Today’s big story about Trump’s perpetual attempts to undermine the very concept of democracy in human society takes place in Greenland, according to the Danish Police Intelligence Service. The Danish public broadcaster DRreported that “It is the [Danish Police Intelligence Service] sources themselves who use words such as ‘infiltration’ and ‘influence operations’ and who assess that the goal of the operations is to penetrate Greenlandic society in order to weaken relations with Denmark from within and make the Greenlanders subjugate the United States” (all DR quotes via translation).
There are reportedly three men in the country “with connections to Donald Trump who carry out covert influence operations in Greenland” with the overall goal of whipping up a secessionist movement that will hand the country over to the United States. One of DR’s sources referred them to a May Wall Street Journal report from two of WSJ‘s sources claiming that “The U.S. is stepping up its intelligence-gathering efforts regarding Greenland, drawing America’s spying apparatus into President Trump’s campaign to take over the island.” DR’s sources fear that report hearkened something of a calm before the storm, further buttressed by the Danish Police Intelligence Service’s assessment that something nefarious is unfolding in the shadows right now.
FT: Denmark demands an explanation for US covert military operations on its soil. See, FT can report this correctly. NYT can’t. www.ft.com/content/c067…
It’s not quite clear all what Trump’s plan to bring Greenland into the United States entails, and DR’s sources “do not believe that the United States currently intends to use military force to force an annexation.” This is eminently believable given that Trump wants to use the military to invade and occupy every blue city in America while also drawing up plans to wage war on the cartels in Mexico while doing classic US foreign policy adventurism in the Middle East. The American military simply does not have the human resources to do what Trump wants to do. We couldn’t occupy and rule over Iraq with a full-blown invading force, and its second-largest city has roughly the same population as San Diego. There’s no chance in hell that an attempt to occupy three separate continents will be successful.
While still very murky, this Greenland gambit has so far been a good demonstration in the difference between Trump’s perception and reality. His understanding of the world isn’t that different from a spoiled ten-year-old boy, and he genuinely believes that he can fart out a TruthSocial post and make it reality. JD Vance’s abrupt trip to Greenland where no one wanted to talk to him and he spent all his time on a US base proves how naïve this notion is, and how limited Trump’s sycophants are in accomplishing some of his more complex goals. There is almost no indication that Greenland’s residents have any interest in joining the United States, and short of a full-blown invasion of one of our NATO allies, it’s not clear at all how Trump could steal Greenland from Denmark.
from my interviews there I think this would be highly unlikely to work. Greenlanders are kinda resentful of Denmark but they admit the connection realistically can’t be severed anytime soon, and they fuckin HATE the idea of joining the US
But that doesn’t mean he won’t keep trying. I’m sure one of the dumbest influence operations in American history is underway, because anyone “with close ties to the US president” is by definition, one of the most shambolic humans our species has ever produced. This unhinged move by Trump to steal Greenland from Denmark does not seem likely to work without military force, which is the ultimate fear under America’s autocrat. Someone this unpopular and widely disrespected around the world can only accomplish their ultimate goals with violence, and he has proven he is willing to threaten it while the most depraved human alive, Stephen Miller, openly cheerleads it. The problem is that once violence begins, history tells us that no one has ultimate control over where it goes, and it inevitably travels in a lot of ugly and unpredictable directions.
