A Modest Proposal for the Acquisition of the North, for the Preventing of the Children of Inuit from Being a Burden to Their Parents or Country, and for Making Them Beneficial to the Publick (Defence)

It is a melancholy object to those who walk through this great town, or travel in the country, when they see the streets, the roads, and cabin-doors, crowded with citizens of the internet, waiting for the latest outrage to drop like manna from the algorithmic heavens. Today, the outrage is glacial in temperature but volcanic in implication: The United States, in its infinite and terrified wisdom, wishes to purchase Greenland.

I have turned my thoughts for many years to the erratic machinery of our geopolitics, and I find this latest scheme not merely a "real estate deal," as the Grand Landlord in the White House puts it, but a masterstroke of Imperial Realpolitik that would make Machiavelli blush and grasp for his smelling salts.

Let us strip the carcass of this diplomatic incident and examine the bones. We are told, with a straight face, that this acquisition is a "rescue mission." We are told that the Bear of the East (Russia) licks its chops at the frozen north, and that only by purchasing the deed to the land—and presumably the souls of its 57,000 inhabitants—can we secure the "Golden Dome" of missile defence.

This is, to use a technical term from the satirists' lexicon, horse manure.

The factual reality, which I offer freely for your consumption, is far colder and harder than the ice sheets currently melting into the Atlantic.

First, The Dirt, Not the Snow. It is not the white surface that interests our leaders, but the dark, gritty bounty beneath. Greenland is stuffed like a Thanksgiving turkey with neodymium, praseodymium, dysprosium, and terbium. These are the "rare earths"—the vitamins of our modern industrial diet. Without them, your F-35s do not fly, your electric chariots do not roll, and your iPhones do not pacify your children. Currently, the Middle Kingdom (China) holds the leash on these minerals. The purchase of Greenland is not a diplomatic engagement; it is a hostile takeover of a supply chain. We do not love the Greenlanders; we love their dirt.

Second, The "New Ocean." As the world burns and the ice recedes, a new shipping lane opens: the Northern Sea Route. He who holds Greenland holds the toll booth to the Atlantic. The United States currently possesses a rental agreement (Pituffik Space Base), but why rent when you can evict the landlord and claim the property? The Grand Landlord does not like tenants with rights; he prefers subjects with silence.

And let us pause to admire the surreal, Dadaist masterpiece of this logic. Less than half a turn of the world ago, the Grand Landlord declared the warming of our planet to be the 'greatest con job in history.' Yet, as the ice recedes, he does not stand in the rising water and admit error; he mobilizes his toy soldiers to conquer the slush. He treats the climate apocalypse not as a catastrophe, but as a grand opening for a new shipping lane. This is the 'Art of the Deal' in its purest form: to loudly deny the house is burning, while simultaneously borrowing billions from a stranger to buy the land revealed by the ashes.

Third, The "Human Shield" Fallacy. We are told we must own Greenland to save it from Russia. This is the logic of the schoolyard bully who steals your lunch money to prevent the other bully from stealing it later. It is a protection racket masquerading as a warm embrace. The indigenous Inuit population, who have thrived on that ice since before the English language had a word for "mortgage," are treated as mere squatters on a strategic asset.

My Proposal: I humbly propose that we stop pretending this is about "freedom" or "democracy." If we are to be an Empire, let us be an honest one. Let us admit that we view the island not as a home to a distinct culture, but as an unsinkable aircraft carrier made of rock and greed.

Let us stop feigning concern for the "killing in Iran" or the "safety of the Arctic." The motive is simple: We want the rock. We want the shipping lanes. We want the power. And if we have to buy a country and rebrand it like a failed casino to get it, then by God, that is the American Way.

I grant this food will be somewhat dear, and therefore very proper for landlords, who, as they have already devoured most of the parents, seem to have the best title to the children.