Denmark was reportedly preparing for full-scale war with the US over Greenland
Comments
vrganj
adev_
> I long thought their strong Gaullist stance on sovereignty was a bit silly in today's world
There is very good reasons why De Gaulle was always a bit doubtful about American military protection and why post-war France put a strong emphasis on military sovereignty.
That has nothing to do with any French stubbornness or a so called French anti-American feeling.
The main reason is that De Gaulle experienced the fact American leadership can be untrustworthy first hand.
When he was the leader of the exiled French force during the 40s, Churchill supported him.
Meaningwhile Roosevelt refused to give him any support and actively acted to make him replaced by a puppet, General Giraud. Mainly because it was better aligned with American interests to setup a puppet state in France on the longer term.
The situation changed only later when it became pretty obvious that Giraud was antisemite, an openly nazi collaborationist and a pretty poor politician.
Only then, America started to support De Gaulle officially. Initially only indirectly through the relation between De Gaulle and Eisenhower.
chneu
You can always trust americans to do the right thing after we have tried everything else.
Never trust america unless our last option is the one you want. Otherwise, let us stubbornly do it wrong until we come around.
jacquesm
I can't wait.
mamonster
>I long thought their strong Gaullist stance on sovereignty was a bit silly in today's world, but turns out they were right along.
Every single French president since Mitterand (with a brief exception for Iraq that was more than made up by Libya) spent a large part of their time liquidating Gaullism.
ifwinterco
The French took basically the exact opposite approach to the British in terms of post-WW2 foreign policy.
I think partly because of the shared language British elites were able to convince themselves that the US is just like us, and the so called "special relationship" sort of preserved British power albeit as an extremely junior partner riding on the coattails of the US.
With the French there was no such delusion and they've never seen eye to eye with the Americans, they've just been biding their time waiting for this all to play out.
In hindsight, the French were right of course (they usually are as much as it pains me to say it)
jacquesm
All this is very funny if you take into account how the United States originated.
ifwinterco
What's going on right now makes a lot more sense when you consider that what's now the US was populated not so much by people of English descent, but specifically super religious Protestants who were often causing trouble.
Part of the solution to Europe's wars of religion was to pack off some of the most swivel-eyed ones to the new world to let them build their New Jerusalem there, and it worked for a bit
davidguetta
> I long thought their strong Gaullist stance on sovereignty was a bit silly in today's world, but turns out they were right along.
Silly ? it originally comes from the american trying to impose a governement to france / print money and administrate it right after WW2. The ONLY reasons this didn't happen is because De Gaulle marched to paris and became the de facto ruler of the nation after that from his popularity, other wise the american plan would have happened.
US has literally had the SAME policy since maybe as early as the 1800 : expand the empire and get as much as influence as possible. They were never exactly friends or at least "kind" friends.
If anything the subsequent presidents who meshed our defense / intelligence / technical appartus so deeply with the US were complete fools, at best.
vrganj
I'm not sure you understood my point. I used to think it was silly, but now I agree with your view.
ekianjo
> Thank God for the French
France has nowhere the military power to resist a country like the US. They have not invested in the military for a very long time and most of their equipment is completely outdated.
estearum
Ah but alas: have you considered that the US is increasingly run by actual idiots?
It turns out even Iran has the power to resist a country like the US.
ekianjo
Iran is no joke. Everybody knew it and yet they went full ahead with it for some reason.
OkayPhysicist
You don't need a lot of nuclear weapons to be able to say "Fuck off, or everyone dies". You just need enough, and the widespread belief that you'd actually use them.
France probably has enough, and is definitely credible in their willingness to use them.
vrganj
France has completely sovereign nukes and the only first-strike nuclear doctrine in the world. It has the military power to resist any country.
OkayPhysicist
France's nuclear policy isn't unique in that they are willing to launch a first-strike (all the serious nuclear powers claim to be). France's nuclear policy is unique in that they are willing to use nuclear fire as a warning shot: before they launch their full strategic stockpile, they'll (probably) erase a military base or aircraft carrier with a tactical nuke. That lower threshold to break the nuclear taboo is what's interesting.
rntksi
It's not the only country with that doctrine. See [1]. I think only China and India is no first use.
[1]: https://www.armscontrol.org/factsheets/nuclear-declaratory-p...
ekianjo
France is never going to send a nuke to the US.
vrganj
Your attitude reminds me of this old meme: https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/what-are-you-gonna-do-stab-me
greenavocado
They already nuked America economically twice in the 20th century.
The first time the French involvement in gold markets caused the Great Depression and the second time the repatriation of gold caused a financial system crisis which severely damaged the dollar and forced the US to decouple the dollar from gold entirely.
polothesecond
It happened in the Simpsons.
tim333
Maybe not but they have enough to be useful. They do have nukes - a US invasion of France would not be a good idea. On the more realistic end of things the French are able to provide military intelligence to Ukraine to counter the US president turning it off to help his mate Vlad.
terminalshort
History shows that Europe can't trust any inside powers either...
vrganj
pre-EU history shows that, which is why we founded the EU in the first place.
To quote one of our founding fathers, Robert Schuman, the point of tightly interweaving our economies this way is to "make war not only unthinkable, but materially impossible"
terminalshort
Sounds kinda like why they founded the League of Nations
matsemann
Russia's invasion ironically strengthened NATO, with more countries joining or feeling the usefulness of it. Somehow the US managed to break down all that good will in such a short amount of time.. I think it's hard to overstate how much more hostile people look at the US the last few years. So much soft power has been lost.
originalvichy
Covid, Russia and the axis of US+Israel has done massive damage to the European psyche.
Covid showed us how economically dependent we are to major manufacturing countries like China. Paper money != ability to manufacture.
Russia broke any notion of peace that can be funded by cheap energy. It will always be a tool used against you, and Russia will not change.
The axis of US+Israel is breaking down the international system of laws and diplomacy. It’s going to be in a state even worse than the heights of the Cold War. Nukes are now a more favored instrument of peace compared to diplomacy.
Is it worth fighting for what we had, or should we fight for something better? Who knows.
(Edit: I don’t think non-Europeans can appreciate the whiplash suffered in our populations. In the span of around two years, European leaders drew red lines on political, economical and cultural decoupling from Russia based on human rights and the rule of law, then had to explain why preventable atrocities happening to civilians in the Mideast is not against our values and laws concerning human rights.)
velancogito
I could be wrong, but I've experienced the opposite. Seeing Putin and Trump openly undermine and threaten the EU forced countries to address the situation and take action. It's encouraging. I'm looking at this situation from Hungary tho, where Russian influence began 10–16 years ago. It seems Hungary has a chance to get rid of Orbán, and the rest of Europe is also taking measures finally. It's nice.
The war in Ukraine is literally at the EU's border. It could be destabilizing in many ways. It's not just about moral reasons. By the way, I see similarities between Putin and Trump as they both started wars against big countries without thinking ahead more than three days. It's one more reason to strengthen the EU.
jacquesm
It is pretty scary how many Hungarians are willing to jump back under the Russian boot. Much strength to you in the coming election.
fluidcruft
I'm of pretty mixed feelings about this. It certainly strengthened Europe's collective defense priorities and awareness. That response happens to include NATO but primarily because Europe is too weak without NATO. Europe used to be full of world powers and now they collectively can't manage collective defense without the US? There's something very learned-helplessness about that.
And yes, it certainly has served America's interests to have a weak Europe that's dependent on it. But seeing that as "good will" seems like a distortion.
mcv
Europe's weakness is mostly in their heads. The US is the most powerful military in the world, but the second most powerful military is NATO without the US. If the rest of NATO pulls together and reorganises into an effective military that doesn't depend on the US, it would be a force to be reckoned with.
Europe could easily defeat Russia without outside help (look at how well Ukraine is doing with far less!), but we still fear Russia because that's what we're used to. That's what we were told to do and what we have embraced. We need to grow out of that and stand on our own feet again.
red-iron-pine
> Europe could easily defeat Russia without outside help (look at how well Ukraine is doing with far less!)
Ukraine has received unbelieviable levels of aid from NATO, esp. the US.
10000+ Javelin missiles, WW3 levels of cluster munitions that were slated to be decommissioned in the US, multiple factories in the EU making shells that go straight to the AFU (e.g. Bulgarian 152mm), etc.
there is no way they'd have made it 6+ months let alone 4 years without the US' heavy backing.
mcv
Much of their support has also come from the EU, and the EU has a lot more than that. The EU has more fighters and ships, more tanks, more soldiers. It is true that the EU didn't and still doesn't have deep ammo reserves, though. But it has far more capacity to ramp up production of these than Russia has; the Russian economy is about the size of that of the Benelux.
jacquesm
> It is true that the EU didn't and still doesn't have deep ammo reserves, though
Indeed it is true. But it is also changing, the stockpiles are growing.
mcv
Absolutely. The EU is now finally but rapidly adapting to these geopolitical changes. Defense budgets are now far higher than the 2% that used to be the goal that nobody met.
In the 1990s everybody was eager to believe that war was finally and forever over. Some held on to that delusion for a bit too long, but not anymore.
jacquesm
Merkel has a lot to answer for. Handel durch wandel... pull the other one. After Grozny there should have been absolutely no doubt.
mcv
Eastern European countries warned us, but western Europe, Germany in particular, but other western European countries too, assumed Russia was now a normal country we could just trade with. Under Yeltsin we might have been heading in that direction, but Chechnya should have been a warning. Putin's comment about "countries that don't matter" was a warning. Russia taking chunks out of Georgia should have been the alarm. We continued trading even after he took Crimea and Donbas. We have been way too naive.
jacquesm
Politically, absolutely. Fortunately the intelligence communities are not as stupid as the politicians they serve.
closewith
That's not true. Even including military aid to Ukraine, EU average defence spending remains at 1.9%.
It's also the most expensive region in the world to raise a military.
jacquesm
That was the 2024 figure. In 2025 it rose to 2.1% and this year it is expected to rise further.
And that's just the direct allocation, not the under water part including venture funding of some of the defense industry (obvious overlap: anything including AI & drones, it's pure VC bait).
closewith
Is it true? Most analyses show EU stockpiles overall still falling, especially for precision weapons.
jacquesm
Reporting is messy and due to the EU's fragmented linguistic nature harder to come by than it probably should be.
The balancing act is to increase stockpiles whilst supplying Ukraine which is consuming almost as fast as we're producing. Precision weapons you are right about, those are dwindling, but at the same time this is the one area where Ukraine internal production is beginning to outnumber imports (and their motivations are not so much quantity as 'no strings attached', which is very understandable).
Artillery shell production is up, 2.2 million shells/year or thereabouts, but here too the Ukraine war is consuming them very fast, either way, it is sixfold or so of what it was prior to 2022. Many new factories have been built and opened and are since a few months adding their output to the stream.
I think what held things back for a bit is that the EU was - wrongly - under the impression that Putin would back off but now that it is clear that that is not the case the longer term investments make sense. But it took a while for that to get underway.
FpUser
>"but the second most powerful military is NATO without the US"
I am curious how much of NATO's hardware originate from the / depends on the US and and what will suddenly stop working if the US decides to break military alliance.
Starman_Jones
Short answer is: a LOT, but that's a two way street. BAE, for example, builds America's tanks (or at least their armored infantry fighting vehicles).
closewith
BAE Systems Inc, a US-based subsidiary that operates entirely in the US and whose leadership operates under an SAA which means they report to the US Government and the parent in the UK.
energy123
Kissinger warned about this in 1969:
> Tutelage is a comfortable relationship for the senior partner, but it is demoralizing in the long run. It breeds illusions of omniscience on one side and attitudes of impotent irresponsibility on the other
fifilura
Maybe a bit of learned helplessness, but what people tend to forget is that an all-in Russia is a formidable enemy.
This is the moment it helps to have allies. Like an insurance. Even if you can manage without, it hurts less if you have them.
To me it makes more sense to focus on that perspective.
jacquesm
> but what people tend to forget is that an all-in Russia is a formidable enemy
So you're saying they've been keeping their best in reserve?
kqr
The Apollo missions were the greatest scientific accomplishment by the Soviet Union. History repeats.
srean
Could you elaborate ? Intrigued.
sph
No USSR = no Cold War = no space race which lands us on the moon
srean
Ah ! makes sense.
Meta point, I know it's considered line noise to respond to a comment with "I see", "I agree", "Yes".
But just upvoting seems so unsatisfying. Almost rude, like standing someone up who actually took the time to answer you.
fortyseven
> I think it's hard to overstate how much more hostile people look at the US the last few years.
True both outside AND inside the country.
keybored
Geopolitical moves like illegally invading a country aren’t necessarily planned to be the one grand thing that weakens the opponent. In particular it strengthening Nato is not necessarily ironic, and it seems like an oversimplification to even suggest it.
Imustaskforhelp
> So much soft power has been lost.
The worst part to me feels like US has lost trust and such soft power loss is irrecoverable no matter what happens now :/
A common statement I hear from people, or maybe its just what I think, but its like "How can we trust US after this" and hey mind you, Trump still has 3 years in office, but even if political parties change, how can we trust the whole system for not having another Trump moment.
So this loss of soft power is quite a permanent loss. US has to now condition itself to live with it accordingly and live with some shame (which is something that I am observing too of people not being proud of being american anymore seeing the devastation caused by it)
Countries across the world will have to treat US as unpredictable from now on and treat its financial markets in the same way as well.
The worst part out of all of this is that it hurts the average day american the most not the people at the top who are doing all of this and the average person has no say in all of this seeing their country being destroyed by wreckless actions.
The sad part is that people did have many wake up calls to be honest, greenland was first joked about and then became so serious that denmark was preparing only to then move to iran now impacting the normal people's everyday life with oil price increases all across the world..
