9 minutes ago, FourFans said:

...............abused the good graces of the USA and acted as though access to our markets and access to use of our military force is their own personal birthright. ...............though Germany is on that path finally........................... Saying we're stealing our sidekick's lunch money is like saying a battered wife who finally defends herself is committed assault (I imagine something like Ronda Rousey being a battered wife for years and then finally realizing, wait, I can kill this guy...). On a technical level it might technically be true. On the truth level it's not.

This is isn't bullying. This is the US finally standing up for itself.

"Keep the Russians out, the Americans in, and the Germans down" -First NATO Secretary General. It's funny, but true.

Access to our markets was part of the post WW2 deal (that America came up with). Just cause you don't like the deal in retrospect, doesn't mean the Euros were being abusive. Arrogant little shit heads, sure but that's different. Most importantly, it kept them from fighting each other.

Implicitly threatening to seize land through military force is finally defending ourselves? That's some interesting logic.

This isn’t about security, future strategy or 4D Chess. This is so Trump can imagine a future history book saying, “President Trump expanded the land mass of the US more than any previous president, making Trump, the best, the greatest, the yugest President in history.”

He doesn’t give two shits about you, me, the economy or our place in the world. This is him polishing his legacy, and probably his knob, while counting down the days remaining until the Republicans get crushed in the mid-terms.

5 hours ago, busdriver said:

That's some interesting logic.

I spent an extensive part of my past studying international relations. Rule 1: There is no such thing as international law. Rule 2: International relations is, by definition, countries screwing over other countries. No country has friends, just interests. That's a two way street and a lot Europe forgot that. Just because the USA has acted politely and almost philanthropically in past in no way means that should continue. Is it nice? Nope. "Nice" countries invariably end up as another's vassal. The Dutch guilder used to be the world's reserve currency before the British pound, now where is it? Dwell on that for a second.

We've been looking after everyone else's interests for a very long time and have ignored our own back yard at the same time. Not anymore apparently. Regardless how much anyone likes it, the facts are true: No one else will look after our hemisphere with US interests in mind if we don't. From a broader perspective, the USA is finally starting to act like every other country on the planet, and arguable still more benevolently that any other country would if they were given the power that the USA currently wields.

Jimmy Carr's comedy bit is rather insightful:
- Everyone is a Communist in their own house (I'll selflessly give to my family what I have to what they need)
- Socialist in their home community (we will collectively provide for those in our community that are in need)
- Capitalist in the international environment (he didn't earn it so screw that guy)

Several geopolitical analysts have been predicting the return of a neo-colonial world...and here we are. Don't have to like it to recognize what it is.

Edited 11 hours ago11 hr by FourFans

On 1/17/2026 at 12:51 PM, Clark Griswold said:

So I read this and it’s only 1 article in a Trump friendly paper but… it seems like Greenland needs some freedom, not necessarily kinetically delivered.

https://nypost.com/2026/01/16/world-news/greenlanders-speak-out-against-danish-rule-they-stole-our-future/

Should we force this issue?

A new arrangement with a new independent Greenland or no more NATO?

Your original post, before you edited it, came out pretty forcefully in support of the US continuing down this path with some statements that aren't supported by facts.

You mentioned Eminent Domain as a way for the United States to "acquire" Greenland. That's not a legally accepted way that nation states exchange territory. I'm no lawyer, but it took all of 10 seconds on Google to figure that out. It sure sounds better than annexation or invasion though, which is what this will be if Denmark and Greenland continue to tell us hard no and we press the issue.

You also mentioned this situation being our "Golan Heights" or it being comparable to that annexation. Israel captured the Golan Heights in war, then annexed it in 1981 from a country who had attacked it several times with intention of the destruction of the State of Israel. No such threat is currently present or even progged to be present from the territory of Greenland.

Why would we do this? Do you really believe your statement above that Greenland needs "freedom"?

The current administration has offered several very generic reasons for the US acquiring Greenland, depending on which way the wind is blowing that day. We've heard "we need it for security", to "Russia and China will take it if we don't", to "Golden Dome", to "they have lots of rare earth minerals", to "Arctic sea lanes are opening" to "I haven't gotten the Nobel Peace Prize" amongst others.

1. The 1951 Greenland Defense Agreement between the US and Denmark, already gives the US very wide latitude to establish bases and conduct military activities across Greenland. The administration has offered no (that I'm aware of) concrete unresolved security concerns with respect to Greenland. Agreement listed here: Avalon Project - Defense of Greenland: Agreement Between the United States and the Kingdom of Denmark, April 27, 1951

2. Neither Russia nor China is currently capable of projecting the hard power beyond near proximity to their respective borders that would be required to seize Greenland by force. China has made several attempts to invest and/or purchase various interests in Greenland. That effort was blocked during the first Trump administration in a collaborative effort with Denmark and so far China's attempt to build a Polar Silk Road has been a failure. Background here: Greenland, Rare Earths, and Arctic Security

3. Golden Dome. Currently a concept on PPT slides. No hard explanation has been given as to why Greenland would matter to this. Most of the concepts presented thus far have been space based. We already have Early Warning and Ballistic Missile/Bomber coverage from there, Alaska, Canada etc. And from point #1, if we wanted to build additional facilities, we already have an agreement in place to do so.

