Danish troops told to 'shoot first, ask questions later' if US invades Greenland
lbc.co.uk
lbc.co.uk
A more reasonable statement of the army standing orders / Rules of Engagement would be:
> The military has authorization to counter-attack an *invading force* without waiting for further approval from the command chain
This is a standing order which dates back to 1952, and hasn't been created as a response to the recent aggressive posturing.
Even the thought of this would have been laughed at for being to satirical a year ago.
But hey, Kamala Harris is really radical, right?
The actual meat is: Danish newspaper approaches government and asks if the 1952 order is still in effect-- government replies "yes".
Which is a complete non-story because it's the same unchanged, expected outcome since 1952.
They shot one of their own. I wouldn't call that "ready".
(not that that will make a huge amount of difference if shooting starts)
Hence why they want to invade it. Most likely they are planning on leaving NATO. They are positioning for this event.
- how do you tell when a threat is real or bluster? Especially from a speaker who makes blustering threats all the time
- how do you tell when a war has gone hot, without too much of a risk of false positives or negatives? (see also Stanislav Petrov)
When attacks are carried out or when an annexation is taking place. It's really quite simple to identify when a hostile force is moving in.
> Stanislav Petrov
Was litterally under the sea with no communications and took the prescient approach of better to wait. This is not some ambiiguity of hot war or not.
1. Was actually on duty at the Serpukhov-15 bunker near Moscow.
2. Was absolutely an ambiguity. The USSR's land radar was incapable of detecting missiles beyond the horizon, his ultimate confirmation that the satellite warning was in error was the subsequent non-arrival of an exploding nuke.
The argument that Petrov relied on to make an informed guess in advance is essentially "it would be strange and surprising for the USA to attack in this way". Nobody could make such an argument to justify failing to respond to a suspected attack while Trump is in charge, because Trump is repeatedly observed doing strange and surprising things like calling for an annexation of multiple allies or violating the US constitution and apparently getting away with it.
What's more troubling, that is being ignored by this debate, is the fact that we are even considering this with an ally.
Your description of the forces in Greenland matches Petrov's orders: don't wait for confirmation. His orders were to immediately raise it with superiors, which he chose not to do.
Your description of Petrov matches the forces in Greenland: cogs in a machine.
> The stakes are completely different and not comparable. A hot war in Greenland is extremely obvious
Not to soldiers on the receiving end. That's the problem.
I was recently linked to this story, same category problem with different details and impact: https://www.dw.com/en/german-police-mistakenly-shoot-soldier...
> What's more troubling, that is being ignored by this debate, is the fact that we are even considering this with an ally.
Troubling, yes. Ignored? Ah, no, not in Europe it isn't? Are you American or Danish?
The article implies to a typical reader that the danish governments stance changed in some way, or that there was some kind of posturing regarding US/greenland.
This is not the case. A newspaper asked the danish government to comment on the rules of engagement, and those are unchanged since 1952.
So there was neither a change in stance nor posturing by the government in any form.
What the hell has it come to.
Watching Stephen Miller talk is fucking scary, I cannot comprehend what happened to American society to allow this to happen, I understand social media brainrotting many, I don't understand the sane ones simply sitting on the sidelines, and wailing on the internet...