Obviously they'd have to, but I'm curious about whether they'd do it on the first day, or whether they'd sort of wonder around half-understanding "is this war?"
I've gotten an impression from the Danes through this whole affair that they're not getting it and I wonder how little people understand in general, whether war is so foreign to them that they can't react appropriately.
Their fleet of Boeing and Airbus jetliners is slowly falling apart. They're extracting chips from washing machines to put in missiles. They're even sending soldiers to the front lines in flimsy electric golf carts.
The sanctions are not working as well as the US hoped but they are working.
China makes advanced machinery, and Russia also buys from them.
The whole thing has been a war of attrition from day one. What Putin can't buy is soldiers. Every day another 1000 casualties.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-12-23/kenyans-l...
https://www.france24.com/en/europe/20251111-deceived-and-dep...
Tell ASML that that they couldn't ship any new machines or parts to the US. Tell TSMC that if they want to receive ASML machines/parts they cannot send chips they make with ASML machines to the US.
There are US-made parts in ASML machines (AIUI). The two major chip design software companies are also American.
So we're in a M.A.D. situation when it comes to tech.
The tech stuff from the US is much easier to replace than the US developing litography machines on the level of ASML.
This scenario is that the EU and the US would be at war with one another, so each would of course use military means to deal with its deficiencies.
This guy:
https://provincialtimes.ca/questions-mount-over-jamil-jivani...
Is best buds with the VP:
https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/trum...
Premiers are also being courted:
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/alberta-danielle-smit...
And there's some sketchy things going on in her province:
https://www.desmog.com/2025/07/22/trump-officials-discussed-...
Honestly feels like we're asleep at the wheel as a country..
I'm stupid, so I still haven't figured out how both of these petitions were approved, other than she really wants a referendum on separation.
https://www.thealbertan.com/innisfail-news/forever-canadian-...
https://lethbridgenewsnow.com/2026/01/02/citizen-petition-on...
> In 1887 a German-born, long-time Merck employee, Theodore Weicker, went to the United States to represent Merck Group.[8] In 1891, with $200,000 received from E. Merck, Weicker started Merck & Co., with headquarters in lower Manhattan. ...
> After the U.S. entered World War I, due to its German connections, Merck & Co. was the subject of expropriation under the Trading with the Enemy Act of 1917.[10] The government seized 80 percent of the shares owned by the German parent company and sold it. ... Merck & Co. holds the trademark rights to the "Merck" name in the United States and Canada, while its former parent company retains the rights in the rest of the world; the right to use the Merck name was the subject of litigation between the two companies in 2016.
Or more relevantly: shuts down the flow of spare parts and supplies for military equipment.
Globalization makes this kind of stuff hard to reason about. The end result will probably be something like China can go to war (and win) whenever it wants, and no one else can fight without Chinese permission. The reason is the Chinese seems to be the only ones smart enough to prioritize manufacturing capacity and actually keeping their supply chains local, while everyone else's military supply chains will be low capacity and/or intersect with a Chinese choke point.
No, the EU might not contain the top-of-the-top when it comes to people aware of what's going on, but not even EU is so dimwitted to brush aside an invasion of Greenland as "not our concern".
Not to mention that Greenland is an autonomous part of Denmark, and Denmark is very much a part of the EU.
So far the French president is welcoming what happened in Venezuela. How do you imagine he feels about the implications for Greenland and Europe?
https://www.politico.eu/article/france-fm-jean-noel-barrot-f...
https://www.nato.int/en/what-we-do/introduction-to-nato/coll...
They've been testing the waters for way to frequently with seemingly very little pushback... to me, a third presidency is basically guaranteed at this point - one way or another. If they need to falsify the results they'll rationalize it via the "stolen election"
If I was a gambling man I'd have already spend a few thousand on polymarket. I'm not though, so it'll abstain
While I appreciate your sentiment, we really need to stop with this specific type of pearl clutching.
