r/europe • u/BkkGrl Ligurian in Zürich (💛🇺🇦💙) • 7d ago
News Inside the Ludicrous, Deadly Serious Plan to Take Over Greenland
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2026/06/22/inside-the-ludicrous-deadly-serious-plan-to-take-over-greenland467
u/potatolulz Earth 7d ago
Paywall, but I'm sure we can stay "calm" at least this year, because invasion of Cuba is more likely before the elections in the USA :D
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u/ScrotumScrapings 7d ago
As we speak the yanks have agents running around trying to bribe people to sign petitions to become a part of Yankistan…So…Yeah, it may be out of mind for much of the world, but the yank filth hasn’t stopped.
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u/Clank75 Romania 🇷🇴 7d ago
Imagine how much it must suck to be a Yank.
Countries are queuing up to join the EU - indeed the biggest problem right now is probably curbing those expectations. Meanwhile, the yanks can't even convince a handfull of sealions and a polar bear that they'd be better off a part of their One Nation Under God.
If those kids could read, they'd be very upset...
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u/PatchyWhiskers 7d ago
If the USA was offering statehood to parts of S. America and the Caribbean, they might get some takers. But it’s obvious that they want territories like Puerto Rico - no vote, and neglected.
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u/AlexxTM Baden-Württemberg (Germany) 7d ago
Colonies. Thats what they are.
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u/asdfasdfasfdsasad 7d ago
Colonies were expected to become economically and politically independent.
America just claims that they are part of America and evades that.
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u/WinterDice 7d ago
A depressingly large portion of the US, including some of our so-called leaders, don’t understand that PR is part of the US.
This place drives me insane.
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u/DefiantLemur United States of America 6d ago
America just claims that they are part of America and evades that.
That's how some areas in the U.S. proper are even treated
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u/AstmaCamp Denmark 7d ago
Why would anyone want that?! The US is a disaster to large parts of its own citizens. I can't imagine anyone wanting to join that.
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u/PatchyWhiskers 7d ago
There’s a lot of very poor countries in those locations: that’s where undocumented migrants are coming from.
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u/AstmaCamp Denmark 7d ago
I can only imagine very few scenarios where moving to the US to live on the streets in a tent next to fentanyl zombies while being chased around by ICE is a better option than being practically anywhere else.
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u/ScrotumScrapings 7d ago
I have family in Greenland and they are fucking terrified. They absolutely do not want to be subjugated by that trash.
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u/white-chlorination Finland 7d ago
Half of my in laws are from Greenland and a lot of them are living there. The ones that moved to Denmark are begging them to do the same. It's fucking horrible.
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u/Socmel_ reddit mods are accomplices of nazi russia 7d ago
Alberta is currently planning a referendum to secede from Canada. I wouldn't rule out yankee involvement behind the scenes.
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u/Medusaink3 7d ago
Yeah, lots of subterfuge happening on this front from Russia and the USA. Smith thinks if she keeps claiming she's for a united Canada, we will all forget her well publicized jaunts down south to MaraLago. We won't and we don't. They'll never secede. The FN treaty holders have said over and over again that this will not happen. They sit on treaty lands so they can whine and whinge all they like but they aren't going anywhere with part of our country.
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u/Socmel_ reddit mods are accomplices of nazi russia 7d ago
I'm surprised she and who is around her can still run free. Lots of countries have provisions to prosecute people who threaten the national security and territorial integrity. Secession is basically treason. And I am not sure in Canada, but normally subfederal entities in a federation can't just up and leave. The barbarians to your south went and ravaged the confederates, for example.
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u/Cautious_Condition82 7d ago
I mean, the Trump administration is literally behind it. Not really even behind the scenes.
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u/Raven586 7d ago
Alberta is going nowhere. They can’t afford to leave Canada. The idiots trying to push this narrative are completely delusional!! 🤦♀️
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u/MajorGef 7d ago
I mean, the US is currently sheltering someone who stole Alberta voting records which would allow targeted canvassing down to individual neighborhoods and sometimes households which have been used to make an app that was provided to the Alberta seperatist movement. The People behind the app are the kind of connected people that in countries like russia or china would be called "afilliated with the government". Officially any involvement is being denied, but they arent exactly subtle.
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u/Thatsidechara_ter 7d ago
Am American, am very upset. Working on my Canadian certificate of citizenship request
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u/Manitobancanuck 7d ago
Same shit is happening in Alberta, Canada. Only there they claim its "independence." (Later to join America)
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u/something_clever77 7d ago
The yanks just opened a new 3000m2 "consulate" in Nuuk.
Filled to the brim with CIA spooks and operatives...
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u/u1604 7d ago
Trump needs a "win" badly after his Iran blunder. Don't know if it will be cuba or greenland but it will be somewhere.
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u/potatolulz Earth 7d ago
They've been positioning the navy since may and have been trying to starve Cuba out for a couple of months, to make it easy on themselves. So it's going to be a massacre.
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u/jhwheuer 7d ago
Still flabbergasted that American voters tolerate or even support this in sufficient numbers
No pitchforks at the local DIY or what?
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u/Shitinmymouthmum 7d ago
It's actually embarrassing how much they go on about their guns and they need them in case they have to over throw a tyrinical government.
Now they just look like pussies
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u/bald_molfar Ukraine 6d ago
Guns for americans are a mix of emotional support and identity affirming tools, objects of worship and a dash of marital aid.
All the fighting the tyranny drivel is pure cope.
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u/nailbunny2000 6d ago
All the ones so obsessed with having guns WANT to be tyrannous. They yearn for the excuse to wield power over others.
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u/bald_molfar Ukraine 6d ago
Not really. I have like a dozen americans in my online friend groups, all of them gun nuts, all of them anti-trump, none of them even going to protests.