4. 0 Rare Earth minerals have been extracted from Greenland. 0. They do have two known large deposits, but the environment and lack of infrastructure have been major impediments. Even with the warming temperatures up there, development will take a long time to see results. Also, Greenland's parliament passed a law banning development in one of them (the Kvanefjeld field) due to it being full of uranium and, shockingly, they don't want to pollute their country. Chinese investment attempts were stopped. Same link used in #2: Greenland, Rare Earths, and Arctic Security

5. Russia does have a large fleet of polar icebreakers (including 8 nuclear powered) to exploit the Arctic sea lanes. The US currently has 3, count'em three, polar icebreakers, two of which were built in the '70s. US shipbuilding is currently in the toilet, so much so that we're buying icebreakers from Finnish shipyards (a NATO ally). Canada also operates a large icebreaker fleet and is expanding. If we rupture the NATO alliance over this, will those assets and new ships still be available to us? Who knows, because there's no way to know. NATO’s ‘Arctic seven’ find strength in numbers | The American Legion

6. Nobel Peace Prize. Such a retarded fucking reason to blow up NATO I can't even address it.

   Right now polling in both the US and Greenland show that each countries' respective populations are against this:

   US voters widely opposed to taking Greenland by military force -- even most Republicans - ABC News

   Does Greenland Want to Be Part of the United States?

   We're demanding that a long-term ally give up a large portion of land. If they agree to sell it, bully for everyone, our free market economy is functioning. But they aren't, and we're currently using not so veiled threats of military force to take it from them. Our government has offered no concrete explanation as to why and is threatening long term Allies with economic and military consequences if they don't play ball.

   So I'll end on, once again, why are we doing this? None of the given explanations are developed or even make sense. Do you really want to occupy or annex a country that doesn't want us there just to take their natural resources? That's pretty close to some of the worst parts of the 19th and 20th centuries colonialism and/or quests for autarky. This isn't worth the dissolvement of NATO, and it sure as hell isn't worth us fighting Allies (kinetically or otherwise).

Quit with the AI, please.

All these arguments assume that Greenland becoming an actual US territory is his no-kidding actual objective. I'm not saying he's playing 3D chess while everyone else is playing checkers, but he approaches many political topics, especially if he sees a 'deal' to be made, in a business mindset. Right or wrong, he is clearly willing to rattle the saber to get what he wants and use the saber when he thinks its worth it (low risk, high reward like we've seen him do recently). Do I think he's going to actually go to war with most of our closest allies over Greenland? No, but threatening to might make them considering either selling outright or selling large mining concessions.

Finally, I think he rightly sees Western Europe as allies of questionable value and maybe this is a more forceful shot across the bow. Most have been drawing down their defense spending for years and would have trouble defending their own countries, let alone projecting power. Also, our values have been diverging. For example, Great Britain has had as many as 30 arrests PER DAY for saying offensive things online. Meanwhile, Great Britain also has anti-Israel protests where there have been videos of protesters holding signs saying "we support genocide" in reference to 'from the river to the sea' that have faced no police action. That clearly selective prosecution and lack of free speech is something I expect from China or Russia, not one of our oldest allies.

4 hours ago, SuperWSO said:

This isn’t about security, future strategy or 4D Chess. This is so Trump can imagine a future history book saying, “President Trump expanded the land mass of the US more than any previous president, making Trump, the best, the greatest, the yugest President in history.”

He doesn’t give two shits about you, me, the economy or our place in the world. This is him polishing his legacy, and probably his knob, while counting down the days remaining until the Republicans get crushed in the mid-terms.

Buddy I hate to break it to you, but that's every president for the last couple hundred years.

The only question is what he thinks his legacy should be. I doubt it's "expand the land mass of the US more than any previous president." It probably has a lot more to do with bringing back the post-war America he grew up in.

It's not like he's hiding the ball. Make America Great Again. He wants the US to be the dominant force on the planet (again). He's bitched about tariffs and trade imbalances for decades. He hates drugs. He bemoans the collapse of manufacturing in America. He views illegal immigration as a scourge of foreigners coming to the US and importing crime while exporting wealth.

And he is absolutely, 100% a petulant egomaniac. So anybody who slights him is almost certain to see him turn the government on them. Whether that's relitalatory investigations for domestic opponents or retaliatory trade policy for international opponents, that too has been quite predictable.

