US President Donald Trump’s abduction of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro on January 3 has emboldened him to proceed with the annexation of Greenland, a Danish-owned, self-governed territory, spelling the effective end of NATO and furthering Russia’s war aims in Ukraine, experts tell Al Jazeera.
“The move on Venezuela illustrates the Trump administration’s determination to dominate the Western Hemisphere – of which Greenland geographically is a part,” said Anna Wieslander, Northern Europe director for the Atlantic Council, a think tank.
“If the United States decides to attack another NATO country, then everything would stop – that includes NATO and therefore post-World War II security,” Frederiksen said.
“The pandering to Trump has been an element of our strategy over the last year, leaving observers hoping, but not entirely trusting, that another element of the strategy is preparing urgently for the final rupture with the United States,” Giles said.
Giles told Al Jazeera that Europe’s best option was to place a military deterrent on Greenland now, believing that putting allied troops in the Baltic States and Poland after 2017 deterred a Russian attack there.
Let’s hope the same thing will happen if/when the US tries to take Greenland; but honestly, I’m not optimistic. At least here in Germany, politicians and businesses are so used to licking the US’ boot that I have a hard time imagining a seismic shift. Not to mention that thanks to our dependence on US software, we’re incredibly vulnerable.
Still. One can hope.
We are seriously in a good position right now in EU believe it or not. Trump has been a wakeup call, and we are already mobilizing faster than - ever? - however, imagine being Canada, australia, Japan, etc. Countries far far away from Europe. If nato dies, Europe makes a new defense alliance, focussing on having troops on the, continent. Canada and australia needs to come closer to Europe. Trade wise, militiary wise, political, if they don’t wanna get sucked up in the strongest superpower nearby, even if they have anything in common or not.
We’re trying to come closer in all those ways. The “don’t buy US made products” has spread everywhere and I hear it’s starting to make an impact.
I’m worried about our southern neighbours… I see the news and it feels like they might have a civil war on their hands.
Yeah, its fucking disgusting what usa has become. But we now know how they “stand” it would be a killing blow for canada if usa got greenland. I say let canada control the north atlantic, militiary wise, in a cooperation with EU. (Since Greenland doesn’t have a militiary. They will rely heavily on such an alliance)
What experrs? American experts?
They’re kind of forgetting the big elephant in the room that is the fact a lot of US foreign debt is owned by Japan and China, with the majority of the rest of it being held by countries that will be very very pissed off with this move.
If trump is stupid enough to pull the trigger, and those countries decide that a potential physical war is becoming inevitable, they’ll for sure dump all of that debt, all at once; killing the US economy and it’s ability to make war. War needs fuel. Despite Venzuela, Trump won’t have enough of it once his economy tanks.
Here’s a recent article on the chances the USD continues as the world’s reserve currency.
Ps it’s not looking great.
https://www.ftadviser.com/content/5cbf339b-7c4d-464b-8c2a-0c7409e515a0
this fills my heart with joy
Europe should prepare to tell Trump to go fuck himself.
Yeah I think the ordering on that is China, Japan, UK, Canada in terms of the countries that hold US bonds.
A diplomatic delegation came to Canada recently and then Mark Carney went to China. Maybe just coincidence, or maybe not.
Tanking the bonds is essentially the economic equivalent of a nuke. You don’t want to use it because there will be fallout which isn’t good for anyone. But the US actually using military force on Greenland would be a circumstance where you might push the button on that. China has some business interests in Greenland, and generally the US just invading places based solely on the whims of a deranged old man is worse for everyone than the economic fallout from tanking the bonds.
If there’s a war, and the US is cut off due to international sanctions, they’ll have to ship the oil all the way north, by ship, rail, or road, all of which would be VERY susceptible to attacks and sabotage.
And if by ship, they’re likely going to be straining the Navy between ports. Be a shame if something breaks too as we have less dock space available for repair than we did when we laid those keels.
He’s also talking about operations in several other countries, and if he’s talking about a few, he’s thinking about a bunch more. He doesn’t seem to understand that it’s not a good idea to spread your forces and resources over multiple battlefronts.
