US buys Greenland

In 1946 the US offered Denmark to buy Greenland for $100,000,000 but Denmark declined. What if they did agree and Greenland becomes US territory.
 
greenland eather becomes free, or becomes a state or a colony of america pr style. eather way not much difference. im thinking the usa would sell it off later.
 
I think an independent Greenland would have been created by the mid fifties, and Greenland would have a lot of USAF bases on it.
 
I read that the US wanted it for defense purposes. They would also keep it because there are potential resources under the ice that could be exposed due to global warming.
 
how much use would greenland be for sub sweeps of the north atlantic is iceland had NATO bases on it anyway? other than basing planes out of it, greenland would be pretty pointless an acquisition
 
I just did the Math. Greenland would have enabled the Largest US aircraft in 1946 (the B36) to hit Moscow from US soil.
 
If Greenland is bought expect a heavy US buildup of forces to happen there.
You are going to have airfields for fighter aircraft, ASW aircraft, perhaps even strategic bombers there. Sub pens and a naval bases are very probable too.
Perhaps Reagan will try to put IRBMs in Greenland too in order to project power and threaten Soviet facilites in the Kola Penisula.
The SOSUS network gets a tremendous boost and the Soviet fleet is practically confined to the North Sea. I just don't see how they are supposed to get their subs through, now that Iceland is in US hands. That has a major influece on Cold War doctrines, since the US now practically has the unopposed ability to bring over reinforcements to Europe. Perhaps the Soviets realise that striving to tilt the balance in the Atlantic by a major surge of the Soviet sub Fleet into the Atlantic in case of war is unrealistic and they will never have the chance to stop the US convoys from making it to Europe?
Then either:
1. Abandon the big sub building programmes and rather focus their resources in building a bigger land army and air force, so they can conquer Western Europe, before the US reinforcements come in?
2. Focus more on tactical and strategic nukes?
3. Try to project their influence more in Africa, South America and the Caribbean Sea, hoping to install communist regimes there, that will allow basing Soviet subs and aircraft on their soil (thus bypassing the GIUK gap)?



Furthermore Iceland becomes a lot more attached to the US, with the US influence increased in the area. Who knows, perhaps later on the people of Iceland may even opt to join the USA?
 
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Also, Canada's almost worst nightmare. The USA on all 3 sides.

By 1946 that wasn't a concern.

Iceland would not want to join the USA. They weren't even keen on the European Union (though 10 to 1 they will become part of the EU by 2015 now, they need to in order to economically survive) so I doubt the US is likely.

Greenland would be an ideal place for sub bases and bomber fields, and later on MRBM and IRBMs will be able to hit the USSR from US soil. Not good news for the Soviets. If they own Greenland, even cutting the GIUK line won't help because Greenland is too close for the Soviets to risk attacking.
 
you could also see somewhat of a pop boom because of the amount of people that would be sent there. The most likely outcome would be that Greenland becomes a Commonwealth seeing that there would not be enough people to make it a state.
 
Interesting idea. It would have done wonders for the Cold War strategy for NATO.

IIRC one of the major advantages the Soviets had was through their submarines. If Greenland could be used for a bigger ASW base, that Soviet threat is countered.

And with a bomber base being so close to Russia thats also good news for the US. I wonder though, how that would effect the debate between the bomber generals and the missile generals?

And we could easily extend our radar coverage as well, thereby reducing the chances even further of a Soviet surprise attack.
 
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