It’s ultimately (5 - 10 years) going to be quite simple - US, China or Russia, choose your “friend”, where “friend” = overlord / landlord.
From what I have read there is no logical reason to want Greenland*
There is a US base on Greenland, at the height of the cold war there were 17 US bases. Treaties exist for Trump to have as many bases and as many people as he likes on Greenland.
Likewise there is no issue with the US developing and mining for rare earths, they just need to come to an agreement, although the US might not like the environmental rules that would stop it strip mining.
*The only real reason to access Greenland would seem to be ego, and the chance to join the small group of Presidents who expanded the US territorially.
Trump, having become famous for being a glorified estate agent, can’t see land as being anything other than an asset to be traded and an indication of wealth. He gets more land in Greenland/Venezuela=>he looks better. It is the same reason he can’t understand why people in Greenland or Ukraine have an emotional attachment to their homeland.
That is a pretty important reason for Donald, but there’s also the unsettling effect it has on all the other people he has to deal with. This seems to be his basic MO - never let ‘the other side’ work you out (because everyone is like him - a competitor, aiming to put one over on the other parties in a deal). In the end they come to hate working with you so much that they’ll give you a break just to make you go away.
The Greenland sideshow also diverts attention from things he doesn’t want the media to have time to get into.
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Watched this earlier; interesting insight:
I read it was rare earth minerals and metals. The US relies on China for most of their supply and they want out of that dependancy.
That and it’s a handy place to have their ICBM interception missiles rather than just the monitoring under the current agreement with Denmark. Then throw in the fact they can control or monitor the Arctic and maritime routes.
I thought the China thing with rare earths was the refining. It’s a long and rather dirty process and would cost a fortune to do if you had to meet US environmental and safety standards. The Yanks actually have rare earth deposits themselves, although not as much as the Chinese do, but when they do mine their own ore they put it in boats and send it to China for refining. Greenland won’t break that hold that the Chinese have over them. They’ll have to get their fingers out and set up plant on their own turf. Of course that could be Greenland I guess. It might also be possible to run an interconnector across to Iceland for cheap geothermal electricity.
Trump will just scrap them once they’ve built the refining plants.
I read that Denmark had been trying to get American companies to mine these for years but the high cost in that enviroment is prohibitive.
Rare earths - recent Australian agreement.
Venezualan oil - looks like a lot of it actually belongs to Guyana and Venezuala have been ‘claiming’ it.
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I heard that there were tensions some time ago from someone whose parents still live in Guyana.
Edit:
We were discussing this deployment:
https://www.royalnavy.mod.uk/news/2024/january/18/240118-trent-in-guyana
Ghostriders in Gloucestershire
Greenland?
Seems like overkill, but…
…and sure as fuck everyone’s shut-up about fucking Epstein…
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Sooner or later, we may may face the actual trigger point: Epstein files (or whatever) vs big red button of global annihilation.
That will be a genuinely terrifying moment.
Until then, Greenland is safe, I think.
Looks like Russia has struck Lviv Oblast (in Western Ukraine) with the hypersonic Oreshnik intercontinental medium range missile. 6 explosions were reported, likely from a single missile armament.
Ukraine has no defense against these missiles. Russia is expected to make this a regular night attack strategy.
Russia has positioned a number of these missiles in Belarus, meaning they can hit almost anywhere in continental Europe.
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One of these days you might provide a source for your “news”
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This one popped up on my feed earlier Paul.
I’m sure it did, Allan.
My previous point still stands.
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I’m sure my telling you it came from Maksym Kozytskyi is going to be useful!
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Actually it is. What it says is ‘The story comes from some bloke on the internet you’ll never have heard of’. That allows me to file it in the ‘might well be true but might equally be some Russian propaganda bot’ category. Then I can give it a day and see if it’s backed up by established sources.
There’s so much utter shite on the internet these days that if I believe everything I read I’ll be wrong as often as Grok is.
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