Odd Couples’ Win-Sets: Maintaining U.S. Basing Rights Through New Two-Level Game Negotiations With Greenland

Introduction

For nearly 200 years, the United States’ engaged interest in Greenland has reflected the geostrategic significance of its position on the north-eastern flank of the North American continent (Archer, 2003; Olesen, 2017; Rahbek-Clemmensen, 2020; Jacobsen & Olsvig, 2024). Notwithstanding recent developments, the context has changed significantly since the colonial era, where decisions on Greenland were taken in Denmark, and the mapping of coastlines and resources by polar explorers sparked debates in Washington on the possibility of annexing or purchasing Greenland (Jacobsen & Olsvig, 2024, p. 115). Today, Greenland is self-governing and strives for statehood; relations and negotiations with foreign states form part of the nation’s efforts towards self-determination.

In times of increased geopolitical tension, much attention is paid in both academia and media to analyses of the actions of great powers; countries resembling a small state, such as Greenland with its population of only 56,500 inhabitants, and Denmark, a small state itself, are easily overlooked. But it is precisely the space created through the increased great power rivalry that makes for an interesting analysis of how a small state-like polity striving for nationhood manoeuvres (Olsvig, 2022b).

Clive Archer (2003) has analysed the changes in relations shown in earlier Greenland-U.S.-Denmark negotiations within the framework of Robert D. Putnam’s (1988) two-level game theory, predicting that Greenland would achieve a stronger bargaining position in the future. This article follows up on Archer’s discussion and contributes with a demonstration of how a small state-like self-governing nation and an international great power conduct what this article considers to be a new, interlocking, two-level game, reaching win-sets while changing the way the parties negotiate and sign agreements.

Concretely, this article looks at negotiations concluded between Greenland, the United States and partly Denmark in 2020 on increased benefits for Greenland from the U.S. military presence in Greenland, particularly at the U.S. military base Pituffik Space Base (“Pituffik”, formerly known as the Thule Air Base, built in 1951). This base is a key political focal point for Greenland in the nation’s relation to the United States. For example, Pituffik Space Base has been part of the Ballistic Missile Early Warning System since the 1950s, has a deep-water port and, among other things, provides support to space-based missions. When a U.S. company was awarded the base maintenance contract instead of a Greenlandic-Danish contractor in 2014, it was met with disapproval among Greenlandic politicians, who saw the loss of the contract as a diplomatic crisis. Initially the United States did not pay any significant attention to the situation or the criticisms. The choice of a U.S. contractor was expected to decrease Greenland’s tax income, and in the lack of attention from the United States, Greenland and Denmark joined forces and aligned their push for a solution “to the benefit of Greenland” (Naalakkersuisut, 2016, p. 50). The 2020 negotiations on U.S. military presence in Greenland proved an important avenue for Greenland to further push its own agenda.

The article explores the role of Greenland in the process leading to the conclusion of a set of agreements in 2020, including new tender criteria for the Pituffik base maintenance contract. The research question the article seeks to answer is “How did Greenland utilize its bargaining position in the 2020 Pituffik negotiations with the United States and Denmark?” Using Putnam’s theoretical two-level game framework, the article argues that Greenland assumed the position of a sovereign state in the negotiations and demonstrated a greater sense of its own room for manoeuvre through a more streamlined approach to the United States. The analysis concludes that, throughout changing governments and parliaments, Greenlandic politicians became more stringent in their decision making and manoeuvrings in the negotiations with the United States.

After a background section devoted to the complex historical positions in the U.S.-Greenland-Denmark relationship and how it relates to the Pituffik Space Base, the article’s theoretical framework is presented, and the key methods and documents introduced. The analytical section that follows analyses the interest of each party, the perception of Greenland in the agreements, the circumstances of the negotiations, and Greenland’s state strength. The discussion deals with how the agreement best can be understood as a new interlocking two-level game. The conclusion suggests that Greenland, through the 2020 agreements analysed in this paper, engaged further and more directly with the United States while changing its relation to Denmark.

