The mineral riches hiding under Greenland's ice
bbc.com
bbc.com
The way I've tried to reconcile my beliefs with what are clearly contradictory observations in the real world is: markets/competition are dependent on a substrate of social contract, and that substrate must precede market dynamics and must not be subject to them. When market dynamics leak into the foundation on which the market is built (the social contract, culture, law, norms), then the system starts moving toward raw competition, which is the same as war. Which is what I think what's happening now.
Markets also cannot account for externalities. If those externalities are something you care about (e.g. the environment you live in) - you need regulation.
Economies of scale abound in most markets, and this tends towards monopolies and regulatory capture. If you don't want monopolies, because you value your freedom as a consumer - you need regulation.
This is very basic economics - I wish it was more widely taught.
Rhetorically people express the same fake optimism but are too dumb to realize that's all they are doing.
Markets account for externalities via ownership and torts. This was gutted in the 1800s in the US where a judge ruled people couldn't sue for the impact of environmental pollution, in the name of the "greater good" of industrialization.
But this centuries-old decision not encapsulated as a constutional amendment is binding?
Nope.
Trading freely is compromised as well as markets will almost always favour the larger purchaser and so there's an incentive for companies to become every larger in order to consolidate power and profits.
So, it's not so much that free markets lead to monopolies, but our bastardised version of free markets that lead to monopolies.
Also, free market advocates are rarely advocates of actually free markets, but instead advocates of asymmetric markets that favour the large incumbents.
Regulation can certainly exacerbate the problem, for instance rules that have a fixed annual cost or where the costs do not increase in line with volume favour larger concerns.
The idea that a totally free market can exist is a fantasy based on assumptions that simply cannot hold water. Regulation is necessary in order to prevent the powerful from abusing the weak. The fact that there are poor regulations does not invalidate the concept.
I'm of course talking about maybe 1/50th of the services they offer these days, it is extensive.
"competing"
Japan and India have also been getting investments, now that they've established a presence in such a massive scope of industries in the largest economy in the world.
Next year (2027) or maybe 2028 should see them have as a global internet provider ala StarLink.
In the UK, Germany, and Australia, Amazon has around 70% of the audiobook market.
Amazon.com is the world's largest global bookstore.
Twitch controls 70% of the game streaming market except for China.
Give it ~4 years and Amazon will be dominating UK and India delivery and private delivery services.
I'm not aware of how regulation of competitive markets would lead to monopoly. Are you referring to "regulation" in the form of state-endorsed/controlled monopolies? Those usually exist in situations where barriers to entry and economies of scale are so high that the state is simply "getting ahead" of the inevitable monopoly (e.g. national infrastructure).
Of course, corruption could also be what you mean by "regulation" that leads to monopolies, but all of this is predicate on the absence of corruption or cartels. If that's not the case you can throw all your assumption out of the window anyway.
Competitive markets will always tend toward monopoly because that is the state at which the highest profits can be extracted. Regulation can, in some cases, help push it a bit faster in that direction by making barriers to enter the market even more onerous and expensive thus limiting or even eliminating new competitors. This allows the existing large competitors to either continue to knock out or buy up smaller ones, and the few remaining large ones to either merge to a single entity or settle into a state of non-competitive action (effectively collusion) where the market then either is or behaves as a monopoly.
It depends what you mean by regulation, right?
Many industries have extremely onerous and costly regulation which creates barriers for new entrants to those markets.
You can sense check this by running through various historic eras. Consider the eras before any nation states, when power was at its most decentralized. That was also when conflict deaths were at their peak due to tribal warfare.
Then move on to the era of kingdoms and then nation-states, and conflict deaths decrease because power centralization increases. Intra-national conflict goes to zero because of a monopoly on violence over that local geography, leaving only inter-national conflict in the structurally anarchic power vacuum.
