this post was submitted on 14 Jan 2026
737 points (98.9% liked)

World News

51959 readers
2862 users here now

A community for discussing events around the World

Rules:

Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.

We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.

All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.


Lemmy World Partners

News !news@lemmy.world

Politics !politics@lemmy.world

World Politics !globalpolitics@lemmy.world


Recommendations

For Firefox users, there is media bias / propaganda / fact check plugin.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/media-bias-fact-check/

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] NuXCOM_90Percent@lemmy.zip 78 points 1 day ago (8 children)

The US attacking allied territory of the EU is basically the death of NATO, one way or another. WW3 is a hop and a skip from that.

I've not been following super closely for mental health reasons, but if it is just Denmark? We are looking at another Ukraine. Everyone is going to hem and haw and say "just give it to the pricks" to "avoid World War 3". Whereas, if we start seeing other EU/NATO nations deploying troops to protect Greenland... there is a chance that SOMETHING remains and we don't just have russia running over everyone else one by one.

[–] Valmond@lemmy.dbzer0.com 39 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Germany just sent a first batch of soldiers, so that's a good sign IMO.

[–] akfdmfckwrl@feddit.dk 52 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (2 children)

As did Sweden, Norway and France.

EDIT: And as a Dane, I am so grateful toward our real allies!

[–] MoreMagic@feddit.nu 4 points 21 hours ago (1 children)

We (swedes) love to tease you, but brother, I’m so fucking furious about this. The only positive about the development on the world stage in recent years is we in the Nordic countries have come closer than ever.

[–] Valmond@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 17 hours ago

Exactly (swede in france here), and that europe starts to wake up.

[–] realitista@lemmus.org 16 points 1 day ago (1 children)

And the Netherlands and Canada.... And my axe!

[–] khannie@lemmy.world 9 points 1 day ago (2 children)

There's talk of sending the EU rapid reaction force. It's only 5000 troops but they're the good shit.

[–] Randomgal@lemmy.ca 5 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Now I imagine them like modern day spartans. In mechas.

[–] zd9@lemmy.world 31 points 1 day ago (2 children)

How can anyone say Trump ISN'T beholden to Putin? Even if you know nothing of their 30 year relationship, Trump is doing everything that a puppet of Putin would do. Russia really just... won the Cold War ultimately. They did it. They have a Russian asset as POTUS, Russian asset at head of intelligence at ODNI, and many many others scattered throughout.

All of this is straight out of "Foundations of Geopolitics" by Dugin.

[–] hector@lemmy.today 3 points 21 hours ago

Nailed it. Prez does not have the juice to straight pull out of nato. So this jingoistic adventurism is meant to gin enough support for it.

I do not think they will find the support they need here though. We all like europe and canada here.

[–] Wildmimic@anarchist.nexus 6 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

and on top of that, it's very likely that china and russia have infiltrated a lot of critical IT infrastructure after the SolarWinds debacle. Haven't heard much about the cleanup; It's like a free for all currently.

[–] zd9@lemmy.world 18 points 1 day ago

You don't even need to rely on adversaries to hack into the systems when you have insider threats right here in America. Musk is an enemy of the state and when he was muckin around in DOGE, exfiltrating all of our data to private servers, selling secrets to Russians, etc., after he exfiltrated data from NLRB within 30 min there were attempts with correct username and password combinations to access internal servers from Russian IP addresses. We're so fucked, and I don't think we'll get back to the same level of secrecy for at least a generation (maybe 20-30 years).

No one is talking about it anymore because there are even more pressing issues with American citizens.

[–] TheGrandNagus@lemmy.world 1 points 20 hours ago (1 children)

It doesn't have to be the death of NATO, provided the US leaves it.

If they don't, though, yeah, probably the end of NATO. There's no mechanism for revoking a member's membership.

[–] NuXCOM_90Percent@lemmy.zip 1 points 13 hours ago

NATO without the US is dependent on each (simplifying) EU nation's military.

The EU, like sane people, focused on their own economies and people. The US focused on having one of (if not THE) largest standing militaries on the planet.

And with war increasngly on the horizon? Most NATO nations aren't going to want to deploy their troops until THEY are "safe".

We've already seen it with the hemming and hawing over what to actually send Ukraine in terms of weaponry

[–] gustofwind@lemmy.world 20 points 1 day ago (2 children)

Based on reports that generals are considering it a truly illegal order to attack Greenland or an ally I’m fairly certain Iran and a few South American countries are going to be sacrificed instead

So if anyone was wondering where the line for an illegal order was it’s probably here, attacking Greenland/NATO

That being said there is still a chance of anything happening so we obviously can never be comfortable

[–] floofloof@lemmy.ca 17 points 1 day ago (3 children)

I assume there is no line for an illegal order, since Trump has purged military leaders who don't think Trump's word is law.

[–] GreenBeanMachine@lemmy.world 4 points 22 hours ago* (last edited 22 hours ago)

Which also means that all the smart military leaders were replaced by idiots who probably couldn't come up with a strategy for anything more complex than a tic tac toe game.

[–] Randomgal@lemmy.ca 8 points 1 day ago

Yep. I love how people keep thinking there's still a rule of law in the US.

[–] khannie@lemmy.world 2 points 1 day ago

Stalin 1939 vibes.

[–] freebee@sh.itjust.works 4 points 1 day ago

The only certainty is that after Venezuela with 0 repercussions they now got the taste for it.

[–] UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 16 points 1 day ago (2 children)

I’ve not been following super closely for mental health reasons, but if it is just Denmark? We are looking at another Ukraine.