Background: Increased U.S. attention to Greenland’s self-determination

While U.S. attention to Greenland has historically centred around the security of the United States itself, the superpower has not generally expressed this specifically; defence agreements between Denmark and the United States emphasize American assistance for Denmark’s defence of Greenland rather than the United States’ interest in homeland security through presence in Greenland. The 1941 agreement stated: “Defence of Greenland against attack by a non-American power is essential to the preservation of the peace and security of the American Continent and is a subject of vital concern to the United States of America and also to the Kingdom of Denmark” (Kauffmann & Hull, 1941), while the 1951 renewed defence agreement was titled “Defence of Greenland” (United States of America & the Kingdom of Denmark, 1951).

We find an explicit example of Greenland’s geostrategic importance to the security of the U.S. homeland in a memorandum for the Secretary of Defence dated 21 January 1955, written by the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the Department of Defence. The memorandum referred to the agreement between the United States and Denmark on the defence of Greenland and reiterated Greenland’s geographic position as being within the sphere of interest pursuant to the Monroe Doctrine. It concluded:

Two things are relevant to note in this quote. Firstly, it reaffirms the military significance to the United States of access to basing rights in Greenland and that this access would be most easily obtained by claiming sovereignty over Greenland. Secondly, it foresees the difficulties of entering several, and possibly continuing, rounds of renegotiations on the U.S. presence in the territory. Both issues continue to be of relevance today; the difference from the early post-colonial era is that Greenland has gained a broad degree of self-determination.

As seen throughout the era of Greenlandic home rule and self-government, several rounds of renegotiations have taken place. In the 1980s and the early 2000s, the United States needed upgrades of the Ballistic Missile Early Warning Systems, and Greenlandic politicians demanded a say in the changes made to U.S. installations at Pituffik (Archer, 1988, 2003; Dragsdahl, 2005). In the early 2000s negotiations, the Itilleq Declaration was signed between Greenland and Denmark as a precursor for the 2004 Igaliku Agreement, which will be presented in the following pages. The Itilleq Declaration can be seen as part of the process of Greenland’s negotiations for greater self-determination from Denmark and was a necessary step for Greenland’s participation in the trilateral negotiations concluded the following year (Møller & Enoksen, 2003).

Theory: Putnam’s interlocking two-level game, Archer and beyond

The choice of a rational negotiation theory provides an opportunity to learn about the interconnectedness of factors relevant for the specific result of any negotiation. Considering Greenland a state-like polity allows for an analysis of the country’s internal rationale rather than the external factors making these negotiations relevant. Putnam’s rational two-level game framework is chosen because it is serves in the useful description of Greenland’s manoeuvring possibilities in these negotiations. It also creates a theoretical common ground permitting analysis to draw on previous literature on Greenland’s negotiatory manoeuvres (Archer 2003). Other analytical tools could have been used, especially those within small-state theories such as action space theory (Petersen, 2005; Mouritzen, 2022) or shelter theory (Thorhallsson, Steinsson & Kristinsson, 2018; Brady & Thorhallsson, 2021), which would serve as helpful tools in analyses focusing on the asymmetry of the Greenland-U.S. relationship (see also Olsvig, 2022b).

The analysis in this article is not, as such, about the asymmetrical relationship between the United States as a great power and Greenland as a small state-like polity. Rather, two-level game theory shows its strength by directing our attention to the interrelation between international politics (called “Level I” by Putnam) and domestic politics (“Level II”) in international negotiations and, furthermore, how these levels are negotiated simultaneously in an interdependent relation between the two levels. In Putnam’s two-level game theory, the concept of win-sets is key – and larger win-sets make agreements more likely. Putnam defines “win-sets” as the possible outcomes and agreements that would be acceptable on the domestic Level II of both the negotiating parties, as the agreements “gain the necessary majority among the constituents – when simply voted up or down” and “fall within the Level II win-sets of each of the parties to the accord” (Putnam, 1988, pp. 437–438).