I do think that the people of US tried to stand up against the oppression by protests but some were shot (rest in peace) and others were detained.
The sad part is that the people tried their best but it still wasn't enough to stop all of this from happening. It was maybe too late after the election.
keiferski
I am equally dismayed at recent US behavior; but this is a short sighted view.
1. Geopolitics is always unpredictable. Maybe the US has been unreliable lately, but the idea that there are states out there which have been bastions of reliability is not historically accurate. All great powers have screwed people over or made disastrous decisions. It’s mostly just the US’s turn now.
2. This all happened 20 years ago with Iraq. All it really took was a charismatic president (Obama) to undo the 8+ years of bad international relations. All it will probably take again is a charismatic reliable president to set things back on track.
3. Which leads me to my third point, which is that most foreigners understand that the American government is separate from the people and separate from the corporations. And more importantly, changing the world system dramatically is really hard, and has a lot of friction. It will be a lot easier for states to go back to the pre-2024 status quo than to embark upon something entirely novel.
jemmyw
> This all happened 20 years ago with Iraq.
I think your argument falls apart here. The US built a coalition of on side allies before invading Iraq. They went to the UN too. There was significant opposition to the war, and I was a student at the time in the UK so was surrounded and involved in that. However, European countries were not politically blindsided. Some were going in with the US, including Denmark I believe.
jacquesm
They also didn't quite expect the USA to be blatantly lying about the intelligence that they brought to support their case.
kelipso
Lol. They knew it was lies and they went along with it anyway.
jacquesm
I don't think so. Colin Powell sold it and he had a stellar reputation. A lot of people found it very hard to believe that he would stake his reputation on this if it wasn't true. It wasn't, and he rightly never recovered from that. His UNSC presentation will go into the history books as the thing he is remembered for.
Imustaskforhelp
I do agree with some of your points and I believe some aspects of it might be right but there is a big difference between the past and present because this time, its America attacking EU sovereignity/other countries and so many things all at once literally within less than a year.
Just count all the things that america did in the last year and try to imagine as a foreigner or foreign nation once as an exercise. All of the things that America has done in the past year is just quite so much to list here even.
No amount of charm within a president might fix or make the people of denmark/EU/even the world, forget the greenland crisis and many others.
This is fundamentally different, in my opinion.
> 3. Which leads me to my third point, which is that most foreigners understand that the American government is separate from the people and separate from the corporations. And more importantly, changing the world system dramatically is really hard, and has a lot of friction. It will be a lot easier for states to go back to the pre-2024 status quo than to embark upon something entirely novel.
Yea, we do but we can only tolerate so much at a certain point too. This goes to my point again but we are forgetting that US is still voted by its people. Yes the two party system corners the people and we are sympathetic of that, but the world/foreigners (atleast me) sympathesize with the american citizens but at the same time, can't trust them.
This isn't something even foreigner related issue but the people of America themselves don't trust their fellow neighbours now as I read the comments of this post and many others.
We sympathize with the people of America but sadly, the world doesn't trust America anymore, Trust is quite brittle and delicate thing so its quite an miracle we still saw trust bounce so many times but right now the glass of trust has shattered (as evident by Denmark preparing for almost war against America)
I can be wrong, I usually am but that's just my understanding.
keiferski
I mean I definitely agree that a lot of trust has been lost, and that a lot of work will be needed to patch things up.
Where I don't agree is that 1) this is somehow irreversible 2) that it really affects American citizens on the personal level – from personal experience, as an American living in Europe for the last decade, I've had basically zero negative interactions with people or hostile accusations. Most people do understand that the American government is a bit out of control, and American culture is in a tumultuous period. If anything I'd say it tends more toward sympathy than anger.
So while this is definitely a big, huge, giant problem, it's also a problem that I think the Europeans and Japanese want America to solve, and would basically rather America solve it than do anything else. Especially when there aren't really other geopolitical options at the table, the EU can't have a coherent singular opinion on Russia or Ukraine, etc.
jacquesm
We're talking decades just to undo the last 10 years. And it is still getting worse.
keiferski
Unlikely, I think, because geopolitics has other players, and forgiving the US is still a better option for the EU than the other choices available.
phs318u
Forgiveness is not the same as trust.
donkeybeer
America will be begun to be trusted only once the last MAGA dies, not once before that. So at least a generation.
Imustaskforhelp
I agree with you too but
> from personal experience, as an American living in Europe for the last decade, I've had basically zero negative interactions with people or hostile accusations. Most people do understand that the American government is a bit out of control, and American culture is in a tumultuous period. If anything I'd say it tends more toward sympathy than anger
Imagining that America attacked Greenland Thus Denmark/EU and the fact that Denmark was genuinely preparing for this, Just imaginging America attack Greenland and I do feel like that the sentiments might change. (This is what had happened to Muslim people not even people of specific country but negative interactions against whole religions after 9/11)
I would agree with you if this was the last day of Trump administration, but far from it. We have to handle so much more of this current administration. It's literally only been a year to see so much shift. I hope you realize it that for the most part, America is busy with the Iran war but any assurances about the sovereignity of EU or any country in the world for that matter isn't made by America and everything is off the table and anything might happen. I am sure that both of us wasn't predicting an Iran war or a greenland invastion but here we are.
It just feels natural to me that if a single year can have this much impact and you have four years for something like this and the most important fact which I want to highlight again, people technically voted for this and can still technically vote for it again , there are no safeguards and the most important part was a belief that if shit hits the fan, then American Judiciary or checks and balances or congress would stop something like this from happening but we all saw how nothing really happened.
My point is, 3 more years, let that sink in, into this level of turbulent times when an war is currently active and gas prices are rising all across the world solely because America and Israel started the Iran war :/
I can only have so much patience but if gas prices are double the price because of America/this war, Sadly I might lose my patience.
I lost my patience somedays ago when I heard that the local fast food shop was talking about the gas price increases and how it hurted them. I had true resentment to this war and America/Israel for starting it and having this poor guy suffer so much from the gas prices. I know that America and American people are different but till how long/how much especially if some people are still supportive of such war. It sort of left me speechless when he was talking about how hard it is to stay in this business.
To think that the world will forgive America so easily might not be accurate, that's all I am saying.
My point is, Even if party changes next time from red to blue, It's just really really hard to undo all this harm that it has done to its soft power.
johanyc
On a more fundamental level, I think something is wrong with the American education system and results in so many low information voters who believe any words from their "hero". And fixing education takes decades to even see the result.
They definitely can vote for another Trump-like guy and they have proven it by voting Trump back the second time. Honestly this is crazy to me this can even happen after Jan 6. The Brazilian Trump-like President went to jail, yet Trump returns to the White House. My take is this trust issue takes at least 10 years to recover, most likely more.
jacquesm
That's not an accident.
doom2
> Countries across the world will have to treat US as unpredictable from now on
Anyone who has studied American history knows the US has been unreliable. Just look at how they made and then broke treaties with Native Americans. It's part of the foundation of the country.
Imustaskforhelp
Within Geopolitical commentaries that I used to watch, A famous quote by Henry Kissinger is often repeated.
"to be an enemy of america can be dangerous, but to be a friend is fatal"
So yeah, America has never been trustworthy in a way but it still had its upsides and it still had some laws and checks and people still believed in some aspects of the American dream somewhat, Not anymore.
But now?,it has never been this less trustworthy either in a way to the whole world.
varispeed
> Somehow the US managed to break down all that good will in such a short amount of time
Because US administration is compromised. Putin says jump, Krasnov asks how high.
terminalshort
Yes that is clearly the case. Obviously Putin told Trump to start seizing his oil tankers recently.
dismalaf
Yes, I'm sure Putin told Trump to take out 2 of his allies in succession...
jacquesm
Putin needs higher oil prices a lot more than he needs either Iran or Venezuela (or Cuba, for that matter).
varispeed
You don't understand Russian mentality. The closer ally you are, the more likely you'll find yourself being defenestrated.
dismalaf
And this is why Russian states seem to always end up collapsing in on themselves...
varispeed
If I fall asleep and wake up in a hundred years and am asked what is happening in Russia, I will answer: drinking and stealing.
smcin
Source cited by @chriso-wiki.bsky.social is this article on DR.dk, the Danish public broadcaster:
https://www.dr.dk/nyheder/indland/groenland/danmark-forbered...
KaiMagnus
And this is, in my opinion, why support at Hormuz shouldn’t even be on the table. How can you possibly hold joint patrols when you were just months ago planning full scale war between each other?
verelo
Also, the "was" in this title feels misleading. If they're not still, they're crazy.
freehorse
The original title is better translated as "prepared". The tweeting reposter translated to continuous past tense somewhat erroneously imo, because it sounds as if the preparation was interrupted by something.
jacquesm
Preparation is an ongoing thing. And not just in Denmark.
lm28469
> And this is, in my opinion, why support at Hormuz shouldn’t even be on the table
Shouldn't? it's not on the table at all lol
freehorse
Well it is on the table but only trump is sitting on that table.
kasperstorgaard
Lars Løkke Rasmussen - Minister of Foreign Affairs, said just the other day on Genstart (podcast), that an EU solution for the Hormuz straight could be an option. This would probably be through Aspides.
lm28469
Yeah, he's talking for himself, and begging for one, everyone else said "No." Danemark can keep their CIA bases and fuck right off to daddy trump if they want, nobody in Europe will follow them to a war in the middle east
vrganj
It's absolutely insane they're thinking of bailing out the US given the context of this thread.
Jensson
It is on the table, why are you spouting bullshit? People are discussing this right now. Or do you mean Denmark wont help at Hormuz, but I doubt Denmark would help there anyway, but other countries are discussing that.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/uk-military-i...
lm28469
Sending experts to the US to "help" and sending warships to an active war zone are not the same thing.
> Starmer refuses to send warships to Strait of Hormuz. PM rejects Trump’s call for reinforcements to stave off mounting economic crisis
> France will never take part in operations to unblock Hormuz Strait amid hostilities, says Macron
> European countries reject Trump’s call for help to reopen strait of Hormuz
> The Royal Navy's strength has been drastically weakened by years of cuts; the events of the past week are the prime example of how the Senior Service has fallen.
> Together, the French Navy has 19 out of its 21 major surface vessels at sea or preparing for operations – by contrast, the UK is still struggling to deploy one
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2026/03/15/starmer-sn...
https://www.reuters.com/world/france-will-never-take-part-op...
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/mar/16/europe-donald-...
https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/2180044/british-navy-analy...
https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/france-royal-navy-briti...
Jensson
It is on the table, on the table means it is still discussed, that is what they are there for. If it wasn't on the table they wouldn't go there to discuss it.
On the table doesn't mean it is already decided they will send anything.
lm28469
Who's discussing what exactly? Give sources, everyone publicly said it's not on the table. Your own link doesn't mention any of this.
France/UK/Spain/Italy/Germany/Greece all very clearly stated they won't send jack shit to Hormuz while the war is active, they're the biggest navies in Europe, so who's left?
Jensson
> France/UK/Spain/Italy/Germany/Greece all very clearly stated they won't send jack shit to Hormuz while the war is active
Then what is this statement from the UK government where they say many of the worlds biggest powers are ready to support it? Countries say a lot of things publicly to change it the next day. To me it looks like them helping protecting it is still on the table.
"We express our readiness to contribute to appropriate efforts to ensure safe passage through the Strait. We welcome the commitment of nations who are engaging in preparatory planning."
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/joint-statement-from-the-...
They also have said they will send drones to help clear mines, but they still feel ships are probably a bit too risky. But that means sending ships is still on the table if things change in the future, he said all options are considered to open the straight, meaning no option is off the table.
"He added: “All of these things are being looked at in concert with our allies … Any options that can help to get the strait reopened are being looked at."
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/mar/15/uk-plans-mines...
lm28469
> Then what is this statement from the UK government where they say many of the worlds biggest powers are ready to support it?
Pure copium as usual, like Trump's "many great nations already accepted to send ships", where are they? Who are these nations? Which ships? it's posturing at its finest.
"we may be ready to maybe consider some plans about potentially helping nations who might want to hypothetically commit ships to restore the safe passage through the Strait"
They won't send jack shit until the US are out of the region and the war is so cold you can't call it a war anymore, and they're right.
silvestrov
> * The Danish public broadcaster DR reports ...*
This is the source article (in Danish) for the bluesky posts:
https://www.dr.dk/nyheder/indland/groenland/danmark-forbered...
polotics
Tu as le droit de perdre, mais tu n'as pas le droit de te faire surprendre. (You have the right to lose, but you do not have the right to be caught off guard.)
bryanlarsen
Keep in mind that militaries are always preparing for war. They have to. A military exists in large part to always be prepared for the unthinkable.
And in the case of countries like Denmark who have few realistic enemy choices, that means they must be prepared for unrealistic invasions, even if the US isn't threatening to invade.
Yes the Danes probably spend most of their time preparing to fight the Russians, but always wargaming the same thing leaves them unprepared for different enemies or unexpected approaches from expected enemies.
Yes, the actions in the links are more than just wargaming, but a large part of it is stuff the military should be doing anyways.
magicalhippo
> Keep in mind that militaries are always preparing for war.
There's preparing and there's preparing. They send soldiers to Greenland with orders to resist an invasion, packing live ammunition, explosives to destroy runways and blood bags to treat wounded.
That's more than a bit of wargaming.
halJordan
No thats not what this was. These are the actions that the Russians did before invading Ukraine and were the specific actions that the military pointed out and said "these aren't normal actions everyone is always doing"
estearum
Hot take: Preparing to defend your country from an ally invading you is actually very bad and indicative of inexcusable behavior from your "ally."
> that means they must be prepared for unrealistic invasions, even if the US isn't threatening to invade.
