quote:

Originally posted by newtoSig765:

quote:

Originally posted by r0gue:

...My only hypothesis would be that perhaps Trump wants the Europeans to take responsibility for properly securing that region so China/Russia did not try to monopolize it economically or militarily. Though that wouldn't explain the 10% tariff thing.

He's already half-way there. A bunch of European countries have united in support of Greenland and Denmark. Now, all Trump has to do is turn them against China and Russia, and his mission is complete. I predict another Winning Moment for PDJT, just wait until this four-dimensional chess game is complete. I say it will be about three weeks from now.

Right, he has them acting now to do such, but then, if that was his goal, WTF are the tariffs for? It's like, this would be an expected response (so presumably he wanted such) and yet then he's hitting them (us) with tariffs.

I'm just genuinely perplexed as to what the goal really is, because I can't imagine Trump really wants to seize Greenland.

r0gue:

How do you not understand the Trump Doctrine? He wrote an entire book about it.

And again, sending 2 patrol canoes and a dog sled isn't beefing up security of Greenland. The tariffs (to be more accurate, consider it as the old term, tribute) are what we need to actually secure it, because we have capability to actually do it.

As I said previously, we don't need to "seize" anything, so stop listening to all the crazies...we already own it, they just don't know it yet.

.
https://x.com/BuzzPatterson/st...istration-day-364%2F

quote:

Originally posted by sooma:
92fstech: I grew up in the corn fields of Ohio, so I can understand being lost, we are talking about truth:

1) Europe does have problems, of their own making and now are claiming to be victims. They are only favorable because we pay their security bill. They can play their free healthcare, free housing for illegals, and free vacations games because we are paying for it. Which makes them not sovereign nations, they are dependents.

2) Who is this NATO you're talking about? The USA is NATO because we pay the bill. Them stepping up by 5% isn't making it a European NATO. Do you not realize how much Europe has taken advantage? Many Americans have this romanticized view of Europe, but the truth is they despise us and only want us for our money and resources.

3) Confront them with what? What every other administration has done...strongly worded letter?

4) When the other side has nothing to offer, then Manifest Destiny certainly works and don't fix what's not broken.

5) But the point of the truth is this, Trump (and JD Vance's speech in Europe last year) that Europe is not only incapable and most importantly unwilling to meet NATO's requirements, it has also completely separated from the fundamental values of the Western Society. And when those values do not align, the WE THE PEOPLE letter needs to be sent back across the Atlantic.

I grew up in Europe, so I'm somewhat familiar with the corruption there as well as how the people view us. It's absolutely far from perfect, and I'm glad I now live here and not there. But just because I live in rural America now doesn't make me oblivious to the rest of the world.

Yes, the US has paid the bill for a huge portion of NATO. And European governments will exploit us for every dollar they can get if we let them. It's absolutely time for that to stop. It's not just a "strongly worded letter", though...it's tariffs and negotiations, and they've been effective. According to Google, defense spending in NATO countries has increased 15% in 2025, and all 32 members are projected to meet the 2% GDP target for the first time ever, with several exceeding it. Trump's approach worked!

Europe isn't America. They have different cultural values and priorities. They definitely don't place the same value on extreme individualism that we do, and they have a more collective mindset, but that doesn't make them freedom hating communists. And I can assure you that many if not most of them feel the same way about their social and immigration problems as we do about ours, especially when you get out of the liberal urban centers. You can't say that the whole continent has departed from western values just because their government has taken a particular position...heck, we had Joe Biden as President just a couple of years ago over here. Thankfully him being in office doesn't mean that you or I in any way agreed with his bullshit. It's the same over there.

Cash is fungible, so it's hard to say how much of their social system is propped up by US dollars. I'm sure it's some...but the average citizen is also paying 50-60% in taxes, and that's a situation they've agreed to, so it's not as if they have no skin in the game. Time will tell how sustainable that is in the face of increased military spending and a decrease in the trade disparity as a result of the tariffs. I honestly don't know enough about it to make a prediction one way or the other.

