Let's say that NATO wanted to do a preëmptive attack to seize some US territory in anticipation of an invasion of Greenland. (Holding a territorial bargaining chip is a great way to get your territory back at the end of the conflict. Also, the US public is not used to having the homeland occupied, and would not be willing to live with a loss of territory for very long.)
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@evan I saw a USian cursing Trump for the potential closing or capturing of US bases, equipment, personnel that are located practically all over the world. Doctrine has to be a lot different without all those footholds.
@evan I'm really starting to wonder if the US public would get more enraged by a loss of territory, or the loss of Netflix.
@evan close all US military bases on NATO soil, there are quite a few, and expell all the military personnel of those bases.
@brunogirin I think that's probably a good idea regardless, if you're anticipating military action!
@evan You say that, buuuut socialized health care and no shootings....
@evan With just the slightest veil of discreet communication, you could arrange for the seizure of Washington, Oregon, and California and everyone there would be on board.
I think the best candidate for taking a chunk of territory would be somewhere along the Alaska-Canada border. But that really requires some aggressive action by Canada, which has a lot to lose in starting that kind of war.
I wonder what the response would be to a hypothetical Canada's offer for any US state or territory to become a Canada province. Would Minnesota, Maine, and Alaska consider taking it? how would Trump retaliate to the offer, and on what grounds?
maybe Denmark could make such an offer too. it's not like countries have to be contiguous...
@lxo Just starting the negotiations would probably be fine. Send in a diplomatic team.
@evan There is no army for it. If we’re really going down that path, it will be a decadal effort.
@promovicz how big an army do we need to occupy unpopulated wilderness?
@evan a big one, because it requires extended logistics, and unsecured terrain is hard to defend.
@promovicz we don't need to defend it! Take it, hold it, abandon it when forces come to take it back. Then, do the same thing 1000km down the border. If the US doesn't rise to the bait, start doing some more provocative actions, like changing geographical names, putting up monuments, or establishing settlements.
@evan I’d agree with Guerilla tactics. Main problems I see, are missing large crafts and the submarines. Europe doesn’t have the gear for expeditions (or serious winter warfare).
Another option would be seizing unoccupied territory along the border between the lower 48 and Canada. There's a lot of sparsely-populated land up there, and it'd be possible to get a big, scary chunk of the map coloured maple-leaf red on the nightly news. The parts of Maine north of the 45th parallel are very empty and would actually be quite nice to have on our side, anyway. It's a pain to have to drive around them to get to New Brunswick!
@evan
I nominate the Northwest Angle. It's a part of Minnesota, but ONLY accessible via Canada. And 70% of it is Ojibwe land. Canada could make a treaty with the Red Lake Ojibwe and get their buy-in. Residents of the Angle have proposed joining Canada before.
@evan Or, the Canadians could go full 1812, and burn some Trump towers...
Most US overseas territories aren't great candidates. The US has a lot of territories spread across the Pacific, which are hard for European powers to take and hold.
@evan I think, too, that other than being strategically important, this administration doesn't care about the people in those territories, so it wouldn't hit as close
I think the Caribbean might be good. The US has a huge, neglected territory in Puerto Rico, with historic ties to a European power (Spain). It would be interesting to start negotiations on defence arrangements with an independent PR, or some hoohaw of that sort.
Another option is the US Virgin Islands -- formerly a Danish colony, so some good optics there.
One that might be fun is Navassa Island, the last of the US's guano island holdings from the 1800s. It's a little uninhabited dot between Jamaica, Cuba, and Haiti. Most Americans don't even know it exists. The claim is kind of shaky, too.
@evan I'd suggest instead a much more poetic move: Grab the US Virgin Islands, and hand them back to their former sovereign, to become, once again, the Danish West Indies.
Why would that be especially poetic? Because the USA specifically agreed in the Senate-supermajority-approved Treaty of the Danish West Indies (1916) to acknowledge Denmark's sovereignty, in perpetuity, of... Greenland.
If Mr. Trump thinks he can override without Congressional consent an Article II treaty (well, two if you count the North Atlantic Treaty of 1949), well, at minimum he should expect the reversion that happens when that treaty goes away.
Perhaps then, Mr. Trump can visit Charlotte Amalie, Sankt Thomas, Dansk Vestindien, and ask permission to apologize and retreat. If they'll grant him a visa.
All that said, it's pretty clear what the best location for European forces to occupy militarily is, and that's the US scientific stations in Antarctica. They are literally on the other side of the planet from Greenland, meaning a split in attention and resources. They are lightly defended. There are unresolved claims for big swathes of Antarctica by European countries, so we get to start juggling those concepts again.
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@evan Simpler than that - invite a bunch of the Caribbean islands into a treaty organization and free trade org. Hell, invite Puerto Rico. Split the attention between several fronts.
@evan Announce a policy:
Every tariff Trump sets, the EU will have no higher than 50% of that tariff with that country. Trump sets 15%, the EU tariff is maximum 7.5%. Streamline rules and regulations for US corps to reincorporate themselves in the EU instead of US. Make the center of global trade the EU.