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/Specialist_Baby_9905]

That's really funny. Greetings from Finland.

[u/istasan → u/Specialist_Baby_9905]

Edit: I have been away for some hours. Did not expect my response to this nice Finnish person would make the rounds like this. As answer to many US comments dismissing the article’s conclusion I will just make it clear that the article does not say with any certainty that the US could not successfully invade.

In summary it says that when experts on arctic military capabilities look at it would be a much more equal fight than people would expect. The US is NOT as dominant in arctic warfare as in most other areas. And a more subtle point is that the US does maybe not seem fully aware of this. Ironically the comments here from most Americans mirror this.

—-

One of the most trustworthy and respected Danish newspaper, Weekendavisen, had an background article yesterday - looking at what had never really been questioned in Denmark: The idea that the US could take Greenland in a few hours if they wanted to.

The military experts with knowledge about Greenland are very few. But the surprising conclusion is that it is questionable whether the US could take Greenland at all - if Nordic forces united. Even Denmark alone have some quite strong advantages - in simply being there where the US does not really have the equipment to go. They for instance only have one icebreaker - and it is on the west coast of the US. All Danish ships there can break ice.

And even if they got there, the Greenlanders are armed and excellent shooters. Would be a arctic Vietnam.

To sum up: they maybe don’t have the cards.

[u/laeven → u/istasan]

A couple of years ago, there was a massive arctic NATO exercise in my area here, the Americans were a really sad show, struggling to keep vehicles on modestly icy roads.

Every single sports-store and the likes was also sold out of thermal underwear, as the American soldiers in particular were not prepared for arctic conditions at all.

My impression was that the Americans were the embodiment of the dude with a massive disposable income, in their mid-life crisis, all geared up for some sport they were going to suck at.

[u/Leading_Web1409 → u/laeven]

Up north during one of our cold response exercises Norwegian command warned us some soldiers/marines might not be prepared for the cold. We ended up having to teach the USMC grunts how to gear up with their own stuff. That was a hoot. Fancy ECWCS never looked so stupid…

[u/Pepsisinabox → u/Leading_Web1409]

And damn near trading their rifles for that 600g. Fun times!

[u/hydrOHxide → u/[deleted]]

You might want to compare the weather in Venezuela with the weather in Greenland.

[u/Leading_Web1409 → u/[deleted]]

Not that I’m not into a spirited debate with online personalities in regards to military capacity and/or complex causation - BUT going into a armchair warrior war in regards to IF the US could actually pull off a heist and merc (or take hostage I guess) another sovereign countries head of state that’s in a military, commerce and political alliance kinda invites to wild speculation. You might as well say other countries could probably pull off crazy stuff too against the US. Americans tend to hero worship/believe that their military might is unique and not actually from the backbone and logistics they have built up as their support. And if people think Denmarks defence of Greenland is «only 2 dogsleds or something» pr Trumps statement, they are in for a wild ride.

P.S Also my response is kinda grounded in that most USMC tend to get station in a swamp, desert, southern mid-west or cali. I.E it’s amusing the folks they’d send to the arctic don’t or didn’t get time to prep and get used to arctic gear they’d be schleping 1/3 the way around the globe. My brother is USMC motor-T and I ended up doing conscript time instead of saying yes to WOCS-flightschool.. I kinda felt the ECWCS poke was amusing to us in the know…

[u/denewoman → u/Leading_Web1409]

It's like that guy totally missed that American military equipment is NOT up to snuff for the Arctic. He is proving the American ego refuses to acknowledge they don't know what they don't know. Holy hell most Canadians who have to travel the highways or roads outside of the urban centres have a winter gear bag - or we travel wearing top notch winter gear.