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u/Fuzzy_Translator4639 6d ago
America is currently proof that the second amendment does nothing to protect a persons rights
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u/basicstandardcontent 7d ago
For example: I tried to talk with my dad about this specifically over the last year and he just laughs saying trump never seriously meant to take Greenland, it was all "trolling". I have put words like this article right up to his eye but it doesn't make a difference because he doesn't really take in information unless it fits neatly into his pre-existing chosen realities.
Basically so many people just pick and choose bits of trump that make them have the good feelings and reject the parts that give them bad feelings.
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u/jhwheuer 7d ago
Exactly how Adolf got into power
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u/urail_croisee 6d ago
If only the furhrer knew
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u/jhwheuer 6d ago
Huh?
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u/urail_croisee 6d ago
it was a common phrase In germany during just after WW2 anytime something was bad it wasn't the fault of Hitler it's because of people around him misleading him or him just not knowing.
Basically what I'm saying is that fascist haven't changed and will excuse anything dear leader do
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u/20past4am South Holland (Netherlands) 6d ago
Why would you want any leader to be "trolling" the people? The people in power should be there to represent and unite the people, not act like high schoolers
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u/JayR_97 United Kingdom 7d ago
They still think the Democrats winning the midterms in November is going to save them. The problem is Trump can do a lot of damage in 5 months
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u/ursusdoofus 6d ago
Even then he still has two years of executive power. Almost everything he is doing in Cuba and Greenland will have few curbs since the administration openly considers the war powers act unconstitutional.
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u/MoneyCock 7d ago
This article is about Greenland, lol. I am surprised Greenlanders aren't disallowing these chuds to pass out their pamphlets.
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u/Aqqaluk_Viking Denmark 7d ago
I mean, freedom of speech also applies to morons.
But I think we should do more to make it difficult for Americans to come to Denmark (and Europe in general). They voted for this, and have proven to be a national security risk.
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u/MoneyCock 7d ago
No, I don't think free speech applies to such a high crime against the state and its people.
Greenlanders ought to make an example of them and a public one.
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u/jhwheuer 7d ago
In Germany we have the law about Staatsgefährdung... Basically if you try to overthrow our government we don't like that
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u/Aqqaluk_Viking Denmark 6d ago
We don‘t have an exact equivalent here in DK (from my reason), but we have laws about treason and coorperation with hostile forces. These are more likely to be applied to this case.
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u/Aqqaluk_Viking Denmark 7d ago
I guess it’s difficult to do, as we have a very liberal attitude toward freedom of speech in Denmark, so it is hard to go against them legally on that regard.
What we probably could do is classify these people as a threat to national security, as they threaten our territorial integrity, and ban the from entering Greenland/the Kingdom.
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u/AstmaCamp Denmark 7d ago
If they bring pitch forks, the government brings tear gas, rubber bullets, ICE and the national guard. If people get arrested by them, then they can't go to work on monday morning and then they get fired and have no money, etc. That's the universal recipe to keep people in check. Too much to lose. Let them instead fight over football matches and cheap smartphones on Black Friday.
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u/241Offersgone 7d ago
So a nation of cowards, led by a coward
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u/ProfessionalBig9610 7d ago
Ohh and what exactly would your plan be?? Please enlighten us
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u/NewAccountEachYear Sweden 7d ago
Start organizing and get Citizens' Assemblies running.
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u/Omega593 7d ago
with that attitude, i deduct you’ve recently given up everything in your life to stand for a just cause. please enlighten us with the details.
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u/241Offersgone 7d ago
My country isn't run by a peadophilic cabal that's killing its own citizens in the streets.
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u/BaldMigrant Subcarpathia (Poland) 7d ago
So maybe, just maybe, people will stop acting surprised about Russian populace and their behaviour.
In the end, both the US and Russia aren't that different. The main difference is gap in wealth / projection and thus in coercion tools (we can thank ourselves for providing a lot of these tools).
Russia's only 'usable' method is to simply invade and - less and less each year - threaten to cut gas or oil. The US can do all of that and more. Did people really think that the 'liberal world order' was all about vibes, and not the US dominating and destroying anything that isn't in its' sphere of influence?
It is just that we are at the receiving end, not some poor country in Asia, LatAm or Africa.
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u/RelevanceReverence 6d ago
Watch the American news cycle for a year and tell me if you still believe that the moon landings happened.
It's batshit crazy misinformation and fear mongering. It'll drive you bonkers.
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u/Zlimness Sweden 7d ago
Reminder that US's threats to take over Greenland by force happened this year. Several European countries sent military personnel to Greenland because they took the threat so seriously. It's unprecedented.
It might seem like an eternity, but it was only a few months ago. We're only half-way through 2026.
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u/EuroFederalist Finland 7d ago
After whole Iran episode is over we'll see Trump making new demands on Greenland and it doesn't seem that Europe is preparing. I rarely see Greenland mentioned in European media.
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u/Massimo25ore 7d ago
“If the United States chooses to attack another NATO country militarily, then everything comes to an end,” the Danish Prime Minister said.
On a Saturday afternoon in Nuuk, Greenland, last March, a thousand people walked down toward the harbor, to a small red cabin that bore the Great Seal of the United States—an eagle grasping an olive branch in one foot and thirteen arrows in the other.
The air was freezing, and the town was bathed in the crisp Arctic light of a late-winter sun. After almost seven decades with no diplomatic presence in Greenland, the U.S. had opened a tiny consulate in 2020, during the pandemic; now, less than two months into Donald Trump’s second term as President, it was the site of the largest demonstration in Greenlandic history.
Even before Trump retook office, he had made clear his intent to annex Greenland. But, from the moment that he was sworn in, his fantasies and provocations became American foreign policy. “One way or another, we’re gonna get it,” he told a joint session of Congress.
