naraburns
nihil supernum
No bio...
User ID: 100
"All of the above," basically. In particular, this is the best article I read last year when this topic was kicking around.
What various pearl-clutching reporters expressing confusion (and disdain) on the topic seem to miss is that China has been working toward its own control of Greenland for years:
Over the past seven years, China has attempted to grow its footprint in the region through scientific research expeditions, infrastructure investments, and natural resource acquisitions. By most metrics, the strategy has failed to take off, as major projects continue to be blocked due to security concerns. But China’s continued interest in Greenland reflects the island’s geostrategic importance—and China’s global lead in rare earth mining and processing expertise keeps the U.S. adversary on the table as a potential future mining partner in Greenland. Greenland’s minister of business and mineral resources warned that while Western partnerships are preferred, without an influx of investment, Greenland will have to turn to other partners, including China. Already, Chinese rare earth company Shenghe Resources is the largest shareholder in the Kvanefjeld mine, with 12.5 percent ownership. Shenghe signed an MOU in 2018 to lead the processing and marketing of materials extracted from the site.
This is almost refreshingly straightforward game theory in action; America could only afford to be lazy about the strategic importance of Greenland as long as China was lazy about the strategic importance of Greenland. As you say--we have bases there, it's NATO territory, why talk about control now? The answer is: because Greenland is cheerfully taking Chinese money and our current options are "do something about that" or "don't do something about that."
I remember when Trump created the Space Force, I saw many chatterers online joke about how stupid this was, how Trump was crazy, and most of all--how his presumed Democrat successor was going to have to roll the whole mess back. There was even a sitcom! To the contrary, I heard from my military contacts that in fact the Air Force had been pushing for this move for years, and Trump was the guy who broke through all the bureaucratic hand-wringing and faction-wrangling to actually make it happen.
I suspect something similar is true of Greenland. For all our military adventurism, the United States of America has made a much bigger difference globally by being the economic center of the world. China learned that lesson, and is now doing what it can to overtake us in the same way. So yes, stuff like oil and rare earth minerals and trade routes are important--but so is "sphere of influence." Smart people recognize this, and I would guess that our national security apparatus communicated some of this to Trump, and in typical Trump fashion he said "oh hey everyone, I guess we need Greenland now? Let's stop pussyfooting around and start the negotiations!"
naraburns
nihil supernum
3hr ago
This game is really something to experience in VR. Unfortunately the "samey" vibe still kicks in pretty quick, and some of the combat updates made VR space combat a lot more difficult. But I find myself coming back to it every year or two just to "be there."
naraburns
nihil supernum
5hr ago
Octopath Traveler 0. I gather that the game was originally an episodic installment on mobile platforms, and that shows through in a variety of ways--the "town building" is hollow, the writing is uneven. But the pixelated tilt-shift JRPG grind is pretty well untouched from the previous games. I'm about 80 hours in and closing on the endgame.
naraburns
nihil supernum
4d ago
here I was banned and threatened with a future permaban for speaking ill Donald Trump
False. You were banned for breaking the rules, more than once. We don't moderate content. You are welcome to speak ill of Donald Trump (or whomever) all you like--certainly others do. You just have to follow the rules when you do it.
It's having a very angry and abrasive tone of voice in writing, being a contrarian that speaks against the tribe in whatever tribe I'm in.
Just about everyone here has a contrarian streak. Nobody cares. You can even be angry. (You can even get away with being a little abrasive, if you can do it artfully and don't target other users!) What you cannot do is make sweeping generalizations, uncharitable assertions, evidence-free rants, etc. You also can't Fedpost (violates the "recruiting for a cause" rule) or submit strictly illegal content for what are hopefully obvious reasons. The rules are what they are, and they will be enforced against you. But they will not be enforced against you for wrongthink, so please don't kid yourself on that score.
naraburns
nihil supernum
6d ago
The Republican base runs on "vibes" and hatred of the other to give a sense of unity and "doing something."
Please,
Proactively provide evidence in proportion to how partisan and inflammatory your claim might be.
Also:
Our goal is to optimize for light, not heat.
Also:
Post about specific groups, not general groups, wherever possible.
Also:
Be no more antagonistic than is absolutely necessary for your argument.
Remember that this is a discussion site, not (yet another) place on the Internet for performative outrage/consensus building denigration/low effort signalling.
Probably, but international trade is complicated. What goods do we manufacture that the people of Greenland/Denmark want? What do the trade surpluses and deficits look like between the various interested parties? Who controls how much of who else's currency/economy/etc.? Can China be counted on to "play fair" in response to being outbid?
It's very clearly not the "only form" that "do something" can take! Hence:
And, in typical Trump fashion, he is throwing out alarming possibilities as a way of encouraging actual forward motion on a deal. This is a common way to do business. It's not an uncommon way to do international politics. Is it a good way to do those things? Perhaps not. But this is a nuanced, complex, and contentious question, which is broadly being treated with ridicule instead of reflection and thought. This is understandable in that humans tend to want to respond to bombastic rhetoric with their own bombastic rhetoric. But Trump's "solution" to interminable geopolitical handwringing is often to flip some tables and force action. Whether he gets exactly the results he wanted (or promised) seems secondary, in his mind, to whether he at least moves the needle. And prior to Trump's rhetoric, it seems clear, the needle was moving slowly but inexorably in China's favor.
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