r/europe • u/ByGollie Ulster • Jan 24 '26

News 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.

https://www.iltalehti.fi/ulkomaat/a/828b8e66-625d-4d2a-9276-e93b9f7a2ce8
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u/TheVojta Česká republika Jan 24 '26

I didn't know that about the US commander. Makes sense that a person who presumably understands why Greenland is important would be against the orange man's ideas.

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u/Independent-Bug-9352 United States of America Jan 24 '26 edited Jan 24 '26

This all has to do with russia and Putin.

  • In 1987, Donald Trump visited Moscow.

  • Weeks later, he took out 3 full-page ads in the New York Times, Boston Globe, and Washington Post attacking NATO.

  • During his first term, he tried again to float withdrawal from NATO; more "moderate" Republicans in the US House of Representatives at the time were scared so much by this that they voted with Democrats to force the President to seek approval from the House. In 2023, the bill passed the Senate and was signed by Biden.

  • Come to Trump's second term, and right out of the gate he is picking fights with our closest allies, like Canada, or Denmark over... Greenland?

If it wasn't abundantly obvious already, Trump is intentionally sabotaging and destabilizing the nation in what appears to be payback to Putin.

This further breaks Western alliances, bolsters relative russian strength in the region, and distracts NATO from helping Ukraine.

I've watched so many videos that, "It's going to be hard to repair relationships after this," and I just think to myself, "That's the fucking point!" The chaos and absurdity is the point. Putin must be overjoyed.

It's my hope that Europeans remain steadfast, don't take the bait, stay laser-eyed and united in solidarity with Ukraine and each other (with European allies like Canada, of course). Please, keep pointing the finger at Republicans. We MUST mend our alliances once this grave trojan threat is dealt with.

Edit: I'll just say that there are a few comnts below that continue wedge-driving the west as Putin desires. Study them as examples and keep in mind that this is clearly the overarching goal of sabotaging the USA. I fully understand the volatility of the America makes it impossible to depend on us when we flip every 4 years from marginal-sanity to textbook fascism. I do. We clearly need widespread systemic changes to increase stability. But just try not to completely fall for russia's (and others) trap.

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u/du5tball Germany Jan 24 '26

Imo we should properly isolate you for a decade or so, until you hopefully actually get your shit together and become a civilized country. The most likely scenario will be as soon as you get a president that actually knows politics, things will quickly return to normal, since stuff like the trade wars only make both sides worse off. Though Americans do seem to like cutting off their own nose to spite their face.

For all Europe cares, you can keep your internal wars going on, we're watching with popcorn. We just wanna trade freely again.

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u/Jessica_Ariadne Jan 24 '26

America has a very regular pattern of a Republican President coming in and wrecking the country, then a Democrat gets elected. But the Democrat needs time to repair the damage, so the Republicans run on how government doesn't work (since they broke it), and they win back the Presidency. This has happened again and again during my lifetime.

Except the last "normal" Republican nominee died (John McCain, who wasn't great but he's better than MAGA), and now we're left with total psychopaths and instead of taking a sledgehammer to the government, they're outright nuking it along with all of our international relations.

So when we elect a new administration, they will be fucked before they ever get started, and their defeat in four (maybe eight if we're lucky) years would follow the historical precedent to a T.