The peace of the 90s was because the United States was completely dominant and had no reason to do anything because it controlled everything. As the United States declines and power decentralization increases, moves such as denying China access to oil from Venezuela become actions that are deemed necessary in the new security environment. Or a clash between Thailand and Cambodia becomes a thing that can happen, because there is an absence of a big dog to lay down the law, as unjust as that law may be.
The analogy would be a country with multiple privately owned police forces and no single power. You're going to get conflict. It's a structural phenomenon of how power vacuums work when you plop humans inside of them, and it has nothing to do with morality or markets.
Of course we do have competition, but where it has worked the best, it has been done in the context of cooperation, economic trade that follows norms and laws.
Too bad we gave stupid people power.
Meanwhile it's sort of becoming very clear that Venezuela is about Cuba.
Oil is also not the only security dimension, the other dimension is to deny China a physical staging ground near to US territory for air, missiles or radar and SIGINT. Not a problem right now, but again these calculations need to involve the temporal dimension. If you believe there's a 25% chance of conflict over Taiwan, using the status quo of peace to justify decision-making is an "assume the best" doctrine which is a terrible security doctrine.
This isn't to say that security calculations are the only factor involved in this Venezuela operation. It is one piece of it. It's also somewhat besides the point because I am discussing underlying causal mechanisms, not fixating on a specific conflict.
As for how this relates to those mechanisms: the only reason these "security calculations" are even considered is because the US no longer holds a monopoly on world power. In the 1990s, it was a foregone conclusion. In that security, "cooperation" could occur. Then liberals osberve that cooperation and mistake it as the cause, when it's really the effect.
This continues to be the case now. The main difference is that in the 90s, the opposition to Vietnam was still fresh enough in the average American mind. I suspect what we're seeing now is the effect of that memory fading.
Shame, the glue of civilization, as I call it, is quickly disappearing. The Nothing Matters LOL world is bound to decompose.
Don't get me started on "corporations are people" bullshit. I use "citizen" with a much deeper meaning.
But in certain sense you are right. Corporate management should behave as citizens, and their citizen duties must be superior to their duties to shareholders.
Public benefit corporations seem to go nowhere far enough. And I wonder if the language is intentionally vague at the outset.
For example:
Simple example: let’s say there’s an environmental law preventing corporation to make more profits. The good citizen should not try lobbying to repeal this law, even if this would be perfectly legal and lead to better outcome for shareholders. If CEO acts as good citizen and refuses to follow advice of the board and take this route, this should be legally defensible position.
Sounds like a copout, but I do insist that many of modern ills can be traced directly to the cancer that is social media. Monetizing rage cannot end well.
And this is one part of society's ills that I will kind of blame on social media, although not in the way you and a lot of HN people intend. I think a lot of the strife in our modern society comes not from social media algorithms driving outrage so much as other groups simply being able to gain visibility as the centralized media establishment gave way to the far less centralized structure of the web. To people who have grown up their entire life with only rare, token (and often stereotyped) representation of other races, religions and orientations, equality can seem like oppression.
But I do think that blaming social media is kind of a copout, because the argument tends to be that people are being manipulated and controlled by an addiction or a form of mind control, as if they don't have agency or free will. A lot of the discourse around social media right now seems to use the same hyperbole that one might have seen during the Satanic Panic, or any number of previous social panics. But I don't think social media is the problem per se (nor do I think regulating social media would be an effective solution.) I think the problem is what social media exposes in society - exposes, not creates. That's a far more difficult problem to solve because it means reconciling with some deeply systemic issues that a lot of people still don't even want to admit exist.
Not all, but a good proportion of each of these forms of media.
Indeed, competition is undesirable for all participants involved: everybody wants to win and exploit the rest for their own gain. Note that this is the only way to make competition work and result in its temporary benefits (if nobody wants to win, nobody will compete).
So there must be a system to keep the competition going and preventing the rise of a definitive and exploitative winner, and the existence of this system has to be accepted by the competitors. But why would serious competitors accept a system that prevents them from winning?
