You're forgetting several factors which undermine your analysis:
1. Denmark does have allies; they're not completely alone, and they're not completely helpless.
2. The US has a track record of invasions, but not one of successfully pacifying states. Resistance works.
You're using the same simplistic logic as Russia invading Ukraine; you can't just compare population numbers and guarantee an immediate victory.
There's also a separate issue here: the US invading Denmark would lead to a lot of death and a loss of freedom for its citizens, even if unopposed. Flip your demurral: if they're going to take everything anyway, why not fight?
The US is very good at turning a functional state into anarchy, razed buildings and infrastructure, and lots of death. It doesn’t really matter if the US can pacify Denmark after its population gets decimated. It’s pure posturing to pretend any government in the EU or NATO countries will do anything to resist.
> It’s pure posturing to pretend any government in the EU or NATO countries will do anything to resist.
Do you really think NATO wouldn't defend a NATO country being invaded? It isn't USA they are fighting against, it is just Trump, and that war wouldn't continue for many days before the congress decides to end it since USA doesn't want it. So I don't doubt NATO would go to defend Denmark there, since they know USA would remove Trump if they did.
You say NATO defends etc but NATO is fully lead and controlled by the US. Without US permission NATO does not act. And in all likelihood, NATO cannot act without US approval since the US very likely has remote shutdown capabilities for almost every major weapon that NATO countries can deploy.
Joining NATO means you show the US all of your military secrets and basically embed your military into the US military structure.
> As a source puts it, the French said: "Would you like more soldiers? You could have them. Would you like more naval support? You could have that. Would you like more air support? You could have that too."
I did, but it simply wouldn't have happened. Whatever about boots on the ground and ships deployed, they would not have fired a shot. There is zero appetite for war with the US.
Europe can wreck the US in 15 minutes and not a shot would be fired. That would have massive effect on the EU too and that's one of the things holding that back. But if the US would invade Canada or Denmark I'm fairly sure that they would not hesitate, especially not if half the USA would be on their side in the decision.
Europe is not a megalith, there is no central authority to make any kind of decision, and no Government in the bloc has a mandate to destroy it's citizens quality of life and economy by engaging in armed conflict with the US.
This includes Denmark, who would not have fought the US, as much as they tried to put on a show.
Which part of 'and not a shot would be fired' is so hard to understand. There are so many ways to tell another party that maybe they should tend their own house for a bit.
Are you talking about economic warfare? Too many EU nations are completely dependent on the US economically and it only takes one veto.
The reality would be lots of denunciations, some token measures, followed by Business As Usual. Ireland, Poland, Germany, Spain aren't sacrificing their entire economies for Greenland.
Speaking as an Irish citizen id be ok with messing up the US at the cost of our economy. I think that you underestimate the resolve of Europeans on this.
It's profoundly depressing, but such is the world we live in now.
You're obviously entitled to your opinion, but if you think it generalises, you're simply wrong. There is extremely strong and consistent polling across the EU in general, and Ireland in particular, showing that while the public supports Ukraine and moderate defence spending, it does not support direct military involvement or major escalation, and has zero tolerance for armed conflict, severe economic self-harm, or escalation against major powers.
In Ireland specifically, the cost of living is the key political issue at this time for Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael. Neither has any mandate or capacity for military or economic conflict with the United States - our recent diplomatic efforts, in spite of the Greenland and Iranian crises, should highlight that.
Ireland is more dependent than ever before on the US. We would veto any EU efforts against them.
> Ireland is more dependent than ever before on the US. We would veto any EU efforts against them.
Unlikely. We'd most likely hum and haw for a while and then go along with it.
Like ultimately, we need both EU membership and US investment to maintain the economy we have at the moment. Losing one or the other would be really bad, but ultimately the only one we can really control is EU membership, and I'm relatively certain that the majority of Irish people, if forced to (and not one second before) would choose the EU.
> There is extremely strong and consistent polling across the EU in general, and Ireland in particular, showing that while the public supports Ukraine and moderate defence spending, it does not support direct military involvement or major escalation, and has zero tolerance for armed conflict, severe economic self-harm, or escalation against major powers.