Win-sets can be shorter or longer depending on the possible overlaps between the negotiating parties’ interests on the domestic Level II. For example, a high degree of internal domestic disagreement on a policy negotiated at international Level I can risk shortening a win-set, while a high degree of dependency on a foreign power’s willingness to cooperate, thus increasing the domestic costs of a no-agreement, can lengthen a win-set. Furthermore, knowing one’s room for manoeuvre is an essential factor. Putnam explains how, on occasion, Level I international negotiations can determine the outcome of the Level II domestic political issue. For example, developments in international negotiations may affect how domestic constituents view a certain agreement or a certain policy; sometimes negotiators can bargain and coordinate on the international Level I and thereby change what is politically pursued from the domestic Level II (Putnam, 1988, pp. 428–429).

Two-level game theory should take a holistic perspective, considering the domestic constituencies of the parties negotiating, the size and power of the states and nations party to the negotiations, and, indeed, their status – whether they are states, nations, or international institutions.

Some researchers have previously related the development in Greenland’s relations to the United States to two-level game analyses and argued that Greenland is engaging in a three-level game (Archer, 2003; Ackrén, 2019), while others have extensively analysed the theoretical aspects of Greenland’s defence agreements with the United States (Petersen, 1998, 2011; Søby Kristensen, 2004; Dragsdahl, 2005). Figure 1 exemplifies the two- and three-level games as they were described in previous literature, where it is Denmark and not Greenland engaging with the United States on the international Level I negotiations, and Greenland engaging only on the domestic Level II, through Denmark, or on the ‘intra-realm’ Level III, with Denmark. In this model, Denmark becomes Greenland’s supervisor, or gatekeeper, while Greenland is not independently positioned towards the United States.

Figure 1

Clive Archer (2003) successfully applied Putnam’s two-level game theory in his analysis of the relationship between Greenland, the United States, and Denmark. His discussion considered the negotiations of the early 1980s and the early 2000s negotiations, positing that the United States would have to sell the idea of a missile defence system through “side payments such as economic aid and market access for Greenlandic products.” He also discussed the transition from a three-level negotiation (including an “intra-realm” level of coordination and negotiations between Greenland and Denmark) to a two-level negotiation, should Greenland become independent of Denmark. In such a situation, he argued, Greenland’s domestic politics would be advantageous to its Level I negotiations, as the United States would seek to avoid alienating Greenland. Archer also notes that internal political disagreements and changing governing coalitions “would shorten the Greenlandic win-sets at level one” (Archer, 2003, pp. 141–142).

With “shortened win-sets”, Archer wanted to describe how internal disagreements and changing positions within domestic Greenlandic politics would make overlapping gains or “wins” from negotiations with the United States less likely: the decreased room for manoeuvre arising from domestic obligations would make it more difficult for Greenland to negotiate and reach agreements with the United States.

However, as the literature on previous rounds of U.S.-Greenland-Denmark negotiations shows, and for getting our understanding of the processes right, it is important to be clear if, when, and how the negotiations are not structured as the clear-cut two-level games Putnam studied, but, rather, as related but distinct types of games. In a footnote, Putnam references how other scholars have investigated what they have called “interconnected games”, “nested games”, “parallel games”, “overlapping games”, or “linked games” (Putnam, 1998 p. 441). I choose to call this article’s adjusted version of Putnam’s two-level game an “interlocking game”, as together the three parties conduct interlocked, rather than deadlocked, negotiations; while they negotiate around the same issues, reaching win-sets.

In Putnam’s figure explaining the effects of reducing win-set size, he draws a line with X_M and Y_M at each end, representing the maximum gains by two respective negotiators. In between the X_M and Y_M, the negotiator Y’s agreement ranges are marked with Y₁, Y₂ closest to X_M, and X₁ to their right, making an agreement feasible (Putnam, 1988, p. 441). If Y₃ was further to the right, outside of negotiator X’s range of acceptable outcomes, the negotiations would be deadlocked. Putnam’s figure exemplifies how a two-party negotiation’s range of win-sets can be analysed on a linear figure.