I think there's a tendency to think of 'free markets' as having a lot more scope than they do - almost no countries allow free markets to determine the flow of people and restrict who can enter the country in some way. Similarly, nobody suggests the free market is a good way to regulate child labor.[0]
Especially in the US, there's a been a rapid erosion of other power structures like democracy, law, unions, etc that might serve as checks or balances against raw material interest. I think 'capitalism' often gets misclassified as 'pure competition', but it's probably better thought of as 'pure competition through regulated trade'. Pure competition, with no regulations to define a market, sounds more to me like what predated the industrial revolution (something more along the lines of feudalism)
[0] I took both these example from Ha-Joon Chang's Economics a Users Guide.
https://www.rand.org/pubs/commentary/2025/04/the-realists-gr... ...
People don't have a proper reference point of what is currently happening. Once a war starts it is already too late.
I don't think we need unlimited growth. Or, better: We CANNOT have unlimited growth, because there is a natural limit to the resources that are available. We, as a society, should do better than this. And that is what worries me: The sheer ignorance (or unawareness?) people have about their surroundings. I'm not sure if it is malicious, or just a coping strategy. But instead of looking into the real cause that lead to certain events, be it the environment, economical or political, people quickly blame minorities for all the bad that is happening, breastfed by the narrative that people like to repeat over and over again - "because it has always been like that".
For the longest time, I tried to counterargue and explain, why certain things are the way they are, and offered another perspective. But ears have become deaf, more than before.
I'm tired.
What have markets got to do with it? For as long as humans have been recording history, states have been annexing weaker states, regardless of economic system. It's absurd to blame free markets for this.
So, it'll continue to be reality, for as long as Trumpism reigns in USA.
Why are you doing this "effort" to alienate yourself in place of blaming the country and government responsible for this?
I no longer believe in the free market at all.
Of course this isn't the result of a single isolated event. Our lives are poems that constantly re-write and scrutinize themselves after all, like living ink that breathes new pages anew. But if I had to pinpoint one very specific period with a very measurable effect on my position it was the whole Elon Musk saga (DOGE+"heart salute"). A lunatic billionaire seemingly doing what he wants, rewriting narratives, making up facts, history, and saying things which were so evidently false, and showing up next to a president as if he were himself president, never having been elected, was shocking.
I used to really believe that "money followed what was good for society". There would be outliers and some noise, but overall these would be well correlated. I now look back and wonder how absolutely naive of me that was. Billionaires should not be allowed. They are a disgrace to the system. It's actually vile and disgusting to have them in our society.
I'm not an american and I used to dream of going to the USA, perhaps even living there. I now want to stay as far away from it as possible, and view the supposed american dream as either a past reality or effective propaganda I bought into previously. Maybe that's better for america and it's what they need to grow, who knows.
But now the elites in US are just not very smart or savvy. Introduction of the tech class that are people who simply won a lottery (or scammed their way up) and are otherwise absolutely arrogant and clueless about the world. The deal just can't work anymore. It can't work because there is no deal with someone who thinks they deserve everything. The balance is off and you are now dealing with children with golden toilets OR self mythologizing guys whos deepest political analysis come from few scifi books they've read 20 years ago.
We'll see much worse chapters of this shitshow before the last spectator admits the fallacy of dismissing this as a conspiracy theory.
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.
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 new owner. Why the can't the US just sign up for mining rights already? It seems like that's exactly what it would have to do post acquisition--unless of course the US also plans to bulldoze Greenland's sovereignty.
I'm genuinely interested if anyone can provide color.
[0]: https://english.stm.dk/the-prime-ministers-office/the-unity-...
[1]: https://www.city-journal.org/article/learning-from-greenland
[2]: https://www.thelocal.dk/20251114/greenland-limits-foreigners...
[3]: https://govmin.gl/exploration-prospecting/get-an-exploration...
I don't want to repeat what others are saying, but how on earth could you not consider that all of the existing rules, laws and agreements just go in the trash under a new "owner"? Of course the US plans to bulldoze Greenland's sovereignty, goodness me.
