Trump’s invasion of Greenland would be ‘the shortest war in the world’ – POLITICO
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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.

  • Palacegalleryratio [he/him]
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    14 hours ago

    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.

    • ☆ Yσɠƚԋσʂ ☆@lemmy.ml
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      14 hours ago

      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.