He seems to think that the military is infinite, that he can just throw money at it and it can do anything. He’s talking about a $1.5 TRILLION military budget (who is paying for that?), and he’s going to need a LOT more personnel. That means at some point, he is going to demand a draft, especially if unemployment gets too high. It is already at its highest point since 2020.
America First used to mean we stay out of everywhere else, and concentrate on America, but Trump’s version means America gets first dibs on everything, and if you don’t want to play that game, we’ll just take what we want.
We have more oil than we need already in the US.
We don’t have rare earth or battery materials manufacturing/extraction anywhere near the scale needed for a real war though.
But also Trump and Hegseth are fucking morons who’s wouldn’t smell a strategy if it took a shit on their faces.
And if it comes to strategic dumping of US bonds, on one side you have Mark Carney, a former central bank governor, and on the other Donald Trump, who played a successful businessman on television.
What if I told you that was literally part of the plan? The groundwork for looking the USD was already in project 2025 and the dark enlightenment bullshit the tech feudalists masturbate to requires the balkanization of the US, and pulling a smash and grab on the USD will get us there within ten years. And if Trump makes it to next January they can kill him and we get ten years of “legitimate” Vance and by then it’s well and truly over.
they’ll for sure dump all of that debt
That is a gain for the US, not a loss. No interest payments on the loans they’ve made, and no need to pay off the principal. Great!
You are forgetting one thing: no more possibility of selling US debt. And currently the US debt is above 100% GDP.
Yes. No new debt sold abroad. But also no need to raise debt to pay off existing debt.
Also rasing more debt is a future problem. Does this administration care about the long term? No.
The debt doesn’t “go away”, the countries sell it on the market, causing the price of us bonds to drop. That causes the yield (what it costs the us to service the debt) to go up. Borrowing becomes more expensive. Repaying debt or borrowing more to pay interest becomes even more expensive for the us.
Repaying debt or borrowing more to pay interest becomes even more expensive for the us.
Yes. This I agree. But the current administration has shown it is willing to ignore future consequences.
Higher yields are irrelevant if the project 2025 goal is to “Abolish the Federal Reserve” page 768
Those are not some remote future consequences, the downfall would be quite immediate
Less immediate than war with the EU or China.
I don’t think you understand how inflation works…
Debt cancelling is a deflationary action. It reduces the money supply.
Dumping their bonds into the market isn’t cancelling their debt. Its making all that debt available for OTHERS to buy. Supply goes up, value goes down.
In other words, if all of the US debt was out up for sale at the same time, is value of the US dollar would crater.
Supply is the same unless debt is cancelled. A weaker dollar makes it easier to pay interest.
"If you owe foreign banks $100, that’s your problem. If you owe foreign banks $100 trillion that’s the foreign bank’s problem.”
That’s not how markets work.
But you’re clearly a troll just being intentionally obtuse for shits and giggles. It’s on me for not having realised it earlier.
Have a good day.
If you think correcting someone’s macro economic misunderstandings is trolling then you will be meeting many more trolls.
Not cancelling, selling.
A dollar bill is debt that the govt owes to you. A bond is similar, just a bit different.
The US will still owe, just to different entities, but its figurative credit score will plummet at the same time it’s in a debt spiral.
But let’s make it simpler. Most of the world’s USD is not in the US, but in cash reserves abroad. They hold it like gold.
What happens if the big players sell? It’s already happening a bit, look at EURUSD and gold prices.
Yes. This is Trumps goal. Make foreign goods super expensive for consumers and manufacturers. Exactly what a Tariff does.
They are isolationists. They don’t want debt held overseas.
This would make all goods more expensive, as it would directly devalue the USD. It wouldn’t make people buy local, it would just make them buy less.
It’s not what a tariff does, because that only applies to foreign imports.
Under both, local products become cheaper than foreign.
Money would be a problem but not the worst problem, all of manufacturing and materials come from China and the remaining single digit percent is in Europe, if the US pisses both they wont be able to manufacture war even if they haf all of the money
Why can’t NATO still exist without the US? The alliance could still stick together even if the US shits the bed. God damn why am I typing this? WW3 is about to start and I have no idea what the fuck is going on in my country anymore.
