2026 US-Denmark Tensions/End of NATO

[daftandbarmy]

Do the worst of the arrogant navy officers ever get cornered by the crew and have a closed door chat about their behavior?

Yes. And these Officers explain to the ratings how they have failed him and the ship

 

[Kirkhill]

My underlying belief is that this is all about Trump accepting longstanding American policy, relying on collective defence, but getting frustrated that its allies do not perceive threats on the same terms America does. America discovered how expensive it is to go it alone. And how thankless that route is. But the collective route demands that the collecive works to the mutual satisfaction of all members.

Trump is doing the other thing. US politicians failed to get the results they wanted by being polite. Trump is impolite.

The difference between Trump and a politician is that politicians care what other people think. Trump grew up on Page Six of the New York Post, in New York society, in the world of developers, casinos, gamblers and entertainers. With money. He doesn't give a damn what other people think. He does love the show though,

What Donald Trump Learned From Don King (Published 2024)

The decades-long friendship of two men who never especially changed.

www.nytimes.com

 

[Halifax Tar]

Do the worst of the arrogant navy officers ever get cornered by the crew and have a closed door chat about their behavior?

The NCM - Officer dynamic/relationship is very different in the RCN. And worlds different from a Combat Arms standpoint.

I was chatting with our Snr Naval LogO before Christmas stated that we need more Snr NCMs involvement in RCN Log O Development and selection and he agreed. We talked about meting to push the ball down the field. Time will tell.

 

[Altair]

My underlying belief is that this is all about Trump accepting longstanding American policy, relying on collective defence, but getting frustrated that its allies do not perceive threats on the same terms America does. America discovered how expensive it is to go it alone. And how thankless that route is. But the collective route demands that the collecive works to the mutual satisfaction of all members.

The difference between Trump and a politician is that politicians care whar other people think. Trump grew up on Page Six of the New York Post, in New York society, in the world of developers, casinos, gamblers and entertainers. With money. He doesn't give a damn what other people think. He does love the show though,

What Donald Trump Learned From Don King (Published 2024)

The decades-long friendship of two men who never especially changed.

www.nytimes.com

Which is all well and good, but there are 4, maybe 5 options on the table.

1)The USA just beefs up its presence on Greenland, which they can do if they want. As you said, expensive.

2)The USA aquires Greenland, which is more expensive
a) As they would need to buy off the citizens of greenland and pay off Denmark, and they need to send their troops anyways
b) Face the sanctions and loss of bases overseas if they go the military route, and they need to send their troops anyways

3)This is all a pressure campaign to trick the Europeans to send troops to Greenland to defend agaisnt the USA with the actual goal of defending agaisnt the Russians and....Chinese? (Imagine the supply lines for China if it wanted to militarily occupy Greenland....)

4)The Americans want to secure Greenland, wont send troops because as you said, expensive, trust that them owning the island is enough to ward off the Russians and the....sigh....Chinese, which is downright hypocritical.

5) They want greenland for the resources and couldn't give a damn about all of the above.

 

[Kirkhill]

Which is all well and good, but there are 4, maybe 5 options on the table.

1)The USA just beefs up its presence on Greenland, which they can do if they want. As you said, expensive.

2)The USA aquires Greenland, which is more expensive
a) As they would need to buy off the citizens of greenland and pay off Denmark, and they need to send their troops anyways
b) Face the sanctions and loss of bases overseas if they go the military route, and they need to send their troops anyways

3)This is all a pressure campaign to trick the Europeans to send troops to Greenland to defend agaisnt the USA with the actual goal of defending agaisnt the Russians and....Chinese? (Imagine the supply lines for China if it wanted to militarily occupy Greenland....)

4)The Americans want to secure Greenland, wont send troops because as you said, expensive, trust that them owning the island is enough to ward off the Russians and the....sigh....Chinese, which is downright hypocritical.

5) They want greenland for the resources and couldn't give a damn about all of the above.

No argument.

I just find myself not surprised that nations act like nations.

