That approach can deliver nearly everything Washington seeks strategically without creating a sovereignty dispute inside the alliance.

The first priority is defense. Greenland’s location makes it critical to the defense of North America and the Arctic. The U.S. and Denmark should expand missile warning, space surveillance, air and maritime monitoring, logistics, and military infrastructure. NATO should treat the defense of Greenland as a collective Atlantic priority, not merely an American interest or a Danish responsibility.

The second priority is economic. Greenland needs ports, airports, telecommunications, energy systems, and resilient supply networks. It also holds critical minerals increasingly important to advanced manufacturing and national security. Western investment should combine American capital, European participation, and genuine Greenlandic ownership and employment. If the West wants Greenland securely anchored in the Atlantic system, the relationship must be economically valuable as well as militarily necessary.

But the most important question is Greenland’s political future.

Greenlanders have the right to determine it. If they eventually choose independence from Denmark, that decision should not force them to choose between sovereignty and security. Nor should independence create a strategic vacuum in the Arctic.

That question should be addressed before sovereignty changes, not after.

Greenland should be offered a binding referendum, separate from any independence vote, on whether its strategic future should remain anchored in the Atlantic alliance regardless of its constitutional relationship with Denmark. Greenlanders should be able to decide two different questions:

Who governs Greenland?

And which alliance protects it?

If Greenlanders vote to remain within the Atlantic security system, that mandate should survive a future change in sovereignty unless the people themselves later reverse it through another referendum. Greenland could even require a clear supermajority before such a strategic decision is revoked. The point is not to lock Greenland permanently into any alliance. It is to prevent a temporary government or narrow majority from overturning a decision made directly by the Greenlandic people.

NATO should make its own commitment in advance. If Greenland becomes independent through a lawful democratic process and chooses to remain within the Atlantic security system, the alliance should facilitate a rapid and orderly path to full membership. The objective is continuity: no strategic vacuum, no uncertainty over collective defense, and no opening for Russia or China to exploit ambiguity.

The U.S., Denmark, and Greenland should likewise negotiate in advance what happens to existing defense arrangements if sovereignty changes. American capabilities would remain American. Greenlandic territory would remain Greenlandic. Permanent infrastructure and access rights should be governed by agreements reached before any constitutional transition.

Pituffik Space Base already shows why sovereignty and strategic access do not have to be the same thing. The U.S. does not need to own the land beneath the base to obtain its value. It needs reliable, long-term access guaranteed by agreement with a willing partner.

A stronger partnership would give Washington greater Arctic security, Denmark a deeper American and NATO commitment to the High North, Greenland investment and greater control over its future, and NATO a more coherent Arctic strategy. Most importantly, it would give the West something that territorial pressure cannot create: legitimacy.

The U.S. does not need to own Greenland to keep it securely within the Western strategic system. It needs to make the Atlantic partnership the most secure, prosperous, and valuable choice Greenland can make.

TRUMP’S LOSING TRIFECTA SOLVED: DUMP NATO AND BUY GREENLAND

Sovereignty can change. Strategic alignment does not have to.

Trump is right that Greenland may become one of the most important strategic territories of the 21st century. The opportunity is not to acquire it. It is to build an alliance strong enough that acquiring it becomes unnecessary.

Pedro Ordein is a finance and operations professional with more than 30 years of experience in public-sector governance, large-scale project analysis, and institutional decision-making.