They should also be arming the population to make an occupation impossible. This is assuming they have mandatory military training in Denmark and people know how to use automatic weapons, grenades, etc.
But the US already had excellent relations with Denmark and could probably have gotten mining rights or whatever they wanted without this weird display of power.
The huge downside to that would be it would quickly demonstrate how incredibly expensive, slow and uncertain such mining operations would be.
I must conclude the annexation of Greenland is mostly a play for the US domestic audience. Very similar to Russia - Ukraine. Maybe a way to put pressure on Canada too.
A number of my Canadian friends are of the opinion that if the US takes Greenland, Canada will be the next acquisition target. I really, really wish I could argue against that notion.
- There are only 57k people Greenland. A portion (6%) of which are already friendly to the idea of joining the US, the undecideds are 9%.
- How many converts to the deal would you get if you actually dangled a $100k per person lump sum (Literally this is a tenth of what the federal government claims it has saved closing USAID)? I assume a few. Maybe quite a few. Add to that an Alaska style ongoing PFD that paid out annually. That’s a tasty carrot.
No takers to the deal? Wild, ok though…so we fight instead of fattening the bank accounts. How many will be willing to pull a trigger and risk certain death if they do? Let’s be generous and call it a third of the population (basically half of the hardliners).
But…realize that only 65% of the population are between 13 and 65. So you are talking about maybe 12k people who might be willing and could effectively take up arms. Bear in mind due to disperse population centers…the largest single concentration of resistance would be about 5k people. Let’s go ahead and add in the entire Danish active duty military (17k people).
29k people with 40% of them being civilians with minimal training…against the might of the US military. That seems like terrible odds.
But what about NATO? NATO is pragmatic. It’s highly likely that every other NATO member would decide to just stay out of the conflict because they would rather have a NATO with the US and without Denmark than the other way around.
I'm not so sure about that. The US has successfully alienated pretty much everybody that used to think well of us. We now represent a threat to them. We have lost a huge amount of goodwill and respect. Why would they prefer us over Denmark? Because we have big guns that we're willing to use against them? That's all the more reason to distance themselves from us.
Would you want essentially your continent’s defense budget reduced by two thirds?
The US is being overtly hostile, though. We're even threatening nations who should be allies with military invasion. Who would look at that behavior and think "yeah, but they'll behave differently once they pay us?"
> allows the US access to your land for defense purposes
We already had that with Greenland without threatening them with violence or taking their country.
> Bring in some companies to harvest your mineral resources and enjoy the wealth
This is a thing that they could already do if they wished it. As of yet, they don't wish it.
When a bully is threatening you, the very worst thing you can do is to give in to the bully. Even if the bully would totally win in a fight. I suspect most nations understand this.
Agreed in principle, but in this case there are two bullies to worry about which changes that equation.
You can choose to align with the bigger tougher bully who is periodically reasonable, has a lot of shared values, and generally has been historically friendly to you. They only occasionally get grumpy and have to be placated. This alignment has, can, and will protect against the other bully.
Or…you can chose to not align with them because they went and got grumpy again and the consequence of that is they will just ignore you when the other bully comes calling to kick your ass.
Factor in that you can’t align with the other bully at all because they have never ever been friendly or reasonable to you. They also don’t have hardly any shared values. They cant protect you from the other bigger tougher bully anyway. So its a moot point.
At the end of the day you are faced with a sort of global political version of Pascal’s Wager.
But we didn't just "get grumpy again". We've been actively telling and showing our allies that we're their enemy. That they have another enemy as well is certainly a factor, but it doesn't mean that they will treat us as if we're their allies. We're in the process of burning that bridge, and they can reasonably expect that if they submit to us, they won't come out well for it.
What it means is that they have to distance themselves from us as much as they can. And it shows the nations that would otherwise be friendly to us and that we aren't currently targeting that they need to do the same as well.
In my opinion that is an exaggeration. Trump has certainly been pressing US interests (as he sees them) and sometimes those interests may not fully align with what some of our allies want. Conversely, sometimes that happens in reverse too, yet we tend to work things out in the end. This will too.
> What it means is that they have to distance themselves from us as much as they can.
Another way of saying that would be “they need to stop being dependent on the US as much as they can.” I am sure any sovereign state would really want that as a goal.
Also, it's spending rather than funding.
Some NATO member states until recently were actively avoiding meeting their defense spending commitments as agreed to in the treaty. Would that indicate that they were untrustworthy or unreliable?
> Also, it's spending rather than funding.
Care to explain the difference when it comes to being ready to fight a war?
Regarding spending vs funding as it relates to war, I would seriously like you to try and explain the distinction. I don’t think you can.
So your analogy should probably be rewritten to be more like A guy who says he might shit on the floor vs the guy with skid marks in his drawers”
Clearly US spending is not part of Europe's defense budget, if attacking Denmark is on the menu.
I can buy that Greenland valuable to the US for geopolitical reasons. I can't understand what about the status quo of "we get to put our military here, and our close ally Denmark can run the civilian stuff" was so terrible that we needed to undermine our allies' and enemies' confidence in us to seize it.
They will let GI freeze to death in a vehicle stuck in the ice after sabotaging the roads. The Arctic climate is more deadly than any automatic rifle.
Militarily occupying Greenland seems even more foolish than occupying Vietnam or Afghanistan.