Not entirely Greenland related, but a factor in our relationship. I’m not a huge Johnson fan (sts), but I thought he did a great job here and possibly even defused a bit of Trump’s bombastic speech.

2 hours ago, DirkDiggler said:

Your original post, before you edited it, came out pretty forcefully in support of the US continuing down this path with some statements that aren't supported by facts.

You mentioned Eminent Domain as a way for the United States to "acquire" Greenland. That's not a legally accepted way that nation states exchange territory. I'm no lawyer, but it took all of 10 seconds on Google to figure that out. It sure sounds better than annexation or invasion though, which is what this will be if Denmark and Greenland continue to tell us hard no and we press the issue.

You also mentioned this situation being our "Golan Heights" or it being comparable to that annexation. Israel captured the Golan Heights in war, then annexed it in 1981 from a country who had attacked it several times with intention of the destruction of the State of Israel. No such threat is currently present or even progged to be present from the territory of Greenland.

Why would we do this? Do you really believe your statement above that Greenland needs "freedom"?

The current administration has offered several very generic reasons for the US acquiring Greenland, depending on which way the wind is blowing that day. We've heard "we need it for security", to "Russia and China will take it if we don't", to "Golden Dome", to "they have lots of rare earth minerals", to "Arctic sea lanes are opening" to "I haven't gotten the Nobel Peace Prize" amongst others.

1. The 1951 Greenland Defense Agreement between the US and Denmark, already gives the US very wide latitude to establish bases and conduct military activities across Greenland. The administration has offered no (that I'm aware of) concrete unresolved security concerns with respect to Greenland. Agreement listed here: Avalon Project - Defense of Greenland: Agreement Between the United States and the Kingdom of Denmark, April 27, 1951

2. Neither Russia nor China is currently capable of projecting the hard power beyond near proximity to their respective borders that would be required to seize Greenland by force. China has made several attempts to invest and/or purchase various interests in Greenland. That effort was blocked during the first Trump administration in a collaborative effort with Denmark and so far China's attempt to build a Polar Silk Road has been a failure. Background here: Greenland, Rare Earths, and Arctic Security

3. Golden Dome. Currently a concept on PPT slides. No hard explanation has been given as to why Greenland would matter to this. Most of the concepts presented thus far have been space based. We already have Early Warning and Ballistic Missile/Bomber coverage from there, Alaska, Canada etc. And from point #1, if we wanted to build additional facilities, we already have an agreement in place to do so.

4. 0 Rare Earth minerals have been extracted from Greenland. 0. They do have two known large deposits, but the environment and lack of infrastructure have been major impediments. Even with the warming temperatures up there, development will take a long time to see results. Also, Greenland's parliament passed a law banning development in one of them (the Kvanefjeld field) due to it being full of uranium and, shockingly, they don't want to pollute their country. Chinese investment attempts were stopped. Same link used in #2: Greenland, Rare Earths, and Arctic Security

5. Russia does have a large fleet of polar icebreakers (including 8 nuclear powered) to exploit the Arctic sea lanes. The US currently has 3, count'em three, polar icebreakers, two of which were built in the '70s. US shipbuilding is currently in the toilet, so much so that we're buying icebreakers from Finnish shipyards (a NATO ally). Canada also operates a large icebreaker fleet and is expanding. If we rupture the NATO alliance over this, will those assets and new ships still be available to us? Who knows, because there's no way to know. NATO’s ‘Arctic seven’ find strength in numbers | The American Legion

6. Nobel Peace Prize. Such a retarded fucking reason to blow up NATO I can't even address it.

   Right now polling in both the US and Greenland show that each countries' respective populations are against this:

   US voters widely opposed to taking Greenland by military force -- even most Republicans - ABC News

   Does Greenland Want to Be Part of the United States?

   We're demanding that a long-term ally give up a large portion of land. If they agree to sell it, bully for everyone, our free market economy is functioning. But they aren't, and we're currently using not so veiled threats of military force to take it from them. Our government has offered no concrete explanation as to why and is threatening long term Allies with economic and military consequences if they don't play ball.

   So I'll end on, once again, why are we doing this? None of the given explanations are developed or even make sense. Do you really want to occupy or annex a country that doesn't want us there just to take their natural resources? That's pretty close to some of the worst parts of the 19th and 20th centuries colonialism and/or quests for autarky. This isn't worth the dissolvement of NATO, and it sure as hell isn't worth us fighting Allies (kinetically or otherwise).

Hmmmm, a lot there… your comment on my editing my original post seems accusatory so I’m not sure we are arguing in totally good faith, I reserve the right to adjust my statements as I write them then let them stand, enough on that.