We're not exactly the same, but we don't have to be to cooperate. We do have a shared history and heritage that has been mutually advantageous for the last century, and I think if we fail to maintain that it's gonna bite us in the ass in the long run. Just because we're the biggest kid on the block doesn't mean we're better off on our own. And we most certainly will be on our own if we start invading and seizing territory from them that doesn't belong to us.

quote:

Originally posted by r0gue:

...Right, he has them acting now to do such, but then, if that was his goal, WTF are the tariffs for?

Because a couple dozen soldiers and an extra dog sled isn't much of a response, so he's upping his game. He has their attention, now he has to convince them it's a serious situation.

Europe has its fair share of short-sighted politicians, just like we do, and Greenland has strategic value to them as well as us. DJT has to flog them a bit until they wake up.

Does anybody here know or remember the strategic value of Greenland during WWII? Among other things, it was used as a refueling point for our aircraft being ferried from factories in the USA to Europe. Ernest K Gann wrote "Island in the Sky" about this in 1944.

Back about a year or two, there was a news story saying that China has, I think, three times as many ice-breaking ships as we do, and they're newer. They could make a northern approach to Greenland during the winter and by-pass the place, even if they got ten more dog sleds.

quote:

Originally posted by 92fstech:
And we most certainly will be on our own if we start invading and seizing territory from them that doesn't belong to us.

Another good discussion, 92fstech.

I also agree. I know....surprise.

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Originally posted by Lt CHEG:

This echoes my sentiments exactly. I support Trump, but I’m allowed to not agree with everything he does. I think the way he’s been handling the Greenland thing is flat out wrong. I also think his talking about making Canada the 51st state is wrong, and he maneuvered us out of having an ally as PM and now Canada is stuck with an idiot in charge. Again, I still strongly support him overall but strongly hope he chooses a different path with respect to Greenland going forward.

Sorry, but the only ones responsible for having an idiot in charge in Canada, are Canadians. They voted for it. They cut off their own nose to spite their face. No reasonable thinking person believes Canada will ever be the 51st state.

(This next bit is not in reference to the above post, but addresses other thoughts in this thread.)
Likewise no reasonable thinking person believes we will attack Greenland or Denmark or any other country in western Europe anytime soon. It's preposterous. It's amazing to me that people believe these things.

After all this time and all the things that have happened over the last 10 years, so many people still literally believe everything Trump says, when they should believe it figuratively. Did he even say that we're going to attack it? I recall he said something like, "we can do it the easy way or the hard way" or "one way or the other". Seems to me everyone assumes this means by military force. "The hard way" or "other way" could just as easily be tariffs or other means of applying pressure to negotiate a deal.

quote:

Originally posted by JoseyWales2:
No reasonable thinking person believes Canada will ever be the 51st state.

Alberta might. Maybe.

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Originally posted by JoseyWales2:
Sorry, but the only ones responsible for having an idiot in charge in Canada, are Canadians.

As it is in any body politic. It doesn’t matter whether there are some or even a large number of people who don’t like what the country has become any more than some people in California or Colorado or New York like what their states have become. When enough other people want things to be a certain way, they will be that way.

Furthermore, in the case of a foreign country like Canada or the UK, many people who don’t like some things there are still going to like and expect to have other things that a lot of us in the US would not want imported here.

Regardless of what their views may be about the immigration disaster or lack of free speech, how many UK residents would like for it to be possible for an ordinary citizen to walk into a gun shop and walk out with an AR or AK and all the ammunition they could carry 30 minutes later? I don’t know what the majority of Alberta residents would think about such an idea, but I certainly wouldn’t bet the rent that they would all become MAGA supporters.

During the American Revolution there were hopes that the Canadian colonies would join ours in throwing off control by Britain, but it didn’t happen, probably because even then the cultures were too different.

JoseyWales2, said it perfectly.

I'll only add one thing about the Trump Doctrine, and as vulgar as it is, it makes the point:

You ask a girl for anal and she give you a BJ, you still win.

