President Trump has written a letter to the Norwegian Prime Minister, Jonas Gahr Store, which contains the following sentence.
“Considering your Country decided not to give me the Nobel Peace Prize for having stopped 8 Wars PLUS, I no longer feel an obligation to think purely of Peace.”
He goes on to say that he intends to focus on “what is good and proper for the United States of America”. This included having “complete and total control” of Greenland.
In his reply Prime Minister Store pointed out that the awarding of the Peace Prize had nothing to do with him, nor with Norway, but is solely in the gift of the independent Nobel Committee. Or, as we say in Glasgow, “It wuzznae me. A big boy done it, and ran away.” But seriously, we should take President Trump’s beef seriously. He is stepping back from his role as peacemaker, because he has not been handed a gong. Well, at least, not first hand. He got one from FIFA and one from Maria Corina Machado. But that’s not quite the same.
As gongs go, Nobel Prizes are about as prestigious as they get. A sure fire way of not getting one is to make application for it on one’s own behalf. You are supposed to be surprised by that early morning telephone call, and in your acceptance speech in Stockholm, express humility, avowing that you have merely sat on the shoulders of giants. But this is not President Trump’s style. I think we can now be sure that he will never receive a Nobel, unless he carries out a compulsory purchase of Norway, and takes over himself as the Committee’s Chair.
Most people would regard the idea of turning your back on Peace because you have not received an honour as being utterly farcical. You wouldn’t make it up. Is it conceivable that the President bases his foreign policy on what he perceives as a personal snub? That would certainly go a long way to explaining why so many world leaders fall over themselves in an effort not to offend the President in a personal way.
But irrespective of all these diplomatic efforts, President Trump intends to acquire Greenland, one way or another. Russia and China have their baleful eyes upon the world’s largest island, and Denmark can do nothing about it. No doubt Denmark, alone, could not defend Greenland, but Denmark is not alone. Denmark is part of NATO, and NATO comprises 32 member states, including the USA. But the USA has taken to denigrating NATO, and Europe. When Denmark, and some other NATO countries, recently sent some troops on exercises in Greenland, somebody in the Trump administration remarked that Denmark had sent along a sledge with a pack of huskies, or words to that effect. It was a typical remark from the strong to the weak. When during the 1930s the Pope was critical of Stalin and his purges, Stalin purportedly asked, how many divisions does the Pope have?
We shouldn’t be surprised by any of these developments. They are all written out, in black and white, in the National Security Strategy (NSS), published last November. It is remarkable how completely devoid the NSS is of any moral code or ethical framework. The NSS is entirely concerned with the acquisition of power, wealth, and territory. I remember when Gordon Brown, a son of the manse, was British Prime Minister, he made reference to a “moral compass” which he had been bequeathed. At the time he was ridiculed for this remark. Tony Blair once invoked the Almighty in a draft speech, but the Almighty was expunged by his press secretary Alastair Campbell, who said, “We don’t do God.” Realpolitik is Machiavellian. The electorate, it is said, is not interested in what is right, rather in what pays the bills, and what amuses. Bread and circuses. It’s the economy, stupid.
It is seldom useful to invoke the spectre of the Führer when examining current affairs, yet it is impossible to ignore the similarities between US expansionism and Nazi Germany’s desire for Lebensraum during the 1930s. That was achieved, initially, little by little. The Rhine, the Austrian Anschluss, the Sudetenland, Czechoslovakia, Poland… What comes after Greenland? Iceland? Scotland? The President has a bridgehead here already. It will all be done in the name of global security, this formation, in Orwellian terms, of Oceania, and Airstrip One.
Keir Starmer made a statement from Downing Street this morning. President Trump is applying 10% additional tariffs on imports into the US from the UK on February 1st, to be increased to 25% by June 1st, if Greenland is not yet under his control. But Sir Keir will not reciprocate. He does not intend to start a trade war. He has stated that the President’s desire to take Greenland is wrong, but he still hopes to keep onside with the US, and to provide a bridge between the US and Europe. He is looking increasingly like Mr Chamberlain.
All last week I listened to BBC Radio 3’s celebrations of the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, showcasing some of the great American orchestras, and then at the weekend, opera from the Met; in other words, everything that is good about America. I heard a performance of Aaron Copland’s Lincoln Portrait. Sometime before Lockdown I had heard the Cincinnati Symphony perform it at the Edinburgh Festival, the words of the 16th President spoken by the actor Charles Dance. The world premiere of Lincoln Portrait was given by the Cincinnati, so it is in the blood. The effect was overwhelming. So much of the text seems applicable now.
The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise to the occasion. As our case is new, so we must think anew and act anew. We must disenthrall ourselves, and then we shall save our country.
I have a notion that Sir Keir needs to think anew. Diplomatic-speak is all very nice, but there comes a point when you have to call a spade a spade. At the time of the 250th anniversary, it is hard for us to call it out. The President doesn’t seem to be much concerned with the opinion of the Greenlanders themselves over their own future. Doubtless he thinks he knows what’s best for them. We ought to remind him of Lincoln’s resolve that “government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.” We have thought of the Trump administration as being merely a blip. We say he is “unpredictable”. He will do diplomacy his own way. We may say that he is touchy, narcissistic, chaotic, and that he is making it all up as he goes along. We say, disparagingly, that he is a joke. Yet the one thing that we have stopped short of saying thus far is that he, and his administration, are malignant. We will only say that when the USS Gerald R. Ford anchors off Nuuk. We may not have long to wait.
jamescalumcampbell 