It’s far away from China, so not much of one. I’d honestly find it more likely (not very likely but still more so) for Greenland to willingly invite them as an ally. Because the US is much more of a danger to them than China is, and less trustworthy to boot.
The fact that Trump is getting pushback on this, both in Congress and from Europe, is hopefully a good sign that he’ll back down. He folds like cheap laundry when faced with actual resistance- he wants all his victories to be quick, easy, and without any sacrifice or loss of life on his side. The idea that American soldiers might actually die fighting for Greenland is enough to scare him into just declaring that he got everything he wanted and then leaving things as is.
About as much risk as there is of Venezuelan Special Forces attacking the White House. Theoretically they should be able to do it except… no.
Unless some kind of Chinese Trump manages to get to the top honcho position in China, Zero.
The Chinese are not stupid, even supposing they could pull off the original invasion their position would become logistically untenable very quickly.
Why would they bother? They just need to let Trump do it, and then use the precedent to attack Taiwan using the same “It’s our hemisphere” and “They had stuff we wanted so we took it” arguments the US government is currently pushing.
This really should have gone here.
Trump Miller clearly wants to make his mark on history by starting World War III.
The Chinese will watch first whether the USA succeed with the Greeland adventure. If they don’t maybe the Chinese then will come to Greenland too to lend a helping hand. But only one! They will need the other one to take away the loot.
How might such an invasion unfold? I see two possibilities: either Denmark is ready to defend Greenland against the first wave of the invasion, or they give up without a fight.
Here is how I would do it, never having been in the army or even held a weapon in my hand. I would start putting a couple of IEDs where the US troops must pass, and a couple of machine guns where the choppers will have to fly. Destroy a couple of choppers and humvees in the first wave of the invasion (that will surprise Stephen Miller!), then surrender to the second wave. Make sure the US suffers more casualities than the defenders.
Or: just give up from the start and live with the consequences.
A combined European defense will not have to fight a guerrilla-style warfare against US forces, especially in the Arctic environment of Greenland. They can go toe-to-toe and bloody a US assault enough to be politically untenable in the US. They just need to have the balls to do it, and not just roll over and let the Trump administration just do what it wants without any opposition.
That is the point, and the problem.
Same goes with politicians in the USA, particularly republicans in Congress.
I want to believe this, and I want NATO members to defend NATO territory. But at this point, do we even know what is “politically untenable in the US”?
Imagine a scenario in which Starmer, Macron et al. summoned the resolve to fire on US forces in Greenland. I doubt that a few dozen or even a few hundred US casualties would lead the Trump White House to call off its assault. And given Greenland’s extreme vulnerability, any conflict over it is not going to be prolonged.
I would guess the best option Denmark and it’s allies have is to provoke a “war of nerves”, move troops there, bluster and saber rattle all you can, and hope that Trump, who’s no profile in courage, chickens out.
If the balloon actually goes up, is a lost cause, and they’ll have to decide if the death of a couple hundred of their citizens is worth the extra credibility on future similar situations (that would no doubt arose in the new world order Trump is busy creating) or if they prefer to just fold.
I’m not normally a fan of watching purely military videos, but here’s a 17m28s video from a Finnish war planner (whose partners are, similarly, Scandinavian (ex-) military) that explains the innumerable (primarily weather-related) challenges to the US attempting to invade a(nother) NATO country.
I found the gentleman quite credible and convincing, but I have nowhere near the depth or breadth of knowledge that it would take to pick his information apart.
[The channel also subsequently did a similar deep dive into the possible outcomes of the US invading Canada. I haven’t watched that one yet]
I like how Miller kept stating that “it’s always been the position of the Trump Administration” that we have a right to take Greenland. Like, it’s the consistency that’s important. It’s always been the position of a mugger on the street that Miller’s wallet belongs to him. And he’s got a gun, so who’s going to stop him.
Some useful history here:
Just how big is Greenland, anyway? Scroll down to see it placed over a map of the US:
That run-down of the history omits that the 1917 treaty to sell what are now the US Virgin Islands also included explicit US recognition of Denmark’s sovereignty over Greenland. (But I know, for this lot it’s history-schmistory).
While I do think that the sheer size, climate, and distance in the event of a drawn out war, would present problems in themselves, the vast majority of Greenland is not useful to anyone except climate scientists. Guerillas sheltering there would be beset by the same climate issues that the invaders would be, and if they were close enough to the inhabited areas, they’d be close enough to detect across the empty terrain.
This past week I have become a lot more pessimistic about the future of America, because the relative lack of failure of the Maduro raid has emboldened Trump. Also it does not seem like the rest of the world is prepared to seriously challenge him were it to come to an actual invasion of Greenland.
An invasion of Greenland would put the final nail in the coffin of what remains of the global liberal order. Relatively few countries are left that want to help America combat authoritarianism. A lot more countries than before 2016 are either cheering Trump on, or are starting to declare that the US will never be an ally no matter who comes into power. If there were an invasion, I feel that there wouldn’t be any significant military response, but there would be a lasting political one.
If the Trump elections have taught me anything it’s that a lot of people are illiberal at heart, and there’s no reason to think that other countries don’t have their share of trump-like voters. Taking action in Greenland will add tremendously to the people who have grudges against the American people, and don’t care if they supported Trump or not.
(The Venezuela situation will as well, of course. Lots of people bring up actions that America took before anyone in power was even born as some proof that Americans are inherently evil, so there’s no reason to believe that Venezuela has an expiration date either.)
This situation has me so messed up. My emotions are all over the place, going from anger to sadness to shame and embarrassment to feeling so helpless that I can’t do anything to make this stop. My anxiety level is through the roof.
I don’t want the world to hate America, but I can’t blame them. I’m ashamed of my country. I hate what we’re doing.
Here what I sent my U.S. House member, Chrissy Houlahan (D - Pennsylvania):
Here’s what I sent Senator Fetterman, who favors Greenland annexation:
Here is what I sent my other senator, Republican Dave McCormick:
The rest of NATO needs to remind the US that there are tens of thousands of US personnel sitting in Europe who can be killed or captured the moment the war starts. And I doubt the current leadership would have the patience to move those forces to safety in advance of any action.
The rest of NATO need to start (at least occasionally) denying US military flights permission to overfly their territories. Remind them how much US global force projection relies on having allies in places all over the world. And then a few hints at “How much harder this would be if some of those bases were to be closed down…”
Trump and MAGA thinks they “Don’t need allies”? Fine, here’s a taste of what that would be like. There are reasons Russia and China aren’t launching military adventures all over the world, like the US routinely does.