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I feel that those who fear the end of NATO aren't thinking far enough. What's possible isn't an end of NATO, it's an EU-US war, with citizens of one in the oth

I feel that those who fear the end of NATO aren't thinking far enough. What's possible isn't an end of NATO, it's an EU-US war, with citizens of one in the other being interned, ships being prevented from leaving ports, complete embargoes à la WWII etc. If Denmark is invaded, we're at war, and I don't see how it can take any other form than this in the initial phases.

kelipso 9mo ago
Europe doesn’t have a military that’s worth talking about. So it’s politically impossible for the EU to go to war with the US. They’ll do lots of protesting but that’ll be about it. The US isn’t just going to straight up invade anyway. There’s lots of political this and that but it does want to keep the current world order to some degree.
- timeon 9mo ago
  NATO is practically dead since beginning of 2025 - there are already countries in Europe willing to form alliance with China.
  - kelipso 9mo ago
    That’s just talk for whatever imagined political leverage that probably won’t work with Trump.
- impossiblefork 9mo ago
  It's perfectly possible for the EU to have a war with the US. Wars take time. The EU has better heavy industry, better ability to replace destroyed ships etc. If we're going to have a war it will probably last at least half a decade, probably a little bit more. What you say of the EU could also be said of the US at the time of the attack on Pearl Harbour in 1941. If we weren't open to the possibility, we wouldn't be sending tripwire forces to Greenland, as we currently are.
  - nix-zarathustra 9mo ago
    I don't think Europe is willing to go all out war over Greenland, especially with Russia pushing from the East.
    - throwawayqqq11 9mo ago
      Most dont consider, that skirmishes dont have to make use of all military capabilities. Take a look at india vs china [0]. To be clear, those sticks-and-stones fights still cost lifes, are totally unnecessary and for a power-corrupted US soldier maybe unthinkable but it does not have to be an all out war. Maybe some ghandian unarmed european opposition is all it takes for the US opposition to find some traces of a spine. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020–2021_China–India_skirmishes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020–2021_China–India_skirmish...
    - impossiblefork 9mo ago
      I mean, if we weren't, why send tripwire forces there? Just a bluff? Presumably we're doing that because we're willing to have a war.
  - kelipso 9mo ago
    I can imagine it happening after many years, maybe after half a decade they’ll have built up a sizable military and political will to start considering military action.
    - impossiblefork 9mo ago
      Yes. The beginning phases of the war-- i.e. the first five years or so, would probably be limited to sea drones sinking EU and US shipping, with neither coming near the other's coast. There could be interesting actions around the Azores and Canary Islands, with the EU perhaps needing to do unconventional stuff to defend these.
- tetrisgm 9mo ago
  What are your qualifications? My understanding is that most of the larger armies in the world, and nuclear weapons are there. And significant portion of our trade and US bonds.
tetrisgm 9mo ago
That is what I’m seeing as the common EU perspective. That notion is not shared by people in the US that much. As you can see in the other replies.
applemelonjuice 9mo ago
Now this would be an interesting war. Regarding germany, almost all admnistrations from the smallest tows up to the government are busy uploading their data to US-clouds. They've just introduced the new e-health system where roughly 75% of all data (including encprytion keys) are stored on IBM systems (hello CloudAct) and so on, so the US can already access probably most of the country's data in a perfectly legally fashion. There wouldn't ever be a war because the US can simply shut down all the US OSses (long-term in a "nice" fashion by stopping export for software / security patches, or short-term by introducing nasty code in the updates). In practice, I wouldn't be surprised if they could shut down a typical country in a matter of hours if they'd really mean it.
- impossiblefork 9mo ago
  Yes and no. Presumably people would remove them and install one of the very numerous alternatives on the first day. I don't think it's a real barrier. The real barrier is the US troops in Germany, who could cause huge disorder. Many computers would of course have to be kept off to prevent updates from wiping everything though, so the first few days would be extremely interesting. Maybe immediate internet shutdowns to prevent malware updates while this goes on is the right solution, with people simultaneously sent out to help companies and individuals save their computers by installing some pre-checked OS.
  - applemelonjuice 9mo ago
    I really want to belive this: That it's somehow possible to work around such a kind of digital meltdown when the US really, really want to cause some real damage using zerodays, backdoors and so on. I can't imagine that it's possible, but I also don't think it'll come this: There'll just be a call from Trump to ${SOME_HEAD_OF_STATE} stating that if they don't shut up regarding greenland at this very second, they're looking at deleting the entire nation's mail, data, have no iPhones, Androids and so on. No one will even consider taking such a kind of risk. And that's just one factor besides tariffs and everything else.
    - 9mo ago

kelipso 9mo ago

Europe doesn’t have a military that’s worth talking about. So it’s politically impossible for the EU to go to war with the US. They’ll do lots of protesting but that’ll be about it. The US isn’t just going to straight up invade anyway. There’s lots of political this and that but it does want to keep the current world order to some degree.