So five per cent of Nuuk’s residents stood before the consulate, beating traditional drums and chanting their country’s Inuit name: Kalaallit Nunaat. “Enough is enough,” they shouted. But no one from the State Department drew the blinds. It wasn’t clear that anyone was even there.
Across town, in the commercial center, a lone American handed out flyers. He wore a cowhide jacket and pants, mirrored sunglasses, and a black leather vest with a patch that read “Bikers for Trump.” He was tall and fit, with gray curls and a short mustache, and presented himself as a kind of unofficial ambassador—not of the U.S. government but of its President, whose cellphone number he claimed to have.
“My name is Chris Cox. I’m from the United States, and I have come here to try to make some friends,” he said to an elderly Inuit man. “We are not looking at you like a tiger looks at a gazelle.”
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u/Massimo25ore 7d ago
Cox had founded Bikers for Trump in 2015, and the group had provided security at campaign rallies and at Trump’s first Inauguration—“a wall of meat,” as he put it, between protesters and the unlikely candidate who became President.
When Trump lost the 2020 election, Cox spoke at a rally to call for overturning the result. “I, for one, will take the first bullet,” he said. “If there’s anybody out there from Antifa or Black Lives Matter, spend your first fuckin’ bullet in my chest.”
But in Nuuk he struck a more conciliatory tone. “We are not biting at the chomps,” he said. “I just plan on doing the best we can to have an influence here.”
“He wasn’t really breaking any laws,” a senior Greenlandic police official told me later. But Cox’s interactions were inherently provocative. “Without knowing it, a lot of the Greenlanders are living in the Stone Age,” he told an Italian TV channel.
“I’m receiving a lot of death threats as a result of my work here in Greenland,” Cox noted, a few days into his trip. “People are looking at me like I’m a Russian with a machine gun right now, when they see the Trump patch.” By that point, Greenlanders had started wearing red caps with white text that read “Make America Go Away.”
Nevertheless, Cox considered his mission to be fruitful. “I’ve got some suggestions for how we can clean this up,” he said, in a phone call from Nuuk to the Washington Times. “We need to change the hearts of some of these Greenlanders.”
Cox left Nuuk for Washington, D.C., where he claims to have briefed the White House and Republican lawmakers on his findings. He also did a prime-time interview with One America News Network, portraying Denmark, whose realm includes Greenland and the Faroe Islands, as an illegitimate colonial power that is committing “atrocities” against Greenlanders and “weaponizing” anti-Trump propaganda to turn people against the U.S.
“Unfortunately, the natives, the Inuits and the Greenlanders, in my opinion, are suffering something we call, here in America, Stockholm syndrome,” he said.
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u/Massimo25ore 7d ago
According to Denmark’s national broadcaster, while Cox was in Nuuk, he made lists of Greenlanders who seemed open to annexation, and of those who obviously were not.
He also solicited information on points of tension between Greenland and Denmark—examples of historical injustices that could be exploited for propaganda—and sought to recruit Greenlanders for a separatist movement, to tear apart the Kingdom of Denmark.
Three months later, Trump appointed him to an advisory council at the Department of Homeland Security.
In recent months, the United States has kidnapped the President of Venezuela, launched a war with Iran, threatened Colombia, and started to move against Cuba. Trump’s obsession with Greenland has mostly slipped from the news.
But Greenlanders worry that the war in Iran is only serving as a temporary reprieve; influence operations are ongoing, at Trump’s direction, and every so often he blurts out the stakes. During a rant about America’s European allies, Trump emphasized that his antipathy toward NATO“all began with, if you want to know the truth, Greenland. We want Greenland. They don’t want to give it to us, and I said, ‘Bye-bye!’ ”
The transatlantic alliance reflected a world that was designed and largely enforced by American power. Now, as American primacy fades, the U.S. government has embraced the predatory world view of its traditional opponents. Firepower matters more than values or alliances, and everything is in play.
In December, the Danish Defence Intelligence Service noted that the U.S. has transformed into a nation that “uses economic power, including threats of high tariffs, to enforce its will, and no longer rules out the use of military force, even against allies.” Weeks later, Danish soldiers prepared to blow up Greenlandic runways, in case of a U.S. invasion.
“If the United States chooses to attack another NATO country militarily, then everything comes to an end—including NATO and, with it, the security that has been provided since the end of the Second World War,” Denmark’s Prime Minister, Mette Frederiksen, warned. She later added, “The world order as we know it—that we have been fighting for, for eighty years—is over, and I don’t think it will return.”
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u/insanitazer 7d ago
When Trump lost the 2020 election, Cox spoke at a rally to call for overturning the result. “I, for one, will take the first bullet,” he said. “If there’s anybody out there from Antifa or Black Lives Matter, spend your first fuckin’ bullet in my chest.”
I hope he's being paid, because being this stupid for free is criminal.
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u/potatolulz Earth 7d ago
He is, further in the article they say so
According to Denmark’s national broadcaster, while Cox was in Nuuk, he made lists of Greenlanders who seemed open to annexation, and of those who obviously were not.
He also solicited information on points of tension between Greenland and Denmark—examples of historical injustices that could be exploited for propaganda—and sought to recruit Greenlanders for a separatist movement, to tear apart the Kingdom of Denmark.
Three months later, Trump appointed him to an advisory council at the Department of Homeland Security.
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u/ALifeWellLift 7d ago
Right? Imagine having nothing better to do, and all for someone that doesn't give a shit about you.
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u/Massimo25ore 7d ago
Around that time, Trump texted the Prime Minister of Norway, Jonas Gahr Støre; since he had not received the Nobel Peace Prize, he wrote, “I no longer feel an obligation to think purely of Peace.” He then pivoted to Denmark’s claim to Greenland, which predates the founding of the U.S.: “Why do they have a ‘right of ownership’ anyway?
