European troops arrive in Greenland to boost the Arctic island's security
npr.org
npr.org
1. As part of Nato Greenland is already protected by such aggression. The idea of anybody triggering WW3 over Greenland is ludicrous as anything interesting there it's easily obtainable just by...putting money on the table. I'm sure Greenlanders will welcome royalties while you mine or do whatever in such a terrible environment.
2. Neither of the two has any military capabilities to conduct military operations in such a place and so distant from their countries. So close to North America moreover. Just to put it in perspective: Greenland is closer to Boston, and by a significant margin, than it is to any major Russian port.
3. While Russia has a long history of aggression and territorial expansion, anybody who's intimate with Chinese history knows well that an aggression on Greenland makes no sense and does not fit any pattern seen in the history of China.
The countries that have legitimate reasons to worry about Chinese aggression are those that were part of China in the pre colonial era: Taiwan, Kyrgyzstan, most of southern Siberia and Mongolia. This is why, e.g. China has annexed Tibet, but never gave two damns about neighbouring countries it could grab in an afternoon like Nepal: never been part of China, they don't care.
1. ‘The perfect target’: Russia cultivated Trump as asset for 40 years – ex-KGB spy. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jan/29/trump-russia...
2. British spies were first to spot Trump team's links with Russia. https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/apr/13/british-spie...
3. Now everyone knows that Putin was present when Trump shared intimate moments with "Bubba". They're beyond best friends.
4. Compare how Putin is treated by Trump, and how Zelensky is treated by Trump.
5. The first round of tariffs, every country on earth was included except Russia. Even countries that traded less than Russia-USA were included.
I used to think this was tinfoil hat territory. I'm starting to come round to "this is the only narrative that fits the facts".
and look at everything from first principles, it's a logical conclusion. The simplest answer. Occam's Razor
Of course, he can be a Russian asset to some extend at the same time.
If Putin controlled Trump outright, Ukraine would not be using US intel to more effectively strike Russian oil infrastructure. Trump blocked this intelligence sharing for a little bit during the initial "Peace talks" but now we are back to helping the find routes for weapons that won't be intercepted.
That is in line with Trump being sympathetic to Putin's narrative, but not in line with Trump following Putin's orders.
That infrastructure is critical for Russian state budget, something that is very strained, and for maintaining cheap energy internally to keep the populace apathetic.
Putin would also not have wanted the US to waltz into Venezuela unopposed. Makes Russia look very weak to have an ally who they supply with military aide be so comprehensively owned.
Unfortunately, Trump just idolizes Putin for being a powerful and oppressive dictator, because he likes power and wants that for himself. He has no moral qualms with the immoral things done by Putin. He loves the fake "Manly" persona. He's jealous of how effective Putin propaganda is.
Also, support for Ukraine is very popular in the US, and Trump is clearly concerned about his image. Also about a potential revolt in the GOP. Cracks are showing already.
I mean, I don’t discuss that it’s an extremely tempting theory, full of Schafenfreude toward all the idiots that voted for him.
https://bsky.app/profile/maks23.bsky.social/post/3mchppzitts...
Rather than specifically being a Russian asset, he's an asset to the last charismatic man he remembers speaking to.
That's the most succinct reasonably believable take that explains his behaviour.
...you eventually end up in situation where most people agree that rule of law, political pluralism, free press and free speech, free inquiry and academic independence are luxuries we can no longer afford because of the foreign threat.
Because after all, we're under attack from evil people who want to destroy us! No compromise is possible and anybody who says they care about general principles is a fool or a traitor.
Trump has facilitated the continued transfer of tens of billions of dollars worth of weapons to Zelensky and accelerated the arming and training ukrainian forces in 2017.
Unless The Atlantic and Obama are in on the conspiracy as well, it's unclear why he would say this and express policy: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2016/04/the-oba...
Trying to explain the political and cultural problems of a country internally by reference to foreign plots has not once in history ended well or been evaluated as accurate by subsequent historians with no dog in that fight. The crisis of the present deserves real analysis, not conspiracy theories that crumble in the face of basic numeracy and mutually agreed upon facts. If you have counter-examples from before 2016, I'd love to discuss them and expand my worldview, otherwise I think it's prudent to go with the historical heuristic.
You are harming both yourself and the world by failing to distinguish between what is emotionally satisfying and what best fits the mutually agreed upon facts available without improvisationally multiplying entities that enlarge the scope of conspiracy without evidence.
Why is he not impeached? Where is the American people?
He treats you with such contempt that he isn't above using the office for fraud and scams. He has done more to harm the US than Putin could have ever dreamed possible. Where is the American people? Hello?
He was impeached twice already.
Impeachment doesn't mean what (I believe) you think it does. There were previous presidents of the US who got impeached and remained in the position as well. This part is not novel (the only novel part is that he managed to get impeached twice).