My original post expressed my skepticism on kinetic action and my later post with not one weapon used to change the status quo, other IOPs are available but all the talk of military action is just that, talk. No one is going to order anything even close to that, I was wrong on Venezuela but I’m positive about this. All other parts of the government would just say no and he knows that. Trump says outlandish bullshit to break norms, to cause conversation and discussion that would have been dismissed out of hand before and to get the other party to engage. Maybe it’s crass or uncouth but for him it’s SOP.

I’m ok with it because the pre Trump world, norms, expectations and paradigm were a bad deal for the USA, for the working and middle class and emasculating. Nothing is free in this world, especially not security, if you want us to guarantee it for you, the terms occasionally must be updated.

I use the freedom for Greenland as humor, nothing more than that.

Golan Heights is apt as a metaphor as i meant it as strategic territory from which a foe could use to attack if they held.

All of your other points are true but will not be going into the future methinks, Golden Dome will be built out and will have a need for terrestrial infrastructure, in very high latitudes, rare earth minerals will become even more valuable and critical so the infrastructure to produce them will be built as China and Russia use their rare earth minerals as leverage over us, Russia/China will develop some hard power expeditionary capabilities to reach into the Arctic, etc… I’d rather have a dissuading presence there than have to react and figure out how to push them back or out.

They may not use all hard power to get a foothold there but prepare for the worst.

If not blowing up NATO means not getting a better deal for the US than essentially the arrangement we have had since the early 90s because the Western Europeans don’t want change of any kind in it then it should not exist.

I’m not sure how I came across as a warmongering a hole on this as I’m not but I’m also not in favor of us just being a dupe and simping for the rest of the free world.

Edited 7 hours ago7 hr by Clark Griswold
Grammar

9 hours ago, FourFans said:

Agreed, though I'll call that a false equivalency. This is us pushing back against an organization of countries that have abused the good graces of the USA and acted as though access to our markets and access to use of our military force is their own personal birthright. During my time in NATO that attitude was common, and rather amusing to point out. Denmark really is too poor to buy blanks for it's military, so they point and say 'bang'. I'd guess the UK, some of the Nordic countries, and possibly now Poland are the only EU countries that could actually defend their own boarders...though Germany is on that path finally...(the history buff in me shutters at that). The US and the reputation of our military has kept the EU's Eastern flank secure for so long that the Europeans have forgotten that fact. Now the are being reminded and their calling foul on what should be called truth. Saying we're stealing our sidekick's lunch money is like saying a battered wife who finally defends herself is committed assault (I imagine something like Ronda Rousey being a battered wife for years and then finally realizing, wait, I can kill this guy...). On a technical level it might technically be true. On the truth level it's not.

This is isn't bullying. This is the US finally standing up for itself.

So the price to our allies for leading the team is their land? Like a whole country worth? How about, if we don't want to be part of NATO and all that it entails, we just leave it. Its a marriage we set up and led, worms and all. Meanwhile, Putin is chanting "Fight Fight Fight" like an episode of Jerry Springer, which is so true its sad. And we're the battered wife? SMH.

1 hour ago, disgruntledemployee said:

So the price to our allies for leading the team is their land? Like a whole country worth? How about, if we don't want to be part of NATO and all that it entails, we just leave it. Its a marriage we set up and led, worms and all. Meanwhile, Putin is chanting "Fight Fight Fight" like an episode of Jerry Springer, which is so true its sad. And we're the battered wife? SMH.

Read my post again, for comprehension this time. I'm trying to help some out there understand the higher math behind the political theater going on. We don't "just leave NATO" That's not happened once yet and I doubt we'll be the first. We're not going to invade Greenland (we don't even need to, Denmark is more than happy to pay for basing changing we ask for), and we're probably not going to leave NATO, even if other do. However, the wide receivers on the team needs to know they're not the O-Line, they're not the TE, and they sure as shit aren't the QB. To those who pay attention to the history of nations, what's happening right now is what that 'define the relationship' conversation looks like between allies. I fully expect some things will change out of this, but stop with the black-and-white good-and-evil right-and-wrong bullshit. Act like an adult who thinks with critical analysis in mind, not just so you can response with your party line. We've already got news anchors doing that, please don't join them.

Turn off CNN and/or Fox news and start recognizing that you and I don't hear 1 percent of the high level conversations that occur around these events. More importantly, quit reading your own rhetoric into other peoples statements. You sound like a weepy melodramatic 5th grader trying to tell a sad story while blubbering. It's embarrassing.

Edited 5 hours ago5 hr by FourFans

6 hours ago, Clark Griswold said:

If not blowing up NATO means not getting a better deal for the US than essentially the arrangement we have had since the early 90s because the Western Europeans don’t want change of any kind in it then it should not exist.

Bingo.

Realpolitik guys: What's the line in your mind? At what point is it just too far?