It's not unrealistic to think the US would invade Greenland. We've now had 10+ years of this "it's a joke... no it's a bargaining chip... well it's overstated... okay it's temporary... ahh yes well this is Good, Actually."
Peritract
That is a very reasonable response to the threats they faced.
nickdothutton
I think there is a pretty good chance US is in the late empire phase. This is not about a single President or party, or even single geopolitical event/development.
Tadpole9181
I'm sorry, this is just Republican apologetics. This is about a single party. How in the world could you possibly suggest otherwise?
I'd love to hear how Biden, Obama, or Clinton got us into forever wars. Or how they threatened allies. Or how they destroyed our trade or deal-making reputation. Where are the Democrat newscasters saying we should invade Canada? The figure heads calling for internment camps?
Are we all affected? Sure. Does everybody in the world view us through the lens of our worst (people/behavior)? Of course. But it IS about a single party on every. single. issue.
If the Democrats were to regain control and we had public trials for all involved for war crimes, constitutional violations, etc, it would do a lot to fix the damage. Not pretending it would all go away, but actually holding the one party accountable would help because everyone on the planet knows who is responsible.
nickdothutton
The Iran war has demonstrated the US cannot adequately defend its allies in the region, regardless of bases, whose existence was predicated on them having that capability. No?
All the current conflict has done is make obvious that reality.
jacquesm
It is interesting how many people seem to have failed to notice this absolutely crucial detail. Suddenly US bases are no longer seen as an asset but as an immediate risk.
nickdothutton
This is what specifically caused me to make the late stage empire comment. When the flip comes, you know you are in that phase. Speaking as a Brit. Other indicators are loss of reserve currency status, inward looking elite factions (can be of any party, it is not a partisan matter), and a few other things. One might have said “changed from creditor to debtor” but almost everyone is these days!
jacquesm
The US economy is so fragile it is scary. And meanwhile they continue to make more and more 'frenemies', some of whom might start to wonder what happens when you kick the table the house of cards is built on. At some point the continued price of trying to pretend things are normal versus the price of forcing the problem to go away is going to reach a tipping point. It almost happened over Greenland, the general atmosphere in Brussels was 'ok, if you insist'...
Teever
It's difficult to reply to a comment like this because the existence of it disproves what it is arguing for.
I wish this was just a Republican thing, or that people abroad perceived it as such but the reality is that people around the world no longer care about this Democrat - Republican split.
No one outside of America cares a Republican party started this shit. They care that this shit was started at all, because it means that the American system is out of control.
No one outside of America cares ifyou're a democrat or a republican. They just see you as American. And they see America as the source of so many of the world's problems.
Which means they see you as the source of those problems.
iso1631
> This is not about a single President or party
I've seen roughly two types of American commentators over the last year. The ones that cheer this stuff going on, which HN has plenty of, and the ones that think "come the midterms/2028/impeachment everything will go back to normal"
The latter are massively mistaken, it would take decades for the US to rebuild its standing in the eyes of the world, and there is no evidence that it even wants to.
Trump is a symptom of what America truly is, not the cause.
tartuffe78
He is also a singular political figure. I don't think things will go back to normal, but they won't stay the way there are now.
rntksi
I think Naval is right when he was making the observation that history has alternated by being determined by either individuals (think Genghis Khan, Napoleon) or larger forces at play (think socio-economic reasoning to many historical events). In this, I would say Trump is Trump (the individual) making his moves that very much go against the larger forces at play that was "business as usual". So equating him to a symptom of America is true in the sense that sooner or later America was bound to have someone like him deviate the course of history, and I also believe post-Trump America is not going to reverse course.
mongol
Neither Genghis Khan nor Napoleon were democratically elected. The fact that Trump was makes it harder to see him as the root of the problem. He may have been a catalyst, but the root cause is something else.
torginus
The F-35 is mentioned in the article as being readied for the defense of Greenland. I wonder what the 'easter-eggs' Danes would've found out about it if they went up against the US.
(I think I know, it has to do with how its 'stealth' works.)
throwawayfour
Well if that were to happen, that would be the end of a lot of defense business that the US does with many countries around the world.
jacquesm
In a way that would be great. Then we could grow up a little bit faster.
1718627440
Yeah at some point we need to know.
pogue
The source of this post is this article from a site called dr.dk. Maybe someone can double check the validity of it.
Danmark forberedte sig på muligt angreb fra USA [Danish language - no native translation] https://www.dr.dk/nyheder/indland/groenland/danmark-forbered...
Google translated URL: https://www-dr-dk.translate.goog/nyheder/indland/groenland/d...
fasterik
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DR_(broadcaster)
>DR is a Danish public-service radio and television broadcasting company. Founded in 1925 as a public-service organization, it is Denmark's oldest and largest electronic media enterprise.
hagbarth
Danish public broadcaster. Probably the best reputation in the world on Danish news.
giardini
If the article is correct (a big if) then many in the Danish government and many Danish people, along with a bunch of people/officials in other countries, may not be as stable mentally as I once thought they were.
Critics never miss a chance to sit around and bitch about orange man.
throwa356262
Those Danes should study the Falklands war.
Using F35 in this situation is like brining in a billion dollar paperweight to the battle.s
jacquesm
That doesn't matter. It is not so much about whether the USA could do this and expect to win, of course they can. Nobody has any doubt about that. It is about gross miscalculation of consequences. Attack Greenland ->attack Denmark, attack Denmark -> Attack the EU.
So you don't attack Greenland. Because that would be wrong.
Unless all that stuff about shining cities on hills was nonsense. Instead of making America great again the US has ceded power to China.
petterroea
Living in Japan, I meet and talk to Chinese when out drinking. Many of them are almost literally ROFLing about how the US practically just gave away everything they had to China. It's as if the US is playing poker with their cards facing up on the table. Chinese already consider themselves the defacto superpower.
If mainstream media in the US showed this, I bet the politics would look different.
steinvakt2
Seems weird. China is definitely falling behind. India is not.
petterroea
They are pretty happy with having superiority on high tech manufacturing and robotics. You basically cannot manufacture something without using China - even if you try. I don't think they consider the TSMC EUV monopoly a long term threat. Doing good on AI as well, you bet the OSS chinese models causing stock panic in the US makes them laugh.
On the topic of manufacturing outside China, the YouTuber "Smarter Every day" (Destin Sandlin) has a series on manufacturing and feels strongly about manufacturing having moved out of the country. As an experiment he tried to manufacture something without China, but was unable to: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ZTGwcHQfLY
aprentic
And he's just making a grill scrubber.
I just ordered a bunch of drone parts. The majority of those part were only available from China.
jacquesm
If you want: motors, ESCs, flight controllers and radios those can be sourced from outside of China, and competitively priced too (if you're in Europe, outside you'd still have to add taxes).
petterroea
Yeah tbf I wouldn't underestimate Eastern Europe. The drone industry there must be booming nowadays, pun not intended.
aprentic
How?
As near as I can tell, the vast majority of the parts are made in China. When I look at the few alternatives, they're full of Chinese circuitry. If I look at circuit components, they're all made of Chinese raw materials.
Both Ukraine and Russia are planning to deploy (and use up) several million drones over the next year. Iran just joined them as a major procurer.
Where are all the US and EU component factories?
jacquesm
In Spain, the Netherlands and Ukraine.
aprentic
Do you have any links?
jacquesm
Already in that other comment.
aprentic
I checked both the links in the other comment.
While they satisfy the technical requirement of, "there exists an alternative" neither of them is generally available as a viable alternative to China.
jacquesm
They are for me.
aprentic
This whole thread is in response to an attempt to someone trying to source parts to manufacture something in the US.
If "for me" is limited to some rich guy in the Netherlands, that doesn't solve the problem "for anyone else."
jacquesm
Well, we could counter that and say that the whole thread here is exactly about how the US is losing its soft power position and the import situation you are facing is an integral part of that.
And 'some rich guy in the Netherlands' is a nice target for you but I know plenty of people that are in other parts of Europe that seem to have no problem ordering from both of these. You asked for alternatives, you got them. You could have just left it at that but you feel the need to explain why those alternatives are not the alternatives you wanted. What did you expect? A 1-900 number and someone taking your credit card?
aprentic
You could counter with that or you could read what's actually in this sub-thread.
"Some rich guy in the Netherlands" isn't about being a nice target. You keep saying it works for you but you can't demonstrate any way that works for others.
I can point you to a number of places that sell any number of Chinese drone parts that don't involve a "1-900 number". You can find them on Amazon. Any number of drone vendors sell them through normal sales portals. The manufacturers will ship them directly.
A handful of companies that require a bespoke procurement process and are operating at a tiny fraction of the scale do not have any appreciable impact on the market for drone parts today.
Teever
I perused the links that you provided in another comment.
How much of these products are sourced from EU materials? Like is the copper in the wires from the EU? Is the wire made in the EU and coated with insulator there too? Are the motors wound in Europe?
jacquesm
> Like is the copper in the wires from the EU?
Mostly Latin America afaik but copper re-use is so high that it is hard to tell what the original source is.
> Is the wire made in the EU and coated with insulator there too?
Not in the EU but close by.
> Are the motors wound in Europe?
Yes, there are multiple drone motor manufacturers in Europe now. Annual production is in the millions.
jacquesm
It's everywhere. And 'China free' is a real motto here.
aprentic
I can't install a motto in my drone. None of the alternatives will allow me to put a physical drone part in my hand with any degree of reliability.
aprentic
The thread is about manufacturing in the US so tariffs do have to be factored in.
On those specific parts:
Motors: T-Motor F90 1300KV - $119.60(incl shipping) + Tariff
ESC: Holybro Tekko32 F4 50A - $88.97(incl shipping) + Tariff
FC: Matek H743-SLIM V4 - £88.12(incl shipping + VAT) + Tariff
Radio: Radiomaster M2 $95.99(incl shipping + sales tax)
The FC was from a UK store but it originated in China. I already had the radio so I don't have current prices on it.
I'd love to find a list of vendors that have comparable parts, in stock, and without being insane multiples of those prices.
edit: formatting
aprentic
Motor-g doesn't seem to ship outside of Ukraine. That's totally understandable but for anyone outside of Ukraine, they effectively don't exist.
Arctus asks you to contact them just for product info. It seems they just raised 2.6M in seed funding 3 months ago. It's great that there are startups in NL but that's not even close to a replacement for China's scale yet.
Both of these may change the landscape in the future. For now, neither of them is a practical way to get drone parts without China.
jacquesm
> Motor-g doesn't seem to ship outside of Ukraine.
They absolutely do.
> Arctus asks you to contact them just for product info.
You can order as much as you want from them, the price is right and the quality is extremely high.
Indeed, they're not on AliExpress, but that's roughly the difference between being a producer in Europe and in China, and that is precisely the difference that you should be happy with.
aprentic
Can you show me? Is this some privileged access that you get as an investor?
Its easy to verify that Motor-g does not ship outside of Ukraine. I just put 4 of their motors in a shopping cart and tried to check out. The drop down menu for destination country has a single option, Ukraine.
Arctus does not list a single price on their website. That's also easy to verify. Every single product on their website only says, "request product data", or "coming soon".
jacquesm
I have both their products quite literally on my desk in front of me.
All I did was mail the manufacturer, asked for a quote, got a mail in return, they sent an invoice, I paid the invoice and they sent me the goods. Just like I would expect.
aprentic
You claim it works for you.
Can you demonstrate a process that others can follow?
jacquesm
I have some friends who are doing things 'China free' and it is possible but it comes at a very substantial premium.
petterroea
I think the most interesting takeaway from this video in question is that he tried to buy material from an Indian seller, who promised it was Indian. When the box arrived, it had the name of a Chinese factory on it.
eunos
> Attack Greenland ->attack Denmark, attack Denmark -> Attack the EU.
Rhetoric and public support aside, I honestly very much doubt that there will be a solid EU military response. For many countries like Baltic, Eastern Europe and Nordic countries (ironically DK included). US military support means life or death of their countries. I imagine they'd stall response like what Hungary did and hope that Greenland annexed become fait accompli.
jacquesm
> US military support means life or death of their countries.
Meant. They have begun to realize that this has changed and realize that if this were put to the test that the US military would likely not hold up their end of NATO.
What you wrote would have made good sense in 2015, but today it makes a lot less sense and with every passing day that gap is widening. The Baltics have become the voice of reason and ethics in Europe, Poland is much stronger than parties outside of Europe seem to realize, France is always going to be a force to be reckoned with and we have no doubt about where the UK stands, then there are Finland, Sweden and Norway who all are automatically on the side of anything that Denmark is involved in and I wouldn't be surprised at all if Canada would become part of it, because they too have a lot to lose.
There is a good reason why Putin has not risked engaging the EU and that's not just because the United States is still formally part of NATO.
fulafel
From military consequences pov, EU isn't a military alliance but it would of course also be attacking NATO.
jacquesm
The EU absolutely is a military alliance as well.
fulafel
That's a heterodox interpretation. Something akin to it was https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_European_Union but it's no more.
fulafel
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_military_alliances
The EU treaty has a clause that calls for assistance for part of the members (who are not neutral) but there's no military structure outside NATO.
There's also a perpatual public debate about whether EU should become a military alliance. eg https://theloop.ecpr.eu/can-the-eu-form-an-autonomous-milita...
In practical terms, in event of a invasion, only NATO has a organisation set up for coordinated response.
jacquesm
You are really completely clueless, I have no idea why you keep posting comments that contradict your own comments but fine, whatever.
There are four different mutual defense pacts in Europe and there is an umbrella one and they all operate independently of NATO. And then there is NATO, with or without the USA.
