Is Greenland to the US what Korea was to Japan?

Since returning to power in 2025, the acquisition of Greenland, a self-governing autonomous territory of the Kingdom of Denmark, has become a recurring topic of United States President Donald Trump. First characterized by Trump in 2019 as strategically interesting, it is presently deemed a strategic imperative. That means it is "essential" for US national security.

The President has also taken to meddling in the southern region of Western hemisphere. There, his administration carried out the abduction of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro in January 2026.

The stance of the Trump administration towards its region has drawn comparisons to the Monroe doctrine. That 1823 declaration by President James Monroe declared the Americas closed to European colonization. It warned that any attempt would be interpreted as a hostile act against the US itself. Observers therefore coined the term "Donroe doctrine," which the President seems to embrace.

President Trump's apparent willingness to act outside of the norms of the post-World War II rules-based international order invites comparison with the actions of other powers during the pre-WWII imperial era. The Japanese attitude towards the Korean Peninsula is an obvious example.

*South Korea's Blue House is now a tourist destination instead of the seat of power on the Korean Peninsula. (April 2022, Kyodo)*

Japan was famously forced out of a policy of isolation in 1853. At that time, China, the most powerful nation in Asia, was essentially under the colonial control of the more technologically advanced West. China had declined to aggressively modernize in favor of a policy of playing the Western powers off against each other. It was a stratagem that did not avail them well.

Sheafing the Dagger

Ultimately, newly opened Japan would wisely conclude that if China could not withstand the demands of the West, Japan would have no chance. It chose to mimic the Western powers.

In the 1870s and 80s, it was Korea that found itself under foreign pressure. Japan made its initial foray onto the peninsula in 1875 and successfully acquired for itself an unequal treaty modeled on the ones that the colonial West had imposed upon China and then subsequently, Japan.

The Koreans were in the same position as China in the 1820s and Japan in the 1850s. Fortuitously, they had the examples of Japan and China before them. Rapidly modernizing Japan was acquiring the ability to curb the demands of the West, and even to project power abroad. China remained impotent and at the mercy of its imperial guests.

Inexplicably, the Koreans chose to follow the Chinese example. Meanwhile, they placed their trust in the US to ensure that they did not meet China's fate. On May 22, 1882, Korea and the US signed the Joseon-United States Treaty. It included a "mutual assistance" clause in case of an attack by a third party.

1880s Korea was of little geographical relevance to the US. But its significance to Japan was paramount. Korea was famously described as a "danger pointed at the heart" of the Japanese nation. Even a perfunctory glance at a map of Northeast Asia can attest to that. A Korea held by a hostile power would have been the perfect springboard for an invasion of Japan.

Korea was as significant to Japan at that time, as Mexico and Canada are presently to the United States of America, let alone Greenland.

*Map shows the Korean Peninsula's proximity between China and Japan. (©Google Maps)*

The Russian Threat

In the concluding decades of the nineteenth century, the Russians were also very active in the East, aided by their newly completed trans Siberian railway. They were unlikely to have respected Korean sovereignty, nor Japan's claim to Hokkaido.

America remained largely uninvolved. It was content to allow the Japanese and Russians to contest the peninsula during the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-05. America was the first nation to recognize victorious Japan's control over Korea through the Taft-Katsura agreement in 1905.

Subsequently, the US abandoned Korea for a variety of reasons. First, they saw Japanese occupation as, in the words of then Vice-President Theodore Roosevelt, a "check upon Russia." Second, however, was that they had little faith in Korean leadership or the potential of the peninsula to return any tangible economic benefits in return for their support.

A third reason was their willingness to trade recognition of the Japanese presence in Korea for Japanese consent over US imperial endeavors, most particularly in the Philippines. In exchange for recognition of Japan's position in Korea, the Taft-Katsura agreement also included the concession that Japan had no interest in the Philippines.

US in the Philippines

Present day US commentators routinely characterize the Japanese tenure on the Korean Peninsula as a "brutal occupation." Meanwhile, they ignore that during the first decade of the twentieth century, the US was concurrently cementing an imperial presence on the Philippine islands through a pacification program that was immeasurably worse.

When speaking before a Senate committee, General J Franklin Bell, Chief of Staff of the United States Army (1906-1910), estimated that 600,000 Filipinos died of disease in concentration camps or on the battlefields of the island of Luzon alone. Furthermore, he estimated that throughout the Philippine islands, upward of a million were killed. This equated to one in seven of the total population.

Japan made no complaint about the Philippines. Nor did the US about the Japanese presence in Korea.

An illustration posted by President Trump showing the US flag being planted in Greenland. Behind President Trump are Vice President Vance (left) and Secretary of State Rubio. (From the US President's Truth Social account).

Fears of Varying Legitimacy

There can be little doubt that Japan's fears against Tsarist Russia were legitimate. Meanwhile, Trump administration concerns regarding Greenland are considerably harder to substantiate. The US already possesses treaty agreements with Denmark that allow it to build bases. Therefore, the principal concerns are unclear.

In any event, recent championing of Denmark and Greenland by a remarkably unified Europe has made a US military takeover problematic.

It is notable, however, that despite being listed as a reason why American control of Greenland is an imperative, Russian President Vladimir Putin made clear that he has no objection to Trump's Greenland plan. Perhaps Putin sees Russian support for American ownership of Greenland in the manner of the Taft-Katsura agreement ー as a quid pro quo for a continued "flexible" attitude by the US toward the eventual borders of Ukraine sought by Russia.

If so, history remains in danger of being repeated to an extent even greater than most are probably aware.