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Comment by binary132 | Hacker News Reader

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Russia can barely hold its own in a war against a neighboring country 30x smaller than them. Do people really still think they are a threat on the global stage anymore? China, yes, but their tactic is economic rather than military. And they are already winning in that front considering how dependent the rest of the world is on their manpower and manufacturing.

It's pretty clear that going forward the only real military threat the rest of the world has to concern itself with is the USA.

Yesterday, it was "Russia is a threat to the whole of Europe so we need to rearm and borrow billions and send it to Ukraine"; today it's "Russia is so weak, they aren't a threat as they can barely handle Ukraine". Which is it? because this is confusing.

>30x smaller

Russia is ~144 million people, I don't think there is 4.8 mil people in Ukraine tbh.

> Personally I find all of the pretense and posturing around these issues both comical and concerning

> There is no sign that Canada and the European nations will be in a position to even put up a shadow of resistance to it.

Same for the US. There has been ample reporting about how there is no shipbuilding capacity in the US (but there still is in Europe).

Don't worry, the US is ordering icebreakers from Finland (which will now get hit by with a 25% tariff).

This comment shows why the damage done by Trump will be so hard to reverse, no matter who's in charge next. When Trump talks about taking Greenland, the answer should be "no, moron, it's effectively a part of NATO", and instead you get all this muddying analysis of the strategic signifficance of Greenland, history, and how the EU is weak.

Trump is a symptom. The US cannot be trusted because we will always be one US election away of this bullshit again, because there are a lot of people there that actually agree with this.

The EU should be untangling itself from the US as quickly as possible. Any dependency on it is a major security risk.

There wouldn't have been a problem if the US would've just done a deal go deploy all their stuff on Greenland, hell, even a whole autonomous military zone or something?

But nooooo, they gotta buy the whole thing like it's Alaska or something.

I don't get it. Especially because now Russia/China will actually get real interested in the Arctic, plus that they now have an opportunity to disrupt the alliance and delegitimize NATO etc.

They don’t even need a deal, the agreements have been in place since sometime in the 1950s.

Like Trump, I too am a (albeit, small-time) real estate guy. Ownership gives me tingles that renting could never give me. You rent a place for 30 years, diligently pay rent, and in the end you own nothing? Pshaw.

I get it, but the world doesn't run on hard power, it runs on soft power.

The US could simply invade Greenland if it actually refuses to let them stay there, or if an adversary tries to take it over.

That's why I'm so appalled. There is no such imminent threat which would force such a transaction to take place.

Subtle deals like the one I was talking about won't fly as justifications to take action against the US by Russia/China, nor will it up tensions unlike this drama.

Trump wants to acquire Greenland and rent it back to the Greenlanders.

I guess from the point of view of Europeans and Canada, the Arctic Circle is opening and Chinese, Russian and US pressure will increase. I hear they found a new powerful enemy recently.

If only there was some sort of military alliance that covered the northern Atlantic.

The US used to have multiple military bases in Greenland during the Cold War. It has closed most of them and is down to one.

It could, at any time, reopen them and move troops there under existing agreements, or build more. Nobody would bat an eyelid.

To pretend this is about defence is nonsense. It’s about taking territory.

Turning your allies into non-allies sounds like a great plan in these circumstances.

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