This is Crimea 2.0. The ideological basis behind the annexation is identical in both instances.
It actually reminds me more of the Falklands War...
The mineral riches hiding under Greenland's ice
111–120 of 217 posts
Re: The mineral riches hiding under Greenland's ice
#112My prediction of how a hostile takeover would work out - i.e. all US offers to purchase Greenland are flat rejected: 0. USA invades Greenland by shipping thousands of troops there, Denmark does the same. I don't believe there will be any direct conflict, but rather that US simply declares they now control Greenland. 1. Denmark invokes a number of NATO articles, immediately. 2. NATO crisis, all members meet in hopes t…
> does everything to mend relations with Europe. As a European, I don't think the relations can be fully mended, especially if points 0-9 come to pass! Even where we stand right now, I want my government—in conjunction with other European countries—to be planning for a long, slow process of decoupling our dependency on the US.
Yes, that's the dangerous thing about this. Even if most European leaders understand that Trump might be a once-in-a-century anomaly, the seed has been planted. Who knows when the next one comes around?
Trump, on the other hand, is a huge stress-tester of the US system. He knows that seemingly no mater what he does, he might just face impeachment, but not removal. So his go-to strategy is to break laws, and challenge them in court. All the way up to supreme court.
This is why all the checks and balances are sort-of useless at the moment. We know Trump will just ignore them, instruct people to ignore them, and challenge them. And even if he's doing blatantly illegal stuff that would land his cronies in jail, the DOJ won't go after them.
Trump understands that he will never, ever serve a single day in jail. He'll argue that everything he's doing, he's doing as a president, and with the immunity that comes with it. He'll issue pre-emptive pardons for his cronies, and probably himself. Wouldn't surprise me if he ends up stepping down toward the end of his term, and Vance also issues pardons for Trump.
He's emboldened, knows that he's untouchable, and is easily manipulated by his orbiters. And, frankly, I believe he has limited time left - he's not a man that will live to be 100.
Re: The mineral riches hiding under Greenland's ice
#113My prediction of how a hostile takeover would work out - i.e. all US offers to purchase Greenland are flat rejected: 0. USA invades Greenland by shipping thousands of troops there, Denmark does the same. I don't believe there will be any direct conflict, but rather that US simply declares they now control Greenland. 1. Denmark invokes a number of NATO articles, immediately. 2. NATO crisis, all members meet in hopes t…
>6. Congress does not authorize Trumps use of military, and Trump must withdraw within 90 days.
No US president, regardless of party, has ever recognized the constitutionality of the War Powers Act. When a president sends reports to Congress of the sort the act mandates, the report typically includes a disclaimer stating as much.
>If US economy crashes
Any European attempt to "crash" the US economy would result in worse results for Europe.
Only 7% of US GDP comes from foreign trade, by far the smallest of any developed nation. The US is Denmark's largest export customer, while Denmark is almost insignificant as a US customer.
Example: One often-suggested penalty against the US is Novo Nordisk suspending sales to Americans. Even setting aside the fact that the US's Lilly's own GLP-1 has handily commercially outperformed Ozempic (as seen in their relative stock prices), the US was *57%* of Novo Nordisk's sales in 2024. https://www.novonordisk.com/content/dam/nncorp/global/en/inv...>
Re: The mineral riches hiding under Greenland's ice
#114There are a few things that confuse me about this potential acquisition: 1. You won't govern it. Greenland has it's own Self-Government Act. [0] 2. You won't own the land. Almost all land is owned by the State. [1] 3. The Danes have no special land ownership rights. [2] 4. Land use rights, however, are granted for different activities (fishing, mining) subject to approval. [3] I'd imagine none of this changes under a…
What I wonder is about the second order effects. I mean, I'm pretty far from Denmark but here the talk is pretty much like an existential crisis. Even if the US does nothing about it, seems that many people has finally realized that Europe has no allies. This has a lot of implications regarding the Pax Americana, the US/EU financial system, Eurasia, and many others. I don't see any positive outcome for the west in ge…
>I don't see any positive outcome for the west in general. Europe in particular is screwed but besides short-term gains I don't think the US is going to be able to sustain anything but very fragile and transactional alliances, if any.
Europe became the forefront of human civilization, the home of the renaissance and the industrial revolution, because of internal competition between states (as opposed to the large centralized autocracies of Asia and the Middle East). In the long term more competition will ultimately be a good thing for Europe, forcing it to stop resting on its laurels, to start innovating and growing again.
