Perception of madness is a risky foundation for foreign policy
During the 1968 presidential campaign, Republican candidate Richard Nixon confided to H.R. Haldeman his idea to end the war in Vietnam, an exchange Haldeman, soon to be Nixon’s chief of staff, recorded in his diary.
Nixon said: “I want the North Vietnamese to believe that I have reached the point where I might do anything to stop the war.” An interlocutor would tell the North Vietnamese, “For God’s sake, you know how obsessed he (Nixon) is about Communism. We can’t restrain him when he is angry — and he has his hand on the nuclear button.”
Nixon called it “the Madman Theory” and he believed that in the face of a nuclear threat Ho Chi Minh would beg for peace. Apparently, Ho was not impressed. Neither were the Soviets. Neither believed Nixon would go through with such a threat.
President-elect Trump seems to be resurrecting a milder version of the same tactic, making a thinly veiled threat to use military force to secure American strategic interests in Greenland and Panama. Leaders in Copenhagen, Nuuk and Panama City have rejected such talk outright. Secretary of State Antony Blinken noted, “This is not something that is going to happen, so we should not waste time talking about it.”
America most certainly has strategic interests in both the Panama Canal Zone and in Greenland, where we have our northernmost military base, Pituffik Space Base, formerly known as Thule.
Climate change and the rapid melting of polar ice is opening a more efficient trade route from Asia. Thus, Greenland has become increasingly important. The melting of its ice sheet is also making mining and drilling operations more feasible.
Russia has rebuilt its arctic military bases and China has invested in mining operations in Greenland. However, Denmark denied the Chinese an opportunity to purchase a maritime base or bid on an extension of an airfield. Denmark, a close NATO ally, still controls the foreign and security policy of Greenland, which has had a semi-autonomous status since 2009.
As for Panama, there are ports on the Pacific coast run by Hong Kong-based companies, but President-elect Trump’s assertion that there are Chinese troops there or that U.S. ships are charged particularly exorbitant transit fees are not true. The canal has a neutral status open to all countries.
Many see Trump’s threat as an attempt to create negotiating leverage to get some sort of concession. Is it, however, counterproductive and could it have a more pernicious secondary impact?
The threat is certainly a more aggressive version of his proposal to buy Greenland during his first term. The world’s largest island, said it’s leaders, was not for sale. The overture was seen as bullying and not a discussion between allies that long have had cooperative relations.
The more pernicious impact has been immediately pointed out by many. If you justify using military means to secure the sovereign territory of another country on the grounds of national security, then what else can be justified? Russia’s invasion of Ukraine? China’s seizure of Taiwan? Israel’s annexation of the West Bank? That’s a dangerous road to traverse.
In his first term, Trump reestablished an American consulate in Greenland and Defense Secretary Mattis engaged leaders in Denmark and Greenland. Those were productive moves.
One wonders if Trump will ever understand that the system of alliances that America has carefully built up over the past 80 years is our greatest strength and is the foundation of our national security. Trump has demonstrated time and again that he believes alliances are “bad deals” and that the best way to get what he wants is to threaten the person on the other side of the table.
In the world we live in today, that is mad indeed.
• Keith Peterson, of Lake Barrington, served 29 years as a press and cultural officer for the United States Information Agency and Department of State. He was chief editorial writer of the Daily Herald 1984-86. His new book “American Dreams: The Story of the Cyprus Fulbright Commission” is available from Amazon.com.