Today's News: Trump's Greenland flapdoodle

I've been gathering some of the comments and posts about Greenland defending itself from Trump's idiotic invasion plans.

For some, it is just a distraction:

And here we are: the entire transatlantic alliance is now talking about Greenland, instead of talking about ending the war in Ukraine.

- Anne Applebaum

Read on Substack

But for most, it is terrifyingly real - instead of dignifying Trump's national security strategy with a name like The Donroe Doctrine, we should start calling this Greenland takeover attempt what it is - a poorly conceived flapdoodle of paranoid hysteria.

🇬🇱 “We’re not going to sell our soul.” 'Greenlanders don't want to be colonized by a new outside power...only a small minority has even the faintest flicker of interest in joining the US.' 🇬🇱 Their message to the world: “Stand with us.” www.nytimes.com/2026/01/14/w...

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— DCminx 🕊🌍🔥🌱 (@dcminx.bsky.social) January 14, 2026 at 8:34 AM

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* GREENLAND GOVERNMENT: FROM TODAY THERE WILL BE AN INCREASED MILITARY PRESENCE IN AND AROUND GREENLAND -- IN CLOSE COOPERATION WITH NATO ALLIES @reuters.com

— Carl Quintanilla (@carlquintanilla.bsky.social) January 14, 2026 at 8:19 AM

And nothing would make Putin happier than to see Trump destroy the NATO alliance over something so pointless and stupid.

Imagine the delight and laughter in Moscow and Beijing over the US Congress being obliged to pass a bill to prevent the president of the United States from invading another NATO country.

- Garry Kasparov

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This is from the official White House account. He’s an international embarrassment.

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— Hoodlum 🇺🇸 (@nothoodlum.bsky.social) January 14, 2026 at 1:15 PM

In reply:

Greenland chooses Denmark

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— Anonymous (@youranoncentral.bsky.social) January 14, 2026 at 12:25 PM

“Who on earth believes that the president could possibly have the depth of expertise to make some of these detailed decisions that he’s making? So, of course, it’s his advisers,” Tillis told a group of reporters {gift link} wapo.st/3YAtSqz

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— George Conway ⚖️🇺🇸 (@gtconway.bsky.social) January 14, 2026 at 9:15 AM

I think Trump just wants the money -- he didn't get anywhere last year with his Gaza hotels, or his Ukraine rare earth elements mining, and his Venezuela oil wells aren't going to happen any time soon, so now he thinks he can make a buck on Greenland's minerals.

So, even though the US has had a decades-long agreement with Denmark/Greenland, which allows for almost unfettered American bases; and even though the Americans have reduced their troops in Greenland recently; and even though Denmark/Greenland has offered to negotiate an increase in the American presence; Trump has said no. He wants control of Greenland. It’s not about security. It’s about stealing Greenland’s minerals. Trump doesn’t like to pay for what he can just take. Someone tell him Alaska is sitting on loads of untapped minerals. Tell him to go steal them. I’m sure they’ll let him.

- Joanne Pettis 🇨🇦

Read on Substack

Canada is onside with Greenland, mostly, though I think Carney is still trying to manouver:

Anand is with Carney on this trip, but I hope she and our military leaders are staying in close convo w/ NATO as Trump builds his on-ramp to a Canadian invasion after practicing on Greenland. Putin and his other malignant pals have taught him about destabilizing by degree. #CdnPoli #Canada

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— Jennifer Johnston (@jenniferj-ca.bsky.social) January 11, 2026 at 3:18 PM

And the usual suspects are supporting Trump:

The American owned Sun media chain are doing the propaganda work of quislings.

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— Charlie Angus (@charlieangus104.bsky.social) January 14, 2026 at 8:21 AM

On Wednesday, the NATO troops arrived:

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NEW and WOW: Germany, Netherlands, Sweden, and Canada are sending troops to Greenland amid continued threats from U.S. President Donald Trump to annex the territory, multiple outlets reported. www.newsweek.com/greenland-ge...

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— Dean Obeidallah (@deanobeidallah.bsky.social) January 14, 2026 at 1:59 PM

Coincidentally, perhaps, the Canadian troops are in Greenland because of training exercises.  

Here's a little more about Greenland itself:

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And a great video here too:

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Some good commentary about what the invasion of Greenland would mean.

On his A Voice of Reason substack, Brent Molnar writes:

🌍🔥 The Suicide Pact: What Happens the Moment We Touch Greenland If the United States follows through on the threat to invade Greenland, we need to be crystal clear about what happens the next morning. This is not a real estate transaction or a routine military exercise. It is the geopolitical equivalent of pulling the pin on a grenade in a crowded elevator. The moment American boots hit the ground in Nuuk to seize territory from a fellow NATO member, the world as we know it ends. The consequences will not be temporary sanctions or angry letters. They will be total, permanent, and devastating.
The first domino to fall is the North Atlantic Treaty Organization itself. ...
The military repercussions will be swift and humiliating. Europe will immediately demand the closure of every U.S. military base on the continent. Ramstein in Germany, Aviano in Italy, Lakenheath in the UK, all gone. Our ability to project power into the Middle East and Africa vanishes overnight....
Then comes the economic nuclear option. The European Union is the largest single market in the world, and they will weaponize it. Europe will likely move to call in U.S. debt and dump their dollar reserves, sending the value of our currency into a death spiral. The U.S. economy, which relies on the dollar being the global reserve currency, will collapse. ...
Corporate America will face an extinction event. U.S. companies will be expelled from the European market. ...
The skies will go silent. European aviation authorities will almost certainly ground all Boeing jets and ban U.S. airlines from their airspace. Transatlantic travel will cease. If you are in Paris or Berlin, you are stuck there....
For individual Americans, the consequences will be personal and painful. Visa-free travel to Europe will end immediately. Americans currently living or working in Europe will lose their legal protections and residency status....
This is the end of trust, and it does not reset. You cannot invade a democratic ally and then say "my bad" four years later. The psychological break will be permanent. Europe will realize that the United States is no longer a partner but a predator. They will build their own defense architecture, their own financial systems, and their own alliances that specifically exclude us. The West will continue, but the United States will no longer be part of it.
Invading Greenland is not a show of strength; it is an act of national suicide. We are trading our reputation, our economy, and our security for a frozen island and a handful of minerals we can't even process. The price of this real estate deal is everything we built over the last century. If we cross this line, there is no going back. We will be the lonely superpower, ruling over nothing but our own decline.