1over137
>It is not so much about whether the USA could do this and expect to win, of course they can. Nobody has any doubt about that.
Um, lots of us have doubts about that. The USA couldn't win against Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Iraq; why do you think it could win against Greenland? Greenlanders actually have a lot of guns; and likely most of Europe and Canada would also go to war against the USA.
Quothling
I'm Danish. There are 56k people in Greenland and almost half of them live in Nuuk. The USA could frankly "take" greenland simply by putting a warship there and saying it was theirs. Not really sure why it was ever on the table though. The USA has basically free reign to expand it's military bases there, aside from the ban on nuclear weapons. Sure it would need approval by both Greenland and Denmark, but up until recently we were frankly more allied with the USA than the EU, and I doubt we've ever really said no before. We even bought the damn f35's despite them being so much more expensive than the alternatives, primarily because our history with the F16's. Which would probably have been a possiblity considering we're now debating whether or not to have french nuclear weapon carrying planes stationed on Danish soil in the fallout of the USA no longer being a trusty NATO ally.
If it was because of resources, then American companies are frankly free to extract them as long as they reach deals with Greenland about it. If the USA had waited a few years for Greenland to gain more independence then it would have been even easier.
gregw2
Not the parent poster but, while I acknowledge your point on Canada and Europe entering the conflict (and I'd add that the highly motivated Dutch punch well above their weight in intelligence and economic spheres and this whole scenario of US invasion is a Putin dream), when you ask "why do you think it could win...", the 50k population of Greenland is smaller than Granada (100k) and three orders of magnitude smaller than Vietnam/Afghanistan/Iraq (~40m). So I find its insurgency potential hard to compare to those examples you give.
iso1631
Doesn't need to. America can just leave the towns alone and do whatever it wants elsewhere.
It will cost a fortune, but nobody is going to go 500 miles over an ice pack to raid a US mining settlement.
aprentic
I suspect its easier to find Greenlanders willing to do that than it will be to find Americans willing to work in that mining settlement.
Unless we go full evilmode and just run them with slave labor.
FpUser
>"and likely most of Europe and Canada would also go to war against the USA."
Canada and the US share border and almost all meaningful infra of Canada is located in that thin border area. The US can obliterate much of Canada with artillery, various types of missiles, bombs etc. etc. Canada has nothing to counter it with. So no, I doubt Canada is that suicidal (I am Canadian btw).
jacquesm
They could. Destruction is easy after all. But then they'd have to hold it. That might prove to be a little harder.
ericmay
The US wouldn’t even need to “attack” Greenland. What is there to even attack? 50 Danish soldiers? They could just say “that’s ours”, ignore whatever Europe says, and start doing whatever they wanted to do and instead force the EU to attack American forces or civilian business interests.
I’m not suggesting this is a good idea or anything but there’s a ton of other ways that something like this could play out which involves more difficult ways to counter than you might think.
> Instead of making America great again the US has ceded power to China.
What power has the US ceded?
KaiserPro
> What power has the US ceded?
Before this, we (large multinational infra company) were happily using AWS, microsoft and a bunch of other US based companies.
Now we are beginning the migration away, not because its cheaper or better, but because we just don't think that we can trust the contracts we have with them any more.
This isn't a sudden thing, we are not going to do it over night. But we are not renewing multi-million dollar contracts in the coming years for stuff that would have been a no brainer last year.
ericmay
It’s interesting how these conversations always start and end with “my company isn’t buying XYZ American cloud provider services” while ignoring other incredibly important products and services that you can’t or are unwilling to boycott. Are you turning in your MacBook Pro and iPhone, or are you putting a bumper sticker on it saying you bought it before you knew America was crazy?
Similarly, while it's great to take a principled stand here (it's yet again interesting how it's always a principled stand against American companies but never others), while you are busy spending time and money migrating away from AWS to a competing product that has worse features and is more expensive as you said, you should hope your competitors are too because if not, they're going to be delivering features faster and more cheaply. Something worth thinking about there.
I don't think Microsoft losing some European contracts is an example of the US ceding power.
KaiserPro
> while ignoring other incredibly important products and services that you can’t or are unwilling to boycott.
Its about operational risk.
right now AWS is a key dependency, if that get turns off, we're fucked. we have mixed estate of end user devices, so its hard to turn them all off at once.
ericmay
You're indulging in catastrophe fantasy.
If AWS gets "turned off" (the implication being the US is doing some big mean thing against all of Europe) for European countries then something absolutely catastrophic has happened and you're going to be hoping you have heat, electricity, food, and water.
If AWS gets "turned off" your MacBook Pro isn't going to work anymore because obviously the US will just whoops turn that off too! Your Google OS on your Android phone won't work anymore, and if you turn it on bam drone strike! Gotcha! Meta will shut down your WhatsApp, and you'll have to import all of your oil from Russia or something.
I don't think there's anything wrong with European countries or the EU as a whole looking to build more homegrown products and restore their manufacturing capacity - that's what we're looking to do in the US too in various ways and I encourage it. But I do think there's a problem with this fantasy, and indeed it is a fantasy of somehow decoupling from American tech companies or being isolationist or whatever and it's not good for you. We have global supply chains and in those supply chains you're going to have American products whether you like it or not. You can work on building better businesses in the EU and you should, but lay off the grandstanding, otherwise you just sound like the freedom fries enthusiasts.
KaiserPro
What do I mean by "turned off"?
Right now if I want to process data in compliance with GDPR, I need to make sure there are sample clauses that provide equivalence in data protection standards.
Those clauses only hold if the US and EU agree that they won't fuck with them.
but thats fairly fragile.
ericmay
It's also, frankly, very unimportant in the context of the geopolitical and geostrategic "USA has lost soft power" discussion that's being had.
comrade1234
Both my iPhone and MacBook were bought from Apple Switzerland AG and shipped directly from china to me. The money will stay in Europe unless Trump does another tax holiday where American companies can send money back to the USA without paying taxes on it - otherwise it's a pretty hefty tax bill.
ericmay
Sorry that's not how that works.
First and foremost, Apple is still an American company and even if it isn't repatriating some amount of income because it doesn't want to pay taxes on it American shareholders still get the benefit of the reported cash position. Apple still owns the assets.
Second, the products are manufactured/assembled in a variety of countries including China, Taiwan, and more - US obviously designs the products and all that. But in each step of the way Apple is paying suppliers, suppliers pay other suppliers and so forth and when you finally go to Apple Switzerland AG and buy your MacBook Pro you're just paying the sum total costs of the profit for Apple, each individual supplier, and manufacturer. All that money has left Europe, Apple Switzerland is just charging you the diff on the imported product and what profit margin they want to make. Maybe it's $250 or something, of the supply chain that is pretty much all that stays in Europe, of course subtracting out where European companies are suppliers.
iso1631
Macbooks are built in China.
Personally I have a Lenovo laptop (China) running Ubuntu (UK), on an LG monitor (Korea) with a logitech (Switzerland) mouse on an Ikea (Denmark) desk connected to a Mikrotik (Latvia) router.
ericmay
I guess it's global supply chains when it's convenient for your argument, but not when it's inconvenient? Does Denmark build all the Ikea furniture?
Who do you think designs the MacBook, chipsets, and more? Who designs and builds the semiconductors for your Lenovo laptop?
jacquesm
> Does Denmark build all the Ikea furniture?
That would be so funny if it wasn't clear that you are serious.
> Who do you think designs the MacBook, chipsets, and more? Who designs and builds the semiconductors for your Lenovo laptop?
Why don't you tell us?
ericmay
> That would be so funny if it wasn't clear that you are serious.
Sure ok - tell me what I'm missing.
> Why don't you tell us?
Are you unaware that Apple designs the MacBook and A/M series chips?
jacquesm
Are you unaware that Ikea is Swedish and that the ARM comes from a long line of UK products?
ericmay
> Ikea (Denmark) desk
I was just going off what you wrote. I buy locally handmade furniture and haven't bought anything from Ikea since college. Anyway, Sweden doesn't build all of this stuff either.
> ARM comes from a long line of UK products?
Again, global supply chains when it's convenient for your argument.
traceroute66
> not because its cheaper or better
Actually, in a number of cases EU cloud is cheaper and better.
In terms of "better", spec wise it is not uncommon to get more bang for your buck in the EU cloud, especially around compute.
In terms of "cheaper", that too. AWS, Azure etc. will happily sit there all day nickle and diming you through obscure pricing structures with all sorts of small-print. Good luck, for example, figuring out if you're going to go over your "provisioned IOPS-month" on AWS EBS, whatever the hell that is. And have fun with all the nickle-and-diming on AWS S3. Meanwhile on EU providers a lot of stuff is free that the US providers nickle and dime you for, and the stuff that is charged is done in a manner where you actually CAN forecast your spend.
And then of course there is the real EU sovereignty. Not the fake US-cloud-in-Europe which despite what the US providers salesdroids try to tell you is still subject to CLOUD, PATRIOT and everything else.
jacquesm
> What power has the US ceded?
Seriously?
You live in a multi-polar world, there are three major power blocks and Europe isn't one of them, though that may change now (we're sick of war, but we're also sick of the threat of war, which one of the two will win out is up for grabs). There is - or rather, was, by now - Russia, China and the USA. Russia is unacceptable for many reasons, China is too clever for its own good in the longer term and the United States was historically our ally.
The United States has thrown away 80 years or so of very carefully and very expensively built up soft power because someone didn't understand the concept (apparently just like you). That doesn't translate into ownership and it doesn't in any way give you control but it ensures that things will, at least most of the times, go your way because of momentum and because it makes sense by default. Just like you may disagree on some stuff with your friends but you're not going to rob their homes, just because you can (and maybe just because they gave you the key to the back door).
You throw that away at your peril and because Russia is in no way capable of capitalizing on that the Chinese are. I wouldn't be surprised at all if in a decade or two the US$ is no longer the reserve currency. It could happen a lot faster than that. The US economy is teetering on the edge of the abyss and if you think that your ability to project power isn't diminished then maybe by the end of the Iran war you'll get it.
The US maximized its post-war power on the 10th of September 2001. Since then it has gone down hill very steadily and the fall rapidly accelerated with Trump. I see no reason to believe this will change, all institutions that were supposed to provide checks and balances have failed. And all China has to do is to look sane in comparison, that's not super hard.
adgjlsfhk1
the idea that Russia is a world power but Europe isn't is fairly silly. Europe had 3x the population, 10x the gdp. Russia has a bigger nuclear arsenal, and 5 years ago had more conventional stockpiles, but for all the ammo they had, they weren't able to topple the government of a single post Soviet country with a fairly unpopular leader. Russia is a fairly strong regional power but they're no where near the power that the Soviet Union used to have
ericmay
> You live in a multi-polar world, there are three major power blocks and Europe isn't one of them, though that may change now (we're sick of war, but we're also sick of the threat of war, which one of the two will win out is up for grabs). There is - or rather, was, by now - Russia, China and the USA. Russia is unacceptable for many reasons, China is too clever for its own good in the longer term and the United States was historically our ally.
We live in a multi-polar world. Sure. But I disagree with your assertion that there are three major power blocks. The US and China are the only two. Europe has a decent sized and advanced economy but it lacks military power and is politically fragmented and always will be. China is building military power but lacks the ability and will to project that power. Manufacturing and economic powerhouse rivaling the United States. No doubt about that.
Russia isn't a pole in this world. As President Obama said back in the 2010s I believe "Russia is a nuclear armed gas station". That was true then, and it's still true today.
> The United States has thrown away 80 years or so of very carefully and very expensively built up soft power because someone didn't understand the concept (apparently just like you).
Well, I don't think this is true for one. And secondly if it takes just a year or so to throw away that power then it was just a matter of time until the EU got mad at the US for doing something and threw it away anyways.
> You throw that away at your peril and because Russia is in no way capable of capitalizing on that the Chinese are.
What soft power is the Chinese capitalizing on? Is it their support for Russia and supplying money, weapons, and equipment for their war in Ukraine? Or is it the soft power they had in Venezuela, Cuba, and Iran that they have just lost because of US military action?
> I wouldn't be surprised at all if in a decade or two the US$ is no longer the reserve currency. It could happen a lot faster than that. The US economy is teetering on the edge of the abyss and if you think that your ability to project power isn't diminished then maybe by the end of the Iran war you'll get it.
The US ability to project power isn't being diminished by the Iran war, only being exercised. Talking heads for some reason think that when you launch an aerial assault against a country that is amassing ballistic missiles, drones (which they build and sell to Russia to go bomb innocent Ukrainians), and more that it should be over within 24 hours and that the enemy shouldn't be able to fight back. It's unrealistic.
Nevermind Iran launching these missiles at civilian targets in countries throughout the Middle East. I get the argument that if you hose a US military base that the base is a target, but there's no excuse for attacking civilian apartment complexes and such.
It also misses the fact that, we've seen this movie before with North Korea. Except if Iran gets a nuclear weapon they also have control over your oil supply and it would kick off a nuclear arms race in the region because Saudi Arabia and others certainly aren't going to let Iran be the only one with nuclear weapons.
These are tough problems to deal with, and from the sidelines it's easy to think about how simple the solution is or point out all the mistakes, but the alternative headline here is the US does nothing, all of these Middle Eastern countries get nuclear bombs, Iran loads up on ballistic missiles, and then who knows exactly what will happen? Do they nuke Israel and Israel nukes them back? Do they extract a toll on oil passing through the Straight of Hormuz like they are as of today declaring they will do?
frm88
What soft power is the Chinese capitalizing on?
https://cdn.ihsmarkit.com/www/images/0421/mapoverviewofchine...
https://africacenter.org/spotlight/china-port-development-af...