The win-sets of on interlocking two-level game involving three parties cannot be described by a linear figure: each party would need their end of a line. In order to explain the interlocking two-level game between three negotiators, I thus turn to the three-level game shown in Figure 1, and add a negotiator on each level in a new two-level game shown in Figure 3. Here, the Level II circles overlap, with the overlapping area representing the range of win-sets from Putnam’s linear range win-set sizes between each of the negotiators. The win-sets are here demonstrated by overlapping circles; these are determining factors for the two-level game to be interlocking. While an acceptable result serving as a win for Greenland does not necessarily mean a win for Denmark or the Unites States, the wins are, nevertheless, interdependent. For example, Denmark is interlocked because a failure to achieve agreement would harm its relationship with both Greenland and the United States. The state of that relationship is not a factor in determining a win for Greenland, however: Greenland can achieve a win by demonstrating new benefits from the U.S. military presence, including a more “independent” relationship to the superpower, without Denmark necessarily supervising every step taken by Greenland. For example, Naalakkersuisut states in the 2021 foreign policy report that “Greenland’s more active foreign policy shows that it is ready to replace the Joint Committee with a more direct bilateral cooperation with the U.S. without the need for Danish supervision” (Naalakkersuisut, 2021a, p. 39; author’s own translation). In an interlocking two-level game analysis, win-sets that interlock more than two negotiatiors thus become the determining factors for a successful result for all parties. An interlocking two-level game thus occurs when the “gives” and “takes” in a particular negotiation not only end up benefitting all negotiators in a bargaining but lock them, also, in a position that would otherwise not have occurred.

Figure 3

While Clive Archer foresaw the return to a two-level game in a scenario of a future independent Greenland, this article posits that the game playing out between Greenland (not yet an independent state but acting as a state-like polity) and the United States in 2020 was a new interlocking two-level game negotiation. In this game, Greenland and the United States engaged in direct negotiations, locking in the relationship with Denmark. This happened because win-sets occurred between all three actors; Greenland could communicate further benefits from U.S. military presence, as the new tender criteria for the Pituffik Space Base maintenance contract were now defined as Greenland wished them to be; Denmark could declare a continued good relationship to the United States; and the United States, itself, could continue its basing rights at Pituffik without much further effort or cost. If any one of these “wins” were lost, it would not be possible to interlock the win-sets.

Greenland continuously expressed its interests in engaging with the United States in many different ways, very publicly airing its wish for an increased U.S. military presence in Greenland while continuing its quieter diplomacy efforts through diplomatic representation in Washington.² At the same time, the United States paid increasing attention to maintaining good relations directly with Greenland as a way of avoiding several rounds of negotiations and preserving its basing rights on the island. These relations were interlocked through the United States’ interest in making sure that Greenland aligned itself with the superpower, combined with the continuous push from Greenland and Denmark for a return to an arrangement where Greenlandic benefited from the U.S. presence in Greenland in more tangible and profitable fashion (Olsvig, 2022a). This new approach created new dynamics between Greenland, the United States, and Denmark; as this article argues, a new interlocking two-level game emerged from this.

An analysis of the processes leading to the interlocking two-level game and its win-sets, including a few thoughts on what the incitement to interlock each other would be, will be presented below, after an elaboration of the analysis’s methods and the choice of materials.

Method and Choice of Materials

The main empirical material in this paper is the 2020 set of agreements between Greenland and the United States that marked an end to a diplomatic crisis between Greenland, Denmark, and the U.S. They are highly interesting to analyse as they are a set, to be seen and understood in combination, and the four documents represent the culmination of a process of change in the trilateral relationship, and in ways of negotiating between Greenland, the United States, and Denmark.

