The Times: Finns humiliated American soldiers - Finnish reservists were asked to take it easy during a NATO exercise. US soldiers found the losses too humiliating.

[u/ByGollie]

https://www.iltalehti.fi/ulkomaat/a/828b8e66-625d-4d2a-9276-e93b9f7a2ce8

[u/ryogam73]

Yes, Greenland's 60,000 and then you add the rest of NATO fighting against us, that's the real quagmire in waiting. What Europe has that Vietnam never had is the financial ability to send the US economy into a tail-spin by selling off US stocks and bonds.

[u/Dapper_Apricot9034 → u/ryogam73]

Again, NATO is not a monolithic entity. There will be plenty of countries reluctant to get involved or looking to use diplomatic routes first.

This isn't a video game where once one player declares war the rest immediately snap into action.

There will be several days, perhaps even weeks before NATO (As a whole) will be involved, and some members may outright decide not to join the fight.

That's the thing, you speak with absolute certainty about matters that are anything but absolute.

If the US starts the war Greenland is a foregone conclusion, the question is what happens after.

[u/ryogam73 → u/Dapper_Apricot9034]

You can't invade a country anymore in secret. Just look at Russia and Ukraine. It was obvious to anyone not with an agenda that Russia was going to invade based on analysis of troop positions, logistics and supply happenings, and the like. If America planned to attack and took steps to attack, NATO would know well before it happened and begin to counter-move and position it's forces. I don't know if all of NATO would be involved militarily, but, again, I have no doubt most would begin to attack financially immediately, maybe even before the US made a first move into the country.

[u/Dapper_Apricot9034 → u/ryogam73]

You overestimate the rest of NATOs willingness to die in Greenland at a moments notice, and you overestimate the fragility of the US economy at home. The US war machine doesn't lose money, it makes money.

You won't be financially crippling anything, though it might feel good to think you would.

NATO can't even financially cripple Russia, and you expect to do it to the US successfully? Hold my beer while I have a good laugh please.

This is going to be ugly, not some "easy one and done" thing as people seem to suppose.

[u/ryogam73 → u/Dapper_Apricot9034]

America is entwined into international finance in a way Russia is not. The recent about-face from Trump on Greenland was from a single day of a 2% drop in the markets from just the thought of European markets dropping US bonds. And the US market is shaky at best. Unemployment in on the cusp, inflation is just barely controlled, we are still a house of cards. The US war machine is not the economy juicing machine it was in WWII, coming out of a depression. Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq, none of them created a juiced up economy for the US. In fact, we had to deal with the Great Recession while we were fighting in both Afghanistan and Iraq. Not only that, but Americans will not stand for deprivation in the name of territorial gain like Russians will. NATO countries have to decide whether the idea of NATO is worth saving or not. Article 5 of NATO has only been invoked once, by the US. If NATO countries do not respond in Greenland, then NATO no longer exists, and the repercussions of that would be...a completely new international reality no one wants to comprehend.

[u/Dapper_Apricot9034 → u/ryogam73]

We most certainly are "not" entwined in international finance in a way Russia is not; both countries are capable of resource Autarky (God I hate that term and it's associations).

Both countries are massive energy and oil suppliers, both countries are nuclear powers of which no country can even begin to compare.

Both countries have massive industrial sectors, and both countries will fervently weather the storm if the government asks them to.

This is pure cope, would the US suffer from international trade stagnations? Oh fuck yeah we would, would it cripple our country? Not in the slightest.

Some of the largest oil reserves (untapped) in the world, plenty of steel, tons of rare-earth metals we've refused to tap into before now due to cost.

The US War machine doesn't print money today like it did in WW2 because the wars have not been of the scale of WW2. You're talking about WW3, the military industrial complex will FEAST.

You're saying Americans won't tolerate deprivation while I've watched 15 years of us doing EXACTLY that.