The USA also for instance rehabilitated Philippines from Japanese rape islands into an independent nation by taking them as a territory.
It's probably not helpful for me to speculate, but surely this? If the US is truly prepared to invade another ally's territory for material gain, I'd assume the idea that they'd honor other existing laws is unlikely.
If the US doesn't have checks and balances to stop it invading a democratic ally with no cause, then I don't know what checks and balancing meaningfully can be said to exist.
Hopefully we won't find out.
my sense is that Trump feels to be above the law right now, having ordered the operation to seize Maduro without Congressional approval (illegal under U.S. constitutional law). Trump's reasoning was that "Congress has a tendency to leak", and so to him congress seems little more than background noise.
The entire mode of operation for the current administration is to ignore such things whenever they don't blindly rubber stamp or get out of the way. It has been very successful for them.
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 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.
Indeed. But just because EU thinks too high of themselves and is turning down their last natural allies that is the South American/Mercosur countries. So whatever happens to EU is their own fault
The conversation is completely different in Germany, Poland, Italy and Spain, for example.
The EU has enacted pretty stupid policies but I don't think the status quo was about to last a lot. Now with the Greenland issue things are about to speed up.
My guess is that, because they shaked hands with conservative leaders in Europe, the White house thinks this is going to benefit them.
I don't think this is going to be the case mid term.
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.
Leaving aside the deaths of millions of people through warfare, then, maybe, but still doubtful.
There's no resting, just a declive.
The owner decides the rules.
That is how acquisition of territory works. When it becomes US land, US laws apply. Not whatever laws were in place before. What were you expecting?
It could be about leaving NATO.
US (Trump) feels they need Greenland for "security".
They currently have (almost complete) access to use Greenland via NATO and the existing agreements with Denmark. So there is no need to extend this.
However, if the US would want to leave NATO, they would no longer have access to Greenland under existing agreement.
Therefore, if the US wants to leave NATO and still use Greenland (both militarily and for resources), they need to acquire Greenland.
Acquiring Greenland would allow the US to control the entire western hemisphere, leave NATO, and abandon the eastern hemisphere entirely.
Congress is easy to takeover by a political party and this happens cyclically, so no one was surprised by that.
People also ignored gerrymandering because both major political parties do that, and historically it can be undone.
However, the takeover and stacking of the judicial branch with political cronies was another definite warning sign. People that were paying attention noticed this came first, because it’s the brakes that can slow an administration from getting out of control. The brake lines were effectively cut.
If you’ve studied German history and World War II, you know that Hitler didn’t just happen. There was an imperialist history. Though not typically stated in this way, the U.S. has historically been an empire for much of the 20th century, if you consider bases around the world and involvement in world conflicts (and the same could be said about some other countries, NATO, UN, etc.)
The American people cannot rise up against its own government in any substantial way when (1) families are split with half of the people are brainwashed, and (2) they think that things can be undone after N years by voting that party out (but the opposing party can not pivot to undo the economic and world political damage done by the current administration).
Most dictators were not known from the beginning of their reign as evil incarnate.
Americans keep hoping to see in the news that someone will stop this, but they suspect that if they were to try to stop it, they and their families would eventually be punished or killed. So, they’re all just waiting a few years hoping that it will be undone, and that surely the military will not let the U.S. takeover a country that does not have a despotic leader; that would break the longstanding U.S. trend of only getting very involved publically at least if they are taking the stance of the respected jock defending the little kid getting beat up.
It may be governed the way of the Gambino family governing New York city: by receiving envelopes.
Make Greenland green again!
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/norwegian-po...
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 whole national security part is a lie though. The US can already do whatever they want up there. Well except for having nuclear weapons, but they'd probably be allowed if they asked.
I think some of our politicians care that they'd lose any form of geopolitical relevance without Greenland, but it's not like our population in general supports that.
