We've discussed this before and doubtless will again, until either Pres. Trump leaves office, or until the check is written. Donald Trump seems willing to fork over considerable Danegeld to buy the island, and he has apparently not read Kipling's poem and its warning about that.

In the latest edition of Providence magazine, a publication of The Institute on Religion and Democracy, though, author Mike Coté has some interesting perspectives worth considering. He thinks America shouldn't shy away from buying Greenland:

Since his election, Donald Trump has floated a wide variety of foreign policy ideas, many of which are fairly absurd – especially the trollish suggestion that Canada should become America’s 51^st state. But others are far more reasonable, like the potential purchase and annexation of Greenland. Critics have labeled this as an unnecessary distraction and a waste of taxpayer dollars, but they are dead wrong. Annexing Greenland an excellent idea, crucial for bolstering our economy and national security against our adversaries, with long-standing precedent in American history.

Of course, President Trump faces a lot of opposition to his Greenland purchase plans, and not just from Denmark.

See Related: Hello, Logan Act? Senator Murkowski Releases Joint Statement With Danish Politicians on Greenland

Is Coté's take reasonable, though? Granted, most people think of Greenland and all they see is a distant, ice-covered land in the far north. They aren't wrong; Greenland's major geographic feature is a pantagruelian ice sheet, covering most of the island's surface. But there is considerable mineral wealth in Greenland, not to mention its strategic location; as Alaska dominates the North Pacific, so does Greenland (and Iceland, which nobody is talking about buying) dominate the North Atlantic. Back before World War 2, General Billy Mitchell described Alaska as "the most strategic place in the world," but Greenland holds a similar role in being the gatekeeper to the Arctic.

Also, it's not like the U.S. hasn't tried to buy Greenland before. Pres. Trump didn't come up with this idea on his own; there was talk about buying Greenland (and Iceland, which seems to be forgotten now in the Arctic Properties for Sale market) as early as 1867, meaning Secretary of State William Seward would have been responsible for two near-Arctic purchases. President Truman tried to buy the island in 1946. So it's not exactly a new thing.

But the reasons for and against have changed. As Coté points out:

Greenland, the world’s largest island, sits along the Arctic Sea, which is rapidly becoming a highly relevant shipping route as the polar ice caps recede, particularly for Russia. The Northwest Passage and Northern Sea Routes could cut costs significantly, a novel reality the shipping industry is already embracing. Furthermore, Greenland has one of the world’s largest known reserves of rare earth minerals, necessary for technology applications from military hardware to clean energy. The island and its surrounding waters also hold large untapped fossil fuel deposits, particularly of natural gas. Much of this natural wealth is trapped beneath the ice or otherwise difficult to access, a problem that is far likelier to be solved by American ingenuity than Danish complacency.

A fair point.

My friend, fellow veteran, and colleague streiff recently had some thoughts on the idea, following Pres. Trump's apparently jarring conversation with the prime minister of Denmark:

See Related: Trump's Call to Denmark's Prime Minister Left Her Like a James Bond Martini

He writes:

Quite honestly, I don't see how Greenland could sustain independence in the face of a concerted Chinese effort to establish control (Vitkor Orban's Hungary allows uniformed Chinese police in Budapest). Our free association model is also showing weakness as China exerts influence there. The best arrangement would seem to be declaring Greenland to be a commonwealth (like Puerto Rico) or a territory (like Guam and the Virgin Islands). But no matter how it arrives, I think Greenland's internal politics, which has had the right to declare independence since 2009 and that option is favored by 64 percent of the population, and the geopolitics of our competition with China indicate that Greenland becoming US territory is inevitable.

I'll go a step further and say there's no freakin' way Greenland could sustain independence against an effort by China to gain control of Greenland's resources. Granted, China would be facing NATO if they tried a military takeover, but their takeover may well be economic, not military. See, for example, their Belts and Roads schemes.

Greenland's rare earth minerals alone represent a serious strategic resource. China already controls a significant portion of the world's supply of these materials; it simply won't let them gain control over any such supplies in the North Atlantic. So some of the best arguments for this purchase would seem to be military strategy, resources, and control of the Atlantic entry into the Arctic.

Coté lists several other reasons why this would be to America's advantage - it would be to the advantage of Greenlanders economically, and in other ways to be American citizens, Greenland is ideally situated to monitor Russian activities in the North Atlantic and the Arctic, and so forth. And Greenlanders are restive, seeking more autonomy from Denmark.

And Donald Trump Jr., we should note, recently visited Greenland.

While it would be interesting to see just how much Danegeld Denmark may want, to release their island to the U.S. rule, and while Greenland would make for a promising commonwealth - let's please not discuss making it a state just yet - it's far from settled that this is the thing to do. It seems a wiser course to needle Denmark for autonomy for Greenland, then negotiate with Greenlanders for increased military basing rights, and exclusive rights for American companies to explore and extract oil, gas, and mineral resources.

That seems a middle ground that would make everyone happy except, perhaps, Russia and China. So, a win-win.