Trump taking over Greenland?

[Cantonet]

Will anyone stop him?
What will Nato do?
What will Denmark do?
Are there plans in motion to stop this other than friendly diplomacy & gentle words?

I get where you are coming from, and that's what makes it so crazy.

It's not his job to do deals for access the Greenland's minerals. That's for the private mining companies. Free market and all that.

As for access to the sea lanes, that's set under UNCLOS. Map clip below, the Greenland EEZ is in red, looks impressive, but under UNCLOS ships cannot be denied passage through an EEZ.

Excellent post by @ZenZazie

This poster is indeed a huge Trump fan, probably the genocide in Gaza, probably Brexit and a reform supporter.

I’m so disappointed in Starmer. His approach to Trump is embarrassing and dangerous. The European Governments are between a rock and a hard place given Ukraine though

If I was Denmark I'd be in talks with Canada for them to have some bases on Greenland or suggest Canada have some joint ownership/guardianship of Denmark or a lease like the UK did with HK.

I'd like to see the look on Trump's face as it would definitely be political suicide for him to take on Canada.

Maybe those generals who see Trump as the madman he is will revolt and engineer a coup. Refuse to obey orders or something.

That's it, that's the solution. I am being tongue in cheek here but seriously it's one option!

You may not like it. But the west needs Greenland to secure our safety and hold our position as the rulers of the world. And the west takes what it needs - again, I may not like it being done, but I and all of us in it benefit from the safety that brings.
A bully, a narcissist, Trump is. A “moron” he is not.

@ZenZazie , I liked your Thesis. Is control of the northern sea route part of his Canada being the 51state idea as well as natural resources do you think?
No one but no one has mentioned a Canada + Greenland treaty or area of mutual cooperation. They would make a good fit IMO.
A Trumpian militarised Greenland would inhibit activity on the St Lawrence and Eastern Seabord and the Montreal Area.

European governments have failed to invest sufficiently in their own defence since 1988. European tax payers dont want to pay for it - preferring instead to invest in paying people to stay at home and treating life style related illnesses. This is something Americans do not get.
The end result is they have no defence forces capable of resisting (or even causing significant damage to the US)
School systems in Western Europe have indoctrinated children into believing their countries are evil monsters and that joining the armed forces is something no decent person would do.
End result is you can talk about values, soft power and international law until the cows come home but if you have no armed forces you are not even invited to the table.
Just wait until the Russians arrive on your doorstep.

I've just come to search for a thread to see if anyone is discussing Greenland (can't believe there are literally only two).

Reading through the thread, this gave me chills - because I think this is spot on.

I have always understood the 'how' around the Reform rise, the PsyOps around Brexit and now immigration, the creation of problems so that they can present the solution etc, but I always believed the why was about money and fame.

But with everything happening now with Greenland and Venezuela this feels more possible than ever.

No-one should be surprised about the Greenland land grab - it's clearly stated in Project 2025 which they have been implementing quite successfully. Hopefully our leaders have been taking it seriously and have been doing whatever they do in the background to prepare the response.

We know what will eventually be proposed - the Ukraine peace plan which carved up the Ukrainian resources between Russia and the US is the blueprint. The deal will be the US gets the rare earth mineral mining and control rights in return for Denmark / Greenland keeping sovereignty (or at least the appearance of it) and the US not taking it by force. It will be sold to the Europeans and the Greenlanders as being the most pragmatic option.

Meanwhile China take Taiwan and Russia finally beats Ukraine into submission meaning the majority of the worlds rare earth resources are completely dominated by the three and the rest of us just have to live with it.

The European Generals re-issued their warnings last week that war is coming. They first said it about 18 months ago. These are very very serious people - they do not deal in hyperbole, it is a reality that we need to accept - we will be at war by 2030. The assumption was it would be against Russia - the fact that it could potentially be against the US as well is really quite sobering.

What we can do about it in reality, I don't know. It won't be a nuclear war, and it is unclear where any actual fighting might take place - but there will be attacks on the economy and almost certainly the internet. They estimate that a simple problem with the deep sea internet cables could take 1-2 weeks to fix, a more serious problem, months.

I don't think people need to go full prepper, but it's definitely worth thinking about what you would do if the internet was suddenly not available for a few weeks, or fuel became scarce - keep some cash in the house, keep basic food stores, keep vehicles topped up with fuel etc. What would you do for entertainment if you stream everything? DVDs, CDs, LPs will become very popular again

Think back to the chaos that the fuel strikes caused in 2000, the cloudflare outage a couple of years ago, the panic buying around Covid and multiply that by a 1000!

Generally I am quite optimistic - I'm realistic, but prefer to think that everything will work out for the best, but I've been saying since Trump got in the first time that this was coming - my parents and other half kept telling me I was worrying about nothing. When he got in the second time, I told them exactly what would happen - again they told me I was catastrophising. Everything I told them would happen has and they are starting to see it now - especially now its not just me saying there is no chance of a me visiting the US while the current regime are in power!

Straight out of the Jd Vance hymn book.

And heaven help us if/when Vance takes over from Trump if you think things are bad now!

Well, the evidence certainly does suggest he is a moron.

Re Greenland. I don't know if you have noticed this, but it is very firmly in the west already. It's part of Denmark, a NATO nation.

Greenland is in the west, it is a western island, part of a NATO and EU country. You really can't get much more western than that.

