Greenland

[Mos]

I think you guys are kind of saying the same thing but just not agreeing on how the relationship is defined. Yes, there is realism and self-interest at the heart of it, but the level of cooperation and trust is effectively a different paradigm from what preceded Bretton-Woods. All of which is being eroded by the USA's current trajectory.

 

[taxi1]

This gift article is a nice discussion. Opens with a story about how the Danes fought in Afghanistan by our side.

Opinion | Something Is Rotten in the State of America

This is the thanks Denmark gets?

www.nytimes.com

Denmark answered the call after the 9/11 attacks. It deployed thousands of soldiers to Afghanistan and Iraq, and it lost more soldiers, per capita, in Afghanistan than any NATO nation aside from the United States.

There is no more profound way to stand in solidarity with an ally.

“America has no permanent friends or enemies,” Henry Kissinger is often quoted as saying, “only interests.” That statement, championed by proponents of realpolitik, is true only if you emphasize the word “permanent.” Over the long sweep of time, allies can certainly become enemies, and enemies can become allies.

...The better expression, the one that accurately reflects the national interests of the United States, is that while any given friendship isn’t permanently guaranteed, our country has a permanent interest in maintaining international friendships and alliances. When we lose partners in alliances (much less the alliance itself) we are weaker and more vulnerable — no matter how much we try to bulk up our independent military and economic strength.

...I am writing about all this because the Trump administration may be on the verge of the most catastrophic national security mistake of my lifetime. It is attempting to bully Denmark into surrendering Greenland, its semiautonomous territory, to the United States.

We’re offering to buy it, but the offer is being made at gunpoint.

...The best description I’ve read of Trump’s flawed approach comes from Kori Schake, a senior fellow and director of foreign and defense policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute. Writing in Foreign Affairs last June, she noted that “since the end of World War II, American power has been rooted mostly in cooperation, not coercion.”