Two maps that show a small selection of Chinese infrastructure projects in Africa. See all those harbours?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soft_power_of_China
For example, one-third of the top 100 mobile games in Japan currently come from China.[20]
I'm short on time right now, so no more examples.
ta20240528
The UK only had to send a single officer to Greenland to stop Trump's previous attempt to annex Greenland.
That was a signal, thankfully there are still adults in the USA who recognised it.
Eupolemos
What power?
Economic power (US will no longer be the world reserve currency).
The power of allies (see Trump begging for help in Hormuz).
All the soft power it ever had.
ericmay
> Economic power (US will no longer be the world reserve currency).
As a reminder, reserve currencies are just currencies that are held in large amounts by national banks and other important institutions. The USD, like the Euro, Yen, Pound, and others are all reserve currencies.
The USD is the dominant currency, in part because the US is in the Middle East right now doing exactly what it is doing by using the military to enforce trade for oil in USD. But if the US loses that "status" it just.... reverts to being more like the EU? Doesn't seem so bad to me.
There's also pros/cons with being "the reserve currency".
> The power of allies (see Trump begging for help in Hormuz).
See Europe begging for help in Ukraine. I don't think this is a good argument. If 4 years of Trump being mean was all it took to erase all soft power the US ever had, then it never had it in the first place and it wasn't worth caring about.
enoint
It wasn’t even about Greenland, but a distraction from the extent of Trump’s knowledge of Epstein.
Anyway, there’s actually an index for soft power. Eliminating USAID halved that index. China built the highways, hospitals and water treatment instead.
KaiserPro
They did study the falklands war, thats why they were planning to blow up the runway should shit go wrong.
The idea was to make it as difficult as possible to invade, not to stop it, because that’s largely impossible.
WinstonSmith84
Argentina didn't lose the war because they came with fighter jets, but because their fighter jets were throwing scrap metal at British boats. Had these detonated, the outcome would have been different, and expensive for UK. I don't doubt that F35 are working very well in comparison to the junk Argentina was using.
throwa356262
Wasn't there a kill switch in the missiles?
Didn't UK get really really annoyed with France in the one instance their kill switch Didn't work?
zelos
Argentina only had 6 Exocets. I think the parent is referring to the failure of the fuses in the bombs the Argentinian pilots dropped on British ships.
tim333
I'm not sure what lesson they are supposed to learn from the Falklands. It was somewhat swung when we sank the Belgrano using a nuclear sub.
Sometimes these billion dollar high tech things work.
IAmBroom
I'm sure they'd be grateful for your expert analysis. Maybe you could offer to teach at their war college?
jacquesm
Of course they were. The United States has never before damaged its own reputation in Europe as much as they did in the last 12 months.
And the same goes for Canada, possibly worse. You don't go around threatening your allies unless you really have plans and that's why you don't elect senile old guys to positions of power.
lynndotpy
I'm really happy these topics are being discussed here on HN, when they weren't ~1 year ago. When considering a post-USA world, we also get to consider a post-Microsoft, post-Meta, post-Google, post-CloudFlare, post-Amazon, etc world.
I can't say I know much about how the EU operates or how quickly their Open Digital Ecosystems initiative could take shape, but this is a really opportune time to build a better tech industry.
AlecSchueler
> I'm really happy these topics are being discussed here on HN, when they weren't ~1 year ago.
They were being discussed a year ago, too, they just got flagged. Make sure to check /active
swed420
Corey Doctorow's speech was noteworthy. For anyone who missed it:
The Post-American Internet
gpderetta
> Make sure to check /active
Thanks, TIL.
jacquesm
We call it 'the better homepage'.
GeoAtreides
tbf, less flagged posts hitting /active lately
either they kill them early (delete them) or hn policy quietly changed
bko
What does post-USA world mean?
Who is the leader in culture, business, technology? The only other contender I can think of is China.
And this is better?
phkahler
>> What does post-USA world mean? >> Who is the leader in culture, business, technology? The only other contender I can think of is China.
>> And this is better?
Who says you need a leader in each of those? Maybe it's post-centralization, or in other words decentralization which people have been wanting for the internet for a while now.
bko
Goes against pretty much all of history. I guarantee you the Chinese officials dont think this way and if your head is in the sand and its up for grabs they will grab it. They exert influence on geopolitics heavily and think in centuries rather than political cycles. Who owns AI and social media/tech will basically excert their values on the worlf
Gud
Not really? Technology spread fairly quickly for the last few hundred years, at least in the western world.
TFYS
Why couldn't China be better? It can't get much worse than what the US is currently doing. It's getting dangerously close to 30s Germany levels of madness. China at least at the moment seems like a better run country, and much less interested in forcing its will on other countries.
register
Bunisess and technology. Culture ? Highly debatable and certainly not in the last 10 years.
ndsipa_pomu
Much better.
China is far more reliable and dependable than dealing with a lying narcissistic paedophile and his cronies.
maybewhenthesun
Much better is rather an exaggeration. China is ruthlessly 'colonizing' Africa for example. Not that 'the west' has any leg to stand on criticizing China for it of course.
But China currently is a lot more stable and somewhat more trustworthy than the U.S.
karmakurtisaani
You get downvotes, but even if China is an authoritarian oppressive regime, they are not going around starting wars and threatening their allies, changing directions daily.
srean
I am not Chinese. In fact we feel threatened by China.
However, if China does come to occupy a majorly influential seat at the table it will not be the for the first time. The last time it did, it did not impose it's will beyond its boundaries.
It is to be seen whether that repeats.
hmm37
Generally, historically it didn't because of what happened during the Sui Dynasty, which was short lived. The lessons from that period is still fairly engrained in the mindsets of Chinese people.
libertine
Careful what you wish for, their History revisionism is remarkable and soon you'd find a narrative preaching that Western culture was all made up (in part by the usual suspects), not even the Holocaust will survive - just follow some social media trends and you'll see what's already happening.
srean
> not even the Holocaust will survive
Which one ?
libertine
I didn't understand the question, can you expand on it?
My interpretation is that you're asking "which Holocaust won't survive historical revisionism", and there are two options (both are red flags):
- you're deliberately trying to dilute the designation of Holocaust, by stating there are other "holocausts", by which you're probably referring to other genocides - when in reality the Holocaust is the name given to the genocide at the hands of Nazis; it's the same has asking "which Holodomor?" in the context of my statement.
- you're implying the Holocaust didn't exist, as if there was a list of "many holocausts", some historically true, others historically false;
srean
I am questioning the idea that there is one "the holocaust". I understand that is not a very popular notion at some places. (As I anticipated, here comes the downvotes)
Being at the other end of colonialism, we are aware of many holocausts and acknowledge them if not equally we don't identify any one as 'the holocaust'.
Don't get me wrong, I suspect our values mostly agree.
I literally have a 3ft by 3ft Anne Frank's photograph as a poster in my bedroom as a reminder. Lest we forget.
I wrote the code myself to enlarge and distribute, with minimal pixelation, a small photograph of her at her desk. I printed it out split over multiple letter sized sheets. I did not have access to a wide form factor printer then. I still remember figuring out the libpgm libppm libraries from source. Assembled and glued the jigsaw puzzle and framed the result. There are some millimetric misalignments due to printer roller slips.
This was from many decades ago, when I was in college. It is still there on my bedroom wall.
libertine
Ok, thank you for clarifying because I thought you were coming from a different place.
Well I disagree.
I don't think the Holocaust took away the word "holocaust" and stripped it off from it's meaning, and from being able to be used to describe other events. I also don't think that was the intent behind the choice.
So much so that I've capitalized the Holocaust.
If it's the right choice or not to name it, I trust the institutions that studied this event.
I also don't think it takes away from the crimes against humanity and genocide of other cultures, some from colonialism, others from racial and ethnic hate.
There's still genocide and colonialism happening to this day, for example at the hands of Russia we have the current genocide in Ukraine and attempt to colonize it. Or what's happening in Gaza.
Maybe it's a cultural difference, but the word "genocide" to describe these crimes strikes me as a very loaded and meaningful word, and accurate word - the Holocaust was a genocide, it carries everything that the Holocaust, Holodomor, native American, Chechens, Armenian genocide, and many other cultures suffered.
Also genocide not only has a definition as a word, but also has a specific legal definition.
While holocaust has its own definition which I don't think it applies to all genocides and crimes against humanity.
srean
Perhaps a Hebrew word would have been the most appropriate in this case. Holocaust is an English word and it is not a proper noun. In any case it's too late to change anything.
Upvoted because I think your comment was downvoted out of emotions this topic triggers.
rozap
This thread doesn't appear on the homepage, it is only on /active
So uh, threads with wrongspeak in them are still hidden.
mattmaroon
I feel like it's ruining HN. The internet did not lack places to talk politics. The comments threads are a solid 20% anti-semitic dog whistles now.
maybewhenthesun
Maybe it's because stuff gets flagged and deleted. But I haven't really seen it? Unless you equalize 'critical of Israel' with 'antisemitic dogwhistle' maybe.
mattmaroon
I don’t.
philipallstar
> that's why you don't elect senile old guys to positions of power.
Anyone of principle would have been saying this before 2025, and far louder.
jacquesm
Note that this is from a country that wouldn't exist if not for the allied countries and that the US has somehow managed to all but erase that reputation. We recognize our debt, we also recognize that this is to a country that no longer exists in a meaningful way. All we have now is multiple variations of the mob.
mcv
The way you pay off that debt is not to the original liberator now turned oppressor, but by extending similar help to countries that are now in a similar bind as we were then. Like Ukraine. I really think we are morally obligated to liberate and help Ukraine.
Our debt to the US has long been paid off. It was paid off when we submitted to their economic world order, when we bought their goods and their entertainment, when we bought their software and let our own software industry dwindle, and finally when we went to war on their side on their questionable military adventures.
We owe the US nothing. I will still help them when they actually want it, but not like this.
jacquesm
> I really think we are morally obligated to liberate and help Ukraine.
I am doing what I can and then some, and to be complete I should mention I am aware of multiple other HN'ers doing their bit too.
gib444
> Our debt to the US has long been paid off. It was paid off when we submitted to their economic world order, when we bought their goods and their entertainment, when we bought their software and let our own software industry dwindle, and finally when we went to war on their side on their questionable military adventures.
> We owe the US nothing.
Hear hear. Well said
benterix
> when we went to war on their side on their questionable military adventures.
And then they ridiculed us for that.
And then asked for help in another war they just started.
jjtwixman
Yeah the US we knew is gone. I think about this sometimes when I am listening to American music from the 20th century, how much soft power they had, how great they made America sound either directly or indirectly. That America that we all looked up to and admired is gone. Pity.
lnsru
I am the guy who participated in Green Card lottery for few years willing to work in most advanced planet‘s semiconductor companies. I changed my mind recently. Speedboat ambushes, Greenland, public executions by ICE „officers“ and now Iran war. US I knew is definitely gone. That’s not the country sharing culture and values peacefully anymore: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amerika-Haus_(M%C3%BCnchen)
lores
To be fair, the US has never been peaceful, and it's the country that started the most wars since WW2. It's just that it used to be in our team, and human nature makes the aggressiveness of our team justified, or at least understandable, or at least ignorable, or at least not quite changing our deep feelings.
benterix
And, at least regarding the more recent ones in Iraq and Afghanistan, Europe witnessed the largest anti-war protests in history.
From that perspective, the current "emperor is naked" development might be positive in the sense that Europe can relatively soon have enough military power to be taken seriously, and at the same time become impossible to drag into an offensive war because none of its countries wants any war and we only went there because US pressured us into - but now that the USA has became unreliable, there's no reason to sacrifice oneself.
srean
I really wish hard that Europe gets it shit together.
They are adults now (rare commodity), but can still be pushed around, have their leash yanked.
They have to come to terms with their islands of racist tendencies.
My hope hasn't died yet
BigTTYGothGF
The only one of those that's really new is Greenland.
srean
Did that US really exist without a self imposed convenience of blindness ?
The brutality of the School of Americas might indicate otherwise.
Now rebranded as
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Hemisphere_Institute_f...
JeremyNT
The US was historically self-interested in empire building, with an excellent PR campaign in front of it, but... it also did useful and good stuff, both for its allies and for unrelated parties. USAID was a testament to this.
PR spin aside, it was largely a force for global stability (a few notable and disastrous military quagmires aside). "Free trade" isn't much of a philosophy to hang your hat on but it is an ideal of sorts, and it allowed a more connected world.
Now? Brazen corruption, kleptocracy, hostility towards allies...
It's certainly fair to say the US never lived up to the ideals it espoused, but now it's not even espousing those ideals and seems to actively be working against them.
srean
> USAID was a testament to this.
Absolutely. Credit needs to be given where it's due.
keybored
> PR spin aside,
Then the comment repeats the same PR spin.
oblio
The thing is, look at all major military alliances in history.
How many of them have a wealthy hegemon and wealthy minor partners?
It's <<extremely>> rare for that to happen and the US managed that for about 80 years.
Ignore all the propaganda and look at the results. Actions, not words.
In the modern era there are basically 0 wealthy Russian (similar story for the Soviets) or Chinese allies.
keybored
That’s a different topic. This is about how America acts towards the world, historically the so-called second and third world but now apparently to potentially everyone.
oblio
They're related, though. Most other hegemons sought absolute domination and a weakening (and impoverishment) of everyone else. The US was generally confident in its security and prosperity that it allowed others to become prosperous, too.
keybored
No they are not. Second and third world countries, not buddy first world countries. They don’t get to just do their own thing. Need I go on.
jacquesm
That's a tough question.