Challenging, but not impossible. I think the military budget of all other NATO members combined would just be about the same as the US. However, it’s not like every country has its own independent “mix of everything”; they are supposed to work supplemental. What makes things worse is proprietary hardware and software in modern equipment such as planes. I’m not sure to which degree it would even be technically possible to use it to defend against the USA.
Then there is the nuclear weapon problem. France and UK would have to really stand their ground and follow through with nuclear retaliation. That means that even when the USA or Russia just use a small tactical nuke in Poland, Greenland or wherever, they’d have to use one of their few strategic nukes to destroy something big, possibly dooming Paris. The downside of the idea of mutually assured destruction always was that it only works with somewhat reasonable people who REALLY are not willing to take their entire civilisation with them. But since Stalin, there have never been nutjobs like Trump or Putin in charge, neither in the USSR, nor US, nor Russia.
A victorious Ukraine would certainly be an incredible asset to have in NATO, with all those battle-hardened, highly educated people.
But all things considered, might as well give it a try.
Canada needs nuclear weapons as a deterrent against the American threat. Inshallah.
Because nobody in Europe wants to fight
Europe has two choices - fight or die
You are deluding yourself.
The US is doing this with the aim of surviving and thriving. They are chasing treasure, land and the dream of a better life after. Those are not goals that motivate people to fight.
For Europe, as for Canada, this fight is existential. There is nothing people are not willing to do in an existential fight.
You’re out of your mind if you think the US has the upper hand here.
I just want to say it won’t end Nato. Nato countries will stick together, but the USA will be out, alone, isolated, another rouge state just like Russia. That is until Americans grow a spine and either throw Trump out by election, by force, or by crashing the economy.
Considering this year started 10 days ago, I don’t think we have enough time til the election in 3 years.
And then they may elect Mr Beast or some other rich dude.
And then they may elect Mr Beast
I can’t wait for welfare to be replaced by “Survive 30 days in Guantanamo, win $500,000”, and “100 people in Alligator Alcatraz. Last one standing wins $1,000,000”.
And gets to keep the alligator.
You comment reminded me of The Long Walk. Worth a watch.
I’m sure the free world will stick together till the bitter end
The population of the US is about 342 million. Russia has a population of about 146 million. China has a population of about 1.4 billion. The European Union has a population of about 448 million people. The population of the world is about 8 billion. The orange mobster THINKS it will rule the world?
The thing is that population numbers isn’t everything, it’s also about what that population is doing. A tree has a thousand times the mass of a patch of grass but produces the same photosynthesis or sth.
That’s because the tree is massive due to its trunk, which is dead weight and doesn’t do much.
You can’t even make a purchase on a credit card unless the US okays it.
I’m sure we can figure something out if that comes to be. If the people on Brasil made theur own credit cards I’m sure we can make an open source EU alternative
True. Not sure about other countries but Australia has always had EFTPOS. No one really uses it but we could switch in a blink if need be.
Recently saw the Handmaids tale, it kinda reflects how things can go to shit and reminds me of the isolated state.
The pandering to Trump has been an element of our strategy over the last year
End of NATO means:
- Russia will go all in in Ukraine, Moldavia and baltic states
- Turkey and Greece will go to war.
- Israel will bomb everybody just in case
- China will get Taiwan
- USA will bomb Mexico
- Israel will nuke someone
- …
And this is why billionaires have been building bunkers.
The fucking Muscovites will attack Poland to take the Sulwalki Gap and Finland to control their former vassal state.
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\7. France nukes everyone. (That’s their policy, anyone uses nukes, they launch everything they have against all nuclear powers, which isn’t a lot, but that’s a lot of major cities gone.)
Isn’t that Israel’s nuclear doctrine?
Yea, it is. Not true of France.
Officially Israel “doesn’t have nukes,” unofficially they have very few that could be used in short order before they are nuked. They don’t have the capability to nuke more than a few countries in the Middle East
That’s not an answer to my question. What you described sounds most like Israel’s Samson Option and not anything like I’ve ever heard of France’s nuclear doctrine.
Israel doesn’t have the capability to deliver. That’s about as useful as saying North Korea will nuke everyone. They literally can’t.
France adopted the policies I listed, with some small nuance in the 1970s and haven’t changed their stance.