Can you point to this polling please? I'm definitely not in favour of more wars, but the issue is that the choice may not be up to you or me, rather it will be driven by countries starting said wars (cough cough US threatening to invade Greenland).
> In Ireland specifically, the cost of living is the key political issue at this time for Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael. Neither has any mandate or capacity for military or economic conflict with the United States - our recent diplomatic efforts, in spite of the Greenland and Iranian crises, should highlight that.
While I do agree with your core point around cost of living, honestly, the likelihood of any political party in Ireland (but particularly FFG) doing anything about the cost of living is ludicrously small, depressingly.
The two biggest drivers of inflation in Ireland (and the west more generally) are energy costs and land costs. If you ran on reducing land costs you'd become a pariah in Ireland (again, really unfortunately).
And our planning system makes it unlikely (again, depressingly) that any work will be done on grid modernisation or building energy infrastructure. I mean, I would love to see this happen (I'd even vote for FG or the Shinners to accomplish this), but I find it extremely unlikely.
As for the realpolitik within the EU, I'm close enough to the fire that I can see the slow changing trends and I have some hope that once Orban is dealt with we'll see some serious improvements in how the EU is conducting day-to-day business in times of crisis. We simply were unprepared for countries backsliding due to out-of-EU influence. But that cat is out of the bag and now we need to deal with it without alienating the rest of the Hungarian population.
I did and it is 100% consistent with my comment. Nice sounds and token troop movements, but absolutely no commitment to fight, which simply wouldn't have happened.
Okay, how do you know? Let's go through this step-by-step, in your opinion, what's the difference between a real commitment and a not-real commitment that you can point to before there's a meaningful-enough emergency to make you show your cards? What would be a non-token amount of troops?
There is no appetite for war in Europe, zero. The Danes know it, the French know it, the US knows it. Every analyst knows it.
The idea that France was going to engage in armed conflict with the US over Greenland is absurd. The US could probably take Saint Pierre and Miquelon or French Guiana without triggering a French armed response.
But the outcome as a whole isn't the same. Maybe the same areas get invaded, maybe not. Denmark is also part of NATO. But it isn't the same to just give something up without a fight even if same areas get eventually invaded.
Yes really, firstly it worked, and secondly it forced Americans to reckon with murdering and betraying their friends across the Atlantic. You can take Greenland, but you must live with the infamy and treachery of it all. And Trump blinked.
They don't because the west banned slavery on moral grounds, and enforced it on the rest of the world. That advance is actually just western power in effect.
That ban on slavery is not being enforced on the rest of the world. The west had no problem playing football in Qatar in stadiums built by slave labour.
That seems like a simplistic take, given that slavery in pratice still exists and we just decide not to call it slavery due to technical loopholes. The countries most closely associated with the global economic oil supply for example, are largely run on slave labour.
"The west" is no longer a well defined thing. America is its own thing now, and I don't think it fits in with any traditional notion of "The West" anymore, outside of historical inclusion. And without America the term just means Europe, so you might as well just refer to things directly instead of coming up with a new term: America, Europe, Canada, etc.
It provides no analytical value anymore to talk about "the west" as a shared family of identities or cultures. That concept was more an ephemeral artifact of some colonial history combined with the post WW2 global landscape and the fact that the US was the last industrialized country remaining that didn't have its industrial base bombed to smithereens.
I mentioned Canada in my comments, but only out of vanity as I'm a Canadian. Really when most people talk about "the west" what they have in their mind's eye is US and Europe. The other countries are largely considered lesser auxiliaries, including mine (although Canada has had a higher prominence in recent years).
What I don't understand is what analytical value the term "the west" holds anymore, OUTSIDE of that historical artifact. What meaningful statement can you make about "the west" as you define it these days?
>"Rich powerful countries could also keep slaves and no one would be able to stop it by force. But they don't. Civilisation advances."
Judging by ever shrinking middle class, rise of poverty and few rich owning the rest of the world it is heading back to that state. Have nots are not slaves by definition but their lives are getting worse and worse and where does that end?