The current president’s mental and physical condition is deteriorating rapidly. He will be lucky to make it through the current term in a functional state.
Adding another number of years to his time in office would mean that he almost literally would need to be propped up by his caretakers.
Is it possible? Sure. Is it probable? No, and it’s not even close, imho.
There is plenty of commentary that can be made about the political machine behind him, but let’s not project that to the dotard currently in office.
We must challenge the unitary executive theory. America is not intended to be a dictatorship or monarchy. It's not OK for Trump / those in his orbit to make comments about a 3rd term, it is a problem, it is something we need to take seriously.
> We must challenge the unitary executive theory. America is not intended to be a dictatorship or monarchy. It's not OK for Trump / those in his orbit to make comments about a 3rd term, it is a problem, it is something we need to take seriously.
This is all covered in my last paragraph (which, imho, is a separate issue from the current president):
“There is plenty of commentary that can be made about the political machine behind him, but let’s not project that to the dotard currently in office.”
The current president isn’t smart enough to do what it takes to stay in office more than two terms. This is all the work of those around him.
To be more pointed, fixating on Trump rather than the political and social machine around him — which many people seem to do — is missing the forest for the trees.
But that’s not what Trump wants.
With regard to why you should care about Greenland, you've signed an agreement to do it, you are after all in NATO.
There has indeed been co-operation in protecting Greenland and this is very reasonable considering that the US has a presence there in the form of their military bases. I don't see this co-operation as begging.
So yes, defending Greenland becomes a case of helping a people stay free and not invaded, no matter the enemy.
It's silly to say "well we have no chance against" because then you can end that with China, Russia or even India.
It'll be a couple of days or weeks before actual realization happen, and it won't be because of the politicians, it'll be because of the massive demonstrations, protests and general strikes, that finally the governments will understand that something has to be done.
> I wonder how little people understand in general, whether war is so foreign to them that they can't react appropriately.
I think most of us got used to the idea that most others don't actually want war, and there is a lot of posturing going on. Wrongly, this was assumed of the current US administration too, which luckily changed really fast because of yesterday and previous actions.
Europe has a long history of devastating wars, the US not so much, and I think Europe tries much harder to avoid violent conflicts than the US (duh), so when you have an ally knocking on your door, presenting threats, Europe kind of defaults to thinking it's posturing, but if boots actually land on Greenland (outside of the existing base), I think the winds will change relatively quickly.
I don't know what the trigger for these kinds of things would be, in case people were slow on the uptake-- maybe sabotage by American citizens, something like that.
Maybe Trump’s golf course in Scotland will sanctioned, that’s as far as it will go
The interacting question is how many bodies coming back under flags will it take before the american public say “enough”.
> SOON
https://x.com/KatieMiller/status/2007541679293944266#m
https://xcancel.com/KatieMiller/status/2007541679293944266#m
Stephen Miller Asserts U.S. Has Right to Take Greenland
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46509694
Here is a clip:
Because Greenland is part of the Kingdom of Denmark, i.e. a NATO country.
Which means Denmark could declare war AND invoke NATO Article 5 against the United States:
"The Parties agree that an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all and consequently they agree that, if such an armed attack occurs, each of them, in exercise of the right of individual or collective self-defence recognised by Article 51 of the Charter of the United Nations, will assist the Party or Parties so attacked by taking forthwith, individually and in concert with the other Parties, such action as it deems necessary, including the use of armed force, to restore and maintain the security of the North Atlantic area.
Any such armed attack and all measures taken as a result thereof shall immediately be reported to the Security Council. Such measures shall be terminated when the Security Council has taken the measures necessary to restore and maintain international peace and security."
https://www.nato.int/en/about-us/official-texts-and-resource...