There has always been a meddlesome quality to the USA that the rest of the so called developed world turned a blind eye to. Along the lines of 'their bastards, but at least they're our bastards'. Of course that does not make it good, but the balance calculation worked out in favor of toeing the line and being careful not to get pulled out of joint too much. 9/11 changed all that and effectively Bin Laden forced the USA to lower its mask for long enough that the world could no longer ignore the bad sides of Uncle Sam. Even that would have not been enough to seal it, but Trump has managed to accomplish this in record time.
foobarian
I think that a big part of it is the transparency brought on by the vast communication bandwidth that came online starting after the dot com years. This stuff happened before just the same, but was concealed by media gatekeepers.
Bay of Pigs, regime changes all over including Iran, South Asia wars, Afghanistan (not the recent one, the one in the 80s), all the cold war stuff, etc etc.
srean
"Meddlesome" is certainly a light way of labeling torture training.
What I find more troubling is that Trump has popular support. It's just not Trump. The rot goes far deeper.
nxor2
It's the two party system. If liberals are okay with 'pro lgbt muslims' and say things like 'gang violence isn't a problem' then people no longer vote for liberals.
jacquesm
Fair enough.
TheOtherHobbes
Trump doesn't have popular support. Many of his 2024 voters are furious with him.
What Trump has is oligarch support - an unholy alliance of weird and cranky tech billionaires, old(ish) money, foreign money, media owners, and insane white supremacist patriarch-wannabes, some of whom operate through think tanks, some through megachurches.
The media are doing an excellent job of normalising this, not least - but not only - sanewashing Trump's obvious mental and physical decay.
srean
I want to believe this desperately, but from what I see (well, on YouTube videos, surveys and polls) it makes it very hard for me to do so. I still see massive endorsement from the not so well to do in the hinterlands.
I will however grant you that my sampling is no where close to uniform.
jacquesm
Unless all of the useful idiots in this thread are bots there is plenty of popular support. And it's not like they couldn't know better.
nxor2
Does JB Pritzker, who many people want to run in 2028, have oligarch support?
nxor2
You are seeing a side that always existed. Arguably in the past it was worse.
collingreen
As an American I feel this way too - there is a nostalgia and disappointed yearning for what was probably a propaganda pipe dream. I find myself disappointed and indignant at the long list of bullshit we are doing right now but I'm surprised by my own extreme sense of betrayal over how we don't even -want- to be "the good guys" anymore. I know the US has a long history of evil, dont get me wrong, but until recently (~covid) I thought most of us at least wanted to be a positive force in the world.
For me, Dan Carlin said it perfectly - I want the America from the promotional material.
imjonse
As a european I see what you mean, but that 'we all' in your sentence probably hasn't included those from Latin America, and large parts of Africa or Asia since long before Trump. The US pulled quite a few less than admirable tricks (to use an euphemism) on non-europeans during the 20th century.
srean
Exactly.
ekianjo
> how much soft power they had,
Soft power? Have you been sleeping during the 20th century? The formidable military power of the US comes from a constant state of war.
lambdasquirrel
I wouldn't be that cynical. From the interactions I've had with people from mainland China, particularly those in the educated classes, I can say for certain that it was soft power that drew them towards the West and the US in particular. China already beat back the West in the Korean War.
jjtwixman
Yes and they had a lot of soft power too.
keybored
Reminder that “Born in the USA” was not a “patriotic” song.
srean
Neither was "This land is your land"
Where is Guthrie's guitar ?
ALLTaken
> How about Venezuela, Cuba, Greenland, Canada, Iran and other countries the USA seized / controls or plans to?
Do Americans support this violent annexation and expansion? As a European I'm feeling threatened. Very few countries have Atom Bombs and can say NO to the USA.
jacquesm
Check this thread. Examples aplenty. Fortunately not even close to a majority, but yes, Americans like that exist. Europeans too by the way, but at least we have managed to mostly keep them out of power.
zabzonk
> Note that this is from a country that wouldn't exist if not for the allied countries
Which allied countries? And (I assume we are talking about the USA) why would it not exist?
fodmap
'Until early in 1778, the American Revolution was a civil war within the British Empire, but it became an international war as France (in 1778) and Spain (in 1779) joined the colonies against Britain. The Netherlands, which was engaged in its own war with Britain, provided financial support for the Americans as well as official recognition of their independence. The French navy in particular played a key role in bringing about the British surrender at Yorktown, which effectively ended the war.'
https://www.britannica.com/question/Which-countries-fought-o...
jacquesm
NL (where I live), BE, FR, ES, IT, a good chunk of Germany, Austria, possibly the UK.
We'd have been part of the German Reich or the USSR for sure.
I make a point of visiting the war graves every year, just to remind me not to take anything for granted.
disiplus
The post mentions, france, germany and nordic nations. France, Holand and nordic nations helped in the early stages of US.
drcongo
Lots of us were, but we were mostly shouted down as being hysterical for warning that fascism was coming.
jfengel
The people who said that are still saying it. Few minds appear to have really changed. Everyone just believes the same positions, harder.
drcongo
But the people who were saying that have been proved right, and those who shouted them down are now just putting their fingers in their ears.
genthree
I've seen actual people (mostly this year) who write stuff like, "sure, I can't deny that this is fascism now, but you've been calling lawlessness for the rich, concentration of power in the public and private sectors both, militarization of the police, the war on drugs, free speech zones, surveillance capitalism, voter suppression, pushes to roll back civil rights, and many of our wars, fascist, for decades! It's not my fault I didn't realize it was for-real this time."
They're so close to getting it. So very, frustratingly close.
At least one of them got published somewhere recently, might have been The Atlantic. You just wish you could smack them with a clue-stick.
chewbacha
Jake Tapper was on the case… against Biden.
dspillett
Aye. Though those making a big noise about “Sleepy Joe” didn't seem to have a problem electing Drooling Dementia Drone Don.
bregma
There is no evidence that dozy Donny the paedo president has dementia. It's just that one of his personality traits is "Arbitrary".
I can just imagine him saying, as he walks into the TV room in the Whitehouse, "I went to Glitterhoof's chamber and gave him a good tumble! It is good to be the king!"
dspillett
> There is no evidence […] Donny […] has dementia.
Oh, there is plenty of circumstantial evidence, but nothing that would constitute proof without access to the results of a detailed medical examination. Source: watching the decline of family members, and others in the care home my mother is currently in.
The increasing randomness and apparent lack of concentration, the “resting his eyes” in some meetings, the leaning, etc. A lot of the signs could be other things of course, like just plain ol' age related decline. But if the people close to him don't at least have concerns, would he have been subject to the cognitive tests he is so proud of “winning”?
jacquesm
You can bet that it is exactly what his defense will be if he's ever in court for all of his crimes. I can dream, no?
chewbacha
Totally! I intended to imply that hypocrisy :)
lo_zamoyski
Men of old age are indeed generally ill-suited for the presidency (as are the young; middle age best balances vigor with prudence and wisdom). The elderly function better as advisors where they may be consulted for their experience, or as amici curiae.
That being said, I don't think we can pin this particular expression of derangement on age, or at least not age alone. Trump has nothing to lose. He cannot run again. He doesn't care one whit about the common good or even tawdry partisan interests. This is his unhinged narcissism at work, abetted by a cultish, smarmy, obsequious coterie of yes-men that surrounds him.
outside1234
C'mon, everyone was saying this in 2024. It is just that people hate women and people of color more.
zeroCalories
And partisan hacks will say that a stubbed toe and terminal cancer are both bad.
srean
I think learned wisdom has institutional memory of a few generations only, unless mythologized.
Thus, some lessons need to be learned again and again. Some rights fought for again and again.
mizzao
"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants" ...
srean
Thanks. I did not know of this quote.
equilibrium
Europe and the rest of the world.
DivingForGold
The Anti-NATO pact.
DeusExMachina
The same should be said of the senile old women that damage Europe's reputation. That is, if they were actually elected and not appointed by bureaucrats.
xiphias2
Probably it's true from reputation standpoint.
Some people in Europe were not that happy when Biden told on public television that the Nord Stream pipeline will be blown up somehow, but luckily the media was good in not talking too much about it and later he listened to his own advisors better about how to communicate.
empath75
The only way the US can fix our reputation will be to try and imprison our current leadership after they are eventually removed from power. And in particular, the Trump family needs to have all of its assets seized.
srean
Nuremberg style judicial proceedings.
Not necessarily with similar judicial executions. Fair trials and fair and exemplary punitive measures would be enough for me.
I lost respect when Obama let Bush Jr administration off the hook. It essentially set the tone that it is ok to behave like that, that there would be no consequences.
red-iron-pine
nah the world needs to see there are consequences, and that the US can be trusted to follow through on them.
this kind of corruption and extortion, if in China, would see executions, e.g.
https://nordictimes.com/world/china-executes-senior-official...
srean
Death sentences worry me because they are irreversible and can be abused and they have been, see Pakistan, Bangladesh.
At most, old Singapore style corporeal punishment added to the mix perhaps.
srean
I am very eager to understand the down votes. Corporeal punishment too harsh to allow in exceptional cases or too mild for the warcrimes and other crimes in question ?
I will not judge the responses. Just curious.
iso1631
Bush wasn't great with Iraq, but it was hardly the first bad foreign policy move the US has made, and Obama wasn't squeaky clean.
Jan 6th 2021 was the turning point.
srean
Abu Ghraib, and deliberate violent destruction of a nation is a deeper offence than being "not great".
cbHXBY1D
We need a Nuremberg trial for the genocide in Gaza, the ethnic cleansing in Lebanon, the ethnic cleansing in the West Bank, and the illegal attacks on 7 countries in the Middle East.
We need to prosecute both the Biden and Trump administration, the Israeli leadership, and the leadership of most European countries. Never again is never again.
AnimalMuppet
If so, then also do the leadership of Hamas, Putin, etc. The US is not uniquely evil.
cbHXBY1D
What Israel and the USA is doing in the ME is uniquely evil. There are likely hundreds of thousands dead in Gaza. Children intentionally killed by snipers, famine as a tool of war, the displacement of millions of people.
mcv
I don't know why this is voted down, because it's absolutely true. The only way for the US to regain the lost trust is to finally clean house, hold its corrupt leadership accountable. Throw them in prison, seize their illegitimately gotten assets, reform that broken political system, and educate your people so this doesn't happen again.
Flip-per
It was very obvious that Trump is a highly corrupt and incompetent person at the second term election. His voters do not disappear when he is in prison, neither would the US reputation suddenly be way better. Who will these people elect next, why should anyone trust the US anymore?
Imprisonment would be a good starting point though. Together with education, regulation and reforming the political system. But this takes decades.
bregma
Following the precedents of imprisoning and persecuting the previous regime on "corruption" charges established by the likes of much of Latin America, Pakistan, the Phillipines, and other similar countries will definitely mark the USA as a second-rate tin-pot dictatorship.
Maybe the predecessor regime is corrupt. Maybe not. But the first thing the new regime always does is to arrange the show trials to establish their own bona fides.
jacquesm
They don't necessarily have to be show trials.
sschueller
And change the constitution to fix the issue of an administration just ignoring the law.
chneu
Lol we cant even change the electoral college. No way we amend the constitution.
ramon156
Lets also include the Rothschild and BlackRock then
i80and
The absolute lack of consequences Trump faced after his first go-around all but guaranteed the crime spree we're now seeing, and will probably go down in history as the primary blunder of Biden's DOJ.
mcv
The precedent was already set by Nixon's pardon. The signal was clear: presidents suffer no consequences for their crimes.
nxm
Imprison based on what and seize assets based on what exactly? You not liking the administration is not a valid reason for asset seizure
JoshTriplett
Open bribery and corruption (both the direct pay-for-play and the indirect via insider information), openly violating the law and ignoring the courts, betrayal of public trust, mishandling of confidential information, war crimes, take your pick of the many different choices.
And the asset seizure would be for the proceeds of all the open bribery, at the very least.
niels8472
Sadly, these are all fairly "safe" things for a US president to do. Either because there's no law against it and if there is he can just pardon himself and his partners in crime. I know a presidential self-pardon is controversial but realistically Trump will be dead before that legal question is settled.
mcv
There should be a law against it. It's blatant corruption. The fact that lawmakers and supreme judges have the power to make their own corruption legal, doesn't make it any less corrupt. The Nazis made their crimes legal, and they were tried anyway.
Jensson
> The Nazis made their crimes legal, and they were tried anyway.
They were tried after being beaten militarily, who will lead the rebellion against Trump and the American military backing him? The military doesn't dislike what he does and those are the main ones that could oppose him.
mcv
Plenty of soldiers and veterans hate what he does. The current leadership doesn't because Trump purged them and promoted loyalists.
But ultimately, it's the people of the US who have to do this. You're absolutely right that nobody else is going to do it for them.
myvoiceismypass
Trump has immunity for anything that is an 'official act', thanks to the SCOTUS ruling.
InsideOutSanta
It's peculiar to me that after Nixon, Americans just don't hold their presidents accountable for their illegal actions anymore. It seems like they've just given up; they no longer behave as if the president was the head of the executive branch. They behave as if he was a king with absolute power.
This is such a long-standing problem that people no longer even notice the crimes happening right in front of their eyes. It's just become normal.
chneu
Americans turned the presidency into a pop figure.
Our president should be boring and relatively quiet. Congress should be our focus, not the president.
_bohm
Starting illegal wars and engaging in extreme corruption, for starters.
terminalshort
The war isn't illegal. The president has that power. I don't like it either, but since the Korean War this is simply a statement of fact.
vrganj
The president of the US does not have the power to start a war without getting it approved by the UN security council. You're arguing internal implementation details, but the legality is not determined by your courts.
terminalshort
I care less about what the UN says is legal than I do the local traffic cop
vrganj
International law is not about what you care about. It just is. If you break it by starting a war, then it is an illegal war, ad definitionem.
jacquesm
> The war isn't illegal.
