21–30 of 51 posts
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You do the pragmatic thing and sell her to him so you can save the rest of your family? Doubt so.
For countries, land has the same value of a family member. You don’t sell, you don’t risk it, you don’t let anyone touch it. Or else everything else falls apart.
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A local drug lord likes your daughter. He offers to purchase her for a load of cash. He threats to kill your entire family to get her if you refuse. You do the pragmatic thing and sell her to him so you can save the rest of your family? Doubt so. For countries, land has the same value of a family member. You don’t sell, you don’t risk it, you don’t let anyone touch it. Or else everything else falls apart.
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Very few work in mining, because there's little infrastructure in place to engage in mining. And while it would take a huge sum of money to start mining there, who knows if the people there are interested in working with mines, or if they would even allow it. If you've ever lived in a country with indigenous people, it is a regulatory nightmare to just mine on places they claim to own. I live in Norway, and a minority of our indigenous people (Sámi people) work with reindeer herding. It is a very subsidized sector, and the regulatory red-tape tied to reindeer areas have stopped many projects related to energy and minerals.
My point is that no mater how lucrative the new alternative is, plenty of people will straight up reject it on basis of tradition. Some things you simply can't put a price tag on.
If US rolls up and wants to buy Greenland, from Greenlanders, they also need to convince them to pretty much give up all their land, their way of living, and to take care of them per the Nordic model, for the rest of their lives. The average Greenlander earns something equivalent to $50k / year.
And how much would US be willing to pay? What if the citizens of Greenland have a vote, and say - OK, we'll do, but only if US can pay $50m / citizen ($3 Tn), or some arbitrarily large sum. Or if they say, nah, we're fine as it is. No money in the world will be enough?
Point is, the US is the party that wants Greenland. Greenland knows this. They could chose to say fuck off, we don't want you, or they could demand as much as they want.
If US then decides to take Greenland by force, it would set off things that will cost US much more than what Greenland will ever be worth.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
A local drug lord likes your daughter. He offers to purchase her for a load of cash. He threats to kill your entire family to get her if you refuse. You do the pragmatic thing and sell her to him so you can save the rest of your family? Doubt so. For countries, land has the same value of a family member. You don’t sell, you don’t risk it, you don’t let anyone touch it. Or else everything else falls apart.
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Don’t me a bad dad, sell your daughter to the drug lord.
- Greenland and Denmark don't want to sell to the US.
- Denmark is a close ally of the US, and is a NATO member.
If the US decides that the only way to get Greenland is to take it by force, than that's the end of NATO. And it will usher in a new and unprecedented time where Europe will treat the US as hostiles. Whatever values US hopes to extract from Greenland via their natural resources will absolutely pale in comparison to the new economic world that springs up.
And even if by some miniscule chance the US manages convince the majority of Greenlanders that they should break off from Denmark, and sell to the US, they can pretty much set the price. Or it's up to the above point.
Even more important: Trump and his cronies will be long tone until anything would materialize.
This is nothing but Trump wanting to make a huge splash before he fades away. Even if there are billionaires working behind the scene, I fully expect a future non-MAGA president to completely abandon any idea of annexing Greenland, and work on repairing the damage that Trump has done to international relations.
Doing a surgical strike on a known enemy of the US / ally of Russia and China (Maduro and Venezuela) is one thing. Going to war with allies and destroying NATO is a completely different matter.
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So here's the thing with Greenland. It's mainly indigenous people living there (inuits), a bit under 60k. 40% of their working population (whole working population: 25k) work in administrative jobs, which are more or less subsidized by Denmark. Denmark subsidizes Greenland to the tune of half a billion euro annually. The rest work in fisheries, hunting, whaling, animal husbandry, and things like that. Very few work i…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
A local drug lord likes your daughter. He offers to purchase her for a load of cash. He threats to kill your entire family to get her if you refuse. You do the pragmatic thing and sell her to him so you can save the rest of your family? Doubt so. For countries, land has the same value of a family member. You don’t sell, you don’t risk it, you don’t let anyone touch it. Or else everything else falls apart.
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When the US argues that Greenland is defenseless without them, it's the same as the mafia telling a shop owner that he's defenseless without their protection - when in reality it is the mob who's the threat.
Furthermore it doesn't mater if some Greenlanders want to join the US, it is a democracy. The majority would want it. And by any measure right now, the majority do not want it.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
A local drug lord likes your daughter. He offers to purchase her for a load of cash. He threats to kill your entire family to get her if you refuse. You do the pragmatic thing and sell her to him so you can save the rest of your family? Doubt so. For countries, land has the same value of a family member. You don’t sell, you don’t risk it, you don’t let anyone touch it. Or else everything else falls apart.
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