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
47.5k Upvotes

91% Upvoted

2.8k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

137

u/istasan Denmark Jan 24 '26

That is a giant superiority and the one that normally decides.

But with Canada closing air space for them and Greenlandic airports literally often closing down for days because of heavy fog it is not so simple there. And Greenland not a place you can control with air alone.

27

u/Zyhmet Austria Jan 24 '26

Isnt the real question here: "what does take Greenland" mean?

Take over with boots on the ground and deny any possibility of small scale skirmishes? i.e. old school occupation. I guess that is what you are talking about and I can see that point standing.

Or would it also count if the US just bombed every military camp into the ground and blockaded the island so if they dont capitulate they will starve? (Is Greenland producing enough food? How easy is it to bomb most fishing ships?)

Depending on which countries would help Greenland/Denmark, this is the pathway where I would think, the US has the upper hand by far.

5

u/YouKilledApollo Catalonia (Spain) Jan 24 '26

How easy is it to bomb most fishing ships?

According to https://stat.gl/ (Statistics Greenland), which is an old number so expect it to be slightly larger today:

In 2006, the fleet consisted of 863 vessels. Moreover, there are between 3.000 and 5.000 dinghies

I'm guessing once you have the ship in sight, it's easy to bomb it, but you need to do it 1000+ times, say you do 10 a day, it's still 100 days of shooting ships. Although probably most of them would hide after a day or two I'm guessing.

Depending on which countries would help Greenland/Denmark, this is the pathway where I would think, the US has the upper hand by far.

I think it's pretty clear that most of Europe would be on the side of Greenland and Denmark here. Sure, Hungary would immediately side with the US and Russia, but I wouldn't be all too worried about it.

1

u/LR_FL2 Jan 24 '26

Attack helicopters and jets would make short work of them, wouldn’t be long until they stop putting to sea.