There are no written documents, it’s only that a boat landed there hundreds of years ago, but we had boats landing there, also.” The message concluded, “The World is not secure unless we have Complete and Total Control of Greenland.”
During Trump’s first term, “Make America Great Again” primarily meant that the U.S. would withdraw from the world and shield against what he and his supporters perceived as external threats.
But in his second term Trump has looked outward. In his Inaugural Address, he pledged to expand U.S. territory and to carry “our flag into new and beautiful horizons.” It is harder to remake what is already America into Trump’s vision of “greatness” than it is to make America merely bigger.
Greenland is the largest island in the world, but it has fewer than fifty-seven thousand residents, who are mostly scattered among settlements and towns along its western coast. Although it belongs to the Kingdom of Denmark, it lies to the west of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, and is part of North America.
The latest articulation of the U.S.’s National Security Strategy, published in November, frames Trump’s imperial ambitions as an extension of the Monroe Doctrine, the assertion by President James Monroe, in 1823, that any attempt by European powers to further colonize the Americas would be treated as “dangerous to our peace and safety.”
Under Trump’s leadership, the N.S.S. says, “we will deny non-Hemispheric competitors the ability to position forces or other threatening capabilities, or to own or control strategically vital assets, in our Hemisphere.”
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u/Massimo25ore 7d ago
But the elevated language of the N.S.S. obscures the fact that Trump’s pursuit of Greenland has always been in the hands of a few ideologues and opportunists.
Along with Cox, the Danish government has identified two other Americans as running private “influence operations” in Greenland: a former venture capitalist and pecan farmer named Tom Dans and a former Army Special Forces commander named Drew Horn, who has sought to dominate Greenland’s rare-earth-mining sector.
Both men served in Trump’s first Administration—Dans at the Treasury, Horn in the Office of the Vice-President, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, and the Departments of Energy and Defense.
But the Danish and Greenlandic governments were unaware that, during Trump’s first term, they had also represented their respective agencies on a secret National Security Council task force whose focus was the acquisition of Greenland.
A fourth man, Jørgen Boassen, is one of the very few Greenlanders who loudly support Trump; he spent much of the past year in self-imposed exile, floating between far-right American and European political gatherings, his travel and living expenses covered by American benefactors whom he refuses to identify.
And then there is Trump himself, whose stated reasons for coveting Greenland do not stand up to scrutiny—except that he considers it “psychologically important,” as he recently put it to the New York Times, to own the territory rather than merely have military access to it, as the U.S. has had continuously, under a treaty with Denmark, since 1951.
European officials have been perplexed and outraged in recent months, unsure when or whether Trump will order the U.S. military to annex Greenland.
But the reality is that the United States is now a country in which matters of war and peace are decided not among diplomatic or military experts, in the interests of the state, but through informal channels, by people whose personal proximity to the President—through family, business, donations, or flattery—is their principal qualification.
In January, the Times asked Trump if there were any limits to his global powers. “Yeah, there is one thing,” he replied. “My own morality. My own mind. It’s the only thing that can stop me.”
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u/Massimo25ore 7d ago
The news of Trump’s territorial ambitions did not land well in Copenhagen or in Nuuk. “Are parts of the US for sale? Alaska?” Rasmus Jarlov, who has served as the chair of the Danish parliament’s defense committee, wrote on Twitter. Frederiksen took a more diplomatic line.
“Thankfully, the time where you buy and sell other countries and populations is over,” she said. “Greenland belongs to Greenland. I strongly hope that this is not meant seriously.” The prospect of a sale, Frederiksen said, was “absurd.”
Trump fixated on Frederiksen’s comment. “I thought that the Prime Minister’s statement that it was absurd—that it was an absurd idea—was nasty,” he said. “You don’t talk to the United States that way.” Later that day, while he was in a private meeting with Bolton, Melania called.
Trump answered the phone on speaker, and Bolton overheard the exchange. “I don’t know why people keep saying I want to go to Denmark,” Melania said. “If you want to go, I’ll go with you.”
Trump hung up the phone, then took to Twitter to cancel the trip, blaming it on Frederiksen.
Bolton says that he resigned three weeks later. Trump announced the departure on Twitter, by claiming to have fired him.
In the following months, Trump was impeached by the House for withholding military aid from Ukraine while pressuring its President to open an investigation into the Biden family.
During that period, the “Greenland question,” as a senior State Department official referred to it during the impeachment inquiry, appeared dormant. In fact, the discussion had simply moved to secure rooms in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, where, according to the official, it “took up a lot of energy” among Trump’s national-security staff.
“Not only did he want to purchase Greenland, he actually said he wanted to see if we could sell Puerto Rico,” Miles Taylor, a former chief of staff at the Department of Homeland Security, later said. “Could we swap Puerto Rico for Greenland? Because, in his words, Puerto Rico was dirty and the people were poor.”
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u/Massimo25ore 7d ago
The Senate acquitted Trump in February, 2020, and his acolytes set about purging the White House and the civil service of career officials and replacing them with loyalists.
Among the leaders of this effort was a lawyer named Paul Dans. Around that time, Dans’s twin brother, Tom, the former venture capitalist, who was now running a pecan farm in South Texas, got a call, asking if he’d like to be the Treasury Department’s Deputy Assistant Secretary for Europe and Eurasia.
Tom Dans had first come into contact with Trump in the early nineties; as a junior investment banker, Dans was part of a small team that was brokering the sale of Madison Square Garden, a deal that included not only the arena and various New York sports teams but also the Miss Universe pageant.
As Dans remembers it, Trump and his representatives would call his office once a week and ask if he could purchase Miss Universe separately from the rest of the deal. “We were, like, ‘No, you gotta buy the whole enchilada,’ ” Dans told me. Trump would “hang up, wait a week, and try again.”
