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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

#531

Post by closewith »

Starman_Jones wrote: post #475
FpUser wrote: post #443

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>"but the second most powerful military is NATO without the US" I am curious how much of NATO's hardware originate from the / depends on the US and and what will suddenly stop working if the US decides to break military alliance.

Short answer is: a LOT, but that's a two way street. BAE, for example, builds America's tanks (or at least their armored infantry fighting vehicles).

BAE Systems Inc, a US-based subsidiary that operates entirely in the US and whose leadership operates under an SAA which means they report to the US Government and the parent in the UK.

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

#532

Post by srean »

kqr wrote: post #115
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.

The Apollo missions were the greatest scientific accomplishment by the Soviet Union. History repeats.

Could you elaborate ? Intrigued.

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

#533

Post by GeoAtreides »

jacquesm wrote: post #455
gpderetta wrote: post #444

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Make sure to check /active Thanks, TIL.

We call it 'the better homepage'.

tbf, less flagged posts hitting /active lately

either they kill them early (delete them) or hn policy quietly changed

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

#534

Post by jemmyw »

keiferski wrote: post #275
Imustaskforhelp wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So much soft power has been lost. The worst part to me feels like US has lost trust and such soft power loss is irrecoverable no matter what happens now :/ A common statement I hear from people, or maybe its just what I think, but its like "How can we trust US after this" and hey mind you, Trump still has 3 years in office, but even if political parties change, how can we trust the whole system for not having anoth…

I am equally dismayed at recent US behavior; but this is a short sighted view. 1. Geopolitics is always unpredictable. Maybe the US has been unreliable lately, but the idea that there are states out there which have been bastions of reliability is not historically accurate. All great powers have screwed people over or made disastrous decisions. It’s mostly just the US’s turn now. 2. This all happened 20 years ago wit…

> This all happened 20 years ago with Iraq.

I think your argument falls apart here. The US built a coalition of on side allies before invading Iraq. They went to the UN too. There was significant opposition to the war, and I was a student at the time in the UK so was surrounded and involved in that. However, European countries were not politically blindsided. Some were going in with the US, including Denmark I believe.

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

#535

Post by ericmay »

KaiserPro wrote: post #527
ericmay wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s interesting how these conversations always start and end with “my company isn’t buying XYZ American cloud provider services” while ignoring other incredibly important products and services that you can’t or are unwilling to boycott. Are you turning in your MacBook Pro and iPhone, or are you putting a bumper sticker on it saying you bought it before you knew America was crazy? Similarly, while it's great to take…

> while ignoring other incredibly important products and services that you can’t or are unwilling to boycott. Its about operational risk. right now AWS is a key dependency, if that get turns off, we're fucked. we have mixed estate of end user devices, so its hard to turn them all off at once.

You're indulging in catastrophe fantasy.

If AWS gets "turned off" (the implication being the US is doing some big mean thing against all of Europe) for European countries then something absolutely catastrophic has happened and you're going to be hoping you have heat, electricity, food, and water.

If AWS gets "turned off" your MacBook Pro isn't going to work anymore because obviously the US will just whoops turn that off too! Your Google OS on your Android phone won't work anymore, and if you turn it on bam drone strike! Gotcha! Meta will shut down your WhatsApp, and you'll have to import all of your oil from Russia or something.

I don't think there's anything wrong with European countries or the EU as a whole looking to build more homegrown products and restore their manufacturing capacity - that's what we're looking to do in the US too in various ways and I encourage it. But I do think there's a problem with this fantasy, and indeed it is a fantasy of somehow decoupling from American tech companies or being isolationist or whatever and it's not good for you. We have global supply chains and in those supply chains you're going to have American products whether you like it or not. You can work on building better businesses in the EU and you should, but lay off the grandstanding, otherwise you just sound like the freedom fries enthusiasts.