Which means not only Denmark, but also Albania, Belgium, Bulgaria, Canada, Croatia, Czech Republic, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, The Netherlands, North Macedonia, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Turkey, and the United Kingdom will immediately be in a state of war with a founding member of NATO - namely the United States. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Member_states_of_NATO)
It will antagonise not only Denmark, but the whole of Europe - govs & people - to a point where USA might find it's all alone in the world.
That'll be the beginning of the end for the empire.
The US can probably go a lot further than they currently have, before a meaningful coalition of meaningful countries will do anything significant —even just economically or diplomatically— against them in return.
> to a point where USA might find it's all alone in the world.
I think the US might be misleading itself if it doesn't realize that it already is. We still care for the people, but the government of the US has truly shown that it cannot be an ally today, and the rest of the world already realize this, seems the US is the last to understand it.
EU restarted domestic production of millitary equipment.
Germany is making military draft mandatory again.
Noone believes US will help like they did before (we know it was a two way deal but still..)
The moment US left EU to Russia they are now all alone. NATO is just a name now.
No matter what, let's not forget Ukraine is being attacked by evil Russia.
All those things have lots of precedent for the USA.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_invasion_of_Pana...
Other than probably hundreds of similar scenarios over the past 250 years or so, sure.
Kidnapping Maduro doesn't really ensure his name in the history books. But if he annexes Greenland and/or Canada, then he's the next Jefferson or Jackson.
He might even rename Greenland+Canada to Trumpland.
I genuinely think this one got them exactly what they wanted. They felt like manly men doing manly men things. Figuratively speaking, they got off on it, stroke egos, felt the excitement of watching the attack and feeling like being the ones who made it.
All those involved are very emotional guys. Not emotional as in liking romance, but emotional as in "driven by feelings and emotions". This made them feel good and manly.
Or the US. All he cares about is himself.
Indeed. That's why I said he's desperate to be remembered. For something.
There's also Maduro's dancing which seems to have been a thing oddly enough https://www.stuff.co.nz/world-news/360920843/maduros-dancing...
If you want a 1929 on steroids, do that.
Mobile phones (android could be forked I guess, Apple would be out).
Payment processing - shouldn’t be a problem if the U.K. is on side, one industry which isn’t been completely bought by America
I suspect China will jump at the chance to assist and Europe will be stupid enough to take it.
It's impossible to stand alone and still have access to all top tech in todays world. US will obviously rely much more on china without EU trade.
EU is currently dependent on US for software/cloud.
US is dependent on EU in advanced machinery, precision tooling and high end manufacturing equipment.
The US imports massive amounts of chemicals, drugs and vaccines from the EU.
Both regions would look to china for replacements probably.
A major downside and risk for Europe is that they would have to get the share LNG from the US from elsewhere, as it's not self sufficient energy wise, but this would most likely not come from China.
Jokes aside, isn't pushing Europe into China's hands exactly what the USA doesn't want? Part of the motivation behind Venezuela was they were getting too cozy with China.
“Quickly” is unlikely, but it has already started.
And realistically, if this happens, in the next 3 years there is nothing anyone can do anything about it.
We live in interesting times.
Great, the USA collectively decided to elect not only stupid arrogants, it selected the violent ones.
What's the goalpost now to call this administration fascist?
[0] https://www.politico.com/news/2026/01/03/trump-venezela-mexi...
1. That's outrageous
2. He's joking
3. But what if he's not joking?
4. We're doing it
Greenland is of course a very different deal compared to Venezuela, it will be interesting to see the political push to the EU.
Also, charges of war crimes are more serious than charges of drug trafficing.
Nobody cared when Putin or Trump were abusing their own citizens. It’s when they invade other countries where the problem begins.
Don't forget that the main countries who fought in the Iraq war were the US, UK, Australia, and Poland, with significant contributions from Spain, Denmark, The Netherlands, and Italy.
In Afganistan, countries fighting were the US, UK, Canada, Australia, Germany, Italy, France, Poland, The Netherlands, Turkey, Georgia, Romania, Denmark, Norway, Spain, New Zealand, South Korea.