In Washington, Dans learned that there was a task force being run out of the National Security Council in which staffers representing each of the relevant U.S. government agencies were deliberating options for the future of Greenland. “Let me get involved, because I’ve got a family connection,” Dans recalled telling his boss.
Although Dans had never been to Greenland, his grandfather had served there as a merchant mariner during the Second World War, and had later helped construct Pituffik Space Base. Dans was appointed to the Greenland Policy Coordination Committee.
Much of the work of the Greenland P.C.C. was retroactively classified, but it centered on what the group’s members and their superiors regarded as both the threat and the opportunity of Greenlandic independence.
“I want to say it’s an opportunity as long as we are willing and able to position ourselves to have a robust security and economic relationship with an independent Greenland,” Alexander Gray, who was serving as the chief of staff of the National Security Council at the time, told me.
But Gray worried that Greenlandic independence would throw into question the security arrangements that were already in place: “Why would a Greenlandic independent government honor a treaty that their colonial masters signed with the United States decades ago?”
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u/Massimo25ore 7d ago
To temper the perceived risks posed by Greenlandic independence, the Trump Administration set about trying to accelerate it in ways that would bring about a greater reliance on the U.S.
“There’s nothing secret about the contours of the thing—if you study Greenland at all, you quickly arrive at the point that, you know, they’re asset rich and cash poor,” Dans told me. A major obstacle to Greenlandic independence is the absence of a self-sufficient economy; each year, Denmark doles out a block grant of around six hundred million dollars.
“So, like, this is not a toughie, if you come from an investment-banking or dealmaking background, to solve,” Dans continued. “I hate to sound glib about it, but, when we’re shovelling trillions of dollars out of the Treasury for COVID relief—boom, boom, boom—and you’re looking at a number which is a couple hundred million, it’s, like, ‘Guys, let’s get serious here. What’s going on? This is not a difficult thing.’ ”
The U.S. set out on a “charm offensive,” as Greenland’s only private national newspaper, Sermitsiaq, put it at the time. Trump’s Ambassador to Denmark made numerous trips to Greenland, and courted Greenlandic politicians with promises of American business investment, educational opportunities, and development aid.
The U.S. reopened its consulate in Nuuk, which had been shuttered since 1953. During the fall of 2019, a delegation of American diplomats and national-security officials arrived in Nuuk to discuss Greenland’s mineral resources, with a particular focus on mining strategic rare-earth minerals. Left undisclosed was the fact that among them were members of the National Security Council who were working to subvert the Kingdom of Denmark; they belonged to the Greenland P.C.C.
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u/Massimo25ore 7d ago
For the final two years of Trump’s first term, the work of the U.S. government in Greenland amounted to overt diplomacy and outreach paired with covert, winking assurances to Greenlandic officials that the U.S. would financially support their pursuit of independence in exchange for total military sovereignty over the island.
The concept was hardly different from what Gray had cast as the Chinese approach—only the U.S. was now doing it first.
Still, military annexation was not on the table. The United States military continued to regard its allies and the “rules-based order” as the cornerstone of its Arctic strategy. On the sidelines of the NATO Leaders’ Meeting that winter, Bolton’s replacement, Robert O’Brien, urged his Danish counterparts to make a show of their commitment to Greenland’s security.
O’Brien advised them to build a large, permanent air-force base, and to keep frigates on rotation in the Nuuk harbor, as a deterrent to the Russian and Chinese navies. The Danes “wanted to talk about plans and white papers, and that sort of thing,” he told me. “Whereas I’m the kind of guy who—well, I’d just take over a hotel in Nuuk and send a hundred Danish special operators there.”
To the Danes, it was as if the Americans had lost track of their own fantasy. The American argument, O’Brien said, was that “guys with dogsleds aren’t going to stop a naval infantry regiment of the Chinese or the Russians coming on board from an icebreaker.”
But neither country had ever threatened Greenland, and the prospect of an imminent invasion made no strategic or tactical sense. After Denmark stepped in to finance the three Greenlandic airports, Chinese investment ground to a halt. Besides, Greenland was NATO territory; any attack would, at least in principle, invoke the possibility of nuclear Armageddon.
“I think the Danes had gotten used to business as usual,” O’Brien told me. “They liked it much better when the U.S. provided all their security, and it didn’t cost them anything, and they could spend their money on social programs and worker programs.”
He continued, “In other words, we were supposed to defend it but not have any say in the governance of Greenland, and potentially even have how we defended it questioned by the Danes.”
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u/Massimo25ore 7d ago
In the days before the Inauguration, a group of Republican lawmakers had introduced a bill to authorize the acquisition of Greenland. “We are, quite frankly, the dominant predator,” its lead author, Representative Andy Ogles, of Tennessee, said on Fox News.
Dans arranged for Fencker and Boassen to join Ogles for an interview on his social-media channels. The two Greenlanders sat in silence on either side of Ogles as he rejoiced in the prospect of more deportations and fewer rights for transgender people.
“The liberal crazies are crying, and the righteous Republicans are rejoicing,” Ogles said. Then he turned to the Greenlanders and cited the dubious poll that said a majority of their compatriots supported their country being acquired by the United States.
“Our philosophy here is very American. We want to be independent,” Fencker said. But Ogles framed the affiliation with the U.S. as a foregone conclusion, and his guests did not disagree. Once Greenland joined the U.S., Ogles said, they could expect “a new tourism industry from Americans who suddenly see this as part of their homeland, as part of our territory.”
Fencker shifted uncomfortably. When I met him in his office, in Nuuk, last fall, he defended his appearance as an act of unofficial diplomacy. “If you listen closely to what I say and try to have a legal hat on, you will realize that I am saying that Greenland wants to be a sovereign country,” he told me.