I can't help wondering if that's really what all of this is about - the Nordics can't really fight the US and Russia at the same time (though given their history I suspect they'd try).
Military action?
That would deter even the United States, I believe. The problem I see if it's worth it. As I said, as a Swede I don't really care about Greenland, but Denmark is part of the Nordic Family.
(Aside: it might deter the rational elements in the US military but they're led by this chap Trump.)
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.
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 to me, every US citizen is at least partly complicit.
For years, I already noticed I subconsciously did not like action movies that featured CIA / FBI / US Military anymore. And I gradually moved away from all US based infrastructure in my projects because it strategically made sense.
But these past weeks it tipped over in actual disgust. For me, there's no difference between the US, China and Russia anymore. The US will probably take Greenland. China will take Taiwan. Russia will take Ukraine.
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.
Despite all that, it’s probably still prudent to decouple from the US.
Not only has Greenland never been part of the USA, it has been part of Denmark for longer than the USA has even existed.
If Denmark could come "steal" something like the Pine Ridge Reservation in the Dakotas, it would be an imperfect analogy. As long as we could lose it while still saving face, it would be absolutely amazing economically for the USA.
IMO it is foolish both for USA and Denmark to take them. Cut them loose as they desire and let them trade their minerals which they will surely do as soon as they realize their free lunch is gone. You would still get the thing you want it for, the greenlander are happy they are free of the colonizers, and it likely wouldn't change things militarily as they would absolutely sign a defense treaty as soon as you hand them the pen.
This is basically a fight between government of Greenland, government of Denmark, and government of USA all acting generally against the wishes of their own populace. And somehow the dumbest of all options, the USA acquiring them, seems to be one of the more likely scenarios that actually ends up happening.
The protection of the population and the illegitimacy of the current government was an argument developed by Russia at the time, it has not been yet by USA but I suspect this might start develop in the next few weeks.
The common ingredients to justify an invasion/annexation is a mix of: - Self-Defense, security - Historical, Geographical claims - Protection of the population - Moral sugar coating (we had no choice)
Honestly, it is such a surprise that the difference is not obvious.
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 to work it out.
3. Trump won't budge. USA uses their veto right on all possible interventions. NATO still stands, but is at this point in complete turmoil, and effectively toothless.
4. Allies of Denmark, probably EU too, puts pressure on the US to step back. Economic sanctions against US.
5. Sanction war starts between USA and parts of western Europe.
6. Congress does not authorize Trumps use of military, and Trump must withdraw within 90 days.
7. Trump vetoes this. Pulls the "make me" card when threatened. Trump argues that he can use funds as he wishes, dragged to court. The case is fast-tracked to supreme court.
8. If US economy crashes, Trump might be successfully impeached and removed. If not, he'll just continue.
9. Cold front between US and Europe. China tries to strengthen economic ties with Europe to fill the gap that has been hit by US sanctions. Who knows what Russia does - likely a new European military organization has grown out of this.
10. Eventually Trump leaves office, a sooner or later a new democratic president takes over, and reverses everything. Gives back Greenland to Denmark, 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.
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.
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...>
So what? We'll recover.
The whole goal of such a (economic) war would be to make US senators and congressmen take a stand, and decide if enough is enough. Americans vote with their pocketbooks. Just introducing extra tariffs on specific industries and companies in specific states can be politically devastating. Now imagine full-blown sanctions.
Not to mention that US competition will happily step up to take their lunch, while all this going on. China will instantly jump on that opportunity. US firms will also recognize that sanctions on things like tech will drive innovation in Europe to fill that void, in tandem with what China and others have to offer.
Will both recover? Yes, probably. But hopefully Trump will be out, as that will be the main objective.
>Now imagine full-blown sanctions.
This would surely result in formal American withdrawal from NATO.
"The US invading Greenland would destroy NATO!", you say. I don't believe that the US would invade Greenland militarily; it will likely buy it, or obtain some sort of ironclad investment rights not dependent on whether Greenland is part of the Kingdom of Denmark or independent. But let's say that the US does, and NATO dissolves.
