The US have the ability to do everything up to and including basing troops and missiles there, today, under treaty so it's unclear what is meant by the US need for "security."
We're trashing that relationship not just with Denmark but with NATO. What gains do we see that can offset that?
I guess this is not just a rhetorical question, but what is more secure than stable relationships with existing allies?
I think someone has shown Trump the Project Iceworm documents and he decided that it would be a great addition to the Golden Dome repertoire.
The reason Trump wants Denmark is for vanity purposes.
If Denmark actually can shitcan the place while making it look like a victory they would definitely do it. Although the only way I think they can pull that off is by convincing Greenland to become independent and then the US swooping in when Greenland realizes their free money hydrant has turned off and they need a new sugar daddy because all those minerals they're sitting on aren't actually worth a dime unless someone is dumb enough to try and use them in one of the most hostile inhabited environments on earth to mine them.
After you militarily threaten multiple allies, do they still count as allies? Or at least, are you still seen as an ally by them?
It's probably a more realistic outcome however is that no one really trusts the US any more and trump has just hastened the decline as the EU looks inward more, and other areas move more quickly to get support from china.
> The US is getting less stable instead of more stable
> I hope they are more long-sighted than that
Quoting you out of order, but when one puts all three together what do you believe the long-term plan should be? America is, by your own admission, becoming less stable, and currently threatening annexation of multiple countries. What exactly do you think "less stable" looks like after this?
If it happened once it may very well happen again. Things will change after this.
I don't think that Bush II threatened to invade Europe, and that Europe responded by preparing for an invasion, though.
I’m afraid that ship has sailed. This was the general feeling during Bidens’ presidency. After Trump’s reelection, it’s clear that the USA is permanently one swing state away from electing a tyrant. I think the rest of the world will need to see a widely held conviction of never again and fundamental changes to America’s democratic system, before trust can be rebuilt.
Or at least they must feel like the deep state to Trump. It's just that, for those who like the rule of law, those people are the good guys.
The broad advantage of having a "felt of society" —mutually overlapping circles— as opposed to a "fabric of society", is that the latter is much easier to tear.
(b) I'm more optimistic. Indeed, on the scale of https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46510437 I'm currently on "practise speaking Cantonese".
Why? Because even if Oceania, Rasia, and Eastasia want to play 1984 sphere of influence games, we can probably position ourselves neutrally, to trade freely with all of them — and whenever one has designs on us, then the other two would naturally be forced to counter.
Correction: This is more than Trump not being Presidential!
Indeed, there would likely be a great deal of backlash in the military itself.
This is not what Americans want. It cannot even be said that those who voted for Our National Embarrassment want this, because He Who Shall Not Be Named ran on an isolationist, xenophobic platform that pledged "no new wars" and that he would be the "president of peace".
Would it? Only if by protest you mean doing some moaning on Twitter and Reddit, then scrolling to the next post.
1) https://edition.cnn.com/2026/01/06/politics/trump-western-he...
2) https://time.com/7344316/republicans-break-ranks-with-trump-...
3) https://www.ibtimes.com/trumps-greenland-invasion-plot-spark...
But the US already had excellent relations with Denmark and could probably have gotten mining rights or whatever they wanted without this weird display of power.
The huge downside to that would be it would quickly demonstrate how incredibly expensive, slow and uncertain such mining operations would be.
I must conclude the annexation of Greenland is mostly a play for the US domestic audience. Very similar to Russia - Ukraine. Maybe a way to put pressure on Canada too.
A number of my Canadian friends are of the opinion that if the US takes Greenland, Canada will be the next acquisition target. I really, really wish I could argue against that notion.
Is anyone uncertain about the cost of invading a military ally to acquire more "vital" space?
The only language Trump and Putin speak is blunt power. (Except Trump also responds well to flattery. I doubt you'd get very far with Putin speaking that language.)
So it allows US to sap the resources of the adversary, making it even more expensive to hold Denmark. And that is ultimately the goal, because the more pain in the ass and expensive it is for Denmark to hold Greenland, the quicker there will be for pressure for Greenland to become independent.
And independence is only a hop, skip, and jump away from foreign influence; given that Greenland is indefensible without alliance and economically heavily subsidized.
That's valid for like 99% of countries on the planet so I'm not sure what signals it sends.
They could use the same logic to invade Germany tomorrow if they wanted, who's going to stop them anyways ?
And no, 99% of countries on the planet do not get 10-15k of outside subsidies per resident.
Also I think you are ignoring nuance on the importance of alliance; the population density and population is incredibly low and they are situated quite close to the US. The US has disproportionately strong-armed virtually every nation around it of similar size/strength; that's why central America and the Caribbean are chalk full of stories of US meddling. It's not similar to places like Brazil where an invasion of a world power would still cost an adversary a lot more than they bargain for in ground losses even without alliance even if the adversary would doubtlessly win a clear victory. They are far weaker at the negotiation table than, say, Germany, when in comes to foreign influence.