 

[Kirkhill]

PS WRT China

I am already treating China and Russia as a co-dominium with China having the upper hand.
The NE Passage connects Chinese interests in Arctic Siberia with Chinese interests in Arctic Russia (two different places, earst and west of the Urals).

China has commercial interests on Svalbard in conjunction with the Russians who have a joint ownership agreement with the Chinese.

China has invested in Greenland, just as it has in Canada and in the US.

Having worked on a couple of jobs with Chinese investors, and for people that have engaged Chinese contractors, the thing that always struck me was the number of Chinese that were imported with the equipment. And that is based on comparisons with plants supplied by Swedes, Danes, Germans, Japanese and Chinese.

...

A seminal book for our times is Ghost Force about the SAS and its transition from raiding German airbases in North Africa to becoming Britain's "little green men" in the 90's.

In a closing paragraph the author suggested that that method of operation, soldiers flying in civilian aircraft with a duffel and picking up weaponry at the embassy, was on its way out. It would be replaced by a suit with a credit card. Anything you need to disturb Yods's "Force" can be bought locally.

 

[brihard]

So contributing to the common defence means allowing Americans to build facilities and staff them with Americans equipped with American made kit bought by American taxpayers?

The North Atlantic Treaty doesn’t speak about common defence; it speaks about collective defence. It’s an important distinction. The alliance members will come to each others’ aid, but it’s not about a default pooling of capabilities or responsibilities. There are some such pools of shared capabilities (AWACS comes to mind) but it’s as and when they deem it the right approach.

Greenland is largely about monitoring space approaches to North America, monitoring and controlling air approaches, and monitoring and controlling sea approaches. It’s not really a land domain save to the extent a country may try to occupy that land to impact on the others.

A Chinese or Russian ground occupation of Greenland would be highly difficult, highly telegraphed, and easily isolated and defeated. I don’t think anyone’s looking at Greenland as a ‘garrison’ problem in the land domain.

To the space, air, and sea domains- what are the security gaps America contends exists? The first two are primarily for defending the U.S. (and, residually, Canada since we’re en route)… and that’s why Pituffik (formerly Thule) is a capability that feeds NORAD. So that seems covered. We’re a conventional conflict heating up, NATO could move fighters to Pituffik; it used to host interceptor squadrons during the Cold War. So I don’t know if the U.S. is suggesting Denmark should host a fighter squadron in Greenland or something?

Maritime - well, the G-I-UK gap isn’t new and the U.S. doesn’t go it alone there. Maybe Denmark could put some coastal missile batteries in eastern Greenland to mollify them?

I dunno. If the U.S. would only articulate something coherent, that would give the allies parameters to work towards. But since it’s basically all bullshit anyway I don’t believe the U.S. will do that. Trump’s just looking at the map again and saying “that lump should be the same colour as my lump”.

 

[GR66]

My underlying belief is that this is all about Trump accepting longstanding American policy, relying on collective defence, but getting frustrated that its allies do not perceive threats on the same terms America does. America discovered how expensive it is to go it alone. And how thankless that route is. But the collective route demands that the collecive works to the mutual satisfaction of all members.

Trump is doing the other thing. US politicians failed to get the results they wanted by being polite. Trump is impolite.

The difference between Trump and a politician is that politicians care what other people think. Trump grew up on Page Six of the New York Post, in New York society, in the world of developers, casinos, gamblers and entertainers. With money. He doesn't give a damn what other people think. He does love the show though,

What Donald Trump Learned From Don King (Published 2024)

The decades-long friendship of two men who never especially changed.

www.nytimes.com

Let's not pretend that the US being the indispensable guarantor of Western security was an act of selfless altruism. It was always in their interest to be the supreme military power and to therefor be able to influence the foreign policies of the rest of the West to align with their own objectives.

Trump lacks the mental subtlety to grasp the benefits to the United States of these policies...the same as he fails to grasp the benefits to the US of open trade policies with other developed nations...and instead sees everything as a pure transactional relationship with a winner and a loser.