It comes down to net benefits. Would owning Greenland be more valuable for American national security, than the current NATO status quo of the US being willing to to accept its own cities being nuked if Russia invades Western Europe?
The calculus made more sense (if it ever did) during the Cold War, when NATO ended at Germany's eastern border. Does it make sense now, when Montenegro is a NATO member? I strongly suspect that the answer is not one that the rest of NATO would want to hear, regardless of the Ukraine War.
To complicate things further, there have been put up safeguards in the US to "Trump-proof" a withdrawal. Would Trump ignore these? Likely. But it would be challenged in court.
What likely would happen, is that NATO just lies dormant. And if the US successfully withdraws, it would set in motion things that are not resolved overnight. The US have bases, servicemen, caches of equipment, etc. spread across allied countries. And while most of these are covered by deals made with the host-countries, there's a pretty good likelihood those deals would have to be re-negotiated in the even US becomes hostile to allies. US pulling out of NATO because they don't see the value is one thing, US pulling out of NATO because they've become enemies of another NATO-ally is a completely different mater, as far as future deals go.
But then again, US taking Greenland by force is the absolute worst outcome - as far as the Greenland scenario goes. I truly do not think Trump will try that, anytime soon.
It's extremely, profoundly unprofessional to threaten a country with force. But that's how Trump operates. He makes big no-so veiled threats ("Would be a shame if...", "We have options...") to force the other party to negotiation, and then tries to low-ball. He's treating international relations the same way he treats business/real-estate deals. That's how he's always done business.
And as a bonus for him, it is taking up the news headlines.
My guess is that US and Denmark will meet, US will push on with offering to buy Greenland, Denmark will say no, but maybe they will buy some extra US equipment (they're already buying P-8 Poseidon surveillance aircraft to patrol the maritime area surround Greenland) or similar. Trump will announce this deal, and we won't hear anything about Greenland in another 6-12 months.
That's more hopeful than my thoughts of world war III and the Trump family presidency. I sincerely hope that I'm wrong.
- Look, Americans announced plans to get Greenland and extract all the resources! It's time to invest in the stock market!
- But what if Denmark disagrees?
- Don't worry! America will just take it anyway!
- And if Denmark resists?
- Then America will invade!
- But what if NATO collapses when America attacks a member state?
- Well... then America won't survive alone in a hostile world.
- And if America collapses?
- Mein Herr... then surely it's worth losing a few thousand euros just to watch that spectacle, no?Greenland and Denmark are not the same. Greenland is a self-governed territory under the Kingdom of Denmark. The US administration wishes to take over Greenland from Denmark completely. So you should replace your headlines with "Greenland" and "Greenlanders".
Note: There have already been discussions about making Greenland independent from Denmark, but there is uncertainty over how to handle economic and defense situations. Greenland currently receives significant support (about $10000-15000 per capita yearly) from Denmark. So it is not clear how the country would run without that.
Greenland absolutely positively cannot run without outside subsidy. Pacific islands (barely) function as independent countries because their tiny populations are commensurate with their small areas. Greenland's 50,000 people live on an island three times the size of Texas.
Currently that subsidy comes in the form of €600 million in annual funds from Copenhagen. Now Washington has emerged as a potential outbidder.
Look at Svalbard. There used to be mines but they closed down.
And those rare earth metals. They are called that because they are heavily diluted. Not because they are rare to find.
We will see how much that holds this midterm. Trump has wrecked so many things though, it’s hard to tell how things will go, cling on out of desperation or throw him overboard to the sharks?
Interesting times.
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.
The Europeans I know (from all over) have generally been opposed to American geopolitics both in the Middle East, South East Asia, and South America. The US has traditionally been seen as an ally, but that doesn't mean we "cheer on" its actions.
Because there are many financial and military interests, it is very hard to do much for e.g. the EU, and the politicians are very careful with their words. Just as it is for the rest of the world...