While not 10-15k, the feds put ~5-8k [0,1,2] per-resident into Alaska, a remote territory the country intends to hold
[0] https://www.usaspending.gov/state/alaska/latest
[1] https://docs.house.gov/meetings/GO/GO00/20250305/117980/HHRG...
[2] https://usafacts.org/answers/how-much-money-does-the-federal...
When you create a bluff pretending to be an enemy, do you still count as an ally?
Considering we provide the same amount of benefits to all the citizens in our kingdom, the cost of sending a few extra soldiers up there to accommodate all the other EU troops coming up there... well... you wouldn't even notice it on our national budget. Hell, with how things are going with everyone looking to turn down their dependency on US tech, the Microsoft licenses savings in our public sector will be absolutely enormous.
There is massive public support for defending Greenland though. So I'm not sure cost will ever be an issue for us. Not that we realistically could defend Greenland if the US invaded.
Peter Thiel backed Praxis, a startup that envisions building a semi-autonomous, low-regulation "network city" in Greenland. The vision is led by Praxis co-founder Dryden Brown, who sees Greenland as an ideal testing ground for a future Mars colony. Praxis has raised hundreds of millions of dollars in funding, however, the proposal faces significant opposition from unexpectedly Greenlandic and Danish politicians.
And then there's this: Ibtimes reports that MAGA Supporters Urge Barron Trump to Marry Princess of Denmark and Claim Greenland as Dowry
MAGA wants Barron Trump to marry Princess Isabella of Denmark to claim Greenland
https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/denmark-greenland-face-...
As for how this is seen internally for Danes, at least in my part of the world the US admin has already achieved crackhead with a knife status. I suspect that trying the dog whisperer shtick (like Mamdani) will not be seen negatively.
You go to the King, the King does not go to you. The party that travels is the weaker one. Maybe that's childish but it is the standard power play even in daily life and business.
The majority of Greenlanders want independence. That percentage would possibly increase if they knew that they had solid support for statehood with good security agreements and trade agreements from the US.
Strong pressure on Denmark from the US would likely get Greenland their independence. If Greenlanders want it, then many Danes would feel obligated to give it to them. US pressure would help turn that into reality.
Once Greenland is independent, then those trade & security agreements mentioned would provide the US with the minerals or whatever it's truly after.
Censorship in HN came to a point that can't be ignored anymore.
It is ok to post an article saying Trump will send troops to Greenland, but a post saying Denmark will send troops defend Greenland is flagged?
It's ridiculous.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46616745
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46614963
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46600194
I maintain my conspiracy theory that a lot of the politically-motivated flagging on this platform is from the moderators, not the users. Y Combinator the company has shown to be openly pro-Trump.
Personally, I followed HN for news about hacking. I'd prefer all offtopic submissions flagged, or at least demoted. What's the point in a _hacker_ news Front Page RSS feed if I get dupes of major global stories?
Paul Graham is pretty anti-trump if you follow is twitter account.
It's clear that Stephen Miller in all of his fascist eggheaded brain thinks that he can just do a real quick annexation and is one of the key people pushing for this. But I don't think any of them are prepared for the fallout.
And if they say "no - no survey"?
Then what?
Ok, what pressure - other than violence - will be brought to bear on the poor Greenlanders.
Sounds more and more like voting in the Donbas.
They already have forces there, and, at least until this admin's reckless imperialistic proclamations, Denmark would've almost certainly been amiable to leasing more space to the U.S. for whatever else they wanted to do.
It is cheaper to do it by force, because so far Trump offered 100k USD/person. That's laughable lowballing when we consider that it would be gone within few visits in a hospital.
That's not even the case in the existing US territories which already have cheaper healthcare than the mainland. The existing hospital infrastructure and pricing would of course remain, at least until it gets gobbled up by private equity but this too is subject to the laws of the territory.
Months ago, the US was an ally of Denmark and Greenland. Greenland allowed an ally to have their military stationed there, because it served both (through NATO).
From one day to the other, the US behave like an enemy. And the US behave erratically. So NATO still exists on the paper because the US haven't invaded anyone yet, but the US are behaving like enemies and threaten to invade.
Seems more than rational, from the point of view of the rest of NATO, to prepare for an invasion, but at the same time hope that NATO still exists and that the US are not actually an enemy (probably not an ally anymore, but "partner" is better than "enemy").
Or am I missing something?
It's clear that Trump acts alone in foreign policy - formal channels and structures can barely check him. However, informal resistance still appears to exist. Trump apparently still takes into account the vibes of the people he surrounds himself with into account. In a haphazard way yes, but it's clear that Trump can be swayed to some degree by those around him.
The Trump administration is not a unified bloc, and there are likely many elements that see annexing Greenland as ridiculous. However, if they lost access, then they would be forced to concede that there was something actually valuable to gain.