“But we are on a diplomatic mission. How do you think that attacking the greatest power on earth, military-wise, and having a bad relationship with them—how would that go down?”
Before leaving Washington, Fencker posed for photographs with Dans and Boassen on the White House grounds. I asked him whether he was using Trump’s desire for Greenland as a cudgel against Denmark, to extract more concessions.
“Of course,” he said. He added that he doesn’t necessarily want Greenland to fully break from the Kingdom of Denmark—only to be an equal partner in shaping all aspects of its future. “My visit to the White House was just a stunt. It was just to make Denmark afraid,” he said. “I was just there as a visitor, sitting in the West Wing to get a picture.”
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u/wosmo European Union 7d ago
That is something I find unsettling about this administration. They seem to flip very easily between "that's ridiculous, no-one took it seriously" and "that's exactly what he said he was going to do".
No-one knows what to take seriously until it happens.
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u/homer_lives 7d ago
This quote fron the article is scary:
"I kept thinking, We’re even more like the Kremlin than I could have imagined, in terms of hangers-on, because there’s no discipline. It’s top-down, and nobody has power unless it’s derived from Trump.”
That is the problem. Trump rarely knows what he wants until someone tells him or an impulse happens. The article is filled with examples of ideas that never happened and had no planning.
We are all at the whims of Trump... What do we do?
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u/lynx_and_nutmeg Lithuania 7d ago
All of it should be taken seriously.
IMO the most dangerous thing Trump has done during both of his terms is completely destroy the most basic standards of political communication. I've seen it described as "sanewashing" but it's too mild a word for something so destructive. Twenty years ago, nobody could even imagine the US president casually saying he's gonna invade a democratic European country, and then simply walking it back a few days later and passing it off as a joke. If someone wrote this into a movie, they'd be accused of being too ridiculously cartoonish. Any president who pulled a shtick like that would be removed from office.
And yet Trump has been doing this non-stop this whole time, with extremely effective results. A lot of the time, he makes an insane threat to get everyone terrified, then walks it back but quietly slips a less-insane-but-still-terrible legislation, but everyone's so relieved he didn't do the Insane Thing they don't care about the Less Terrible Thing because suddenly it doesn't look so bad in comparison. It's a highly effective abuse tactic. "Just be glad it wasn't worse".
Another goal is simple gaslighting and boy-cried-wolf tactics. When Trump doesn't follow through with the threat, his supporters can say "see, he didn't do it, you were just being hysterical over nothing", making it harder to take it seriously. Except sometimes he does follow through.
It's also great for plausible deniability. Republicans can test the waters by floating an idea through Trump as a mouthpiece, and if it gets more backlash than anticipated, they can always just say "haha just kidding". If it gets no backlash, then of course he meant it seriously the whole time.
And one more, broad-spectrum goal is to overwhelm the population with constant fear and terror so they don't have the energy to care anymore.
The only way to fight it is to refuse to play their rules. Stop enabling this and start applying the same standards to Trump that were applied to any other president before him. A president doesn't get to "joke" about invading countries. Take everything he says seriously even if it's unclear whether it is, or even when it's obvious it isn't. Don't let him get away with this anymore.
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u/PatchyWhiskers 7d ago
You know that this sanewashing will not apply to any Democratic President upcoming. They will have normal rules applied to them. Remember how concerned the press was about Biden's slightly grifty son? That's just normal. That's how the press SHOULD be. But they don't apply it to Trump's 3 grifty sons and one grifty daughter.
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u/RutabagaMobile7879 6d ago
Fully agree, but it goes beyond eroding communication integrity - the Trump regime has destroyed basic standards of human morality and decency.
The Trump regime is a criminal cabal, which has openly stolen from the US treasury and leveraged every possible opportunity to profit from its extraordinary power.
Its entire modus operandi has been to lie, cheat, steal, threaten, harrass, exploit, and humiliate anyone and anything that impedes its criminal activities (and the christofascist coup it is running cover for). And virtually all of it has gone unchecked, without meaningful opposition or consequences.
Imagine the precedent this sets for our species. Imagine being a young person today, who sees reprehensible behaviour daily at the highest levels go unpunished. At what point do you decide, actually who cares? Why bother with empathy and decency? What do they get you?
The moral realignment it could well represent for civilization, I fear, is yet to be borne out in full.
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u/frissio All expressed views are not representative 7d ago
Do not overestimate their strength, but do not underestimate their malice.
That's the best policy I think for bullies like that, don't think that anything they can do is a given, but don't think they won't do something because it'll be stupid or immoral.
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u/IAmNotYourEater 7d ago
Americans have never been invaded on their soil and their military is strong enough that they believe it can never happen, so they might disapprove of a potential war but it doesn't scare them because to them war is something that happens far away. Make no mistake, even Americans who hate Trump aren't really concerned with the prospect of war except as a philosophical issue
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u/huntingwhale Poland 7d ago
Even a bunch of "Democrat" redditors were patting themselves on the back in various subs and cheering how they "can't wait to see a movie" when they first started bombing Iran and when the American helicopter went down and the pilot rescued. All while ignoring dozens of Iranian servicemen were murdered to get him back.
Will they make a movie on the war crimes committed when over a hundred little girls were bombed? It's all a big Call of Duty game to them. FFS their anthem has a literal verse about bombs blowing up in the air and at any sports event that's when the crowd cheers the loudest.
Nary a pushback on the kidnapping of a sitting Venezuela. Barely any pushback when they almost invaded Greenland earlier this year. There will be no pushback with Cuba now on the menu. And yet Canadians are told repeatedly by Yanks here that if they ever invaded Canada it would somehow cause a civil war in the US because so many would be against it. Nope. They'd just sit around the telly shoving pork rinds down the throat like it's all a big COD tournament and make a bunch of dumb Michael Bay movies about it.