Does that mean the the US was wrong to demand NATO increase its share of the defence burden in the face of Russian belligerence and China's military build up? Of course not. Threatening to undermine the very foundation of the alliance however is the US cutting off its own nose to spite its face.

A year ago I might have bought the argument that Trump was taking many of the actions he's taken in order to address the serious debt problem that the US has gotten into but in light of policies like wanting to increase defence spending by 50% you can't help but come to the conclusion that he simply wants the US to be the biggest bully on the block and nobody - friend or foe - is to be allowed to stand in the way of that goal.

 

[Kirkhill]

The North Atlantic Treaty doesn’t speak about common defence; it speaks about collective defence. It’s an important distinction. The alliance members will come to each others’ aid, but it’s not about a default pooling of capabilities or responsibilities. There are some such pools of shared capabilities (AWACS comes to mind) but it’s as and when they deem it the right approach.

Greenland is largely about monitoring space approaches to North America, monitoring and controlling air approaches, and monitoring and controlling sea approaches. It’s not really a land domain save to the extent a country may try to occupy that land to impact on the others.

A Chinese or Russian ground occupation of Greenland would be highly difficult, highly telegraphed, and easily isolated and defeated. I don’t think anyone’s looking at Greenland as a ‘garrison’ problem in the land domain.

To the space, air, and sea domains- what are the security gaps America contends exists? The first two are primarily for defending the U.S. (and, residually, Canada since we’re en route)… and that’s why Pituffik (formerly Thule) is a capability that feeds NORAD. So that seems covered. We’re a conventional conflict heating up, NATO could move fighters to Pituffik; it used to host interceptor squadrons during the Cold War. So I don’t know if the U.S. is suggesting Denmark should host a fighter squadron in Greenland or something?

Maritime - well, the G-I-UK gap isn’t new and the U.S. doesn’t go it alone there. Maybe Denmark could put some coastal missile batteries in eastern Greenland to mollify them?

I dunno. If the U.S. would only articulate something coherent, that would give the allies parameters to work towards. But since it’s basically all bullshit anyway I don’t believe the U.S. will do that. Trump’s just looking at the map again and saying “that lump should be the same colour as my lump”.

My apologies. I was inappropriate in my word choice.

But I do think that you under-estimate the Donald and over-estimate the distance between him and America's establishment interests.

 

[Kirkhill]

Let's not pretend that the US being the indispensable guarantor of Western security was an act of selfless altruism. It was always in their interest to be the supreme military power and to therefor be able to influence the foreign policies of the rest of the West to align with their own objectives.

Trump lacks the mental subtlety to grasp the benefits to the United States of these policies...the same as he fails to grasp the benefits to the US of open trade policies with other developed nations...and instead sees everything as a pure transactional relationship with a winner and a loser.

Does that mean the the US was wrong to demand NATO increase its share of the defence burden in the face of Russian belligerence and China's military build up? Of course not. Threatening to undermine the very foundation of the alliance however is the US cutting off its own nose to spite its face.

A year ago I might have bought the argument that Trump was taking many of the actions he's taken in order to address the serious debt problem that the US has gotten into but in light of policies like wanting to increase defence spending by 50% you can't help but come to the conclusion that he simply wants the US to be the biggest bully on the block and nobody - friend or foe - is to be allowed to stand in the way of that goal.

Absolutely.

The US benefited. It acted in its establishment's interests. Like every other nation.

New York took over from London. That was a conscious act.


The US wanted all the benefits of being top dog. Just as every other empire has.

But they should have paid attention to the Little Englander debates.

Little Englander - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

"The original Little England movement originated among manufacturers in Manchester and found support among journalists such as Goldwin Smith. The movement objected to the protectionist stance of British Canada, which was exemplified by the tariff increase of 1859. The English manufacturers resented paying taxes to defend a colony that imported few British goods, but exported so many to England. Moreover, it was believed that the United States could become a much more important partner, as it was already Britain's best customer outside Europe. There was also a social element to the movement. The Manchester School opposed the Empire for providing sinecures for the idle sons of the aristocracy at the expense of productive industrialists at home."