The president says Greenland needs to be a part of the US, and he wont rule out using military force.
The wife of one of his cabinet members tweets a picture where Greenland belongs to the US and captions it "SOON".
How is Denmark supposed the respond when the president is actively threatening them?
You have been acclimated to having a president who says crazy things. This is not normal.
I think almost nobody sees it actually happening, but just the fact that he is saying these things is insane.
However, if you think through the scenarios, the US is in a very strong military position and there's not much Denmark or the EU as a whole would be able to do about it. They could threaten a direct military response, on the basis of making the annexation more trouble than it's worth, but then you're just playing chicken with a significantly crazier enemy.
Most likely the EU would try to calm the waters, and offer a compromise peace / surrender plan along the lines of the one the US has offered Russia in Ukraine.
The biggest obstacle ought to be political opposition and public protests within the US itself, but right now the US government is in a position to just move fast and make things happen, what with the weak Congress and compliant Supreme Court.
I hope and believe it'll become much less likely after the midterms, with a Democrat-led Congress motivated to push back against the executive's excesses.
This is a path to madness and I'm really surprised that there are no saner heads in the US putting a stop to this before it gets even further out of control. I'm even more surprised at how many people in the US support this, either tacitly or even outright.
On HN you will find people from a lot of different countries with a lot of different viewpoints. The main reason politics (and religion) are mostly taboo on here is because those subjects tend to polarize and turn the place into yet another shithole. So I can see why there is a strong push to keep those off the site.
But at the same time I'm realistic enough to know that everything has a political angle and that you can not solve a problem like this by denying its existence. That just makes it a bigger problem.
The mods here have an un-enviable job, they walk a very fine line with an extremely smart audience, and they are doing an absolutely amazing job of it given that most people would fail in that position in about 30 seconds flat. It is as even handed as you could possibly make it. But flagging is not a moderator action, it is the users and I've seen them be abused more than once, either because of personal dislikes or because of brigading.
Even so, you'd be hard pressed to find a place with better discourse on a large variety of subjects.
Some of the community do, a lot don't, probably the majority.
There's no contradiction if you assume there needn't be an overlap.
I also think there is no way this is actually going to happen, but its obviously big news in itself that Trump and people in his circles are not willing to rule it out and are actively hinting at it.
Its kind of ridiculous that we’re all just supposed to make our own interpretations when the president is just talking shit again or being serious.
This is incredibly damaging for the USs reputation and alliance with the rest of the western world. A lot of European leaders are now one after one posting on X that Greenland belongs to Denmark.
Not excluding taking Greenland using military force would never have happened without Trump as president.
wouldn't the dutch use force to fight the US if the US ever attempted that?
that could turn the EU into an enemy of the US
The EU is already an enemy in the eyes of the US, even though it isn't reciprocated.
Not sure what would happen if the US attacked Greenland, attacking a close ally you have literal agreements about protecting each other kind of forces NATO into new territory. My hunch is that the NATO would be dissolved, and everyone would have to team up against the aggressor.
And do what exactly against the US? You can’t invade it, geographically they can easily defend Greenland from any invasion force. And speaking of an invasion force, how many countries do you know that can deploy an expeditionary force strong enough to take on the US?
So I'm not sure if the above is his main intention, or if he is telling Greenland to join the EU (altruism? hmmm), or if we're witnessing how he sent his businesses bankrupt [1] , or if I'm missing something.
[1] https://archive.ph/mIJAA ( https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/12/21/how-russian-money-helpe... )
Trump specialises in sending his businesses, hotels and casinos bankrupt, to the point banks stopped lending him money, so he turned to the Russian oligarchy for funding.
EU joining up with Russia, Iran, and China? Come on.
Or with other words, Do you think that what happened to the unfortunate Uranians is not related to cut Russian oligarchy tentacles over the EU through energy supply?
Iran finances terrorism. They have nuclear weapons. They are in alliance with China and Russia.