At his Special Intellegence substack, Malcolm Nance writes:

Invasion Greenland - Three Scenarios & Ten Consequences - Part I You all need to read this and pray to God it doesn't happen. It can get bad. Real bad.
....Trump was now reflecting the mindset of his special advisor, Stephan Miller, who said, “The United States should have Greenland as part of the United States… The real question is, by what right does Denmark assert control over Greenland?” He added ominously, “Nobody’s gonna fight the United States military over the future of Greenland … We live in a world, in the real world, that is governed by strength, that is governed by force, that is governed by power. These are the iron laws of the world since the beginning of time.”
So, according to Miller’s “DONROE” Doctrine, Greenland will be seized if it can’t be bought. Looks easy, right? Give Midway Island a thought ...

Vance then describes four possible invasion scenarios. He concludes:

....NATO is made up of 32 nations. If the United States departs, the alliance will still comprise 31 nations. If Denmark invokes Article 5, then every one of the other 30 nations (be sure Hungary, Slovakia, and Serbia will back Trump) must come to its aid militarily and fight the attacking enemy … which will be The United States of America.
This means a Trump invasion of Greenland could start a Transatlantic War. Also, it could be called World War 2.0. If pro-fascist actors such as Israel and Russia back Trump and non-NATO nations such as Australia, New Zealand, and Ukraine back Denmark, we can call it World War III, minus nukes.
Tomorrow, I will spell out the Consequences of any US action against Greenland.
HINT: It’s all bad for America.

At his Against All Enemies substack, Rick Wilson writes:

Greenland and the Pentagon The Pentagon's Joint Chiefs Are Failing the Greenland Test
...And here is the terrifying part: the Joint Chiefs of Staff, men who have spent four decades wearing the uniform, men who talk endlessly about “honor,” “integrity,” and the “rules-based international order,” are currently sharpening the knives. They are looking at maps of Nuuk and Thule not as partners, but as targets.
Let’s be clear: Greenland poses no threat to the United States. It is not a launchpad for terror. It is not harboring WMDs. Neither the Chinese nor the Russians are poised to take it by either guile or force.
It is an autonomous territory of a loyal, democratic ally. By executing this order, the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) aren’t just following a “controversial” policy; they are participating in a strategic suicide pact that will dismantle seventy-five years of American alliancess in a single afternoon, giving China a strategic license to invade Taiwan, and Russia one to take Latvia, Lithjuaina, and Estonia, to say nothing of continuing their illegal war against Ukraine.
The moment an American boot hits Greenlandic soil without an invitation, NATO, the most successful military alliance in the history of the world, is dead. Article 5 becomes a cruel joke, a relic of a time when America’s word actually meant something. If the United States can invade its own allies for “strategic depth” or mineral rights, why would any nation in Europe ever trust us again? We are effectively telling the world that the “rules-based order” was just a mask for “might makes right.”...

In The Bullwark, retired Lt. General Mark Hertling writes:

The Best Military ‘Option’ for Greenland: Let It Be Attacking an ally with special forces would be the wrong tool for the wrong mission.
...Greenland is not a rogue state, an ungoverned space, or a gray-zone problem. It is an autonomous territory within the Kingdom of Denmark, a NATO member, and a place where the United States already operates military installations—with Danish consent. During overseas flights, I often flew on military aircraft that had refueling stops at Thule Air Base (now Pituffik Space Force Base).
Special operations forces do not “take” countries. At most, they seize discrete objectives in support of a much larger conventional campaign. There is no plausible JSOC mission set that accomplishes a military takeover of Greenland without instantly escalating into open conflict with Denmark—and by extension, with NATO and maybe the European Union. There is no deniability here, no ambiguity, no covert fig leaf thin enough to cover an armed attack on allied territory in the North Atlantic.
...But what is most striking about this episode is not the idea itself, but how casually it appears to have been floated. Riding the high of the bombing of the Iranian nuclear program and the raid on Caracas, the president appears to be using the U.S. military less as a constitutional instrument of national defense and more as a prop in a geopolitical fantasy—one where power is assumed to be frictionless, law optional, and alliances disposable.
Donald Trump is trying to wage war on the cheap, which is a mistake when attempted against a genuine enemy, to say nothing of an ally.
Measured disbelief is the only reasonable response, because the alternative is to treat this as operationally serious—and it isn’t. It is serious, however, as a signal: of how easily the language of force drifts away from its consequences, and how much quiet professionalism is required inside military institutions to simply say no.
Greenland is not for sale. JSOC is not a land-acquisition tool. And NATO is not a suggestion.

I feel like the best way to understand the Greenland situation is simply to substitute the word "Sudetenland" every time you time you read "Greenland"

— Will Bunch (@willbunch.bsky.social) January 14, 2026 at 10:39 AM