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Denmark was reportedly preparing for full-scale war with the US over Greenland

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Re: Denmark was reportedly preparing for full-scale war with the US over Greenland

#231

Post by jacquesm »

iugtmkbdfil834 wrote: post #159
jacquesm wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Biden is looking pretty good right now.

I know it kinda goes against the tribal nature of political conversations, but, hear me out here, they both suck in their own unique ways and, more importantly, they both may be a little too old to manage this country ( though, to be fair, for different reasons ). We really need to start enforcing principles over tribe. It has gone a little too far.

Agreed, but if you have that choice Biden and/or Kamala over Trump shouldn't be a 'too close to call'. You might as well put Al Capone on the ballot (and I'm fairly sure he would have won).

Re: Denmark was reportedly preparing for full-scale war with the US over Greenland

#232

Post by srean »

keybored wrote: post #186
jjtwixman wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah the US we knew is gone. I think about this sometimes when I am listening to American music from the 20th century, how much soft power they had, how great they made America sound either directly or indirectly. That America that we all looked up to and admired is gone. Pity.

Reminder that “Born in the USA” was not a “patriotic” song.

Neither was "This land is your land"

Where is Guthrie's guitar ?

Re: Denmark was reportedly preparing for full-scale war with the US over Greenland

#234

Post by AlecSchueler »

lynndotpy wrote: post #220
jacquesm wrote: post #3

Of course they were. The United States has never before damaged its own reputation in Europe as much as they did in the last 12 months. And the same goes for Canada, possibly worse. You don't go around threatening your allies unless you really have plans and that's why you don't elect senile old guys to positions of power.

I'm really happy these topics are being discussed here on HN, when they weren't ~1 year ago. When considering a post-USA world, we also get to consider a post-Microsoft, post-Meta, post-Google, post-CloudFlare, post-Amazon, etc world. I can't say I know much about how the EU operates or how quickly their Open Digital Ecosystems initiative could take shape, but this is a really opportune time to build a better tech in…

> I'm really happy these topics are being discussed here on HN, when they weren't ~1 year ago.

They were being discussed a year ago, too, they just got flagged. Make sure to check /active

Re: Denmark was reportedly preparing for full-scale war with the US over Greenland

#235

Post by terminalshort »

vrganj wrote: post #143

> As a source puts it, the French said: "Would you like more soldiers? You could have them. Would you like more naval support? You could have that. Would you like more air support? You could have that too." Thank God for the French. I long thought their strong Gaullist stance on sovereignty was a bit silly in today's world, but turns out they were right along. Europe can't trust any outside powers. Any external depen…

History shows that Europe can't trust any inside powers either...

Re: Denmark was reportedly preparing for full-scale war with the US over Greenland

#236

Post by mcv »

fluidcruft wrote: post #125
matsemann wrote: post #7

Russia's invasion ironically strengthened NATO, with more countries joining or feeling the usefulness of it. Somehow the US managed to break down all that good will in such a short amount of time.. I think it's hard to overstate how much more hostile people look at the US the last few years. So much soft power has been lost.

I'm of pretty mixed feelings about this. It certainly strengthened Europe's collective defense priorities and awareness. That response happens to include NATO but primarily because Europe is too weak without NATO. Europe used to be full of world powers and now they collectively can't manage collective defense without the US? There's something very learned-helplessness about that. And yes, it certainly has served Amer…

Europe's weakness is mostly in their heads. The US is the most powerful military in the world, but the second most powerful military is NATO without the US. If the rest of NATO pulls together and reorganises into an effective military that doesn't depend on the US, it would be a force to be reckoned with.

Europe could easily defeat Russia without outside help (look at how well Ukraine is doing with far less!), but we still fear Russia because that's what we're used to. That's what we were told to do and what we have embraced. We need to grow out of that and stand on our own feet again.

Re: Denmark was reportedly preparing for full-scale war with the US over Greenland

#237

Post by xenocratus »

bko wrote: post #225
jacquesm wrote: post #3

Of course they were. The United States has never before damaged its own reputation in Europe as much as they did in the last 12 months. And the same goes for Canada, possibly worse. You don't go around threatening your allies unless you really have plans and that's why you don't elect senile old guys to positions of power.

[flagged]

> The fact is Europe hasn't offered America much of anything other than a vacation spot over the last 100 years. And there's the cookie banners too.

https://youtu.be/QEJ9HrZq7Ro?si=XCJWAtcZ0t633oLE

Re: Denmark was reportedly preparing for full-scale war with the US over Greenland

#238

Post by TheOtherHobbes »

srean wrote: post #184
jacquesm wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a tough question. There has always been a meddlesome quality to the USA that the rest of the so called developed world turned a blind eye to. Along the lines of 'their bastards, but at least they're our bastards'. Of course that does not make it good, but the balance calculation worked out in favor of toeing the line and being careful not to get pulled out of joint too much. 9/11 changed all that and effective…

"Meddlesome" is certainly a light way of labeling torture training. What I find more troubling is that Trump has popular support. It's just not Trump. The rot goes far deeper.

Trump doesn't have popular support. Many of his 2024 voters are furious with him.

What Trump has is oligarch support - an unholy alliance of weird and cranky tech billionaires, old(ish) money, foreign money, media owners, and insane white supremacist patriarch-wannabes, some of whom operate through think tanks, some through megachurches.

The media are doing an excellent job of normalising this, not least - but not only - sanewashing Trump's obvious mental and physical decay.

Re: Denmark was reportedly preparing for full-scale war with the US over Greenland

#239

Post by gregw2 »

1over137 wrote: post #120
jacquesm wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That doesn't matter. It is not so much about whether the USA could do this and expect to win, of course they can. Nobody has any doubt about that. It is about gross miscalculation of consequences. Attack Greenland ->attack Denmark, attack Denmark -> Attack the EU. So you don't attack Greenland. Because that would be wrong. Unless all that stuff about shining cities on hills was nonsense. Instead of making America gre…

>It is not so much about whether the USA could do this and expect to win, of course they can. Nobody has any doubt about that. Um, lots of us have doubts about that. The USA couldn't win against Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Iraq; why do you think it could win against Greenland? Greenlanders actually have a lot of guns; and likely most of Europe and Canada would also go to war against the USA.

Not the parent poster but, while I acknowledge your point on Canada and Europe entering the conflict (and I'd add that the highly motivated Dutch punch well above their weight in intelligence and economic spheres and this whole scenario of US invasion is a Putin dream), when you ask "why do you think it could win...", the 50k population of Greenland is smaller than Granada (100k) and three orders of magnitude smaller than Vietnam/Afghanistan/Iraq (~40m). So I find its insurgency potential hard to compare to those examples you give.

Re: Denmark was reportedly preparing for full-scale war with the US over Greenland

#240

Post by imjonse »

jjtwixman wrote: post #34
jacquesm wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Note that this is from a country that wouldn't exist if not for the allied countries and that the US has somehow managed to all but erase that reputation. We recognize our debt, we also recognize that this is to a country that no longer exists in a meaningful way. All we have now is multiple variations of the mob.

Yeah the US we knew is gone. I think about this sometimes when I am listening to American music from the 20th century, how much soft power they had, how great they made America sound either directly or indirectly. That America that we all looked up to and admired is gone. Pity.

As a european I see what you mean, but that 'we all' in your sentence probably hasn't included those from Latin America, and large parts of Africa or Asia since long before Trump. The US pulled quite a few less than admirable tricks (to use an euphemism) on non-europeans during the 20th century.
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