Source ?
I can’t find the articles that I read about this, but if you look up their nuclear policies, they won’t use in first strike scenarios, but the will use for defensive strikes, which amounts to exactly what I said. In defensive scenarios, someone else already used them, so may as well unload your entire stockpile. Everyone else is going to unload theirs.
Just for reference the US, Russia, and China have similar contingencies. Once Israel or anyone launches a nuke or uses a bomb in very short order all the stockpiles get emptied. France just was pretty blatant about it in the '70s.
End of NATO. Putin’s wet dream.
I mean Donald Trump is working for Vladimir Putin come on
Power couple of the century
…and an EU-China alliance, Trump’s nightmare alliance, with China mediating and resolving disputes in northern Eurasia, including the Russia-Ukraine war, likely with mere words.
He should know that if he blows up NATO, it’s coming.
US analysts should tell him that this potential alliance would have several times the industrial capacity and scientific potential of the US, and if that doesn’t count, it would also have ~ 1000 nuclear warheads.
(The alliance would be stable since potential allies would be far from each other, safely separated by a large nuclear armed gas station which also claims alliance with China, but China supplies drone parts to both sides.)
China is not some all powerful country, nor is it altruistic.
The end of Russia’s war in Ukraine is the end of Putin. Do you think Putin will basically kill himself because of a word from China?
And you’re thinking too small. There is a lot of diplomacy going on between every country in the world. Mark Carney is in China at this very moment. There are other delegations in India. Japan, Korea, and China are working together a little more now, and they hate one another. Everyone is making temporary alliances. It’s shaping up to be US and Russia vs. the world.
Trump is trading NATO, the most powerful alliance in history, for Russia, a collapsing country.
China doesn’t want world domination. It just want to look out for China. However, what it considers China and what everyone else does are very different.
China is no different from the US.
Trump is in power because Americans have been made to think they need a strongman to make the economy work and protect them from the evil foreigners that are trying to screw them over.
Xi is in power because Chinese have been made to think they need a strongman to make the economy work and protect them from the evil foreigners that are trying to screw them over.
They are the same.
I’m in Canada and I see Taiwan as being in a similar situation to us. Trump wants Canada to be part of the US. Xi wants Taiwan to be part of China. The Taiwanese are facing the same struggle as us, and because of that, they are our brothers and sisters.
Fuck Xi and fuck Trump. They’re no different. We have to make deals with China but we know they’re the same as the US. They’re further away so not an immediate threat to us while the US is. That’s the only difference between them.
He’s not trading anything. You know that joke:
- People: We need healthcare!
- GOP: Fuck off!
- DNC: Fuck off! #BLM #woke #believewomen #imwithher
They could’ve taken over Venezuela and said it’s about democracy. The media was poised to make that the story. Europe slid in with “well, he is a dictator…”. They even had a Nobel peace prize recipient ready to jump in and take over. Hell, half the people on here were willing to go along with it. But for MAGA, doing evil isn’t enough anymore, you have to rub it in, you have to gloat about it, you have to be mean. Giving Israel weapons isn’t enough, you have to publicly tell them to kill everyone. It’s not enough to twist other nations’ arms in trade deals, you have to literally extort them. It’s not enough to round up and deport brown people, you need to have camps and cages and then film it and put it on TV, and laugh at them. It’s not enough to ignore protesters, or have them suicided, you have to murder them, and do so openly and proudly.
Dumping NATO, to Stephen Miller, is not a sacrifice but an unshackling. Now they don’t even need to pretend anything they do is for some greater good, even if they weren’t too crass and stupid to pull it off. They believe they’re in the endgame, and they’re just taking what they want.
Heard this one?
People: We need healthcare! GOP: Fuck off! Democrats: Don't vote GOP, you'll be paying more for healthcare, they'll take away people's rights, and we may even lose our democracy Leftists: Both sides! #uncommittedAfter the election:
People: We're now paying double for healthcare and there are masked men in the streets disappearing people GOP: Fuck off! We're invading countries now! Leftist: Both sides! WHY ISN'T CHUCK SCHUMER PREVENTING THIS!!!! Democrats: FFS we don't have any power because you didn't vote for usYou’ve already killed the the Democratic party, now you’re just beating on dead corpse becuase you’ll do anything other than oppose the people actually doing the bad things.