The paper draws on 12 research interviews and several follow-up interviews with Greenlandic, Danish, and U.S. government officials conducted in 2021 and 2022. The interviews are used to understand both the nuances in the specific wording of the 2020 agreements and the processes and considerations informing who signed what and why. These research interviews were conducted for a broader study of the relationship between Greenland and the United States in the years 2018 and onwards – a period that was chosen because the U.S. Department of Defence issued a Statement of Intent in 2018 that drew attention to the country’s desire to be involved in the development of critical infrastructure in Greenland. Thus, touching upon a range of developments, the significance of the 2020 agreements became clear in relation to the changed perception of Greenland’s manoeuvres in its relationships to the United States and Denmark.

The research interviews were semi-structured, based on an interview guide with six overall themes that guided a conversation (Kvale & Brinkmann, 2009). The interview themes were about the role of the interviewee, the 2019 MoU’s, a 2020 “USAID-package” of funding of initiatives the United States had introduced following the opening of the U.S. consulate in Nuuk, the United States’s position in the Arctic, its presence in Greenland, and the Pituffik Space Base. Ten of the twelve interviews were recorded while note-taking; two were only documented through notetaking. Notes and transcripts of key passages were used in the analysis where focus was put on statements related to descriptions of the relationships between Greenland, the United States and Denmark. At follow-up interviews, specific questions related to the documents of the 2020 agreements were asked. Interviews were thereafter anonymised. The interviewees included two Danish government officials (interviewees A and D), four Danish parliamentarians, one of whom is a former minister (interviewees B, C, and F), two U.S. diplomats (interviewees E and G), three Greenlandic politicians, all of whom were ministers (interviewees H, I and J), and two Greenlandic government officials (interviewees K and L). Non-recorded follow-up interviews were done with many of the above-mentioned interviewees as well as other officials to triangulate the empirical data.

Furthermore, analyses of official documents, media outlets and parliamentary debates are used as equally important empirical data to further analyse the process and outcomes of the 2020 negotiations. In selecting official documents, such as new legislation and governmental reports, emphasis is put on the Greenlandic side of the negotiations in understanding the strategies behind, first, Greenland’s push for a more direct relationship to the United States through the negotiations evolving around the question of future Pituffik maintenance contracts, and, second, the United States’s incitement to strengthen direct negotiations with Greenland, within the constitutional construction of the Kingdom of Denmark. Also, the yearly reports on the foreign policy activities of the Government of Greenland offer an example of official documents specifically analysed with the loss of the Pituffik base maintenance contract and the consequences for relations with the United States in mind; the analysis of new tax legislation followed up on developments specifically mentioned in interviews. Analysis of these documents provides a clearer picture of the combination of effects from both the negotiations themselves and the outcomes of these negotiations.

The two-level analysis of this paper is explored in the above combination of empirical data. Following Putnam’s theoretical suppositions, emphasis is put on identifying the interests of each party and the win-sets on Level I as expressed in interviews and documents, identifying the perception of the role of Greenland in the agreements, describe the circumstances of the negotiations, the strength of the state of Greenland during the proceedings, and how the win-sets were interlocked.

Analysis: Identifying the win-sets of each party on Level I

For the United States, there seemed to be an interest in meeting Greenland’s goals and in visibly positioning itself as a close and more direct partner and ally to Greenland, independently of Danish interest. For Denmark there was an interest in reassuring the United States of Greenland’s alignment with the NATO alliance and of its own close relationship to the superpower. It was therefore important for Denmark that Greenland independently continued to develop a strong relationship with the United States, while continuing to be positioned closely to it through Greenland. The mutual interests in fixing each other into mutually beneficial positions became the interlocking factors in the new two-level game. As Danish and Greenlandic government officials expressed in interviews, there was a mutual understanding that it was in Denmark’s interest that Greenland should develop a closer relationship with the United States, and that this was supported by Denmark (interviews A, H, I and L). Thus, the dashed line in Figure 3 illustrates the deliberate quality of Denmark and Greenland’s intention to ensuring a high a degree of self-determination for Greenland in the 2020 decisions and negotiations.

