Greenland Crisis

They could but they'd say that's not what the people of Greenland want. They don't want to be an owned territory when they're used to their autonomy. They don't want their land exploited for minerals and oil by the highest bidder. They don't want to be made a military target between the US and Russia.

I'm not saying there isn't a deal to be made but it's got to be with the people of Greenland.

The generous explanation is that Russia could be a cheap mineral supplier. That a destabilised West strengthens the offerings of US to its neighbours. That domestic xenophobia forces domestic hiring, manufacturing, job creation.

But historically, he apes Putin's strongman routine. He wants to be him. Bibi too. Too powerful to be prosecuted.

He's got a few years left, doesn't give a shit, and knows he can strip mine the US for his family before he goes.

"New spaces for trade and natural resource extraction" doesn't sound like "unbelievably, stupendously critical to US security" to me.

As for conflict, what? The US already has military bases there and the only threat to continued military access to the area is that the US is acting like a fucking two year old and pissing off all of its allies.

And imagine the worst case scenario. The US loses access to the land and sea in the entire region. How specifically does this dramatically change US security? Is a naval invasion launched from Greenland actually a thing people are worried about? Surely a better approach to maintain US security is, you know, a stable global order and military alliances with other powerful nations in the region?

If oil is so fucking important that it justifies this idiocy, why is the US a net exporter of oil?

I kind of hope that part of Europe's response it to start selling off its large amount of U.S. bonds.

>Europe owns Greenland, it also owns a lot of Treasuries. We spent most of last year arguing that for all its military and economic strength, the US has one key weakness: it relies on others to pay its bills via large external deficits. Europe, on the other hand, is America’s largest lender: European countries own $8 trillion of US bonds and equities, almost twice as much as the rest of the world combined.

>In an environment where the geoeconomic stability of the western alliance is being disrupted existentially, it is not clear why Europeans would be as willing to play this part. Danish pension funds were one of the first to repatriate money and reduce their dollar exposure this time last year. With USD exposure still very elevated across Europe, developments over the last few days have potential to further encourage dollar rebalancing.

>. . . From our perspective the key thing to watch over the next few days will be whether the EU decides to activate its anti-coercion instrument by putting measures that impact capital markets on the table.

>With the US net international investment position at record negative extremes, the mutual inter-dependence of European-US financial markets has never been higher. It is a weaponization of capital rather than trade flows that would by far be the most disruptive to markets.

https://www.ft.com/content/beeaf869-ca12-4178-95a1-bfb69ee27...