Tell your bullshit about how accelerationism is working to the families of the ~100 people Trump’s special military operation killed in Venezuela. That’s modern leftism for you… killing people in the developing world is somehow good because it helps leftism somehow and it hurts the Democrats (the real enemy!). How are you any different from MAGA at this point?
I’m sorry, you seem to have confused a joke meant to illustrate a point for an invitation to have imaginary conversations with the gaggle of strawmen you have living in your head.
I’ll leave you to it.
Yeah MAGAs also do the “I was just joking!” thing when I explain how stupid the things they post are.
You have more in common with MAGAs than you think.
…Man, those literacy stats about the US weren’t wrong…
I knew this would happen eventually, I just thought it would happen after my lifetime
NATO won’t end, only the US being part of NATO will end.
In fact if NATO didn’t already exist, something just like it would be formed if the US starts invading countries just because a crazy old man thinks the world map is a colouring book.
The crazy old man is a reflection of all Americans. That’s how most Americans see the world. 1 American life is worth 10,000 third world country lives.
Please stop vilifying the entirety of America. There are millions of us that are doing everything we can to organize against this while also feeding our families.
Yeah well y’all need to understand there are people in Venezuela and Greenland that are just trying to feed their families.
If Trump attacks my country I’ll need to be capable of going to war against your country. And that demands considering you to be nothing more than collateral damage if you happen to be in the wrong place at that wrong time. Just like those 100 people he killed in Venezuela.
If Trump carries out some of the threats he’s making right now, you’ll need to get used to being vilified. The rest of the world may need to burn your country to the ground, and we can’t let feelings get in the way of what must be done to prevent him from destroying our countries.
You shouldn’t be surprised when people have the same consideration for your life as Americans generally have for the lives in countries you go to war with.
Don’t spend any more time telling people to not “vilify” Americans, spend more time trying to make it so America is not the villain. We aren’t making you the villains, the actions of your President is making you the villains of the world.
Wow alright, fuck you too then I guess?
Yeah, an innocent American “just tying to feed his family” LOL.
No one needs to “vilify” you. You’re always ready to be villains with very little prompting.
All I’m seeing is another “fuck you, my needs are the only thing that matter” MAGA-type in your responses. Way to be part of the problem. You’re no different than Trump’s supporters. You just have the benefit of not being born here.
You’re country is falling apart and instead of doing something about it, you’re looking for someone else to blame.
It isn’t people from other countries that fucked up your country. You’re fucked because Americans were willing to vote in a fascist because you believe the “I’m just trying to feed my family” line of bullshit justifies your raw greed.
You’re the wealthiest country in the world, and you voted for Trump (or didn’t vote at all) because you believed it would make you rich. And you sure as hell didn’t want to vote for the black lady. But sure blame the black lady, blame everyone in the world, do everything you have to do to avoid responsibility. American culture is rotten to the core, and you’re incapable of understanding that.
You got a pass on a lot of your bullshit when you were an ally to other countries. That’s over now.
Some countries in Europe are starting to, and given what Europe is, that’s probably the best they can start doing.
At least because they made sure to show us their hand at their latest sonic weapons and information warfare used to shut down weapons that was used in the Venezuela attack. They would probably go the same route with Europe, trying to behead whatever strategic target is going to get them what they want, because they can’t go for a prolonged conflict either.
Meaning while, USA citizens are waiting for mid term elections! Trump most likely will leave or court will do something. Sit and watch, do nothing.
The feudalists behind Trump made the mistake to give the population a chance to bring him down once… they won’t repeat it. Also, if I remember correctly the SCOTUS granted the POTUS immunity for any action commited during his presidency. So whether Trump an others will be helf accountable his highly questionable to me… even if he loses the election in 3 years.
Trump will be free but every fucking one of his minions will not … because they don’t have the same immunity.
If there’s a power shift after midterms and the Dems make inroads, be prepared to watch Trump scream bloody murder 'cause he can’t always have his own way.
