The critical word is “inside”. Unfortunately, it is ambiguous.
I argue that for the purpose of an island, “inside” means “entirely surrounded by” - that’s what an island is in real life, a piece of land that is surrounded on all sides by water.
NPB introduced a helpful concept with his example of Italian East Africa, which is that of topology. Topology is the study of shapes and especially their continuity and holey-ness. Topologically, a donut and a coffee mug are identical - both are solids with one shape. If both were made of playdough you could mold one into the other without disturbing the hole.
Now, topologically, Greenland is not a “hole” in the seazone next to it. you could squish greenland flat against the edge of the board and turn both it and the sea zone into rectangles lying alongside each other - then it would become apparent that Greenland (on the AA map, because Sea zones also only exist on the AA Map, and the definition of island is one meant for the AA Map) does not lie within the seazone, but next to it.
The fact is, the seazone does not stretch around Greenland.
A clearer example yet would be India - it’s even a similar shape, and has water in a horseshoe shape around it. Its northern edge does not see ocean, and yet it is “surrounded” (but not “inside” the seazone.
If however this definition of “inside” is not accepted, then the word is ambiguous and you have to look to other circumstantial reasons. None of these are conclusive but if the word “inside” itself does not answer it there is no choice but to consider other aspects of it.
- Greenland is considerably larger than any other Island. If you say the airbase is just on the tip, that could also be said for India, FIC,
South Africa, Italy, Soviet far East, IEA, etc.
- Greenland is not in the Pacific Theater, where the rule is intended to help out.
- Yes, the water does not encircle Greenland as it does the islands in the pacific
- Madagascar, much smaller, does not fit the rule.
Eh, let’s just see what LH has to say…