He's been impeached twice, in his first term when Democrats controlled the House of Representatives, which is where impeachment happens. But removing a president requires trial and conviction in the Senate, and enough Republicans there voted against conviction. Several presidents have been impeached; none have been convicted.
> Where is the American people?
My belief is that the right wing in the US has almost absolute information dominance over a segment of the population. They can say anything and that segment will believe them and support it.
I understand what your saying but I believe it's too much of an excuse. Every single person has a degree of personal responsibility to be at least somewhat informed on the state and happenings of your nation. A democracy simply cannot function otherwise.
> The ad’s central message—that US allies should pay their fair share—remains a core principle of Trump’s foreign policy today. His longstanding skepticism of NATO, confrontations with international leaders, and demands for more financial contributions from allied nations all stem from the ideas he publicly expressed in 1987.
This should surprise no one. Undermining NATO fits the now well known negotiation style perfectly, you can try to get a good deal from allies to put it back together, while simultaneously playing those allies against an alternative and opposite deal with Russia for doing business again. The latter has the added bonus of even cheaper oil. Neither is good for Ukraine and Taiwan unfortunately.
There is no un-breaking this egg. Only the most deluded people in the world don't realize that there is no trust to be exchanged, for many generations at least.
The most universal bad outcome is that many people had predicted, we are now living in a new age of accelerated nuclear proliferation thanks to the loss of Pax Americana.
The movement seems to include right-wing (semi-)authoritarians such as Trump and the GOP, Netanyahu, Putin, bin Salman (Saudi Arabia), lesser powers, and many American business interests including in SV.
Leading Trump advisor Stephen Miller expressed one core position, which is that power rules the world - rather than human rights and votes, which is the fundamental of American tradition and law, and the current world order.
So yes, policies like Venezuala and Greenland, as well as immigration policy, anti-science positions, pro-disinformation actions, etc. are intended for a broader political outcome, but it's much broader than NATO. They are playing for the whole thing.
I'm surprised that more people on HN aren't very familiar with their strategy and goals.
It is much more boring than that. Democracy is an unstable way of ruling societies and generating value out of people. Keeping it healthy requires not only elections but lots of "undemocratic" powerful institutions with unelected well-educated people in it (courts, agencies, foundations, bureaucrats). Those institutions need to have actual power to coerce. The goal of the democracy should be generating quite a bit people who will hold those positions.
Managing economics such that there aren't any too big organizations that can significantly affect individuals' independent decision making is also required. That's the antitrust laws and unions for ya.
When educational, scientific and social organs are undermined, the public becomes more susceptible to strongman figures that provide easy solutions to the degradation. When economy is mismanaged undereducated people are easily swayed, more educated people are easily coerced.
It is statistical common human behavior to support autocrats, especially under stress. Autocrats themselves have a strong inherent understanding of power and great skills/intuition to detect the weakest. If you encoutered bullies in your life, you may have observed how their brain and the cult of personality works. It is fascinating that they can pick out the weak so easily.
Like the bullies, the autocrats understand each other since they understand themselves. Our crappy happenstance is not a result of a strategy but the systematic behavior of bullies and, bullied and oppressed people.
The Republicans pick on Venezuela and Europe and Canada since they know that those societies are weak and they are separated. They know from years of backstabbing experience that if they play the game right, they will get to enjoy one more praise, one more success, one more sadistic dopamine rush. They will get to enjoy eating one separated bison from the herd at a time. They know that attacking a strong bully like themselves will be hard and it will probably hurt. They won't get the same feeling of accomplishment.
Without attacking the system itself, it is really hard to win against it. There needs to be strong external factors for established autocratic regimes to collapse by letting them be. Attackers need to be smart and nimble and more importantly systematic. Moreover the lines of defense are not uniform. There are many smaller bullies even in the weak. They have lots of economic incentives to keep their small serfdoms.
For the first time since 1783, there are now "Hessians" (German state troops) in North America with their guns pointed at the United States.
My real concern is Canada. Trump has made similar remarks about Canada like he did Greenland. If he takes Greenland it will be much harder for the EU should resupply Canada should the US see Canada is fully surrounded. How do Canadians view this?
Almost the entire population of Canada is huddled against the US land border. Greenland is very far away from where the action would be if the US "takes" Canada. There would likely be few shots fired; Canada lacks the ability to put up a credible defense. The EU has no capacity to resupply Canada in any case. The whole scenario makes bizarre assumptions.
I don't think most Canadians consider the US "taking" Canada to be a serious scenario outside of echo chambers among the "too online" crowd. What would that gain the US that it doesn't already have?
https://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/article/the-military-plans-for...
This is exactly where we were last year with Greenland. Everyone said it was a joke.