Ukraine's armed forces alone are 15x the total population of Greenland. This is more of a Grenada than a Ukraine.

Whereas, if we start seeing other EU/NATO nations deploying troops to protect Greenland… there is a chance that SOMETHING remains and we don’t just have russia running over everyone else one by one.

I would be much more worried about the power projection of the world's largest military by a factor of 20 than the country currently caught in a quagmire halfway into the Donbas.

[–] Goodlucksil@lemmy.dbzer0.com 17 points 1 day ago

Ukraine's armed forces alone are 15× the total population of Greenland

The Forsvaret (Danish Army) has the obligation to also defend autonomous territories of Denmark, i.e. Greenland and Faroe Islands. Its personnel is 100,000.

Ukraine now has 6 times more army personnel than before the war (~2022).

[–] arrow74@lemmy.zip 11 points 1 day ago (1 children)

The US could theoretically take island in days with raw force, but if a coalition Europe force holds enough territory to bring in more troops through then it's going to be a bloody brutal slog.

All becuase roughly half of America voters preferred a pedophile war criminal over a relatively normal politician

[–] Tanoh@lemmy.world 7 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Ah, but she had a weird laugh and a less than ideal reply to a gaza question.

[–] RunningInRVA@lemmy.world 3 points 1 day ago

Lordy we are fucked.

[–] gravitas_deficiency@sh.itjust.works 11 points 1 day ago (2 children)

In terms of escalation with Europe: next would be any European territory in the Caribbean / Gulf of Mexico (e.g. BVI’s; side note: no fucking way will I ever use the regime’s idiotic rename of that body of water), then any European holdings in South America (e.g. French Guiana), then straight up annexation of countries in central/South America. Then probably an attempt to sweep up any other extraterritorial European enclaves in other areas (Canary Islands? The Azores? Who knows?).

This is what “sphere of influence” politics means. This is the new reality.

Computer, end program.

Computer, door.

Fuck.

[–] Aceticon@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 23 hours ago* (last edited 23 hours ago)

America totally sucks at actually annexing territory (so, not merely conquering, but actually all the way to making it part of its own territory), with the last successful instance of doing it being Puerto Rico during the Spainish-American War back at the end of the 19th Century.

So of those you listed, maybe Greenland would be possible to actually annex due to its tiny population - Americans could literally just kick everybody else out, by which point the place is just empty land which can be treated like some kind of North Atlantic oil platform that just happens not to be floating, which is fine if all you want to do there is exploit mineral resources that don't require much manpower to extract - as well as the small european occupied islands like Azores (though what would be the point of getting Azores since it has zero mineral resources and the only real value of its economic exclusive area is for Fishing which is a low economic value activity that requires quiet a lot more manpower than oil extraction).

Certainly actually annexing a South American country would almost certainly turn into a quagmire for America in the same style as Vietnam.

I mean, if you currently look at Venezuela, for all of Trump's strutting like a rooster on it, it's not actually occupied by America (zero boots on the ground) and any real American gains extracted from it (which in reality are far less than Trump's proclamations would make it seem) come from literally blackmailing the individuals in leadership there with "if you don't do what I demand I'll do to you personally the same I did to Maduro" - that situation is not at all one where America owns Venezuela.

[–] lividweasel@lemmy.world 7 points 1 day ago

Sorry, someone else already turned off the safety protocols. We’re screwed.

[–] thericofactor@sh.itjust.works 5 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Trump seems to forget Europe has nuclear missiles as well. It doesn't take thousands for mutual assured destruction.

[–] gustofwind@lemmy.world 3 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Do you think Europe is gonna fire a nuke over Greenland? Be honest

[–] thericofactor@sh.itjust.works 10 points 1 day ago

Honest? I don't know if politicians are adamant enough.

However, Trump (bullies in general) only respond to strength and violence.

Rolling over will only embolden them more. Hopefully pointing a few nukes at the US mainland will cause their government to rethink their strategy. But this will only work if we're willing to execute when push comes to shove.

For some reason Russia causes Trump to roll out the red carpet, when Putin decides to grace Trump with a visit. This when he could easily force them to end the war in a few days. They are suffering terrible losses at the hand of a small country supported by NATO. I think it's because he perceives Russia as "strong", but in reality the only edge they have is nuclear power.

So in short - yes, honestly I think Europe should stop trying to be diplomatic and start drawing a red line and seeing that strategy through.

The united states' government is now so obviously an enemy to Europe that diplomacy is clearly no longer an option.

I think as soon as Europe starts putting their big boy pants on, Canada will join. Because if the US controls both Alaska and Greenland, Canada is next. They will probably already realise that. Hopefully talks are already underway between Canada and European nations. I would be surprised if this isn't already a scenario they take into account.

Mexico in the south, joined by a few other south American countries could also join in. As soon as the us is facing pressure from 3 sides, bringing the stakes to their physical borders, the tables might turn.

And then there's like 80% of the us population that could rise up against this. The public opinion is heavily dependent on how close the fight is to their borders.

I believe if Europe starts reaching out NOW to Canada and south america, stop diplomacy with the US, call them out for every Nazi shit they're pulling, and start economic, political and military pressure, we might avoid escalation.

I really hope they already have this scenario on the back burner.

[–] freebee@sh.itjust.works 3 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Think I read Germany is sending 13 soldiers.

[–] SreudianFlip@sh.itjust.works 4 points 1 day ago

Yes, trigger troops and recon, no doubt.