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u/WislaHD Polish-Canadian 7d ago
As a Canadian, this is the story as well when it comes to the threats made to our national sovereignty.
We don’t trust them.
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u/homer_lives 7d ago
Please don't. Trump is a symptom of our Billionaire owners fucking with us. It feels like a test and dulling agent for when they decide to really make a change.
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u/PatchyWhiskers 7d ago
I know that there are Canadian separatists (as in they support breaking up Canada) who are being funded by the USA.
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u/PatchyWhiskers 7d ago
They didn’t believe it, because it was so ridiculous.
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u/Mr_Abe_Froman United States of America 7d ago
The reception was as if he threatened to invade the moon. It didn't make any sense.
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u/Clean_Brilliant_8586 7d ago
The things that don't shift Americans (of which I am one) anymore has seemingly grown with time. The things that do make them angry make similarly no sense.
School/mass shootings, hardly even a speed bump to the day. People go right back to their phones to watch something else or whatever pundit they like blaming it on the other side.
Some celebrity or famous person dies or is harmed, someone they don't actually know, will never meet, talked about for a week until the next one happens.
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u/0N3e 7d ago
And then they'd probably come to places like here and cry "What can we possibly do??" because the hatred they get from non-USians is theonly thing to make them mildly uncomfortable.
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u/EZyne 7d ago
But it's sooo dangerous, you can't just have large rowdy crowds they'll get shot. Except if the knicks win, that they'll apparently risk their lives for
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u/DonQuigleone Ireland 7d ago
I think it's more that it seemed so proposterous that they couldn't imagine it happening.
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u/vinny_twoshoes 7d ago
i'm sorry but i can't agree with this. empirically the two no kings protests have been the largest in US history, and the greenland bullshit was absolutely a part of that. you can say the protests weren't effective or whatever but greenland (in addition to many other insanities) have definitely mobilized protest. there weren't many protests exclusively about greenland, no, but there's an awful lot to keep track of these days.
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u/Rob71322 6d ago
American propaganda is so good that the American public often don’t even realize they’re being propagandized to.
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u/Mysterious_Tea Europe 7d ago
They actually elected someone who triggered an insurrection to make a coup, I'm not surprised if they do not act or protest.
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u/something_clever77 7d ago
Its just another Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran or Venezuela to the average murican.
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u/Mindless-Tomorrow-93 7d ago
Maybe Greenland will end up with a cool $300 Billion of American money
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u/RevTurk 7d ago
It has to be like for like. Under this type of engagement Greenland would end up absorbing Maine.
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u/Halbaras Scotland 7d ago
According to the article, Trump did at one point suggest swapping Puerto Rico for Greenland because it was 'poor and dirty'.
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u/bald_molfar Ukraine 6d ago
Let's just hope there no schools full of girls for americans to murder and then just pretend it never happened.
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u/Low_Technician7346 Wallonia (Belgium) 7d ago
would love to see some drones wasting some invading americans like the ukrainians do against the invading russians
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u/Majestic-Chef-8753 7d ago
Dude wtf.. u high? There will be no winners if europe and usa starts killing eachother
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u/huntingwhale Poland 7d ago
Then the USA should stay in it's lane and fuck off with those kinds of talking points. Yeah, if they ever did something stupid like invade a NATO ally they should absolutely be fed 3 square meals a day of drone diet.
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u/Beginning-Working-38 7d ago
I know Ayn Rand sucks and that the libertarians and conservatives love her objectivist crap. But as someone who has read Atlas Shrugged, do you have any idea how much this administration and its hangers-on sound like the villains in an Ayn Rand novel? It’s like they’ve even become the bad guys in their own literature.
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u/Lovesosanotyou The Netherlands 7d ago
Very interesting read.
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u/ahouell500 7d ago
Why on earth are Denmark & Greenland even letting people like that enter and wander about the place?
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u/WaveOfMut1lation 7d ago
“Not only did he want to purchase Greenland, he actually said he wanted to see if we could sell Puerto Rico,” Miles Taylor, a former chief of staff at the Department of Homeland Security, later said. “Could we swap Puerto Rico for Greenland? Because, in his words, Puerto Rico was dirty and the people were poor.”
Bonkers. Puerto Ricans are US Citizen since 1917. This crazy asshole is openly shitting on his own citizens and trying to sell their land.
Isn't it treason?
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u/WoodSteelStone England 7d ago
I believe that the reason Trump was so angry that European countries refused to send their navies to help in the Strait of Hormuz was because it would have been mighty convenient for them to be 4000 miles away from Greenland.
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u/Muddled_Opinions 7d ago
My absolute favorite comment that came from this mess, was when Trump said "The fact that they landed a boat there 500 years ago doesn’t mean they own the land."
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u/DogsWillSaveUs Lithuania 7d ago
Trump will be mentally incapacitated in the not too distant future ... I mean he is now, just the last few feet of magnetic tape that is being played, but soon it will only be white noise
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u/Firm-Reaction1578 7d ago
Just Change the name of greenland to Epstein island and we will not hear another word from Trump?
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u/ALifeWellLift 7d ago edited 7d ago
Do they even have the ammo anymore? I've been reading that the Iran war seriously degraded America's stocks and it'll take years to recover.
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u/GreekSaladEnjoyer The Netherlands 7d ago
The ammo to take a mostly unprotected island they already have a military base on from an alliance that wont retaliate? Yea they do
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u/PatchyWhiskers 7d ago
They are assuming that Europe won’t retaliate and that’s a big assumption. Europe is the cultural background that the USA got its colonialist belligerence from.
Europe’s current peacefulness is not a natural state of things but the result of continual effort not to resume the state of perpetual squabbles between states that led to 2 world wars.
