Thanks, good summary important question. The dilemma is already there. And Europe currently has little to no military means to respond.
But it does have economic ones! What would happen if all EU members commit to ban major US media outlets, in particular X and Facebook in case of a US annexation? This could easily cause a dangerous escalation in terms of economic distress. But here, I would argue, that the US is actually more vulnerable, as their entire US retirement system and general wealth is more heavily dependent on future profit expectations.
Well. I’m not totally convinced they don’t have military means to respond.
Assuming they could respond in a cohesive manner, Europe has the naval assets and AirPower to make any attempted American military coercion prohibitively costly.
This would all be marginally less troublesome if there were actually a sane or rational realpolitik reason for seizing Greenland, rather than it being the bizarre whim of a mad king which, if carried out, would lead to a new Cold War with Europe and ultimately make America much less secure. (I am somewhat convinced by James Meek’s argument in the LRB that Trump simply likes the visual aesthetic of Canada and Greenland being part of the US on a map.)
My belief over the whole "Europe Bad" would be there are two schools of guys.
One group is "Apple Pie Khomeinists", who basically want to export the MAGA revolution to Europe (Vance and homies). For this group I'd say there's still a subdivision over whether or not they actually felt the MAGA revolution in America was succeeding. I actually think for some it would just be a distraction from the fact that truly "revolutionary" MAGAism never worked out. (just look at the H1B)
The other group is the run of the mill realists. Honestly given the incoherence of Western Europe as unified political actors it's kind of normal to pivot to Asia and get "dirtier" with western Europe. But as usual Trump had the ability to twist every reasonable position into something bizarre...
I read this as a tightening-constraints problem inside an alliance system: when the U.S. is both the primary capability provider and a potential risk source, trust becomes scarce, and the structural limits on command and intelligence sharing tighten quickly.
The hardest part then is adjustment and trade-offs. Continued reliance on U.S. capacity improves short-term efficiency but increases irreversibility risk; building redundancy and alternatives is a second-best near-term option, yet may be the only path to long-term resilience.
Where do you see the minimum viable “resilience reset” for NATO starting—command and deployment rules, intelligence-sharing boundaries, or the reallocation of resources and time (e.g., an accelerated European substitution window)?
I mean, maybe not. But he's still the President, and if the President says it, that makes it the stated policy of the United States.
You can't really plan as another State on the assumption that the President is just throwing ideas out there against the wall.
I don't really think any of this would get to the point of a military clash. I think rising tensions and European distrust of the United States are more likely. But you also have to factor in that the political movement the President represents desires something like 19th-century Imperialism, so as a European State, you have to factor in that the United States has a political movement going into the future that will be hostile to your interests.
19th century imperialism is everyone's dream after GWOT had ended. Either you have some sort of Imperial delusion as characterized by Bush Jr. or you somehow think you can dial the timeframe back into 19th century.
Trust me, Chinese taxpayers want to do the same. It's human nature at this point.
Thanks, good summary important question. The dilemma is already there. And Europe currently has little to no military means to respond.
But it does have economic ones! What would happen if all EU members commit to ban major US media outlets, in particular X and Facebook in case of a US annexation? This could easily cause a dangerous escalation in terms of economic distress. But here, I would argue, that the US is actually more vulnerable, as their entire US retirement system and general wealth is more heavily dependent on future profit expectations.
Well. I’m not totally convinced they don’t have military means to respond.
Assuming they could respond in a cohesive manner, Europe has the naval assets and AirPower to make any attempted American military coercion prohibitively costly.
Good discussion to have.
I would assume looking at Markets and Market assets is the theater where Europe has more to win and US has more too loose.
But you are right, there are also reasons to not give it a way for free. Otherwise Spitzbergen, Island will be next prey
This would all be marginally less troublesome if there were actually a sane or rational realpolitik reason for seizing Greenland, rather than it being the bizarre whim of a mad king which, if carried out, would lead to a new Cold War with Europe and ultimately make America much less secure. (I am somewhat convinced by James Meek’s argument in the LRB that Trump simply likes the visual aesthetic of Canada and Greenland being part of the US on a map.)
My belief over the whole "Europe Bad" would be there are two schools of guys.
One group is "Apple Pie Khomeinists", who basically want to export the MAGA revolution to Europe (Vance and homies). For this group I'd say there's still a subdivision over whether or not they actually felt the MAGA revolution in America was succeeding. I actually think for some it would just be a distraction from the fact that truly "revolutionary" MAGAism never worked out. (just look at the H1B)
The other group is the run of the mill realists. Honestly given the incoherence of Western Europe as unified political actors it's kind of normal to pivot to Asia and get "dirtier" with western Europe. But as usual Trump had the ability to twist every reasonable position into something bizarre...
I read this as a tightening-constraints problem inside an alliance system: when the U.S. is both the primary capability provider and a potential risk source, trust becomes scarce, and the structural limits on command and intelligence sharing tighten quickly.
The hardest part then is adjustment and trade-offs. Continued reliance on U.S. capacity improves short-term efficiency but increases irreversibility risk; building redundancy and alternatives is a second-best near-term option, yet may be the only path to long-term resilience.
Where do you see the minimum viable “resilience reset” for NATO starting—command and deployment rules, intelligence-sharing boundaries, or the reallocation of resources and time (e.g., an accelerated European substitution window)?
I mean, maybe not. But he's still the President, and if the President says it, that makes it the stated policy of the United States.
You can't really plan as another State on the assumption that the President is just throwing ideas out there against the wall.
I don't really think any of this would get to the point of a military clash. I think rising tensions and European distrust of the United States are more likely. But you also have to factor in that the political movement the President represents desires something like 19th-century Imperialism, so as a European State, you have to factor in that the United States has a political movement going into the future that will be hostile to your interests.
19th century imperialism is everyone's dream after GWOT had ended. Either you have some sort of Imperial delusion as characterized by Bush Jr. or you somehow think you can dial the timeframe back into 19th century.
Trust me, Chinese taxpayers want to do the same. It's human nature at this point.