It would truly be a moral catastrophe if the EU decides to join that side. A true moral catastrophe.
This plays right into Putin's hands including everything else Trump has been doing to bring down the USA.
I would love for you to quote out of the document how you come to that conclusion? https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/2025-N...
The section is "C. Promoting European Greatness", starting on p25.
It states the goal is to help Europe operate as a "group of aligned sovereign nations" rather than a unified political or economic entity.
It explicitly calls for "cultivating resistance to Europe’s current trajectory within European nations."
It claims that the EU and other "transnational bodies" are responsible for a "stark prospect of civilizational erasure."
It attacks the EU’s regulatory framework, calling it "economic suicide" and "stifling regulation". Suggesting that the U.S. will prioritize trade and technology sharing with "aligned countries" that reject these EU standards, creating economic incentives for member states to break away from EU-wide rules.
It emphasizes building up "the healthy nations of central, eastern, and southern Europe"—specifically those that "want to restore their former greatness"
I don't know about the dutch, but the danes are probably a bit pissed, however Greenland wants to be independent from Denmark...so there's that:
https://theworld.org/stories/2025/09/15/greenlanders-largely...
Bit strong to say "Greelanders want to be independent" when it's only 56%, it's about half the ones surveyed. But more importantly:
> The results show that 85% of Greenlanders do not want to leave the Realm and become part of the United States, while 6% want to leave the Danish Realm and become part of the United States, whereas the remaining 9% are undecided.
Since a common tactic to gain a pretext for an invasion is "These people want to be independent!" I feel like it's important to point out than Greenlanders overwhelmingly don't want to be a part of the US, judging by that same survey you linked.
So if the choice were to be "Be a part of Denmark" or "Be a part of the US", the majority would stick with Denmark.
Also, the survey is from "22nd to 26th of January 2025", pretty much a year ago, with ~500 people answering, and I'm pretty sure the results would look different today, especially since yesterday.
https://www.arctictoday.com/the-seven-steps-to-greenlandic-i...
>>While a majority of Greenland's 57,000 inhabitants support independence, there is division over the timing and potential impact on living standards.
https://www.reuters.com/world/greenlands-leader-steps-up-pus...
As you can see here there's only one party (with 7.4%) in Greenland who is against independence:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2025_Greenlandic_general_elect...
One would say that paints a pretty clear picture.
>So if the choice were to be "Be a part of Denmark" or "Be a part of the US", the majority would stick with Denmark.
Or maybe the third choice..be independent?
As mentioned, I'd love to see another survey from this month. My guess, at least based on talking with some acquaintances who are Danish with ancestors in Greenland, is that many now realize that "independent" isn't a realistic choice, given the current circumstances. So it really is between "Denmark with the protection of NATO" or "US with the protection of US by itself".
Sorry to tell you but NATO IS the US, not France nor the Brits will do anything against the US.
But yeah, let the people of greenland decide and not like spain with the catalan independence movement.
I'm sorry to tell you, but the world is actually larger than the US, regardless of what your current media is trying to tell you. If the US actually dared to attack Denmark, an ally, I'm fairly certain France and The UK would stop being allies to the US, because suddenly "ally" doesn't mean anything anymore.
Let me tell you since you think i am from the US, i am not.
>France and The UK would stop being allies to the US
No they don't because there's one other choice and that's china, the right of Denmark to keep Greenland is simply not important enough in a multi-polar world.
>bureaucratic center being in Belgium, and military headquarters also being in Brussels
Yes and you can bet that Belgium would rater lick Donald's boots then help Denmark.
Take a look at a map of the world from the point of view of North Pole, and you'll understand why warmongers think it's an important point to hold: https://i.imgur.com/LE8DKGR.png
[1] https://www.eunews.it/en/2025/06/12/denmark-approves-militar...
In fact the US has closed dozens of bases on Greenland since the 40s.