Note: Europe is not a single entity but a continent full of different countries including (part of) Russia. Even the EU doesn't really have one single foreign policy.
Many opposed it. Remember "Freedom fries"?
As for Afghanistan, that's a completely different thing. US invoked article 5.
Btw. as far as I remember neither China, India, Russia, nor practically any other nation stopped trading with the US over the war in Iraq. Maybe I am wrong about that.
Small detail on casualties in Iraq: the estimates listed on Wikipedia range from 150K to about 1 million (1).
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualties_of_the_Iraq_War
Yep. Because countries only care about themselves. The US is too important economically. But are you saying that Europe like India and China does stuff that benefits them and isn't a better standard morally?
I really don't know much of what is happening in China or India or how you would ever measure something as subjective as morality. The point was, that it isn't just European (or EU) nations that don't stand up to the US. Nobody really dare -- Even those other heavy-weights. So it doesn't seem fair to me to single Europe (European nations) out for not doing anything.
I would say that Europe has a lot of bad history and guilt and we know it. And there is an aspiration in many of the European countries to be better and do "the right thing" now, but it is definitely debatable whether those countries actually do it, or if we even know what "right" is.
I just hope all of this is a nothingburger. The last thing the world needs is a war between the west. But looks like globalisation is going to slow down regardless. Sad.
You mention that Asia was suspicious, but the "coalition of willing" actually included Asian countries such as Phillippines, South Korea, Japan, Uzbekistan, Singapore.
I believe the current overarching feeling in Europe is that we were mislead by the US administration more than our own politicians. Already back then, there was quite a lot of skepticism and significant doubt in the media all over Europe about the justification of that war. Also in the coalition countries.
And Indeed, there were no consequences later. But what should have been done and by whom at that point? How do you prove that it was deliberately misleading? Why would it be the job of nations of Europe or EU?
I agree that it wasn't pretty, and that the European nations and EU should have opposed more, but even as it was back then, it was not a clear "cheering on" moment. I remember having discussions about Iraq with people from Scandinavia, Italy, Spain, Germany, and France back when the invasion started. Although a large group did support the war (I think many were still emotionally affected by 9/11), I actually don't remember talking to any one of them.
The reality is that the US is the most powerful geopolitical entity and Europe is a continent consisting of many individual countries. Even the EU is a divided group of nations, and even if united would not be as powerful as the US is currently.
Reparations?
> How do you prove that it was deliberately misleading?
Are you denying the fact that countries didn't know? Many EU countries did indeed stay out of the conflict after all. Are you saying the incredible intelligence agencies of western countries were simply oblivious?
> Why would it be the job of nations of Europe or EU?
Because you sent troops? And because people there genuinely think they are the good guys?
> I remember having discussions about Iraq with people from Scandinavia, Italy, Spain, Germany, and France back when the invasion started.
Would you let Russia off the hook for Ukraine then? After all the people there are under dictatorial rule. I'm sure there are large groups of people there who oppose the war.
> The reality is that the US is the most powerful geopolitical entity and Europe is a continent consisting of many individual countries. Even the EU is a divided group of nations, and even if united would not be as powerful as the US is currently.
I completely agree. The US is too powerful. I'm just saying it shouldn't come as a complete surprise that they would one day target Europe as well. Unfortunately might makes right. I just hope the US comes to their senses.
That’s long been the system; the peasants are manipulated or forced to enter into the meat grinder for the ruling class. See the Ukraine for reference.
But rejoice, soon robots and drones with fight each other instead … or maybe get rid of “useless eaters” more efficiently? It could go either way, or both.
Unfortunately, this is the model that American conservatives and billionaires hate. The idea that a country is entitled to their own resources is repulsive to them. This is also one of the things fundamental things where American vs Nordic mindsets are worlds apart.
It is arguably also the real reason why US attacked Venezuela.
Well done Europeans, catering to Trump