Truly it is that simple. Zero hyperbole, zero committees.

A) Could Trump be trying to break NATO now, so that the caliphate of Western Europe has less advanced weapons?

B) Is Canada is also headed toward Communist Islam?

Several people in the administration have said that taking Greenland by force "can't be ruled out." While we in the United States are supposed to understand that Trump doesn't really mean it, the view in Europe is much different. After Denmark and other allies fought and died alongside US forces in Afghanistan and Iraq, it's no surprise that a lot of US allies are very bitter about this. Denmark had one of the highest per capita casualty rates of any of the allied forces that fought with us in Afghanistan.

https://www.military.com/daily...aking-greenland.html

The Greenland Defense Force is gearing up

https://youtu.be/hS0wFiWpU4U

quote:

Originally posted by Fed161:
Several people in the administration have said that taking Greenland by force "can't be ruled out." While we in the United States are supposed to understand that Trump doesn't really mean it, the view in Europe is much different. After Denmark and other allies fought and died alongside US forces in Afghanistan and Iraq, it's no surprise that a lot of US allies are very bitter about this. Denmark had one of the highest per capita casualty rates of any of the allied forces that fought with us in Afghanistan.

https://www.military.com/daily...aking-greenland.html

"Big Stick Diplomacy" only works when the other side thinks that you'll actually use the stick. And Trump has already demonstrated that he will. So it's hard to blame them for thinking that he might actually do it.

I agree that I think it's highly unlikely that the US will actually invade Greenland or try to take it by force, but if I was a European today listening to the rhetoric in the media and looking at the US's recent actions I'd be pretty concerned. I can understand and appreciate the need to negotiate with foreign governments from a position of authority, but there's a time and a place for it, and I'm concerned that in this case we're throwing away any goodwill of the European people that we still enjoy.

I had a conversation with a German guy on a bus in Spain this past fall. His family had worked for the US Military in Frankfurt and he had visited the US several times in the past, so he had a pretty positive view of the US and Americans...maybe even better than most. But he told me he was afraid to visit the US now because it looked like we'd elected a crazy person and he was afraid of how he'd be treated as a foreigner if he came here. I tried my best to explain the American issues with immigration and border security, why the Trump policies were necessary and how they were actually being applied, and to re-assure him that they wouldn't affect him as a legal visitor from Germany. But it concerns me quite a bit that this seems to be the impression that average people over there are getting of the US right now.

quote:

But it concerns me quite a bit that this seems to be the impression that average people over there are getting of the US right now.

You can thank the media for that

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Does anybody here know or remember the strategic value of Greenland during WWII? Among other things, it was used as a refueling point for our aircraft being ferried from factories in the USA to Europe.

The Germans also had a refueling station there, for a supposed/purposed bombing attack against New York.

quote:

Originally posted by Fed161:
Several people in the administration have said that taking Greenland by force "can't be ruled out." While we in the United States are supposed to understand that Trump doesn't really mean it, the view in Europe is much different. After Denmark and other allies fought and died alongside US forces in Afghanistan and Iraq, it's no surprise that a lot of US allies are very bitter about this. Denmark had one of the highest per capita casualty rates of any of the allied forces that fought with us in Afghanistan.

https://www.military.com/daily...aking-greenland.html

France was our most important ally against the British during our Revolution, 15 years later we were at war with them.

quote:

Originally posted by SevenPlusOne:
France was our most important ally against the British during our Revolution ....

For a good discussion of how much France contributed to our ultimate success, I recommend the first two books of the American Revolution trilogy by Rick Atkinson, including The Fate of the Day. Would the US have been successful in the war without French assistance? Perhaps, but they did a lot that’s not generally recognized.

In a message to Norway's Prime Minister, President Trump says he no longer feels obligated to think only of peace since Norway failed to award him the Nobel Peace Prize last year. He says the snub is one of the reason's why he is pursuing acquiring Greenland.

https://www.npr.org/2026/01/19...nd-nobel-peace-prize