It would be hilarious if this wasn’t so stupid.
Spies on the ground? In Greenland? The largest town has less than 20K people in it! Who do we have on the ground there, the town gossip? A member of the PTA? Bartender at the pub?
Got to keep those spy satellites tasked on them or we might miss major events like Poul repainting his house a different color.
(Greenland doesn’t club seals - I looked it up, but that’s comedy)
If you think a bit longer term, and you're able to put say 100 people there, there might be able to subtly influence the public opinion rather easily. And this public might in turn later vote to join US and said US could come to the rescue.
I believe that's pretty much the plan - try to win the population, which is very small, by any means necessary - bribe (they already tried apparently), sow discord, find a common issue you agree on etc.
Many (most?) people spend much of their leisure time on social media, why should Greenlanders be any different?
Sounds too much like "Nice country you have there. Would be a shame if something happened to it". Or the old classic "We're taking you over for your own protection"
I was going to say that you don't worry about the guy who's shooting his mouth off about taking your country. You worry about the guy who's very quietly preparing his forces. But 1) I do in fact worry that Trump will go beyond shooting his mouth off, and 2) while Putin said "oh no, we're not going to attack Ukraine, these are just exercises", he was making very visible moves with his troops that were clearly threatening.
So, yeah. I don't trust Trump, but I also don't trust Putin. (Though I trust him this far - he's got his hands too full at the moment to try it.)
I legitimately can't tell who you think has their hands too full to start something: the West's old superpower opponent currently waging a hot war with their neighbour, or the guy trying to actively dismantle the United States of America from the inside
And somehow, between the two of them, it's Trump that I don't trust to simply let a plate fall, move on to (or back to) Greenland, and create more outrage to get the public and the media forget about the smashed plate.
To be fair, Putin has always been at war with one of his neighbours. When it wasn't Ukraine it was Georgia, Chechenia, Afganistan, whatever. He's always looking for a former USSR state to kill somewhere. This is why I was a bit surprised that the media considers the Ukraine thing a massive change of direction. It's not. The only thing that's different is that it's a country that the EU was interested in having join us now. It's terrible what he's doing in Ukraine but why didn't we consider it such an outrage when he did the same in Georgia and Chechenia?
> And somehow, between the two of them, it's Trump that I don't trust to simply let a plate fall, move on to (or back to) Greenland, and create more outrage to get the public and the media forget about the smashed plate.
Yeah with Trump I think he's just super unpredictable. No way to know what he's going to do tomorrow. At least with Putin it's pretty clear.
"The Wall Street Journal should be ashamed of aiding deep state actors
who seek to undermine the President by politicizing and leaking classified
information. They are breaking the law and undermining our nation’s
security and democracy."
From the Edward Snowden leaks, we learned that National Security is about securing US Gov and it's partners. And we learned how undermining National Security often keeps Americans secure from bad Gov behavior.
And when the public is informed in good faith, Democracy is a little better off.
bookofjoe•9mo ago