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Comment by RalfWausE | Hacker News Reader

Luckily, the orange idiot in charge is doing us (the Europeans) a favor showing us that America (and its companies) are no longer a trustworthy partner. In a way i really hope he goes through with the Greenland stuff... this would be the final nail in the coffin.

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Brexit didn’t do anything to correct the UK’s current trajectory. I guarantee you even destroying the relationship with NATO would not shift the course the US is on. Every time something extreme happens, people gasp for a second then accept it and move on. I don’t think the situation in the US is hopeless by any means, but Greenland is not going to suddenly be some magical moment that wakes everybody up. We’ve done this song and dance for a decade with Trump. After the attack on the capitol it be became very clear that it’s going to take a hell of a lot more than we thought.

GP was not about America changing but about Europe.

I originally read it as “the final nail in the coffin for him and the shenanigans coming out of the US” but yeah I see I read it wrong now.

Brexit wasn't an exercise in Imperialism and power-projection though, it was a dissolution of federated oversight and grant conditions to facilitate a transfer of wealth from the working classes to a select group of oligarchs.

They, in essence, traded 10% of their GDP for Regulatory Independence and UK’s accession to the trans-pacific partnership, estimated by the government to be worth only 0.06% of GDP by 2040.

If the Falklands represented a major turning point, then imo Greenland does too. The simple mustering of an international task-force of troops for defense is a move unprecedented in the 21st Century. The recent Spectator article correctly identifies Trump as “playing geopolitical Monopoly with Greenland”, which holds substantial mineral as well as strategic value in the president’s eyes.

The author identified presidential “ego-politics” as a plausible top reason, along with a US quest for hemispheric power and sending a message to rival powers - concluding by noting that both Britain and France hold territories in the western hemisphere and asking if they could be next on Trump’s list.

https://spectator.com/article/trump-is-playing-geopolitical-...

Please read my response to the other comment

I suppose you're not one of the conscripted (or even professional) soldiers that would be called to duty to protect the region in case of an armed conflict?

I am in the reserve of the german army, so i can be called up if things escalate beyond a certain point (the so called "Verteidigungsfall").

Oh, I see. I'm in a similar position, but would rather not see things escalate at all. Even so, it is difficult to see how the relations between Europe and the US would return to what they have been for a long time. But a real conflict would be an entirely different scenario, with very unpredictable, yet possibly world changing consequences.

We know that appeasement has never worked. Hence we must be prepared. But to wish for this sort of escalation is a step too much for me. I hope that people in positions of power have cool heads. But also that they remember history.

(I see I was downvoted quite a bit, not sure why, though.)

Europe is desperately trying to find some way to let US have "control" without destroying the Danish kingdom; A Minsk Agreement for Greenland if you will.

They don't have the stomach for a fight.

Very bold claim to make unsourced from an account with a very _interesting_ posting history.

What am I supposed to take from that? It's not even a valid English sentence.

Keir Starmer yesterday: "I will speak to Trump again. We must find a pragmatic solution to this."

QED.

Greenland invasion is just a distraction by Trump from the Epstein files. The US already have massive military presence in Greenland with permission from Denmark since the 1950s, they can already do whatever illegal things they want there (and they have, like installing a portable nuclear reactor), without the downsides that come with actual ownership of the island. They already have a really sweet deal.

Trump keeps talking about taking it because he knows the media will bite the bait and talk about that instead and forget about the epstein list and other illegal shit his administration did.

Remember how he was also talking about annexing Canada in his election? Trump just loves to bait the media by saying crazy stuff since the media feeds on sensationalist stuff like that.

So, he wants to distract from past illegal shit by doing more illegal shit? Doesn't sound like a viable long-term strategy to me...

But yeah, I also wonder what would happen if the media would just stop dissecting every late-night bleat (as some commentators have decided to call his Truth Social posts) and start treating them as what they are (the ramblings of a deranged 79-year old) instead? But of course those ramblings now spill into other places too: plaques on the "presidential walk of fame" (https://eu.usatoday.com/picture-gallery/news/politics/2025/1...), letters to allies (https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/trump-letter...) etc.

>by doing more illegal shit?

Who said anything about doing. He doesn't have to do anything other than bring it up all the time.

The media loves this since it means more engagement farming and Trump knows this which is why he's doing it. ALong with things like "quiet piggy".

He also attacked Venezuela, after talking about it a lot.

The problem is our Kremlinology is no longer capable of discerning what's a bluff and what's not. Therefore, at significant cost to both sides, we have to unravel some of the interdependency between the EU and the US.

How about building in Greenland that "freedom city" all tech bros are salivating about? Would that be a reason enough to invade?

No doubt the distraction from the Epstein files is a contributing factor, but it’s a mistake to think he won’t do incredibly harmful things simply because they seem insane and without purpose to us, who grew up post World War II.

His decision tree is like

Does it make me feel like a tough guy? -> Is there some way I can leverage it for grift and personal gain? -> Does it make my political enemies and undesirables feel angry and helpless? -> Is it a decision I can make unilaterally? -> Then YES

The US already has bases on Greenland. It is part of the Kingdom of Denmark and therefore is already a NATO ally territory. They already have all the "control" they need to keep it out of the hands of Russia and China. There is no need to "let" the US have "control". If the US were being run by people who understood the basis on which they have a base there, they would realise they already have all the control they need from a strategic perspective.

Yes, all of this is true. But they need the American president to find an off ramp that somehow satisfies his faction's desire for ownership without blowing up Nato - at least not before the mid-terms.

As for no stomach for a fight, Nato Europe can't even shoot down shahad drones that fly over their own territory.

This is not how it should be, but it is.

> As for no stomach for a fight, Nato Europe can't even shoot down shahad drones that fly over their own territory.

You would have been right if this were a couple of years ago, hell... even at the beginning of last year you might have been right, but now? If i would go with the things i hear of coworkers or other people around me (normal people in the lower middle class, no activists or something like that) then i can tell you: People are out for blood. The sheer arrogance of the Trump administration is just a tad too much to be ignored and this time Europe will not back down.

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