Unfortunately I (non-american) hear close to nothing from the Dems since ~ 12 months. Given their inactivity and assumed unwillignes to figth against the rise of Trumps dictatorship I have little hopes that the midterms change anything… also given that Trump seems to ignore the parliaments whenevwr he likes.
dems aren’t going to do shit lol
The same rulings mean that a future president can just lock him up without trial… Which probably means there won’t be any future (non-Trumpian) president, unfortunately.
Why would Trump leave that’s antithesis to his entire personality. Sticking around long after it’s clear that everyone hates him, claiming some sort of conspiracy, that’s more his style.
You would do the same if you were a US citizen. Talking tough from a distance is just as pathetic as our inaction and general inability to magically fix our country. Waiting for elections and not escalating beyond peaceful protests is all we can do without handing them the propaganda they need. Peaceful includes open carrying like the black panthers.
If someone were to actually assassinate the orange one, you guys are way more fucked. The retribution campaign would go way beyond Greenland even if it makes no sense.
In that case then, do something at those elections. But do something.
Do something instead of throwing out excuses everywhere.
There’s other things that could be done, if the claims that most are good people are correct. Such as a quiet ‘down tools’. But that can’t be done either because jobs and healthcare right?
It’s fine for Americans to shoot back at others about the harsher end of action, such as revolution but they don’t even try and look for excuses on the easier ways out.
There isn’t enough support for revolution despite what many people here believe.
Internal violence is always used by fascists to consolidate power. So people who aren’t stupid don’t use it. Shooting an ICE agent would be used to expand their protection for example.
There isn’t more ‘somethings’ to do. Voting and protesting is all we really have.
The problem is a large portion of this country is actually supportive of what’s happening. People who are mad are a minority.
Voting and protesting is all we really have.
Voting is not going to mean anything. You are putting far too much undeserved trust in the remaining democratic institutions.
Protesting only works if voting works, otherwise who are you convincing with protest? It’s masturbatory.
You need a general strike, and you need protests with clear open carries. You need to step it up so that the people in power can see the power of the people. Unfortunately you’re not ready or willing to do this because the risk of violence is very real. And it seems the American people are not ready to risk their lives to fix their country…yet. But their opponents are willing to do that to break it. The good Americans are going to come too late to this realization.
There isn’t enough…
Internal violence…
Yes, I agree to every sentence in those two paragraphs. I don’t advocate for it and my comment didn’t.
voting and protesting is all we have
Yep, which is why I replied do something to the voting point.
You need to do something that grinds production, like stopping work and trading, that forces those in power to use the standing institutional rules to remove the two or three needed and you know who they are. The rest then becomes an incompetent Republican administration. Yes, it sounds insane and impossible; it probably is. It requires hardship which Americans are not willing to endure.
You voted them in. That ship has sailed. Your nation needs free and fair midterms at all costs.
I’m not advocating for violence, at all. I never have and I don’t want to see the US fall because the loss is incalculable. I do advocate people take whatever steps necessary to defend themselves. I support the organised protests but I don’t think that’ll be enough; pockets need to drain. The system needs jamming and the only way to get those that can act is to jam it.
Don’t your knees hurt for being on them for so long?
Man the fuck up and stop trusting billionaires who only care about money will save you from billionaires who only care about money and raping children.
Edgy of you to assume all of these things.
If someone were to actually assassinate the orange one, you guys are way more fucked.
Why? Who would be ordering it, Vance? MAGA have one figurehead and a bunch of background characters that no one really likes. If Trump died it would be over. The GOP knows that, which is why you’re starting to see some pushback against Trump and his more insane ideas. They have started to realise that they need to be politically palatable in a post Trump world.
You would be shocked how many people knew the WMD thing was a lie and yet, still went to war over it. It will be the same type of behavior if he were assassinated.
Im not sure still they won’t fall in line after he dies. The bubble they live in is more insane than you realize. I grew up in it.
Germany needs to boot the US out of all the military installations there.
Germany helped the usa become the beast it is and is the inspiration for the current situation (funny when the usa inspired Germany first).
The right wing parties in Europe will help the usa.
That would be the ultimate win for Putin: Destruction of the NATO.
Prepare yourself. Go buy a good quality action camera.
with lots of film. get the high speed stuff, to shoot all the “action”.
