ask numerous times politely for the Americans to please leave please go please please go you've said you'd go why aren't you going please when are you leaving um the fridge is empty we've got things we've got places to be some of us have to work and go but they won't go And it is hilarious because by spring 1948, Denmark gives up asking them to go.

23:20It just says, oh man, they're not leaving. I mean, just, you know, we might as well just put barbed wire around that and let them stay and just carry on. And look, here's an important thing to know. On the one hand, you look at the map and you're like, okay, they're still there, but they're just like on some bases. In terms of acreage, the United States is not taking a lot. But in terms of population, the US is putting so many people there that its personnel at this point represent a very large fraction of the population, like more than 10 % of the entire population. Well, it's like Diego Garcia in the Chagos Islands.

23:58I mean, sort of similar kind of thing. We'll pump personnel and military hardware in here. Anyway, let's take a break because something a little bit tricky is going to happen very shortly. We just want to work out how exactly these two parties navigate. Because, well, here's a clue. There is a thing called NATO, which America has approved to the world as a very, very good idea. And Denmark wants to join. What happens next? Join us after the break.

24:31Welcome back. So in 1949, Denmark officially applies to join NATO and is accepted. and is one of the founding members, along with the United States, the UK, France, Belgium, Canada, Iceland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal. I think that's all of them. But I mean, the key thing there is you attack one of us, you attack all of us, right? Article 5. We all know about Article 5. We talk about Article 5 a lot. And these are brothers together. They're not meant to be nipping at each other's territories. I mean, that's the whole point of NATO. too. So what are the kind of conversations, convos going on at that time, considering Denmark's just basically got bored and tired of asking them to leave and they won't?

25:13Yeah. So the US view is, oh, you would like military protection? That's going to come from our military, not yours. Let's be honest. We are not very protected by the Danish military, but Denmark is protected from the US military. And it would be a lot easier if you gave us a base or two. So there's this kind of basis for battleships style deal, where if Denmark is willing to give the United States use of territory, then that military protection becomes a lot easier for the United States to offer. And the Danes, there's a trade minister called Jens Otto Krag, who is sort of realistic about this.