Canada is independent, in large part, because a significant portion of the British establishment were those members of the HBC board that opposed Selkirk's Red River settlement.

Prestige costs money.

Britain's costs went up when it started trying to do the right thing. So do America's.

 

[brihard]

My apologies. I was inappropriate in my word choice.

But I do think that you under-estimate the Donald and over-estimate the distance between him and America's establishment interests.

I don’t underestimate his ability to arbitrarily make economically or geopolitically poor strategic decisions and force his executive to act on them. The closing of the distance between his views and those of his administration reflects his conscious and deliberate choosing of voices that won’t responsibly present dissenting or alternate views when policy is being considered, and the driving out of those who will.

 

[Genetk44]

Which is all well and good, but there are 4, maybe 5 options on the table.

1)The USA just beefs up its presence on Greenland, which they can do if they want. As you said, expensive.

2)The USA aquires Greenland, which is more expensive
a) As they would need to buy off the citizens of greenland and pay off Denmark, and they need to send their troops anyways
b) Face the sanctions and loss of bases overseas if they go the military route, and they need to send their troops anyways

3)This is all a pressure campaign to trick the Europeans to send troops to Greenland to defend agaisnt the USA with the actual goal of defending agaisnt the Russians and....Chinese? (Imagine the supply lines for China if it wanted to militarily occupy Greenland....)

4)The Americans want to secure Greenland, wont send troops because as you said, expensive, trust that them owning the island is enough to ward off the Russians and the....sigh....Chinese, which is downright hypocritical.

5) They want greenland for the resources and couldn't give a damn about all of the above.

It’s #5….it’s always about the money for Trump…..everything else is just peripheral.

 

[Lumber]

Do the worst of the arrogant navy officers ever get cornered by the crew and have a closed door chat about their behavior?

The only time I've ever heard of a navy officer being "spoken to" by an NCM for their behaviour is a dit or two about Coxns (the ship's RSM for you land lubbers) speaking to the CO about their behaviour. In any other situation, the NCMs would bring it up to the particular officer's higher up and they would have a chat with them. That being said, there's plenty of times where I've been politely "corrected" by the Coxn, usually because of my hair cut (or lack thereof...).

 

[RangerRay]

So Trump must have Greenland for national security reasons and is willing to pay more for it in terms of defence, providing government services to the people of Greenland and turning the US into a pariah state but finds it unacceptable that he can have the same forces and assets defend the same territory that is a longtime ally without providing for the residents of the territory, and will let any power have their way with Greenland if it is not a US territory?

I’m pretty sure I’m not underestimating his strategic acumen. He makes Sleepy Joe look like a strategic genius.

 

[Eaglelord17]

Greenland isn’t even about money, it is about believing in imperialism and manifest destiny.

For example the rare earth materials in Greenland.
1) it takes 29 years on average to make a mine in the USA.
2) it takes 7-10 years to get a rare earth metal refinery running
3) 90% of the global refinery takes place in China so even if the US built a mine instantly in Greenland they would need China to process the minerals.

The US (and West) are very behind in developing rare earth processing (or more apt to say we let go the capability). Without developing the ability to process materials it doesn’t matter if you can mine it or not.

Ultimately Trump has this really childish view of the whole situation which he has chased out all the rational people and replaced them with yes men who tell him how right he is.

 

[Kirkhill]

PS WRT China

I am already treating China and Russia as a co-dominium with China having the upper hand.
The NE Passage connects Chinese interests in Arctic Siberia with Chinese interests in Arctic Russia (two different places, earst and west of the Urals).

China has commercial interests on Svalbard in conjunction with the Russians who have a joint ownership agreement with the Chinese.

China has invested in Greenland, just as it has in Canada and in the US.

