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They should also be arming the population to make an occupation impossible. This is assuming they have mandatory military training in Denmark and people know ho

They should also be arming the population to make an occupation impossible. This is assuming they have mandatory military training in Denmark and people know how to use automatic weapons, grenades, etc.

mothballed 10mo ago
You can buy a rifle like a hammer in Greenland. It has probably the loosest gun control for bolt action arms of any relatively well off country, including looser than the US as there is no background check (nor licensing) for commercial sales.
fulafel 10mo ago
At 0.026 people per square kilometer, you could argue it's indeed proven difficult to occupy.
actionfromafar 10mo ago
If the would-be invaders were "normal", they'd not go near populated areas. They'd just set up base wherever they wanted to extract resources or whatever. But the US already had excellent relations with Denmark and could probably have gotten mining rights or whatever they wanted without this weird display of power. The huge downside to that would be it would quickly demonstrate how incredibly expensive, slow and uncertain such mining operations would be. I must conclude the annexation of Greenland is mostly a play for the US domestic audience. Very similar to Russia - Ukraine. Maybe a way to put pressure on Canada too.
- JohnFen 10mo ago
  > Maybe a way to put pressure on Canada too. A number of my Canadian friends are of the opinion that if the US takes Greenland, Canada will be the next acquisition target. I really, really wish I could argue against that notion.
kcplate 9mo ago
The numbers work against your idea in a huge way. - There are only 57k people Greenland. A portion (6%) of which are already friendly to the idea of joining the US, the undecideds are 9%. - How many converts to the deal would you get if you actually dangled a $100k per person lump sum (Literally this is a tenth of what the federal government claims it has saved closing USAID)? I assume a few. Maybe quite a few. Add to that an Alaska style ongoing PFD that paid out annually. That’s a tasty carrot. No takers to the deal? Wild, ok though…so we fight instead of fattening the bank accounts. How many will be willing to pull a trigger and risk certain death if they do? Let’s be generous and call it a third of the population (basically half of the hardliners). But…realize that only 65% of the population are between 13 and 65. So you are talking about maybe 12k people who might be willing and could effectively take up arms. Bear in mind due to disperse population centers…the largest single concentration of resistance would be about 5k people. Let’s go ahead and add in the entire Danish active duty military (17k people). 29k people with 40% of them being civilians with minimal training…against the might of the US military. That seems like terrible odds. But what about NATO? NATO is pragmatic. It’s highly likely that every other NATO member would decide to just stay out of the conflict because they would rather have a NATO with the US and without Denmark than the other way around.
- deleted 9mo ago
  [deleted]
- meheleventyone 9mo ago
  Thank god there are no recent, decades long, examples of the might of the US military having issues with small populations of underequipped people willing to defend their homes from them as an aggressor.
  - kcplate 9mo ago
    Not too many of those examples with only 57k people where 99% of them live within 10 miles of the coast.
- JohnFen 9mo ago
  > they would rather have a NATO with the US and without Denmark than the other way around. I'm not so sure about that. The US has successfully alienated pretty much everybody that used to think well of us. We now represent a threat to them. We have lost a huge amount of goodwill and respect. Why would they prefer us over Denmark? Because we have big guns that we're willing to use against them? That's all the more reason to distance themselves from us.
Beretta_Vexee 9mo ago
The local population consists mainly of Inuit born on a pair of skis. They will let GI freeze to death in a vehicle stuck in the ice after sabotaging the roads. The Arctic climate is more deadly than any automatic rifle. Militarily occupying Greenland seems even more foolish than occupying Vietnam or Afghanistan.

mothballed 10mo ago

You can buy a rifle like a hammer in Greenland. It has probably the loosest gun control for bolt action arms of any relatively well off country, including looser than the US as there is no background check (nor licensing) for commercial sales.

fulafel 10mo ago

At 0.026 people per square kilometer, you could argue it's indeed proven difficult to occupy.

actionfromafar 10mo ago

If the would-be invaders were "normal", they'd not go near populated areas. They'd just set up base wherever they wanted to extract resources or whatever. But the US already had excellent relations with Denmark and could probably have gotten mining rights or whatever they wanted without this weird display of power. The huge downside to that would be it would quickly demonstrate how incredibly expensive, slow and uncertain such mining operations would be. I must conclude the annexation of Greenland is mostly a play for the US domestic audience. Very similar to Russia - Ukraine. Maybe a way to put pressure on Canada too.

JohnFen 10mo ago
> Maybe a way to put pressure on Canada too. A number of my Canadian friends are of the opinion that if the US takes Greenland, Canada will be the next acquisition target. I really, really wish I could argue against that notion.

kcplate 9mo ago

The numbers work against your idea in a huge way. - There are only 57k people Greenland. A portion (6%) of which are already friendly to the idea of joining the US, the undecideds are 9%. - How many converts to the deal would you get if you actually dangled a $100k per person lump sum (Literally this is a tenth of what the federal government claims it has saved closing USAID)? I assume a few. Maybe quite a few. Add to that an Alaska style ongoing PFD that paid out annually. That’s a tasty carrot. No takers to the deal? Wild, ok though…so we fight instead of fattening the bank accounts. How many will be willing to pull a trigger and risk certain death if they do? Let’s be generous and call it a third of the population (basically half of the hardliners). But…realize that only 65% of the population are between 13 and 65. So you are talking about maybe 12k people who might be willing and could effectively take up arms. Bear in mind due to disperse population centers…the largest single concentration of resistance would be about 5k people. Let’s go ahead and add in the entire Danish active duty military (17k people). 29k people with 40% of them being civilians with minimal training…against the might of the US military. That seems like terrible odds. But what about NATO? NATO is pragmatic. It’s highly likely that every other NATO member would decide to just stay out of the conflict because they would rather have a NATO with the US and without Denmark than the other way around.

deleted 9mo ago
[deleted]
meheleventyone 9mo ago
Thank god there are no recent, decades long, examples of the might of the US military having issues with small populations of underequipped people willing to defend their homes from them as an aggressor.
- kcplate 9mo ago
  Not too many of those examples with only 57k people where 99% of them live within 10 miles of the coast.
JohnFen 9mo ago
> they would rather have a NATO with the US and without Denmark than the other way around. I'm not so sure about that. The US has successfully alienated pretty much everybody that used to think well of us. We now represent a threat to them. We have lost a huge amount of goodwill and respect. Why would they prefer us over Denmark? Because we have big guns that we're willing to use against them? That's all the more reason to distance themselves from us.

Beretta_Vexee 9mo ago

The local population consists mainly of Inuit born on a pair of skis. They will let GI freeze to death in a vehicle stuck in the ice after sabotaging the roads. The Arctic climate is more deadly than any automatic rifle. Militarily occupying Greenland seems even more foolish than occupying Vietnam or Afghanistan.