As a reaction to the loss of the base maintenance contract, meetings of the trilateral Joint Committee were paused in 2014 at the initiative of Greenland, and were only restarted in 2021, after the conclusion of the 2020 agreements (Naalakkersuisut, 2022). It is important to note that the 2020 agreements were negotiated outside the Joint Committee, and thus not in a predetermined trilateral forum. The consensus among Greenlandic politicians was that while the benefits and income for Greenland from the U.S. military presence were insufficient and not tangible enough, there was also a growing questioning of Denmark’s involvement. The clear messaging towards the United States about the loss of the maintenance contract, including the pausing of the Joint Committee, is referenced in the yearly foreign policy reports by Naalakkersuisut, the Government of Greenland (Naalakkersuisut, 2016, 2017, 2018, and 2019). It was clear that Greenlandic politicians were completely aligned and wanted to be the main negotiators towards the U.S. and to lay out the demands and principles of the negotiations without unnecessarily involving Denmark (Interviews I, J and L). When the meetings of the Joint Committee were resumed, the press release issued by Greenland and the United States mentioned only the two, while Greenland’s then-Minister of Foreign Affairs referred to the meeting as a bilateral meeting (U.S. Embassy and Consulate in the Kingdom of Denmark, 2021). An interview with a Danish government official affirms that while Denmark took part in preparing the restart, it assumed a more passive role doing so and did not seek to be mentioned in the press release from the meeting (Interview A).

In the years 2019 and 2020, U.S. representatives increased their direct cooperation with Greenland, and two new bilateral Memoranda of Understanding were signed by the U.S. and Greenland (Fannon & Jensen, 2019; Fannon & Svane, 2019). The Memoranda were specific to legislative areas fully controlled by Greenland and were prepared as deliverables prior to a planned visit by then-U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in 2019 (Olsvig, 2022a). While the visit of the Secretary of State was cancelled, the Memoranda of Understanding were signed in May and June 2019 by other U.S. government officials; the other two signatories were Greenland’s Minister for Mineral Resources and Labour and the Minister for Industry, Energy, and Research.

Furthermore, it was clearly messaged that there was a wish to solve the question of the Pituffik base maintenance contract. Pompeo stated on Danish national TV during a visit in the summer of 2020:

At the same time, there was a sense of urgency in finalizing the agreements before the 2020 presidential election in the United States (interviews L and E). It was thus evident that, even before negotiations started, there was a shared understanding that a solution to the unsolved Pituffik base maintenance contract was necessary.

The role of Greenland and the circumstances of the agreements

The negotiations, finalized in late October 2020, resulted in four different and very specifically worded documents. Document 1, the “Common plan for US-Greenland Cooperation in Support of our Understanding for Pituffik (Thule Air Base)”, was signed by then-premier of Greenland Kim Kielsen and then-U.S. Ambassador to Denmark Carla Sands (Sands & Kielsen, 2020). This document is highlighted by Greenlandic politicians and government officials as being the first agreement between the United States and Greenland specifically mentioning Pituffik, which would previously only be dealt with in a constellation including Denmark (interviews L and H). The “common plan”, as the document is referred to by interviewees, does not directly relate to Pituffik and the U.S. military presence, but aims at ensuring a better cooperation on civilian matters, as well as ensuring a “common plan which supports our common understanding of a solution to the loss of the maintenance contract”, as one interviewee put it (author’s translation). Document 2, “Statement on Improved Cooperation in Greenland – Including at Pituffik (Thule Air Base)”, is a verbal note. Document 3 is another verbal note on the criteria of awarding the base maintenance contract to a “Danish/Greenlandic source”, referring to the agreement of 1991 on the use of Kangerlussuaq Airport. Finally, Document 4, a list of “Additional Initiatives for Improved Cooperation at Pituffik (Thule Air Base)”, lays out the commitment of the U.S. Department of Defence to uphold promises of approving the use of Pituffik by the state-owned Air Greenland, while ensuring access to emergency care at the base for local people, outreach to local businesses concerning opportunities related to the military presence, search-and-rescue and research facilities, and improving attention to appropriate linguistic and cultural initiatives related to the base.

