Greenland, US Bases and Missile Defence

• Published in: Cooperation and Conflict
• Main Author: Archer, Clive
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: SAGE Publications 2003
• Subjects: Greenland; Thule Air Base; greenlander*; greenlandic; Thule Air; Thule
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0010836703038002003; http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/0010836703038002003

The US Thule Air Base in Greenland will need upgrading should President Bush's missile defence programme go ahead. This has already brought the US administration into three-sided negotiations between itself, Denmark and Greenland. The article looks at the historical background to the present negotiations and, using an adaptation of Putnam's `logic of two-level games', traces the move from one-level to two-level and three-level negotiations in previous negotiations and the ones now emerging. Over time, US dealings about their bases in Greenland have evolved from the one-level negotiations of 1941 and 1951 to the two-level game of the 1980s — with a smattering of early Greenlandic involvement — to the current three-level game. Should the US and Greenland face each other directly over the negotiating table, a new two-level game will begin with the Greenlanders in a stronger bargaining position than Denmark, according to a reading of Putnam.