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

#536

Post by ericmay »

comrade1234 wrote: post #460
ericmay wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s interesting how these conversations always start and end with “my company isn’t buying XYZ American cloud provider services” while ignoring other incredibly important products and services that you can’t or are unwilling to boycott. Are you turning in your MacBook Pro and iPhone, or are you putting a bumper sticker on it saying you bought it before you knew America was crazy? Similarly, while it's great to take…

Both my iPhone and MacBook were bought from Apple Switzerland AG and shipped directly from china to me. The money will stay in Europe unless Trump does another tax holiday where American companies can send money back to the USA without paying taxes on it - otherwise it's a pretty hefty tax bill.

Sorry that's not how that works.

First and foremost, Apple is still an American company and even if it isn't repatriating some amount of income because it doesn't want to pay taxes on it American shareholders still get the benefit of the reported cash position. Apple still owns the assets.

Second, the products are manufactured/assembled in a variety of countries including China, Taiwan, and more - US obviously designs the products and all that. But in each step of the way Apple is paying suppliers, suppliers pay other suppliers and so forth and when you finally go to Apple Switzerland AG and buy your MacBook Pro you're just paying the sum total costs of the profit for Apple, each individual supplier, and manufacturer. All that money has left Europe, Apple Switzerland is just charging you the diff on the imported product and what profit margin they want to make. Maybe it's $250 or something, of the supply chain that is pretty much all that stays in Europe, of course subtracting out where European companies are suppliers.

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

#537

Post by jacquesm »

nickdothutton wrote: post #514
jacquesm wrote: post #510

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is interesting how many people seem to have failed to notice this absolutely crucial detail. Suddenly US bases are no longer seen as an asset but as an immediate risk.

This is what specifically caused me to make the late stage empire comment. When the flip comes, you know you are in that phase. Speaking as a Brit. Other indicators are loss of reserve currency status, inward looking elite factions (can be of any party, it is not a partisan matter), and a few other things. One might have said “changed from creditor to debtor” but almost everyone is these days!

The US economy is so fragile it is scary. And meanwhile they continue to make more and more 'frenemies', some of whom might start to wonder what happens when you kick the table the house of cards is built on. At some point the continued price of trying to pretend things are normal versus the price of forcing the problem to go away is going to reach a tipping point. It almost happened over Greenland, the general atmosphere in Brussels was 'ok, if you insist'...

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

#538

Post by sph »

srean wrote: post #532
kqr wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Apollo missions were the greatest scientific accomplishment by the Soviet Union. History repeats.

Could you elaborate ? Intrigued.

No USSR = no Cold War = no space race which lands us on the moon

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

#539

Post by jacquesm »

closewith wrote: post #524
jacquesm wrote: post #405

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Europe can wreck the US in 15 minutes and not a shot would be fired. That would have massive effect on the EU too and that's one of the things holding that back. But if the US would invade Canada or Denmark I'm fairly sure that they would not hesitate, especially not if half the USA would be on their side in the decision.

Europe is not a megalith, there is no central authority to make any kind of decision, and no Government in the bloc has a mandate to destroy it's citizens quality of life and economy by engaging in armed conflict with the US. This includes Denmark, who would not have fought the US, as much as they tried to put on a show.

Which part of 'and not a shot would be fired' is so hard to understand. There are so many ways to tell another party that maybe they should tend their own house for a bit.

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

#540

Post by srean »

JeremyNT wrote: post #218
srean wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did that US really exist without a self imposed convenience of blindness ? The brutality of the School of Americas might indicate otherwise. Now rebranded as https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Hemisphere_Institute_f...

The US was historically self-interested in empire building, with an excellent PR campaign in front of it, but... it also did useful and good stuff, both for its allies and for unrelated parties. USAID was a testament to this. PR spin aside, it was largely a force for global stability (a few notable and disastrous military quagmires aside). "Free trade" isn't much of a philosophy to hang your hat on but it is an ideal…

> USAID was a testament to this.

Absolutely. Credit needs to be given where it's due.

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