Re: The mineral riches hiding under Greenland's ice
#115The events of the past 12 months, culminating in Venezuela and now Greenland, has made me reevaluate a lot of my beliefs about unimpeded competition between free agents (i.e. a free market) leading to the best and most peaceful outcomes. Clearly, a few participants becoming disproportionately powerful is a failure mode. The way I've tried to reconcile my beliefs with what are clearly contradictory observations in the…
There's capitalism and then there's communism. Both have proven to not work which leaves us with...
Countries are bad but even the sci-fi authors know the only way to change this is literally an alien invasion. Until then, instead of expecting good from our governments (wherever we live) shouldn't we just assume the worst and go from there? Since switching to that mentality life has been much more pleasant personally.
Re: The mineral riches hiding under Greenland's ice
#116Greenland is set to be the greatest show on earth. Interesting times.
How do you figure? This show is actually going to be rather boring. The setup has long been completed and Europe will not even squeal all that much.
What, with the Ukraine trap and the narrative hole of Russia marching on Paris, Europe is going to do what against America for taking Greenland? Europe walked itself into a trap and it has no clue it’s even happening.
There is a tiny chance something else is being done, but it’s such a small chance it’s not even worth mentioning. Reality is that this thing we still call America is starving hungry and it smells European blood in the water, and is furiously rubbing its hands over Greenland’s resources and Arctic access. And no, Europeans, the Democrats will also devour you now that they’ve also smelled the money in the Potomac. The Empire must eat.
No, Europe is already drugged, muzzled, and strapped to the table… it will be over soon, Europe.
Re: The mineral riches hiding under Greenland's ice
#117As a European. I'm starting to hate the US. Not dislike. Hate. For months I thought they can't possibly allow the orange clown to ruin their country any further. But the country is clearly spiralling out of control. And I'm starting to hate the whole culture. Now if a part of the population did anything other than comment online. If they took to the streets or did anything substantial in protest. But no. Crickets. So…
The No Kings protests are large and have been occurring over the last year. It’s disingenuous to imply the population is doing nothing but comment online. The US is a large country with the third largest population in the world. It’s not homogenous. Despite all that, it’s probably still prudent to decouple from the US.
Only 1.2–1.8% of the U.S. population attended a No Kings Day event.
Re: The mineral riches hiding under Greenland's ice
#118Earlier quoted context omitted.
What I wonder is about the second order effects. I mean, I'm pretty far from Denmark but here the talk is pretty much like an existential crisis. Even if the US does nothing about it, seems that many people has finally realized that Europe has no allies. This has a lot of implications regarding the Pax Americana, the US/EU financial system, Eurasia, and many others. I don't see any positive outcome for the west in ge…
>I don't see any positive outcome for the west in general. Europe in particular is screwed but besides short-term gains I don't think the US is going to be able to sustain anything but very fragile and transactional alliances, if any. Europe became the forefront of human civilization, the home of the renaissance and the industrial revolution, because of internal competition between states (as opposed to the large cen…
> In the long term more competition will ultimately be a good thing for Europe
Leaving aside the deaths of millions of people through warfare, then, maybe, but still doubtful.
Re: The mineral riches hiding under Greenland's ice
#119As a Swede I must confess I don't know much about Greenland. But if Denmark goes all-in on Greenland, you can bet the other Nordic countries will be involved too. Not sure how this will play out. Really strange situation and as I said I don't even know how much Denmark cares about Greenland. Any Danes here that can tell us more?
The US has military bases all around Europe from which they would be able to do actions to keep NATO from mobilising.
In 2024 I spent a day protesting outside the Swedish parliament against US base also in Sweden. We warned about Trump probably winning the US election and how unpredictable he is, but the proponents disregarded all our arguments: "Trump being president again? Pfft.. That will never happen", "Provision for US leaving NATO? Pfft. They won't", "Rule against nukes on Swedish soil? Pfft. The US are our friends and will respect our wishes.". The vote passed, and here we are.
Re: The mineral riches hiding under Greenland's ice
#120As a European. I'm starting to hate the US. Not dislike. Hate. For months I thought they can't possibly allow the orange clown to ruin their country any further. But the country is clearly spiralling out of control. And I'm starting to hate the whole culture. Now if a part of the population did anything other than comment online. If they took to the streets or did anything substantial in protest. But no. Crickets. So…
> And Europe needs to unite further and prepare for war, or risk being torn apart by the new axis of evil. As a Brit, I am praying that we rejoin the EU because it's never looked so necessary.
Don't ever let them tell you it can't be done.