The U.S. has — by far — the world’s largest defense budget, spending $948 billion last year. Its armed forces have 1.3 million personnel — some of them currently stationed in Greenland. Denmark, for its part, last year spent $9.9 billion, has only 17,000 soldiers, and most of its heavy land-warfare equipment has been donated to Ukraine.
There’s a certain logic to this from the US perspective actually. If the US is now accepting that the unipolar moment is over, then they will be retrenching and drawing a line around what they see as their sphere of influence. The world will be carved up between different powers, and US is staking claims now. Europe will be the biggest loser here since it is in an incredibly weak position both economically and militarily. I expect that the EU will collapse and different European countries will be absorbed into different spheres of influence.
I have also heard this line of thinking, it’s very dark and does not paint a hopeful picture for the emancipation of humanity. But I kind of see the logic to it. Europe doesn’t have the martial strength to impose a European empire, especially not in the face of the American war machine. Nor does it have the economy to make one, especially with neoliberalism ripping the copper out the walls of European economies preventing reinvestment and industrialisation (see: the Bank Of England’s policy of quantitative tightening ruining the plans of the uk Labour Party, and all of Europe’s industrial capital looting its own assets).
In this proposed reality Europe must look to the other powers, America being the default choice, but an increasingly unfriendly one, does Europe fancy itself being an extraction zone for an exploitative empire? The boot on the other foot for them. To look the other way, would BRICS even be interested in Europe coming cap in hand? Maybe, but certainly not with terms Europe wouldn’t be too proud to accept. However individual BRICS countries maybe. Russia - a weird one, some countries may be happy to side with them (Germany possibly would consider it in a role as Russias workshop?) but I don’t see other countries like Poland going that way without a fight. China - too remote, too far away and too hated by most of Europe, maybe some nations like Turkey could look to them though. Brazil? Surely too busy with the American empire to its north to have time for Europe. South Africa - who knows? It’s a very different future to the one we grew up in.
Very much agree with all that. Unless Europe manages to find allies that can counterbalance the US, then it will be cannibalized by the US in the long run. A likely scenario is that the EU will fall apart, and individual countries will start talking to BRICS on their own. Once there is no EU to drive unified policy, it’s entirely possible that both Germany and France end up normalizing relations with Russia as well. The whole current political stance is premised on the idea that the US is a steadfast ally and protector. Once it becomes clear that this is not the case, European countries will be forced to re calibrate their positions.
What would US gain by doing this, they already have most of Europe in their sphere of influence, if they break up Europe, France, Germany, and maybe UK (if they fix their shit) will be major players with their own spheres, US won’t have any, and I doubt US will be able to occupy and control Greenland even if they can win it quickly, Greenland is a big land mass and US troops have very little experience fighting in such a cold environment.
Greenland is a strategic territory, and it has a lot of natural resources US could lay claim to. There is nobody who would meaningfully oppose the US if they did take over Greenland. I’m not sure whom you think US would be fighting there exactly. Meanwhile, European powers becoming some sort major geopolitical players in the foreseeable future is a fantastical idea. The US treats Europe as an expendable asset, and now that times are getting tough, the US is going to take what it needs by force.
Europeans committed a cardinal error in their assumption that the US was their steadfast ally and guardian. In truth, the relationship is more of a farmer who shelters a goat. It’s not done out of affection, but with the cold calculation of one who knows it will eventually be led to the slaughter.
Yeah I basically agree with your point about the unpleasant logic behind such a move, and would only add that Greenland looks appealing if you’re trying to lock down the arctic from both sides of the continent—US has good arctic frontage on Alaska, and Greenland would bookend Canada and allow US more flexibility in countering Russia and expanding oil extraction.
I was trying to think about where this suddenly came from, and the first thing that kept popping up was Trumps current obsession with drill baby drill, the arctic is the last frontier for potentially easy extraction once all the ice melts and Canada, US and Russia have already been playing footsie there for a decade under the guise of science and commercial traffic trying to lay claim to stuff that was ignorable before.
Like some dude got in his ear and convinced him the future is in the arctic. It also adds some further explanation to Trump “joking” about making Canada a state. If it was just economic hardball / a new trade deal, they could leave it at tariffs and the like, but they keep saying they want to make it a state…
All of that makes me sick to my stomach, but as you say there is logic to it.