Having worked on a couple of jobs with Chinese investors, and for people that have engaged Chinese contractors, the thing that always struck me was the number of Chinese that were imported with the equipment. And that is based on comparisons with plants supplied by Swedes, Danes, Germans, Japanese and Chinese.

...

A seminal book for our times is Ghost Force about the SAS and its transition from raiding German airbases in North Africa to becoming Britain's "little green men" in the 90's.

In a closing paragraph the author suggested that that method of operation, soldiers flying in civilian aircraft with a duffel and picking up weaponry at the embassy, was on its way out. It would be replaced by a suit with a credit card. Anything you need to disturb Yods's "Force" can be bought locally.

Further to.... YMMV given the source

Russian Exports to China Plummet in 2025 Across Oil, Coal, Metal, and Auto Sectors

China's imports of key Russian commodities dropped significantly in 2025, reflecting shifts in market dynamics and ongoing geopolitical tensions.

united24media.com

 

[Kirkhill]

Russia and China are occupying a coal mine at Barentsburg on Norwegian held Svalbard, about 600 km from Greenland, 300 km from Norway and 600 km from mainland Russia. But only 300 km from the newly revitalized Russian base at Nagurskoye in Franz Josef land.

The distance from Greenland to Canada is now 0 km. We share a land border on Hans Island.

China is desperate for energy and other resources. The Arctic offers opportunity.
Russia needs the Arctic to hide its subs and ICBMs.
Both need to control the entrance to Murmansk and the North East Passage.

There is reason for the interest up north.
And both China, and Russia, have demonstrated to play by fair means and foul.

The Americans asked us to secure the north. They have been asking it since VJ day in 1945.
The Europeans asked us to secure the north, only to be told by Justin he would never reach 2%, didn't want to become a Scandinavian and wouldn't sell them any energy.

Further to...

 

[suffolkowner]

kinda amazing that Greenland survived for the last 75 yrs of the Cold War and now when Russias been stuck in Ukraine for 4 yrs stripping itself bare of everything its a big security scare because the Russians are so scary but not that scary that the US would help Ukraine defeat them

 

[lenaitch]

So contributing to the common defence means allowing Americans to build facilities and staff them with Americans equipped with American made kit bought by American taxpayers?

I rather think the entire discussion with various American presidents has been to get the locals everywhere to take over the bases, take over the staffing, takeover the kitting-out and takeover the tax burden.

Instead, when the Americans left, the entire structure was abandoned. It wasn't mothballed and put into reserve to be staffed in time of need by local reservists. It was decommissioned and the time and resources went into sportshalls, pensions and health care.

As sovereign nations those were our sovereign choices. The consequences are our sovereign consequences.

In Canadian terms, when the USAF vacated a lot of the Pinetree Line stations as part of the post-Arrow/Voodoo reshuffling of the deck, the RCAF stepped in.

When the US left Argentia, what would we have done with it except spend millions per year keeping it mothballed, just to keep it mothballed?

 

[Altair]

Trump 'orders US army chiefs to draw up plan to invade Greenland'

Donald Trump has ordered his special forces commanders to draw up a plan for the invasion of Greenland - but is being resisted by senior military figures, The Mail on Sunday has learned.

www.dailymail.co.uk

Donald Trump has ordered his special forces commanders to draw up a plan for the invasion of Greenland - but is being resisted by senior military figures, The Mail on Sunday has learned.

Sources say that the policy 'hawks' around the US President, led by political adviser Stephen Miller, have been so emboldened by the success of the operation to capture Venezuela's leader Nicolas Maduro that they want to move quickly to seize the island before Russia or China makes a move.

British diplomats believe that Trump is also motivated by a desire to distract American voters from the performance of the US economy before the mid-term elections later this year, after which he could lose control of Congress to the Democrats.

But such a dramatic move would put him at odds with Sir Keir Starmer and would effectively lead to the collapse of Nato.

Trump supporters say he's not going to actually do it.

Trump says he's going to do it.

I know who I believe here.