While the documents were different in nature, the combination of the four was highlighted by Greenlandic government officials as an important step for Greenland. They contained specific mention of “Greenland’s key role in Greenlandic, U.S. and transatlantic security”, with an emphasis on “Greenland’s key role in Greenlandic, U.S., and transatlantic security” – which, according to the interviewee, had not previously been iterated with sufficient clearly (interview L). Further, in Document 3, “Statement on Improved Cooperation in Greenland Including at Pituffik” (signed “Embassy of the United States of America, Copenhagen October 27, 2020”), there was also specific mention of Greenland’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs as a ministry in its own right. Mention of Greenland as an independent entity in relation to military issues, a new phenomenon, was considered by Greenlandic government officials as a recognition of Greenland as a political partner in its own right.

Agreement on the demand that the company contracted to maintain the base should be local was, clearly, a key factor (this was included in Document 3, the verbal note on the base maintenance tender criteria). As per 2020, prior to the October agreements, Greenlandic officials reached an understanding that they could not be assured by the United States that the maintenance contract would return to Greenlandic-Danish registered companies. There would, therefore, need to be another clear and tangible gain for Greenland related to the presence of the United States.

According to interviews with Greenlandic government officials, the four documents were negotiated over a relatively short period from July to October 2020. During his visit to Denmark in July 2020, then-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo reiterated U.S. commitment to solving the issue of the base maintenance contract. At the same time, Greenlandic politicians and government officials had consistently made clear that solving the dispute and making sure that U.S. military presence in Greenland would again bring the greatest possible benefit, by ensuring the contract would be awarded to a Greenlandic-Danish company, was key to the further development of any relations with the United State. (interviews A, I, J, and L).

As there had previously been uncertainty about what constituted a “Greenlandic-Danish company” (Spiermann, 2015), Greenland investigated how its taxation laws could be strengthened to ensure as large an income from hosting foreign base maintenance companies in the country as possible (interview L). Following the October 2020 agreements, the government of Greenland initiated changes to Greenlandic tax legislation. The first change came in late 2020 with an amendment in the fiscal law for 2021. The second change came in 2021, with amendments to the tax law itself, including provisions ensuring “that companies that carry out work for foreign defence authorities in Greenland must be Greenlandic companies, with management in Greenland. The same applies to subcontractors, etc., to such companies.” In its proposal to parliament, the government explained the purpose as ensuring Greenland’s right to tax the profits and dividends of these companies. The government of Greenland further explained the proposal to be “a consequence of the understanding reached with the Government of the United States of America and the then-Government of Greenland in 2020”, linking these changes directly to the October 2020 agreements (Naalakkersuisut, 2020, pp. 47–51; Naalakkersuisut, 2021b; author’s translation).

A few things surrounding the 2020 negotiations between Greenland and the United States were seen by Greenlandic government officials as beneficial to their position. First, the more direct contact with the United States made it possible to reach a common understanding regarding issues of key importance for Greenland, namely that more direct and tangible benefits from the U.S. military presence were necessary, and that the base maintenance contract tender criteria had to include a demand for the company to be Greenlandic. In Naalakkersuisut’s 2021 foreign policy report, the government of Greenland listed the criteria, noting that it was positive that the tender criteria returned to the originally intended obligations related to the Pituffik Space Base. It also noted, however, that Greenland did not fully achieve a clear prioritization of Greenlandic companies, as Danish companies would still be eligible. In the same paragraph, Naalakkersuisut highlighted the achievement of Greenland being officially recognized as important for U.S. homeland security (Naalakkersuisut, 2021a, p. 40).

