Donald Trump said Friday his administration will take action on Greenland “whether they like it or not,” further escalating his rhetoric as he pushes to acquire the Danish territory for the U.S.
The comments came during a meeting with oil executives to discuss the prospect of doing business in Venezuela. Less than a week earlier, the U.S. military invaded the oil-rich South American nation and captured its leader, Nicolás Maduro.
Denmark and its European allies in NATO – the military alliance co-founded by the U.S. – have pushed back, reiterating that Greenland is not for sale. But the Trump administration nevertheless says it is currently weighing a range of options on Greenland, including utilizing the U.S. military or cutting a deal to purchase it from Denmark.
Greenland is an autonomous territory of Denmark, one of the founding members of NATO along with the US.
Attacking, invading, operating in, or otherwise taking military action against Greenland will at best destabilize and delegitimize NATO, and at worst prompt a full military response from NATO member states against the United States Military, the largest and most powerful armed force in history several times over, with a budget an order of magnitude larger than the rest of the world combined.
I cannot overstate how horrifically, hilariously bad this would be:
It would begin an escalating conflict that would give China the perfect distraction to invade Taiwan, and remove the support that Ukraine desperately requires to continue defending against Russia.
To avoid war, Denmark and NATO would be forced to concede and appease Trump as Chamberlain did with Hitler, further emboldening Trump, Putin, and Xi Jinping to continue their totalitarian regimes and campaigns which literally amount to no less than cartoonishly evil total world domination.
In full scale conflict, NATO states would be faced with a losing battle in which their only recourse would quickly become the use of nuclear weapons.
This absolutely cannot happen. Our only window to stop the Trump regime’s utterly Fascist-with-a-capital-F designs by conventional political means is rapidly closing. Once the American military is in Denmark without their consent, my advice is to start looking at options for your own survival of WWIII.
That would be the end of NATO. Which means it’s the US on one side an the rest of the world on the other. Except Israel, of course.
But on the plus side, the members could start their own alliance named “Now Excluding America Treaty Organization”. I way on the plus side because the acronym would spell out “NEATO”
And the US and Russia will start their own Friendship Union. Like the G7, except only two of them.
We can call it FU2
It won’t work out this way, no matter what happens.
Pacific Rim nations will probably stick with US interests over European interests, because the US is the only thing between them and China (at the moment). Europe doesn’t have the global presence or the interest to operate in the Pacific. This includes: Taiwan, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, South Korea, Singapore, the Philippines, etc. Even if the US is showing itself to be a less reliable partner, it is still not (yet) an active threat to their interests the way that China is.
Ukraine under Zelensky won’t just surrender to Russia and will probably tolerate a lot from the US in order to continue their defense efforts unless they are somehow offered EU membership/protection explicitly. I could see Ukraine breaking ties with the US if it meant joining the EU.
The above might give Trump the excuse to say openly that Ukraine “didn’t want peace” (via surrendering to Russia) and then declaring open support for Russia in the name of “peace”. Then it’s an out-and-out US-Russia partnership.
China will continue to pretend neutrality, continue to manipulate its rivals into destabilizing, continue using its neighbor countries to export its environmental disasters, and then invade Taiwan. If that doesn’t provoke direct conflict with the US, the rest of the Pacific Rim starts to look really vulnerable.
South America is… complicated. Obviously a lot of nations like The Dominican Republic and Colombia would side against the US with Venezuela. Argentina wouldn’t. Is Venezuela under direct US control/occupation at this point? Brazil is a founding member of BRICS, so they’re probably aligning with China and/or Russia, but they’ll probably stick to conflict avoidance as much as possible.
India might make some public statements of condemnation of imperialistic behavior to score political points, but that would be it. The only way they get involved in any conflict is if China is on the other side (or maybe Pakistan, but that’s more complicated).
Iran is in so much trouble right now with Tehran being completely out of water, and the internal economic strife. They’re still a power in the region, but not really in a position to influence things beyond their borders.
Canada won’t support US aggressive actions, but will also do almost anything to avoid direct conflict with the US. That’s a very difficult position which will produce confusing, noncommittal and seemingly self-contradictory actions and statements.
Africa…? No idea, really.
Haven’t been paying attention to the Iran protests. Knew they were running out soon but didn’t know it happened.
Also, Greenland/Denmark is member of EU who have a similar clause to article 5.
Even if NATO could possibly immediately dissolve to avoid responding to Article 5, I’m guessing the EU is more robust.
I was taking you slightly seriously until you called China totalitarian which is so probably false as to draw into question every other point of analysis you have here.