New Trump Administration Aid To Greenland Stirs Fears Of A U.S. Takeover

Even amid the pandemic, the battle between the U.S., China and others over Greenland’s future is raging.

05/06/2020 05:11 pm ET

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While Greenland remained largely closed off to the outside world for much of its modern history as part of the Danish realm, the U.S. established a military presence there during World War II. Shortly after the Nazis occupied Denmark in April 1940, the U.S. ― still two years away from abandoning its official neutrality ― invaded Greenland to preserve the territory’s independence and keep the Germans from establishing a bulwark that could be used to refuel bombers headed for American cities. The U.S. offered to buy Greenland for $100 million in gold after the war. When Denmark refused, the U.S. returned control to the Danish, but held onto the Thule Air Base, transforming the northernmost American military outpost into a key node in its Cold War defense network.

Mounting tensions with Russia over the past decade gave new relevance to the site. But Greenland captured the Trump administration’s attention in 2018. As the trade conflict between the U.S. and China escalated from skirmishes to a full-blown tariff war, Beijing announced a new Arctic policy, declaring itself a “near-Arctic state” and vowing to expand its presence in the region. For China, Greenland was valuable for two big reasons. Its potential for mining rare-earth elements threatened China’s near-monopoly on the metals used for electronics and batteries. And, as new trade routes and industrial opportunities opened in the United States’ backyard, China saw a chance to open a new front in its battle with the U.S. for control of the South China Sea.

“The more you will hear about China vs. the U.S. in the South China Sea, the more you may hear about China vs. the U.S. in the Arctic,” Damien Degeorges, a regional analyst and consultant based in Reykjavík, Iceland, predicted to HuffPost in 2018.

In September of that year, the Pentagon broadcast its own plans to “pursue potential strategic investments” in Greenland “vigorously, including investments that may serve dual military and civilian purposes.”

Last May, tensions spilled over into firm rhetoric. At a meeting of Arctic Council countries in Rovaniemi, Finland, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo delivered a landmark speech titled “Looking North,” in which he warned: “There are only Arctic States and Non-Arctic States. No third category exists, and claiming otherwise entitles China to exactly nothing.”

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https://www.huffpost.com/entry/greenland-us-aid-takeover_n_5eb30b9fc5b6dbd807b4dcf8

US has gunships ready to deliver on Trump's warning to Iran

April 25, 2020

WASHINGTON (Tribune News Service) — Even before President Donald Trump's vow to "shoot down" Iranian speedboats if they harass American ships in international waters, the U.S. Navy was bolstering its ability to call in AC-130 gunships and Apache attack helicopters to defend its presence in the Persian Gulf.

A practice run for the new tactics on April 15 drew 11 gunboats from Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps that crossed the bows and sterns of American vessels at close range. And that prompted Trump's tweet on April 22 saying he'd "instructed the United States Navy to shoot down and destroy any and all Iranian gunboats if they harass our ships at sea."

Going back to the Obama administration, Revolutionary Guard members in small but agile speedboats have harassed U.S. ships, but the encounters usually have ended with warnings from the Americans to back off. As far back as 2007, the Office of Naval Intelligence estimated Iran had a fleet of 1,000 small boats that was growing. In early January 2017 a U.S. Navy guided-missile naval destroyer fired warning shots at four Iranian rapid-attack craft in the Strait of Hormuz.

While attention has turned on the latest confrontation at sea between Iran and the U.S. – and on Trump's vow to stop such close encounters – there's been little focus on the recent moves by the U.S. Central Command to come better-armed with joint Navy, Air Force and Army systems for spotting targets and transferring data.

The live-fire gunship exercises began in March as a first-time effort at coordination between Navy patrol coastal ships, the service's P-8A Poseidon reconnaissance aircraft and the Air Force's special operations AC-130 gunships, which are capable of nighttime attacks. Armed with a 30mm Gatling gun and precision-guided munitions, the famed gunships have been used to attack ground targets – but not naval targets – from Vietnam to Grenada, Panama, Bosnia, Iraq and Afghanistan.

Then on April 15, Navy vessels were practicing coordinated operations with Army AH-64E Apache tank-busting attack helicopters when the U.S. says Iranian boats came within 50 yards of the USS Lewis B. Puller and within 10 yards of the bow of the Coast Guard cutter Maui.

Under the new approach, the Apaches can be stationed on the Puller, the Navy's first specially designed floating sea base. The Puller, a destroyer and other, smaller U.S. vessels were practicing spotting targets for the Apaches and transmitting the information. The exercises continued through April 19.

The Apache exercise shows how the Army "can use naval platforms as lily pads to expand their operational range along with providing security in its region of operation," Cmdr. Rebecca Rebarich, the spokeswoman for the Navy's 5th Fleet, said in an email. "The security acts as a deterrent for any threats against the U.S. and allied watercraft."

Helicopters have been used occasionally to escort vessels into the Persian Gulf, including in September 1987 when U.S. special operations choppers based on a frigate shadowed and struck an Iranian vessel laying mines during "Operation Earnest Will," an effort by U.S. and allies to guard oil tankers against attack in the Persian Gulf.

"These exercises show U.S. forces can go on the offensive against Iranian small boats, rather than simply defending against them," said Bryan Clark, a former special assistant to the chief of naval operations who's now a naval analyst for the Hudson Institute. The Navy previously relied on "deck guns and onboard helicopters, which can be overwhelmed by a large boat swarm."

The Apaches can fire Hellfire laser-guided missiles or shoot guns, he said. "Since the helicopter can move fast and is shooting down at the boats, they have an easier time hitting than surface ships trying to hit a fast boat that is bouncing on the water." The AC-130 "essentially can strafe the boats," he said.

Now the question is whether Trump's warning to Iran will deter conflict with Iran or escalate that prospect. What Trump described as an instruction to fire in all cases of harassment has been portrayed by military officials more as an option if captains feel their crews are in danger.

"I'm not going to get into the exact tactics," Defense Secretary Mark Esper said this week on Fox News, "but they need to be well-warned, the Iranians, that we are not going to tolerate that behavior."

https://www.stripes.com/news/middle-east/us-has-gunships-ready-to-deliver-on-trump-s-warning-to-iran-1.627376

>>9061588

HuffP, ikr

I found the article looking up pics of AC-130.

It's a long article but it mentions China and expresses Puffington concern 3x .

“It makes me concerned,” Bibiane Aaju Petersen, 29, a native Greenlander from Kangerlussuaq, said over Facebook Messenger. “It kinda makes it sneaky in a way, like the U.S. might end up controlling Greenland in the future.”

"Those concerns are well founded, said Adam Lajeunesse, a scholar of Arctic geopolitics and an assistant professor at St. Francis Xavier University in Nova Scotia, Canada. When the China Communications Construction Co. bid in 2018 to build new airports in Greenland, fears swirled that the state-owned giant would import enough Chinese workers to do the job to increase Greenland’s population by a fifth."

"Another real concern, he said, is China drawing the Greenlandic government into a “debt trap” deal in which the Chinese government builds infrastructure at a cost the host country could never repay, clearing the way for Beijing to seize control of the assets."

Lots of targets out there anons.

Break them and their .apks!