cross-posted from: https://quokk.au/c/world/p/1191953/us-to-build-two-military-bases-in-greenland-under-new-deal-with-denmark
The defence deal signed at the UN General Assembly also re-affirms Denmark’s sovereignty over its semi-autonomous Arctic territory.
I’m no military strategist, but normally if a country threatens to take over your territory you don’t let them build military bases there.
If the reason they have to invade is so that they can build military bases, they no longer have reason to invade.
There is basically nothing new in that agreement, USA always had the option to have more bases in Greenland, and they used to have that during the cold war. It is USA themselves that have limited the number of bases they wanted to have there.
Trump just think he made some kind of deal, when in reality that deal has been there for more than half a century.
Yeah, this is… Trumps playbook again and again.
Make up fake controversial bullshit, get massive headlines, never actually follow through with bullshit, and then just do what we were gonna do already and call it a ‘victory’. But nothing was ever really done, it was all a storm in a teacup and legally or operationally nothing really changed.
All his ‘wins’ are just maintaining the status quo, and the media and the public eat it up.
There’s also a clause that says they can only be there if USA is in NATO.
Which ties them.to NATO for the foreseeable.
Besides the Orange signature being worthless, they could deal for less enemy’s presence, not more.
Sure, but with Trump there never really is a “deal”, because at some point in the future he’ll just decide he wants something else. See, e.g., NAFTA. In this case, he’ll build up the bases and then declare Greenland part of the U.S… I’d like to believe that the midterm elections will shift the balance of power, and Trump will face a reckoning, but in reality I think he’ll do something like declare martial law and fuck the elections. He’s already ordered republicans to “cheat like hell”. It’s going to be an interesting year end.
Absolutely Trump is not to be trusted, but I think this was not so much about the deal as it was to appease Trump so he will focus elsewhere.
It’s like when you distract a crying baby by shaking the rattle that’s already in their hand.
Yeah I was always surprised they didn’t just take over this way to begin with.
These bases won’t be operational for years, by which time we’ll likely be rational again.
And with the US carrier strategy, this doesn’t really make attacking Greenland any easier or more likely.
They’re not building from scratch, but one is abandoned and one was only used by dog sledders…
The current US government isn’t exactly competent, this is not a short term threat.
And locks us into NATO in the meantime, which is a short term threat
I hope we will be rational again in a couple years. It took trials and decades of divided Germany to mostly fix the scourge of Nazism. We might have to ban all MAGA speech and symbols, which would be an interesting Constitutional challenge.
Really, America is going to have complete generational turnover of its electorate in just a couple of years?
Well if America doesn’t, I don’t think we’ll still be calling it “America” anymore in a couple of years.
Yep, nothing new about those bases, just two money pits in the middle of nowhere. If they end up being more than a rough airfield and a dozen marines in a tent, it will be shocking. And by “it” I mean the price tag.
My main concern is that Trump seems to have learned that “military facility” is his magic “I can do what I want” card. The ballroom has a bunker under it so it’s a matter of national security to build it. His triumphal arch is going to be a sniper nest and drone launcher (can’t make this stuff up) so it’s a matter of national security.
So let’s see if those “military bases” come with oil wells or strip mines as an integral part of their design.
You think? I decided I won’t go to Fascistan ever again in my lifetime, about 10 years ago. Neither for missions nor for holidays. Lots of bridges are burnt and it will take more than a lifetime to rebuild trust. By which time Fascistan and Putistan and Europe will likely be irrelevant because China and India etc…