`”fundamental disagreement" between the Trump administration and European allies.`
Quite the opposite. It has already led to a hard core of NATO countries shifting gears quickly.
If one or more other NATO countries attack them, it would push the hardcore NATO countries even closer together.
This, at least alliance with US, was stated by US on last years Munich conference and published in text by White House last December.
NATO is just a military fair where Denmark, Belgium or Greece get scammed and order a dozen F35. It is gonna take a lot of hacking to have them attack their master, but John Conor did it in Terminator 2 so there is hope.
And also a lot of people get some cushy jobs and contract there. They sometimes produce funny videos and documents like [0]
The idea that you can takeover NATO without the US and repurpose it to fight a war is nonsense. This idea has probably been put in people head by having Mark Rutte, an aspiring pianist who worked in HR at Unilever, talking nonsense on TV all the time.
That's an insightful question about Greenland, which Denmark desperately wanted to retain in the 1950s to the extent of unilaterally making it a 'part' of the Kingdom without consulting the Greenlanders.
Ironically it was only Belgium that spoke out, based on its own colonial dirty laundry.
https://unric.org/en/greenland-and-the-un-colony-or-not-a-co...
Worst the concept of "European allies" is not real. At the end of WW2 Western Europe became a colony or dominion of the US like Eastern Europe got under USSR control. Europeans might have been told something else by their politicians and intellectuals but it is because they were allowed to save face and part of the "Free World" propaganda.
As the last "EU leaders" of the WW2 generation faded away the next one were too stupid to understand what they are.
At the same time the US got confused too. It probably doesn't know if it is the Roman Republic or Empire. So now everybody is confused.
One thing is for sure the so called EU leadership is of very low quality and they have absolutely no idea what they are doing. They have antagonised their own population and about every other centers of power: the US, Russia and China. No regime can survive this.
My guess is Europe is gonna be split in two again (the fracture line is starting to be clear) or worst go through a hybrid civil war before and rot for a while.
That is exactly what it's for. Starting new problems distracts from the old problems at home.
Always something new, never a moment to catch your breath and focus. Eventually, people will get tired, will stop paying as much attention, and hopefully forget about those older scandals.
He's no genius, like you're suggesting. They just want the rare minerals that people like Sam Altman are already investing on.
Trump just and underdeveloped idiot that is a waste of human genome and modern medicine who wants a medal and approval from fascist "friends" of him who are not just waste but a cancer that needs to be dealt with. He is just pathetic.
I think we've all allowed our emotions to blind us to the realities of arctic defense. Setting aside the fact that most of the business to be done so to speak would be offshore in any potential confrontation, Russia-US or EU-US. The very thought of defending a landmass as large and sparsely populated as Greenland with a handful of soldiers is laughable.
The Europeans are obviously just trying to make a point. Will it work. My bet is no. It's only going to irk people in Washington. But it's clear this is not a serious attempt at Greenland's defense.
Neither China nor Russia would attack a NATO country, let alone the fact that they don't have the logistics and resources to conduct operations so far from home and so close to North America. Norfolk, the biggest military port in the world is 2200 miles from Greenland.
Small force, symbolic stand: "Remember the Alamo", but "Remember Greenland" instead this time.
By the way, can you tell me the background and meaning of these phrases?
"Don't tread on me!"
"Live free or die"
"Give me liberty or give me death"
"From my cold, dead hands"
If there is a need to redesign the defense of Greenland I assume that would take more time.
I defer to Sir Humphrey on these matters:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZVYqB0uTKlE
"To create a disunited Europe"
Sure, you can convince a close friend of yours to take his home security much more seriously by telling him that you'll come by later and rob him at gunpoint.
But do you think he'll be even remotely friendly to you after that?
Trump isn't playing 3D chess, he's just a moron laying waste to the democratic values, traditions, and institutions that have enabled the US to succeed.
There's little difference between Trump and a Russian assert. He does the work of the Kremlin for free.
> Germany will deploy a reconnaissance team of 13 personnel to Greenland on Thursday, its Defense Ministry said.
Any sarcastic comments about these numbers?
I'll give it a try: Germany also sent 5,000 military hats.
More seriously: I don't even think such a tiny contingent of troops would even work as a tripwire if Trump invades. Trump and his people probably don't have the self control, but if they did it seems like they could just bypass those troops and literally ignore them. I'm reminded of the 2014 Russian invasion of Crimea: my recollection is many of the Ukrainians just surrendered without shots being fired, because their numbers were too small and their positions completely untenable.
A key detail is that they Europe and the US didn’t support Ukraine to fight. Neat, especially having facilitated Ukraine’s nuclear weapons being removed.
Question is, to whom this fact is more embarrasing: EU politicians or the US admin?
Because that would be 10 times stupid