Furthermore, there was momentum in 2020 because of the wish from the U.S. side to reach a solution before the presidential election. Second, the negotiations happened during Covid-19 restrictions, which resulted in the dialogue and the negotiations themselves happening online, which, according to one Greenlandic interviewee, made the unequal number of negotiators from each side less intimidating. Third, there was a broad consensus from both the Greenlandic parliament and government on the key importance of U.S. concessions on the issue of the base maintenance contract. Furthermore, several Greenlandic and Danish officials confirmed that, throughout the process, dialogue between the United States and Greenland took place without Denmark, and that this kind of “corridor” engagement was a positive for Greenland in detailing how to, for example, strengthen Greenlandic legislation to better ensure gains from the U.S presence. The “corridor talks” and meetings between Greenland and U.S. officials are well known by Danish officials. As one anonymously says: “There are lots of meetings between Greenland and the U.S. Is that a problem? No. Is it legally possible? No” – an allusion to the knowledge that these meetings concerned legislative areas that would lie under Danish authority, thus exemplifying the new Level II negotiations with the dashed line between Greenland and Denmark in Figure 2 (author’s own translation).

Figure 2

As seen above, close and direct dialogue between Greenland and the United States increased during the years 2019–2020, and this dialogue did not always include Denmark. This left Greenland with greater room for manoeuvring and provided the United States with a position to engage with Greenland more directly.

Conclusion

Whereas previous negotiations on issues surrounding Pituffik and the general U.S. military presence in Greenland have been made through Denmark or within the trilateral arrangements in the Joint Committee and the Permanent Committee, the 2020 negotiations sidelined Denmark, making negotiations and dialogue between Greenland and the United States more direct. This change has in this article been understood through the analytical framework of Putnam’s two-level game theory, expanded not with an additional Level III, as had previously been suggested by others, but by interlocking the win-sets of three separate negotiators in what this article calls a new interlocking two-level game.

The interlocking occurred through different win-sets. A “no-agreement” situation for Greenland would come with a high price domestically, as the loss would be twofold: first, a failure to solve the loss of the base maintenance contract in the form of securing increased and tangible benefits from the military presence of the United States, and second, failure to negotiate more directly with the United States, with Denmark continuing its supervisory, gatekeeping, role, denying Greenland the opportunity to use the process to demonstrate a higher degree of self-determination. For the United States, the concessions made in the negotiation ensured that it could tangibly demonstrate a wish to be Greenland’s main international partner in national and international security relations while ensuring continued access to basing rights in Greenland, without domestic quarrels threatening this position. Denmark’s interest lay in supporting Greenland in reaching a solution to the issue of the lost base maintenance contract whilst ensuring Greenland would stay close to Denmark’s main ally, the United States, without harming relations to either. The initial chaos created from each of the parties being caught in their domestic dynamics resulted in the loss of the base maintenance contract in 2014, from the Greenlandic perspective. This led to the loss of income taxes from activities at Pituffik; as this was related both to Danish constraints due to EU legislation and legislation (Spiermann, 2015), Denmark was forced into a position in which its negotiators were not able to renege if necessary. More, they did not want to further complicate matters, and it was in Denmark’s interest to remain relatively silent and to let Greenland be the principal Level I negotiator.

All in all, this article argues that the 2020-agreements demonstrate how an interlocking two-level game can take shape when win-sets on each side become interdependent and interrelated, even if each of the three negotiators determines these win-states differently. The analysis demonstrates how nations that are greatly different in size, one being a small state-like nation, one a small state, and another a superpower, can engage in creating win-sets in spite of any asymmetry in size and constitutional positions as polities. The case adds a deeper understanding of the degree to which Greenland’s foreign policy and its overall ambition to become independent of Denmark are interlinked, and how, step by step, Greenland takes every opportunity to assert its self-determination, without having the status of a full sovereign state. The article furthermore provides an addition to the distinct types of successful two-level games analysed in the relevant literature.

Funding Information

The work was supported by the Greenland Research Council through a grant from the Government of Greenland’s funds for research education.

Competing Interests

The author of this paper gave up their position as an elected figure in Greenlandic politics in 2018 and analyse in this article developments that occurred thereafter.