You're going to have to specify a framework if you want to make statements about legality.
terminalshort
US law, which is the only relevant law to discuss the actions of the president of the US.
vrganj
The US constitution specifically calls out treaties signed by the US (such as the UN Charta) as supreme law of the land. Article VI, the "Supremacy Clause".
Thus, US law, too, defers to international law.
Please at least read the legal framework you're so confidently misdescribing.
terminalshort
It isn't obeyed or enforced and, therefore, is not the law. I won't read it as there is no point in doing so because it is not the law.
vrganj
By that incredibly circular definition, laws don't exist. All it takes is ignoring them and then they disappear!
That's obviously not how things work. If you don't obey the law, you are a criminal. That's the whole point of laws.
hackinthebochs
A law defines the nature of collective action in response to certain violations. Words on paper themselves are impotent. If there is no potential for enforcement, i.e. there is no counterfactual state of collective action, there is no law.
terminalshort
That's exactly correct. Laws are not a physical entity and therefore their existence is predicated entirely on collective agreement.
vrganj
So if you and I agree laws don't matter, we can go rob a bank together and it's all good?
terminalshort
If you and I, the president, congress, and the judiciary agree, then yes, and that's kind of the situation regarding the laws around starting a war.
vrganj
Why only these local institutions? What makes those special?
terminalshort
They have the power to enforce laws
vrganj
So do the mall cop and the ICC. Why does this arbitrary level in-between matter?
jacquesm
I already had you labeled as a climate denier and a troll, now I'll have to add one more item.
terminalshort
Add what you like. I can't possibly take anyone who uses the term "climate denier" seriously.
bdangubic
Under which "law" is President allowed legally to start a War - citation needed :)
terminalshort
It's been the established president since the Korean War when the US began ignoring the constitutional provision that gave congress the power to declare war. Additional examples are the Vietnam War, Serbia, Afghanistan, Iraq I & II, the Libyan regime change, and the current Iran conflict, and there are plenty more. The written law still states that the president does not have this power, but the actual unwritten law has been that he can. And that is the only law that matters.
bdangubic
> US began ignoring the constitutional provision
First, not US but Presidency and second, breaking Constitution is not very legal last time I checked but I could be wrong... /s
terminalshort
Yes, the US and not just the presidency. If it was just the presidency then he would have been impeached by congress for usurping their constitutional authority.
bdangubic
he was impeached (more than once cause he's a special kind of guy) and will be impeached again in 2029 :)
again, you are saying something is legal that is both clearly illegal and unconstitutional. you can say "it is illegal but we have no way to enforce since our congress and senate do not work for the people but are simple extension of a given political party in power" but you can't say that it is legal
_bohm
The war is certainly illegal. Our systems are just so atrophied at this point that we treat congressional approval as a formality. This is a choice we make over and over again that we need to stop making.
AnimalMuppet
Not even a formality. A formality means that he would get it from Congress, without Congress judging the war on merit. We don't even have that.
_bohm
Speaking not just of this administration/war but also of past ones
FpUser
>"The war isn't illegal. The president has that power"
Well you can say the same about Putin then. All nice and dandy
terminalshort
Of course I can. He even uses the same trick of not calling it a "war"
Detrytus
US constitution says that starting a war must be authorized by Congress, president has no authority to do it on his own.
The problem is: over time the US grew so powerful, that the definition of "war" became blurry. "No, we are not at war, our soldiers are just dropping bombs on Iran for fun and profit".
EDIT: Another problem, of course, is that current member of Congress have no balls to stand up to Trump and reclaim their constitutional powers.
terminalshort
Congress made its mistake a long time ago. Power is very difficult to reclaim once it has been relinquished. And it didn't even take a Caesar crossing the Rubicon in our case.
ivan_gammel
There’s probably a huge case for corruption. And of course he can be declared national threat and foreign agent. I mean, just look what Putin does within his constitutional limits. When there’s choice between the bad (block Trump and allies) and the worse (his ideas stay alive even if he is no longer in business), you have to choose something and then reflect not on what you just did, but how did you get there in the first place. Legal matters are secondary, as long as majority is convinced that justice is served.
terminalshort
> There’s probably a huge case for corruption
Yes
> And of course he can be declared national threat and foreign agent
There is no evidence of that he is a foreign agent and there is no legal procedure (nor should there be) for declaring someone a "national threat."
> When there’s choice between the bad (block Trump and allies) and the worse (his ideas stay alive even if he is no longer in business)
This is inevitable and any government that tries to act against holders of an idea is a tyranny
> Legal matters are secondary, as long as majority is convinced that justice is served.
That is mob justice
chneu
There is absolutely evidence he is a foreign agent. He is likely too stupid to realize it, tho. Israel and Russia both have paper trails on him going back decades. People around trump and his businesses have deep ties to russia and that isnt private. His own sons have bragged about being close to russia. Oh, plus the eastern european wife.
This isnt a conspiracy. Epstein was an israeli agent and him and trump were bffs for years. Trumps family is also heavily in debt to Russia and theyve been very open about it.
You seem to be a weird trump supporter who is mildly trolling by saying false stuff like the iran war isnt illegal when it very clearly is. Your comments are either very ignorant or youre trolling. The only folks still defending trump are p silly folks. The evidence is overwhelming at this point.
terminalshort
You can't be an agent without realizing it and you don't get to call me silly when you list having a foreign wife as evidence that someone is a foreign agent.
HighGoldstein
If you hold the belief that the Trump administration (and Trump himself personally) have not commited a rather long list of crimes openly, you are either willfully ignorant or complicit. I do not care if this statement irritates you in any way. After a certain point, we are firmly in the realm of personal responsibility.
goodpoint
Treason.
fzeroracer
Well, his administration has ignored the constitutional rights of this country multiple times at best, and at worst outright violated them resulting in killing American citizens with zero justice or recourse. There's a million different alternative reasons people could come up with, but we can just go with the classic 'treason' and line them up accordingly.
megous
Who cares? Just stop enforcing laws on little guys completely, if you can't even think of what to put any of the US admin members on trial for. It's nuts that there are long complicated trials and TV series and movies about like a single person murdering one other person, yet people ask what we could even try nutjobs that murder and kill by thousands and/or support mass crimes all around the world for. Let alone all the financial crimes that are being perpetarated for sure, with all the crypto scams and insider trading on the insane volatility they themselves create and know in advance about.
aaomidi
Epstein files for one
FpUser
>"You not liking the administration is not a valid reason for asset seizure"
Civil forfeiture would do just fine. Such a wonderful tool. /s
roenxi
On what principle would the Trump family's assets be seized? Just to pre-empt the idea that he corruptly became rich in office, that is actually fairly usual for US presidents to become suspiciously wealthy after their time in office [0, 1]. That's never been a reason to start talking about asset seizure.
Although given the current lunatic escapade it does seem like a good moment to remove him from office. There must be someone somewhere in the administration that thinks another forever war is a bad idea, even if they aren't worried about WWIII. I've never seen a presidency implode so quickly - this has to be the most illegal, unconstitutional, unmandated, immoral and ill-advised war of choice the US has launched in decades.
[0] https://www.newsweek.com/chart-shows-net-worth-us-presidents...
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_presidents_of_the_Unit...
soco
I don't know about the rest, but Clinton when he left the presidency was actually in (legal) debt. He raised to the actual 100+ million way after his presidency, so Newsweek is presenting it wrong.
kingleopold
This is why two party system is really great. because they both don't try to put old guts into power in last decade. /s
Younger people are not fit to power in 300M country with lots of smart and rich people. Instead these smart and rich people back these old guys because when it comes to election they use half of their brain or sometimes not use their brain at all. One of these rich one was recently bl00mberg and he tried to get elected at age of 500 year old but couldn't do it.
Vaslo
As an American, can’t say I’m too worried about Canadian opinion of us, let alone Denmark. Most Americans don’t know the name of a single politician in Denmark.
jacquesm
> As an American, can’t say I’m too worried about Canadian opinion of us, let alone Denmark.
Maybe you should be. You might need them one day.
> Most Americans don’t know the name of a single politician in Denmark.
Ignorance is nothing to be proud of.
sph
As a non-American, it’s attitudes like yours, quite widespread actually, that make me rejoice this moment in history where the US is taken down a peg or two.
It’s not gonna be nice and fun for anybody, but it’s time to learn that you guys are just one country in a whole world, and you need friends to thrive. The ignorant bully attitude has run its course.
chneu
Most Americans also dont know that most of the world is laughing at us. Americans are oblivious by choice cuz we pretty eagerly consume misinformation, always have. We love our alternate histories that make us feel superior.
fergie
Thats probably what this was all about then (use Google Translate) -> https://www.nrk.no/norge/gradert-sak-behandlet-i-ekstraordin...
mailund
I don't think it's very likely that the emergency meeting in the Norwegian government yesterday was called because of the security situation in Denmark 3 months ago. Not unlikely that it is related to US-Europe/NATO relations ofc (although there are plenty of other things that would cause an emergency meeting as well, king has been hospitalized plenty of times lately, wife of the next in line is deep in drama due to both being revealed to have been close with Epstein and having a son that is currently in court for some pretty serious allegations, and sharing a border Russia that is currently waging hybrid warfare across europe)
Just for some additional context, these meetings are held every week, but this caused headlines because there was held an additional one outside of the normal schedule due to some classified time sensitive case, i.e. not something that happened in another country many months ago.
jeroenhd
Every week, the USA finds a new way to lose credibility as a serious nation. If it weren't for the observably fair elections, you'd almost think America was being taken over from the inside by foreign infiltrators.
It's ludicrous to see the USA threaten to invade a well-connected European country, invade a South American country weeks after, and then now, three months later, beg its European allies to help with the invasion of Iran because ostensibly American leadership couldn't foresee that war in the Middle East might impact fuel prices. I still think it's a ruse to distract the European military by sending the navy to the Middle East but who knows with the current idiot in charge.
I hope the country will recover some normalcy in post-Trump decade(s), but I fear we're witnessing the slow collapse of a world power. Regardless of anyone's feelings on grip the East/West dichotomy has had over the world in the past 90 or so years, such shifts in world power rarely go calmly and peacefully.
jacquesm
> If it weren't for the observably fair elections
Hehe, that's a good one.
crispyambulance
There's a difference between "posturing" for show and actually "preparing for war".
They're wise to the fact that "the Stable Genius" isn't going to try anything violent with Denmark/Greenland, but they still want to prevent him thinking about just stealing territory "peacefully."
jnwatson
Ukraine thought Russia was just posturing and look where it got them.
jacquesm
That's not true. Ukraine was well prepared, they had spent since 2014 on this because they knew the day would come. That's the only reason the country still exists.
schnitzelstoat
Yeah, tbh I was in the camp of 'nothing ever happens' too and I was shocked when they actually invaded.
__bjoernd
I'm pretty sure Ukraine were taking the Russian preparations as what they were. And they had plans to counter them. Proven by the fact that Putin's 3 days war has now surpassed the Russian involvement in WWII.
jacquesm
Trust me, Denmark wasn't posturing.
The assumption was - and still is - that the USA wasn't posturing either.
We (and I realize I obviously don't speak for all of Europe but I have my finger on the pulse in many places here) are also not assuming that when Trump is gone the USA will go back to normal.
NikolaNovak
USA cannot go back to normal. The internal damage / changeover is massive - everybody disagreing with current administration policies has either been removed or departed - whether in health or defense (I'm sorry, War) or science or education or other departments.
Insanity
And even if they did go back to normal for the next presidency - why trust it? Their entire political system is set up so that the winds can change entirely every 4 years.
If the people voted Trump in to office twice, it’ll happen again. It’s a divided country where propaganda has a strong hold.
dspillett
Useful stability can be achieved again, either “back to normal” as mentioned elsewhere in this thread or “forward to something different but better (and not crap like it is now)”, but it is going to take at least a few terms, maybe several. Even if it did happen more quickly, it will take that long for those of us on the outside to trust it, reputational damage like this can not be undone quickly.
easytiger
This is absurd in the extreme. In actual war there is absolutely no possibility of success for Denmark, even with the help of allies. Failure to capitulate results in nothing but death and destruction with no hope of strategic gain to begin with. What you are likely experiencing is a modern belief that screaming and shouting will bring popular diplomatic pressure to bear on the opponent, thus arresting their actions.
There was similar tough talk in 1940 and Denmark lasted 6 hours. Without capitulation the country would have been razed. But surrender saw it able to keep some level of control and thus extricate the Jewish population in relative safety which would not otherwise have been possible.
jacquesm
No, what is absurd is the number of people that can't wait to go back to a world with endless wars of conquest. We already know what that looks like.
If you have never seen war up close then I am happy to forgive you, but trust me, in 'actual war' there is no possibility of success for anybody, there are only degrees of damage and degrees of grief and illusions to the contrary are focused on the few people that manage to get out of war with the profits in their pockets. Everybody else suffers.
easytiger
I'm sorry but you are not interacting with the rational suppositions of posters in various threads here. No one is arguing for a war except you. People are explaining to you the strategic reality and you are espousing rhetoric that I honestly can't decipher.
1. Denmark cannot win militarily
2. You are suggesting Denmark would not capitulate and indeed enter into a state of war
What do you think happens in this situation?
mcv
Denmark cannot win militarily, but can the US? What war has the US won recently? They're great at destroying things, but not at winning. There's nothing for them to win in Greenland. It's an indefensible chunk of ice. They can kill the people who live there, but what would that gain them?
Meanwhile they stand to lose a lot. There have been many NATO exercises that showed US aircraft carriers to be vulnerable to European submarines, so they can't park their fleet too close. They have to fly between NATO members Canada and Iceland. How would soldiers feel if they're forced to fight all their former allies? How would the US citizens feel?
vrganj
France has a nuclear deterrent it has stated has "a European dimension".
