US Alarmed by Russian Imperialism, Forgetting Its Own 'Purchases'
When Russia dismisses Western claims of its designs on Greenland as 'unacceptable,' one might observe the irony would be thick enough to ski on, were it not so consistently deployed. Donald Trump’s repeated assertions that the US must take Greenland to prevent Russia or China from doing so echoes a long, storied history of 'preventative' annexation. The US, after all, purchased Alaska from Russia
(1867) and the Louisiana Territory from France (1803), not to mention myriad islands. The concern, it seems, isn't occupation, but who gets to do the occupying. This isn't about sovereignty; it's about strategic denial. The outrage over potential Russian expansion rings hollow from a nation that has historically expanded its own borders and sphere of influence well beyond its continental limits,
often under the guise of preventing others from doing the same. One might ask, how many 'threats' against sovereign territories does the West get to leverage before it reflects on its own track record?