• UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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    17 hours ago

    A government spokesperson for Germany also confirmed to Reuters that soldiers would be sent to Greenland on Thursday. The country is expected to deploy over a dozen reconnaissance troops, according to the report.

    :-/

    This feels like the time Poland sent eight soldiers in with the US invasion of Iraq.

    • saimen@feddit.org
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      2 hours ago

      It’s 13. Germany is sending 13 soldiers. Literally the minimum to be able to say “over a dozen”.

    • BuneZT@lemmy.world
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      7 hours ago

      Hi. I have to step in about Polish soldiers :p I don’t know what you’re referring to but there were 2500 Polish soldiers deployed to Iraq, 150 wounded and 28 dead. That was during very hard economic times for Poland, still recovering from communism. Somehow they found money for this and sent them with really shitty equipment (cars “armoured” with bulletproof vests on the doors as protection for example)

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish_involvement_in_the_Iraq_War

    • Samskara@sh.itjust.works
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      17 hours ago

      These are advance troops that will figure out logistics, where it makes sense to deploy a bigger force. What they need, and infrastructure.

        • FaceDeer@fedia.io
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          14 hours ago

          Often called “tripwire forces” when they were NATO troops stationed in Eastern Europe. Their purpose is to force the adversary to kill some people before it can take any territory, ensuring that they can’t simply make it a fait accompli and hope there will be no further repercussions.

      • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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        17 hours ago

        I mean, we’ll see. But if the US really is serious about taking Greenland by force, you’ve got a US military base already on the island that’s been running these defense calculations for decades. It’s going to be an uphill climb just to reach parity with the Americans on securing the territory. I hope this isn’t perfunctory, and someone is asking the question “How do we deal with one or more US aircraft carriers?” seriously.

        • GreenBeanMachine@lemmy.world
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          16 hours ago

          You mean like that time when a Swedish diesel sub bypassed all the defenses and “sunk” the US carrier?

          Or that time when Netherlands sub “sunk” one?

          Or that time when Australia “sunk” one?

          Or that time when Canada “sunk” one?

          Those carriers are far from invincible.

          The USA is historically bad at wars - Afghanistan, Vietnam, Korea - all lost despite their massive military spending.

          The only wars they won in modern times are the ones where they received help from their EU NATO allies.

          They’re only good at “strike and run away” operations, like the one in Venezuela.

          If they can’t take Greenland overnight, it will cost them very dearly to go to war with NATO, with no certainty of winning.

          • RaskolnikovsAxe@lemmy.ca
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            1 hour ago

            To add to this, the US is not that great in the Arctic. To occupy Greenland they need boots on the ground, and they are not equipped or manned to do Arctic land operations. EU + Canada surpass them in that. The US only has the one airborne division that are actually cold weather fighters. They also have far fewer ice breakers and the additional units that they were going to buy from Finland (who makes the best ones in the world) will surely be canceled.

          • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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            15 hours ago

            To date, no US aircraft carrier has been lost in a military operation. You’re using “sunk” to describe military exercises that informed the US of all the strategies potentially deployed by these countries.

            Those carriers are far from invincible.

            If the Europeans want to put a US carrier at the bottom of the ocean, I’m not going to shed a tear. But you’re pointing to scrimmage runs and exhibition matches, while you’ve been letting Americans see your playbooks (hell, write your playbooks) for the last 60 years.

            Put up or shut up.

            • RaskolnikovsAxe@lemmy.ca
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              59 minutes ago

              This part is particularly silly:

              while you’ve been letting Americans see your playbooks (hell, write your playbooks) for the last 60 years.

              Do you believe that other countries have been training alongside Americans for decades and have never picked up any knowledge of their skills, methods, strategy, tactics, doctrine, weapons, etc? Never learned anything at all about how Americans fight? The Americans are the most visible military on the planet, and the most gregarious, they’re in every country and training with all of these countries, and somehow no one ever figured out how they do it?

            • GreenBeanMachine@lemmy.world
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              1 hour ago

              Typical Americunt, picking and choosing their propaganda points and completely ignoring anything else. Exactly like your orange pedo cunt of a president.