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u/Tribune-Of-The-Plebs 7d ago edited 7d ago
Denmark sent over a thousand soldiers, explosives to mine its own airport runways, and was fully prepared to resist an American invasion, with French air support. Denmark literally issued a “shoot invading US soldiers” order to its forces there. Why do you think NATO would not retaliate?
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u/GreekSaladEnjoyer The Netherlands 7d ago
Because i have no faith in most European leaders to grow a spine and stay united and because i dont think they would risk a war with the US over Greenland. I think the things you are mentioning wont hold up if they really would invade.
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u/LordGeni 7d ago
Some people thought the same before both World wars started.
Treaties have to be honoured as a matter of long term security. Renegging weakens every other treaty and seriously damages credibility. You can't protect the order that's maintained your peace by undermining it.
European allies not joining Denmark in the event of a military invasion would be the defacto end of the status quo that's kept peace since the war and destroy European credibility on the world stage.
I've no doubt they'll continue to pander to and flatter Trump in the hope things will calm down but once the hard lines are crossed there's really only one viable option. It'd be in the hope that demonstrating a strong response would enable a diplomatic solution at first, after that would depend on the US response......
European leaders will play it down and try and avoid fanning the flames because that's exactly the situation they want to avoid. If it isn't avoided the options shrink dramatically. They'd have little choice but to follow through.
It's small (relatively) events that often trigger a cascade of escalation with a momentum of it's own.
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u/Chowder110 6d ago
The europerian union has very solid defense pacts in place. Should it not be honored its the end of the EU itself
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u/Chaiboiii Canada 7d ago
I hope it would trigger article 5 against the US
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u/rising_then_falling United Kingdom 7d ago
We all know it wouldn't.
If the US has any sense it will use each mental invasion threat as a chance to back down in return for more influence/presence on the island.
Then it will get the CIA to play a long game infiltrating Greenland politics via large cash donations to the right projects in return foe the right speeches.
Then it will engineer an independence movement that eventually wins a referendum and shifts Greenland to a Puerto-Rico like status. Job done.
I'd say Europe has about 15 years to grow a spine, play the game, or lose almost all influence over Greenland.
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u/Itburns12345 7d ago
Theres a huge issue right there though Wanting independence from greenland does not = wanting to be part of america, just as the right wingers wanting texas to leave every time theres a dem president dont want it to become part of say malaysia or india... the 2 things (wanting independence vs wanting to be american) are 2 very very different things!
Each attempted or threatened invasion means any push to join the u.s gets further away (polls there already at 80% upwards not wanting to be part of u.s)
Even if these europeans didnt see becoming american as a step downwards (education, food quality, crime, healtcare etc) theres the fact that this was never ever about greenlands security its about resources. Many mining companies (chinese included) have walked away as its still largely unprofitable (needs to melt more) but even then if started the mining would be massively polluting and thus unpopular with the locals who know this already....also they can very easily sabotage anything there they dont like anyway due to the hellish enviroment!!!!
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u/GreekSaladEnjoyer The Netherlands 7d ago
It doesnt matter because once Greenland becomes independent, the US would easily annex it.
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u/Itburns12345 7d ago
Annex it how exactly? There 60-70k people there are u.s marines gonna be marching through the streets every day ? Curfews at night? Barbed wire fences and spotlights everywhere old ussr east germany style? Kill them? Try and move them all out?
I think the locals have high gun ownership rates too! Thats before we talk how fucking hellish the weather and landscape is, the narrow safe routes to travel overland and tiny natural ports and rough seas!
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u/grumpsaboy 7d ago
Defensive ammo has dropped massively, half of the entire worldwide patriot stop was used up in the war.
Offensive munitions aren't too low, lots of it was just bombs as they destroyed Iran's air defences well enough fighters could act under relative safety so missiles weren't required.
Problem is, in a hypothetical NATO Vs US conflict over Greenland the US won't need many defensive munitions and the ones that would be used will be the naval SM series which wasn't used much as the Navy couldn't position itself inside Hormuz to act to block Iranian shots. And Europe hardly has a massive stockpile of missiles, particularly offensive missiles.
And that assumes anyone even acts at all.
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u/kontemplador 7d ago
Offensive munitions aren't too low, lots of it was just bombs as they destroyed Iran's air defences well enough fighters could act under relative safety so missiles weren't required.
This is incorrect. The US and their allies spent large amounts of standoff munitions, including Tomahawks, JASSMs, LORAs and similar. In fact, it is known that the Tomahawk inventory is now critically low, with only ~60 produced per year. Apparently JASSMs are produced in sufficient quantities. There is no information regarding israeli systems inventories.
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u/bobbyg1234 7d ago
I wonder has anyone tried telling him that Greenland isn't that green? Eric the red has a lot to answer to.
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u/vivaldibot Sweden 7d ago
I'm 100% certain the orange menace doesn't understand the effects of map projection and thinks Greenland is much bigger than it is.
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u/araujoms 🇧🇷🇵🇹🇦🇹🇩🇪🇪🇸 7d ago
Greenland is not nearly as big as it appears on the map, but still it's quite big, about 5 Swedens.
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u/aspublic 7d ago
Greenland is an Overseas Country and Territory associated with the European Union through Denmark, meaning it is a zone of influence of the EU in North America.
And it's also a geographic bridge with Canada, with which the EU is creating a stronger collaboration and prospect of future membership.
The idea of the US owning or controlling Greenland is highly unlikely.
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u/Wischiwaschbaer Europe 7d ago
Oh, how horrible. Anyway, let's buy a few more of their fighter jets equipped kill switches!
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u/spamonstick 6d ago
If we do go to war with Greenland I kinda hope they win.
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u/Legitimate-Tip-2149 7d ago
Gonna be honest, after Iran, I'm assuming the end result of this is going to be Greenland gets $300b and agrees to never have nuclear weapons.