timeon 9mo ago
NATO is practically dead since beginning of 2025 - there are already countries in Europe willing to form alliance with China.
- kelipso 9mo ago
  That’s just talk for whatever imagined political leverage that probably won’t work with Trump.
impossiblefork 9mo ago
It's perfectly possible for the EU to have a war with the US. Wars take time. The EU has better heavy industry, better ability to replace destroyed ships etc. If we're going to have a war it will probably last at least half a decade, probably a little bit more. What you say of the EU could also be said of the US at the time of the attack on Pearl Harbour in 1941. If we weren't open to the possibility, we wouldn't be sending tripwire forces to Greenland, as we currently are.
- nix-zarathustra 9mo ago
  I don't think Europe is willing to go all out war over Greenland, especially with Russia pushing from the East.
  - throwawayqqq11 9mo ago
    Most dont consider, that skirmishes dont have to make use of all military capabilities. Take a look at india vs china [0]. To be clear, those sticks-and-stones fights still cost lifes, are totally unnecessary and for a power-corrupted US soldier maybe unthinkable but it does not have to be an all out war. Maybe some ghandian unarmed european opposition is all it takes for the US opposition to find some traces of a spine. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020–2021_China–India_skirmishes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020–2021_China–India_skirmish...
  - impossiblefork 9mo ago
    I mean, if we weren't, why send tripwire forces there? Just a bluff? Presumably we're doing that because we're willing to have a war.
- kelipso 9mo ago
  I can imagine it happening after many years, maybe after half a decade they’ll have built up a sizable military and political will to start considering military action.
  - impossiblefork 9mo ago
    Yes. The beginning phases of the war-- i.e. the first five years or so, would probably be limited to sea drones sinking EU and US shipping, with neither coming near the other's coast. There could be interesting actions around the Azores and Canary Islands, with the EU perhaps needing to do unconventional stuff to defend these.
tetrisgm 9mo ago
What are your qualifications? My understanding is that most of the larger armies in the world, and nuclear weapons are there. And significant portion of our trade and US bonds.

tetrisgm 9mo ago

That is what I’m seeing as the common EU perspective. That notion is not shared by people in the US that much. As you can see in the other replies.

applemelonjuice 9mo ago

Now this would be an interesting war. Regarding germany, almost all admnistrations from the smallest tows up to the government are busy uploading their data to US-clouds. They've just introduced the new e-health system where roughly 75% of all data (including encprytion keys) are stored on IBM systems (hello CloudAct) and so on, so the US can already access probably most of the country's data in a perfectly legally fashion. There wouldn't ever be a war because the US can simply shut down all the US OSses (long-term in a "nice" fashion by stopping export for software / security patches, or short-term by introducing nasty code in the updates). In practice, I wouldn't be surprised if they could shut down a typical country in a matter of hours if they'd really mean it.

impossiblefork 9mo ago
Yes and no. Presumably people would remove them and install one of the very numerous alternatives on the first day. I don't think it's a real barrier. The real barrier is the US troops in Germany, who could cause huge disorder. Many computers would of course have to be kept off to prevent updates from wiping everything though, so the first few days would be extremely interesting. Maybe immediate internet shutdowns to prevent malware updates while this goes on is the right solution, with people simultaneously sent out to help companies and individuals save their computers by installing some pre-checked OS.
- applemelonjuice 9mo ago
  I really want to belive this: That it's somehow possible to work around such a kind of digital meltdown when the US really, really want to cause some real damage using zerodays, backdoors and so on. I can't imagine that it's possible, but I also don't think it'll come this: There'll just be a call from Trump to ${SOME_HEAD_OF_STATE} stating that if they don't shut up regarding greenland at this very second, they're looking at deleting the entire nation's mail, data, have no iPhones, Androids and so on. No one will even consider taking such a kind of risk. And that's just one factor besides tariffs and everything else.
  - 9mo ago