How might we best frame our understanding of what's going on between Greenland, Denmark & the US?
Ian Manners suggests four ways to understand the developing situation:
Realism - its all about the balance of power;
New elites - its the oligarchs/billionaires;
Decline of the liberal order - a rejection of international law as a constraint;
A planetary approach - environmental sustainability is (should be) the central issue.
@ChrisMayLA6 It is all really simple. Trump wants to become immortal, and what better way than to get a peace prize (didn't work out) or to expand the country á la Putin? It is also interesting to note that all what he wants, control of ports, minerals, etc. he could get from Denmark just by bargaining for a deal.
But how will he proceed? I think he will push the greenland opposition to have an unofficial vote that will end up in favour of joining the US. To sweeten the deal, he will offer every greenlandet 500k-1 million dollars.
After the vote, he will just simply move in troops, companies, personnel and that's it.
What Denmark should do, is to let greenland quickly vote, as fast as possible, and this will result in a "no" against joining the US, a "yes" when it comes to increased independence of greenland, and this will become the "ethical shield" of denmark and greenland and make life more difficult for Trump.
At the end of the day, with such a vote, it doesn't matter if Trump moves in military and companies. In 3 years, the democrats will most likely win, and the troops will be removed, and the companies will stay and pay tax on greenland. Greenland will have become more independent, and all will be well.
I'd like to agree with your trajectory for Greenland, but I suspect one there the US will not be leaving any time soon
@ChrisMayLA6 Could be. But the advantage is that we will have the answer in 3-5 years! ;)
Indeed, we will... and part of that will be dependent on who follows Trump, I suspect
@ChrisMayLA6 I think the democrats will win easily, _if_, they swallow their pride and present a middle aged man on the right side of the democratic party.
If they continue, or "escalate" the war against white middle class and working class men, there is a good chance that Vance will win.
Yes, I think the Democrats would need to wilfully miss the opportunity in the mid-terms, but interestingly Mamdani my represent a different sort of appeal, which might work in some urban centres if not across all of the USA
Immortal in the sense he will be remembered long after he's gone - I'd say he's already achieved that, but perhaps not quite in the way he wanted
@ChrisMayLA6 This is the truth! But you must also keep in mind that he has a close knit "core" of supporters who will remember only his narrative, and I suspect that that is where the family will get their support and glory from, when Trump is gone. The rest of the world will move on, and the family might still be appreciated within the MAGA core. It will be interesting to see if Trump will manage handing over his power within the MAGA movement to his children. I think Trump likes the idea of founding a power dynasty.
Agreed, in the medium term this is a crucial Q.: will Trump have created a political dynasty, or will it fade away without his particular character...
@ChrisMayLA6
How about a power hungry tangerine tyrant who doesn't know how to work with groups.
@ChrisMayLA6 I was surprised by the four options offered. So I did some page searches before reading.
I found that Ian Manners's article contains no words beginning with imperial, empir, or colon.
So I didn't read it. If Mr Manners is not going to even consider those concepts, I don't think he deserves much attention.
yes, its a range of options based on a particular view of how International Relations (the academic discipline) might offer different frames... one abiding critique of IR (to which I would largely subscribe) is that is myopic about (contemporary) imperialism. So your comment is right on the button
Thanks, @ChrisMayLA6. It's remarkable how international relations is such a captured discipline, so closely bound to the interests of powerful states and their backers.
Yes, I used to teach it, but one of the reasons I became a (critical) political economist early in my academic career was exactly the frustration at the partiality of IR & its extraordinary ignorance of the real world of global relations (i.e. the myopic disregard of the economy)
@ChrisMayLA6 That choice reflects very well on you.
Over the last few decades, I have watched several former colleagues from the disarmament world travel in the opposite direction, and take up international relations. I sighed sadly at the moves, and have seen nothing to regret that sigh.
I think that was very much the product of 15 years in the private sector (including working in my family's small business), before becoming an academic - the IR crew were really myopic in tier views of the world, having for the most part, never worked outside a university!
@ChrisMayLA6 I think it's because the current US administration is stupid and amoral.
No. It's about a country that convinced a lot of countries to join it in a mutual defense alliance because it would guarantee the territorial integrity of all of them and now is threatening to steal most of the territory of one of them.
It is about the US about to become the most traitorous country on Earth.
that would likely come under 'realism' - US national interests drive policy not any morality or consideration of allies, other than in the sense of how they might help achieve US national interest - which is not in any way to say I would endorse such a justification
@ChrisMayLA6 @jgg I actually think even your qualification of “realism” is being overly generous. As far as I can see the single and sole motivation is to keep the Epstein files out of the media Spotlight. Rumour suggests that they are 100 times worse than anybody has contemplated.
To the extent that Donald Trump has any kind of strategic vision it doesn’t go beyond audience numbers and TV shows. And if he slows down Epstein will overtake in the audience ratings.
I'd agree; I'm not sure anyone really thinks that the Tangerine Tyrant is working to a program other than self-enrichment & self-interest....
@ChrisMayLA6 to me he's clearly a puppet. I don't think he's capable of coherent thought. The puppet masters do have a plan I think, and project 2025 is just another cover, I guess. Too crude to be all of it.
I thought the flirting of the powers behind the 'network state' idea flirting with Greenland ambition for some time were an interesting clue.
But regardless of speculation, all this shitfuckery must be stopped, obviously, regardless of motivations. The harm is clear.
