Greenland is, per John Kiriakou, a territory the United States is seriously pursuing acquisition of — though not, he says, by military force. A friend in the White House told him over coffee that the U.S. is “serious about Greenland” and does not intend to attack it, but does want to buy it. When Kiriakou objected that the king and prime minister of Denmark had both said Greenland was not for sale, the contact replied that Washington would instead lean on a 1951 or 1953 treaty signed with Denmark — granting the U.S. essentially unfettered rights to bases and rare-earth extraction in Greenland — to argue that Greenland is “de facto ours.”[1][2]
Kiriakou called that argument a violation of international law, and noted that every member country of the European Union had, just days before, signed a document pledging support for Denmark over the Greenland dispute. He warns that if the United States were to forcibly take Greenland, or coerce Denmark into giving it up, the result would be the end of NATO — replaced, in its place, by a unified European Union military that the EU has been striving toward regardless.[2]