As for rulers of the world. :

In what way does the west not already have Greenland though? There is an American base on it.

It's not the West in the classical sense that wants Greenland, it's the US.

If you look at what is happening in Venezuela with their Oil industry being taken over by US companies, the stored embargo oil being sold to / via the US for maximum profit then you know where this will be headed.

The question is how long will Europe, Russia & China be bystanders in this land grab. We know Russia & China are already testing the water and are wide awake.

Greenland is in "the west". It can't be taken by "the west".

You seem to be using "the west" as a synonym for "the USA".

So your sentence really reads "And the west USA takes what it needs - again, I may not like it being done, but I and all of us in it benefit from the safety that brings."

Which at least makes sense grammatically – regardless of whether it does politically – because rather obviously Europe does not have safety or benefit from being attacked by the USA.

Yes the US is effectively threatening to steal Greenland from the West. I think at this point US is acting on it's own for it's own ends. The only thing that would threaten Trump is if there is a fight in which American lives are lost - as I said, wars in foreign lands are not what MAGA voted for. If we keep being passive his voting public won't care, just chant USA even louder.

It is true, we haven't invested in our defence enough but the rest of your post is utter tosh!

Our children do not believe their countries are evil monsters - but European countries have experienced the horrors of war in a way that the US never have which means we have a genetic and cultural memory which makes us naturally adverse to ever wanting to experience that again.

The horrors of the first and second world wars are the reason European nations have been so focussed on setting up things like the EU and NATO and trying to prevent the descent into war again. Its why our response to Russia's annexing of Crimea was so weak and why we were so willing to adhere to article 5 when it was triggered by the US.

The US have never experienced war like Europe has on their own soil. The US public are told that things like Pearl Harbour and 9/11 are attacks that are worse than anyone has ever faced - but Europe faced that sort of devastation day in, day out for years.

You talk about Europe not being able to defend itself and that soft power is worthless. But soft power does work. When soft power fails, there are two major instruments countries have at their disposal to truly defend themselves - nuclear weapons and NATO Article 5

I find it incredibly ironic that you think that soft power is so worthless when the only country that has ever needed to invoke those contingencies is the US!

European nations have not been collective protagonists in any major wars since WW2 - our involvement in the Middle East was largely as a result of the US triggering Article 5. The only reason we have achieved that is through understanding and deploying soft power effectively.

The architects of the current political landscape in the US have been very shocked about how difficult it has been to infiltrate Europe with their ways of thinking, but it is because they don't understand the impact of our history on our cultural psyche and resilience.

It will be that cultural resilience which means that while European nations may lose initially in any military arms based war against Russia or god forbid, against the US directly, long term, they won't break - much the same way they Vietnamese didn't.

I keep seeing US messaging which uses "the elided We".

You know, the one where the woman says, "We need another car," and the man replies, "We don't, we already have a car" – when what he means is, "I have a car which I will take every day and then away for a week with the lads without notice, and you'll be left trying to get and from school, kids clubs, medical appointments and your own work, never mind your own leisure, without it."

And where the woman says, "We need a cleaner," and the man replies "We don't, we can manage all our own cleaning" – when what he means is, "You will do all the cleaning, I'll continue to dodge it."

Interestingly enough it's long struck me that the historian Niall Ferguson, who likes to write about empire, is afflicted with "the elided We". He really struggles to distinguish who is encompassed in his "We" as his prose flits between meanings. I'm not sure it's even deliberate – rather that he's oblivious.

Greenland is part of the 'West'. The Kingdom of Denmark is a Western entity.

There is no need for anyone to 'take' it.

If Russia or China try to invade, the US can protect it just as well under Article 5 as it can if it were 'own' it.

But when you say the West what you mean is the US - and I hate to break it to you, but no matter how much they try to push the narrative, they are not 'the rulers of the world'.

And Trump is a moron - the people who aren't morons are the ones pulling his strings - Vaught, Miller and Thiel in particular.

We have always had autonomy over matters of defence and national security.... hence NI/IRA, the Falklands, Iraq (twice) Afghanistan.

Why do people believe this twaddle from the pro Brexit camp?

Europe still completely out guns Russia, esp in air superiority.

I don't think anyone has thought there would be conflict between US and Europe for over 120 years.
What Trump has suggested is beyond madness... the US attacking a fellow NATO member... let that sink in... when all he has to do is request more bases... the Danes wouldn't say no.

US citizens live with long term chronic conditions more than almost any other country on earth... inc their young (194m people) they spend more pp on healthcare than anyone else, several times more.

They rely on military hardware, tactics, as seen in Ukraine but the US still needs Europe, last week US forces came to bases here to possibly take on a "shadow fleet" tanker, plus their companies need our markets.

Kids indoctrinated?
Evidence for that please....

Don’t be ridiculous. By what measure is Greenland not in “The West”.
And the US can put more troops on it if it wants (maybe it shouldn’t have withdrawn thousands and thousands of them over the years to get to the current situation which they seem unhappy about of only a few hundred troops).

Also, let’s say I accept your premise that Greenland is not in the west and that the west needs it. That still does not mean that America can just have it.

Break it to me then - who are the rulers of not the US?

@Alexandra2001
Europe still completely out guns Russia, esp in air superiority.
No you are wrong. We may together have more aircraft but we have no political will to work closely. France will insist we all learn French before we can start. .
We do not have senior officers willing to take casualties. Russia and US do.
Few pilots have trained in attack.