Don't go around poking hornets nests if you don't want to get stung.
easytiger
You think there's a game theory scenario in the book where France launches a nuclear weapon at mainland USA over a land dispute between them and Denmark?
vrganj
France has the only first strike nuclear doctrine in the world, with the specific policy of shooting nukes to "protect it's vital interests", a term Macron has recently clarified "has a European dimension".
Make of that what you will, but if I were you I wouldn't go around poking the hornets nest that has an explicit sign "these hornets will sting" attached to it.
easytiger
How is Greenland a vital interest to France? Especially in the context of initiating a nuclear war with a friendly nation?
vrganj
Europe is of vital interest to France, as is not letting American imperialists touch it.
A nation that invades us is not friendly.
Jensson
NATO dictates that an attack on any NATO nation should be seen as an attack on every nation, so yeah.
jacquesm
Would you like to find out?
See, this is what is so dumb about this: you are treating this as if it is some kind of board game. It is exactly why the US gets into these messes over and over again, the incredible overconfidence that because they somehow have battlefield superiority they can do whatever they want. You are exemplifying precisely where the rot in the USA is located.
jacquesm
> I'm sorry but you are not interacting with the rational suppositions of posters in various threads here.
The one thing that is common about 'rationalists' is that they share a lot of the viewpoints with other ra*ists and that's not the world many of us want to live in.
Sure, you can take it. But can you afford to take it?
The answer is most likely you can't. And so far every attempt to show John Mearheimers superiority has been the equivalent of 'just relax and enjoy it'.
Guess what? We won't. Alliances are made voluntarily, not through conquest.
easytiger
You have ignored any questions put to you in this thread. You are speaking in some kind of fervour I can't decrypt.
dspillett
> What you are likely experiencing is a modern belief that screaming and shouting will bring […]
I wonder which particular set of states that are united might have given people the impression that might work in recent times!
> There was similar tough talk in 1940
If your comparison there is intentional, we agree which side of history the current US regime is on. Unless it gets to write that history, of course.
bell-cot
> In an actual war there is absolutely no possibility of success for Denmark, even with the help of allies.
Assume that Denmark's strategic success criteria is not "win up-front battles with US armed forces". And that they understand the difference between "lost battle(s), got occupied" and "nation permanently removed from existence".
Also, US service members are not slavishly loyal Clone Troopers. That I've heard, the greatest fear of most senior American officers is that the CIC will issue orders sufficiently offensive to the lower ranks that they will be disobeyed at scale.
jacquesm
Fortunately enough Americans remember their roots. For now.
easytiger
So your supposition is strategic national defense game theory should be based on hoping for a mutiny from the opposite side? Is rationality dead? What are you lot talking about.
bell-cot
> So your supposition is...
No. But Denmark lacks the armored divisions, bomber wings, carrier task forces, etc. to pursue a "we've got a bigger stick" strategy. And undermining your opponent's will to fight was routine back when the Old Testament was written.
> Is rationality dead?
By a couple accounts I've heard, desperate senior US officers used the pre-February situation with Iran to lure Trump's attention away from Denmark/Greenland.
(If you want rational behavior from the current POTUS - um, yes, my deepest condolences, but...)
KaiserPro
I mean the same was said about Ukraine.
What are we supposed to do, just fucking give up?
jacquesm
Ukraine is rapidly becoming one of the hardest countries in Europe. They fought a former superpower to a stand still and are innovating on weapons systems and integration at a pace that makes LM's skunkworks look like sloths. And on a budget that is insane.
Just like Ukraine, Europe does not want war, doesn't want to see their kids die for the umpteenth time so that fat cats can line their pockets. But if push comes to shove we would be absolutely capable of doing it, either outright or by slower guerilla like means. Bombing shit is easy. Taking over territory and holding it is much, much harder, infinitely more so if the population holds a grudge. Note that the Dutch resistance killed more German soldiers than the army ever did. Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, lots of countries in Europe. Examples aplenty.
AnimalMuppet
Keep going. Denmark capitulated and suffered relatively little damage. Austria capitulated, and what happened to them? Czechoslovakia capitulated, and how did that work out for them? Sure, neither suffered losses in the initial invasion. Their people still got to die fighting for Hitler, though. They still got bombed and bombed and bombed and then invaded by the allies, though.
And, Norway did fight back, and lost. How much worse did that work out for Norway than for Denmark?
Trasmatta
This is the type of thinking that convinced people that Trump would never be stupid enough to start a full on war with Iran. And yet here we are.
wewewedxfgdf
What else would they be doing, watching TV?
seydor
You mean, they are not anymore?
Havoc
The goldfish prez seems to have moved on to Cuba now
hermannj314
France offering support to little ententes to prevent facist revanchism. Seems familiar.
World tension continues to increase.
SideburnsOfDoom
Si vis pacem, para bellum.
jeffbee
They'd win it, too. An alliance of Denmark, Canada, Mexico, and Iran should sack Florida and plow all the golf courses under.
apexalpha
We all were... they wouldn't speak it but reading between the lines you could see the leaders were very nervous Trump would unilaterally decide to just 'try it' like in Venezuela and now Iran.
Mr_Eri_Atlov
You would not trust a bridge that reeked of wood rot.
Why should they trust a country that smells of corruption and lashes out at random like a shambling corpse?
Protostome
Fake report, ignore, move on
AnimalMuppet
Bare assertions don't count for much. What is your evidence that it is fake?
0xcb0
The United States are not longer an allie nor a friend to to EU. Under Trump, they have turned into a Terror regiem, ignoring international law, human rights. They have to be international isolated together with Israel. They are the enemy of a free and civilized world!
Ekaros
I think that started with Bush and continued with Obama. Who with his financial donators still walk free after committing mass murders.
Trasmatta
The US president wanted to start a full on war with Europe over Greenland of all places. And he still might. And some people will still claim I just have "TDS".
breakyerself
TDS is an apt description for anyone supporting this senile, psychopath.
Trasmatta
Yes. The only TDS is the one exhibited by those that are so brainwashed by his cult of personality.
burnt-resistor
Other side-effects of Trump's unwise, anti-strategic hastening the downfall of hard and soft American power and respect for ego and personal gain: alternative defense pacts and nuclear proliferation. Kratocracies only respect North Korea because it has the bomb and an absurd amount of hardware pointed right at Seoul so Ukraine, Cuba, Taiwan, and Iran best get their underground tests on pronto if each desires survival.
jacquesm
I wonder how many countries have - reluctantly - decided to pursue nuclear bombs after many years of holding off the boat.
The next decade will be a complete disaster for non-proliferation.
keybored
Breaking: country that a head of state threatened to invade was preparing for invasion.
> The Danish public broadcaster DR reports that officials in Denmark, France and Germany say that Donald Trump's threats to seize Greenland were taken so seriously that wide-ranging preparations were made to forcibly resist a US invasion of the Danish island.
Breaking (2): small country was preparing to forcibly resist (?) an invasion. That was threatened.
kelipso
Lol there is posturing and there is whatever this is.
the_af
I have no doubts they took US threats seriously; anyone who doesn't these days is a fool (of course, this doesn't mean Trump will do anything he claims, but he's dangerous enough you can never tell for sure).
What I find harder to believe is that they were preparing for "full-scale war". That makes no sense. Using F-35, American made and very likely with kill switches or otherwise susceptible to American interference? And where would they get their American made parts and supplies? And Denmark stands no chance at all against US military might, with or without assistance from France.
I'm sure they were prepared to engage in token resistance, and also more serious diplomatic and economic struggles, but "full-scale war" is hyperbole.
ZeroGravitas
The billionaire oligarch who put that (stupid) idea in Trump's head is still out there. His son-in-law will probably be the next head of the Federal Reserve.
If the oligarchs don't feel any pushback they'll continue to wreck the US and Europe.
dismalaf
Help me understand the levels of European brainrot it takes to get here...
Europe claims: they don't want Russia to conquer Europe.
European actions: refuse to defend themselves, buy Russian gas, give crumbs to the Ukrainians and get angry when the US actually starts dismantling the Russian Axis.
There's only 1 reason for the US to want Greenland. Take your globe, draw a straight line from Washington DC to Russia and observe what's perfectly halfway in between. And consider how ballistic missiles fly...
In the end of this affair Denmark appears to have agreed to take defense seriously. Why weren't they already?
Now, what is the end game for Europe here? They've already given up their manufacturing to China, given up their energy independence, given up their defense independence to the USA...
China and Russia have already stated their desire to destroy the west, and Russia has been using Iran as a main tool to accomplish this. Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis, agitators abroad (look how many crowds came out for Quds day in the west), etc...
Trump has finally decided to destroy Russia's axis and what, the west is upset? Europe honestly deserves their own destruction at this point, not sure there's ever been more self-destructive behaviour by any world powers in history before... And why, because the US administration says mean (but true) things?
Is the west so far gone that people would actually prefer Russian fascism or Chinese communism to the status quo? It's unbelievable that, with WW3 on the horizon, most of the west is siding with those who want to destroy us... Then again, most of Europe did collaborate with Hitler, even if they pretended they didn't in the end.
beanjuiceII
lol Denmark yea i'm sure no one was concerned
emmelaich
The idea that the US would attempt to take Greenland by force is utterly ludicrous.
vrganj
So is the idea that the US would start bombing Iran without a plan, goal, or any thought to the consequences, yet here we are...
Jensson
There is a difference, basically the entire world hates the Iranian regime and wants them gone, USA bombing the Iranian regime wont get that much pushback from the world even if the war was started in an underhanded way.
It is entirely different if USA starts attacking NATO allies such as Denmark which isn't a threat or problem to anyone, that is not something anybody would expect and it would ruin American diplomacy completely.
dcpit
Does US care about diplomacy anymore ?
Jensson
Yeah, otherwise why would Trump only attack hated countries? He would have already started bombing Canada since its the closest.
bell-cot
Unfortunately, that adjective applies to many things which the US has attempted, often "successfully", recently.
1over137
Lots of what Trump says is utterly ludicrous. But he does lots of what he says (though not everything), so the rest of the world is right to prepare.
krona
I live very close to one of the USAF's largest European airbases.
While Trump was trolling European leaders about their security posture (by threatening to relieve them of sovereign territory which the US already has extensive access to) the USAF was already moving assets in the opposite direction to the middle east (this was mid-january).
It's fairly easy to work out what's happening if you ignore the orange man and listen to what serious people are saying, what they've briefed on, how they contradict one another, and where the assets are moving.
Obviously European leaders have to pretend to take the orange man seriously, but the reaction in the media was bordering on hysterical.
techterrier
> It's fairly easy to work out what's happening
off you go then, what is it?
krona
Dunno, start by reading the national security strategy and count the number of times it mentions the words "Arctic" or "Greenland"? (hint: it's zero).
Then maybe look at the Nato chain of command and who was interviewed and what was said in mid-Jan?
thesquandered
Please lessen the snark and dictate what you're saying here. Sources to published docs would be even more preferable.
krona
I'm not going to serialize the past 60 years of US foreign policy in to a pithy post on a meaningless internet forum. For free.
techterrier
aw man, I thought I would finally find out whats really going on :(
tolerance
Well, thanks anyway.
enoint
Amazing how outdated that document became. We all knew it was written for an audience of one, but still such transparent Emperors New Clothes vibe.
techterrier
im still waiting to find out whats happening...
enoint
This is exactly right. The liar who lies to control the narrative is lying again. The chance he’s lying is high but as adults the (likelihood * hazard) of an invasion is worth preparing for.
The narrative he wanted to control was about Epstein. Denmark could have simultaneously prepared for that, but it wouldn’t be on OSInt Twitter.
InsideOutSanta
The problem is that his "lies" and "jokes" sometimes suddenly turned out to be not lies and jokes.
enoint
More precisely, propaganda is always fake. After verification it’s possibly true, but it still began fake. Trump could try supporting his utterances with fact, but he doesn’t.
It’s rational to prepare for his propaganda to sometimes accidentally turn out true. Hence this relatively modest response. But the narrative most reliably supported by fact is that Trump hasn’t kept his story straight about Epstein.
simonsarris
Where was this kind of movement when Russia invaded Europe in 2022?
I think Europe's inaction in 2022 will go down as the greatest moral failing of the century. You can't say "they didn't act because Russia is a nuclear power" - the same is true here.
jacquesm
Not everybody can be painted with the 'inaction' label, there are plenty of people that are doing a lot of good work.
FpUser
>"Where was this kind of movement when Russia invaded Europe in 2022"
Russia has invaded Ukraine. There is no political entity called Europe. And if you're talking geography than good chunk of Russia is in Europe.
tim333
I think most people in Europe figured the US would oppose Russia invading as that's mostly what has happened for decades. In the Denmark case I don't know if they can count on the US opposing the US invading.
It wasn't until that thing with Trump and Vance shouting at Zelensky in the oval office that Europe figured the US had kind of flipped and it was on us to support Ukraine.
> As a source puts it, the French said: "Would you like more soldiers? You could have them. Would you like more naval support? You could have that. Would you like more air support? You could have that too."
Thank God for the French. I long thought their strong Gaullist stance on sovereignty was a bit silly in today's world, but turns out they were right along.
Europe can't trust any outside powers. Any external dependency can and will be used against us. We used to be wide-eyed believers in international corporation and global alliances, but those are, as it turns out, always a risk and a liability.
I sure as hell am glad the French kept being stubborn enough to build most capabilities in-house, so now we have our own nuclear deterrent, aircraft carrier and fighter jet programs. Imagine if we had gone all-in on American weapons tech! They'd have us, excuse my French, by the balls!