              Americunts keep losing their wars against much much weaker militaries and you haven’t won a proper war in decades.

              Americunts can’t win a war without your EU allies because the EU are the ones with successful strategies, like how to bypass the “most advanced navy” defenses and sink their expensive carriers.

              Americunts are only good at drive bys and hit and run attacks, you don’t know how to fight a proper war. Fact.

              So no, Americunts have terrible playbooks. Good luck.

            • FaceDeer@fedia.io
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              14 hours ago

              America lost a bunch in World War II. Since then they’ve been exceedingly careful not to risk losing them, always putting them up against foes that couldn’t hit back. Both because they’re expensive, of course, but also to cultivate the very myth that you’re falling for - that American naval power is “invincible.”

              It’s not.

        • Zer0_F0x@lemmy.world
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          16 hours ago

          Any US carrier strike group can probably sink the entire navy of most countries. This calls for a full NATO response because if it doesn’t then I don’t know what does

          • Nighed@feddit.uk
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            16 hours ago

            Wasn’t it one of the Nordics that ‘sunk’ an American carried in drills a while back?

            • Zer0_F0x@lemmy.world
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              3 minutes ago

              Yes, the Swedish diesel electric subs are really quiet and hard to detect in a war game scenario, but that is done with many artificial constraints to the defending CSG, which is tightly packed in a relatively small patch of ocean that the Swedish sub knew and could plan for.

              In reality those subs are stealthy only while traveling at 6 knots and the CSG can travel at 30 over vast expanses of water, with an effective strike range of 2000 miles.

              Also, in war they’re allowed to use high energy sonars that they can’t use in a war game because it kills marine animals, which will detect a turd floating 500 miles away (exaggerating here but you get the idea).

    • treno_rosso@feddit.org
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      15 hours ago

      It’s not about realistically fighting of the US if they decide to really go for it, but they will have to kill European soldiers if they decide to do so. This would effectively end NATO and the transantlantic partnership.

      • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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        15 hours ago

        NATO isn’t a partnership between democratic member states, its a partnership between regional militaries.

        The end state of the conflict over Greenland will be - if anything - a series of US-backed coups in European countries that preserve NATO by realigning the civilian leadership with the foreign policy of the US.

        We’re already seeing this with the AfD in Germany, the Reform UK in England, and National Rally in France. These countries are functionally aligning with Trump as white-nationalist governments working towards the same end goals. And they’ve all heavily infiltrated their domestic militaries.

      • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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        15 hours ago

        200, in the year of the invasion. It swelled to 2,500 over the next five years, then trickled away into a final withdrawal a month before the Republicans lost the White House in 2008.

        There were smaller deployments - Iceland sent 2 soldiers, for instance. But it all paled behind the the US at 150k and UK at 46k. Which goes back to the whole problem with a NATO internal conflict. The US is the backbone of European defense. Again, what do any of these countries plan to do against an aircraft carrier group? Nobody seems to have a serious answer.

        • SreudianFlip@sh.itjust.works
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          11 hours ago

          Serious question: how will a carrier group fare in arctic ice during winter? Will it be what is needed to hold an Arctic island after showing up all bristly in the summer months?

          While the USA’s relatively slim arctic-ready forces are deployed on the Atlantic side of the ice, what will be happening on the pacific side?

          An answer: they can take it, but when winter comes, holding it will be difficult. The northern NATO members have notable infantry that can use the ice to advantage, and there are only five or six harbours of interest in Greenland.

          • TehWorld@lemmy.world
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            48 minutes ago

            Honest reaction to a serious question. The American military complex isn’t about specific fighting doctrine. It’s by far the world’s largest logistics organization. The airlift capacity of the military likely means that a carrier group wouldn’t have to stick around.

            I have mental images of carpet bombing paths through sea ice. Ice is tough, but 500lb dumb bombs do pack quite a punch, and there is a big fleet of bombers that would operate with relative impunity once air dominance is achieved with the aforementioned carrier group.