Better than contempt, which is an emotional reaction, greet them with indifference. They are trying to provoke an emotional reaction, but don't give it to them. Just state calmly, "It will be the pleasure of the next sane American administration to give Greenland backed to the people to whom it belongs with just compensation."
I would agree, except that attacking Greenland, an ally and NATO member, without Congressional authorization (so unconstitutionally) is the kind of crisis likely to result in civil war or revolution.
“We are not going to war with our allies” is a line worth drawing.
I fully agree that it is a line worth drawing, but the American Congress has never successfully restrained a president from taking military action since 1945.
Kiran, this is an excellent analysis of the psychological motivations at play. The "logic of the flasher" metaphor perfectly captures the performative nature of these claims.
What makes this particularly dangerous from an information warfare perspective is that platform mechanics don't distinguish between serious strategy and performance art. The "flasher logic" you identify, seeking outrage for gratification, is actually perfectly optimized for algorithmic amplification.
Controversy drives engagement, engagement drives visibility, and visibility creates the appearance of legitimacy and momentum. I recently analysed how routine German NATO deployments got reframed as anti-US mobilization during the Greenland crisis.
so here's my shameless plug, and I hope it adds context too!
I blame eternal foreign adventures for this kind of madness.
Really, they reminded me of the kind of Chechen combatants who take entire hospitals hostage under Shamil Basayev.
American military became increasingly amoralistic and reliant on violence as a result to prolonged forever wars. (maybe I should read "The Centurions" as a warning)
This 👆🏻 it has a neo-colonialist mindset that's been brewing from quite some time now. At the same time I would not characterize all of the US Military like this. I feel based on my limited understanding and knowledge that the rise of focus (in media and in strategy) and almost reliance on SOFs is also a big piece to the puzzle vs. your standard infantry grunt etc.
It's the characteristics of Kremlin, the IRGC, and a thousand and one regimes. They always want to concentrate war in a handful of individuals. Warfare became increasingly neo-medieval.
On another note this is a pretty well observed phenomenon since eternity.
But what's the alternative? Total unrestricted warfare?
I'm pretty "into" the gun community and actually I'm equally fascinated and disgusted. It's something special.
The idea of "total war" itself can be up for intense debate. Because even if you look at WWII or going all the way back to the Punic Wars there always will be limits to warfare no matter how all encompassing it can be.
"Total war" is a strictly anti-Clausewitzian concept. For some reason, the Howard and Paret translation uses the phrase in places where Clausewitz is discussing "absolute war" in the sense of the pure theoretical concept, which can never be reached in reality.
Even in a war of extermination, other political considerations (and the friction that affects all human endeavors, especially war) prevent the employment of all resources and exertions towards war.
Also you need to know how much of Western special operation types were connected to apartheid regimes in the 80s.
COIN had a pretty disturbing history. It's born from a perverse mother. (although what's the alternative? Chinese way of COIN? North Vietnamese way of COIN? Hell, Zimbawean way of COIN? I remember there's indeed a guy who wrote about it. Disturbing stuff)
I'm not sure there is a motivation to take Greenland that's strategically related to Greenland. These are feints, pretexts all (Venezuela, immigrant terror, tariffs), you choose any current executive action, the action is a pretext for other acts. None of these acts offer strict causal results, ie tariffs are not reigniting internal manufacturing—the opposite is occuring. Greenland is about other things. Like Venezuela, it appears to be a pretext to parsing the criminality potential of the military senior staff as it both exposes the ethical, and helps them purge anyone who'd remain possum. It's simply discerning the ToO separately than southern command in Venezuela, here is NATO's purge.
coutries are not a real thing, countries don’t think, feel, have wills to decide. it’s just regions some small group with means claims as theirs for the time being for some bs reason and uses threats to keep their control. countries are not a morally relevant agent
On another note David Drake proposed a solution to dealing with out of control expeditionary forces in his book "Hammer's Slammers" (OK, Secretary Tromp failed but just give it a thought)
Better than contempt, which is an emotional reaction, greet them with indifference. They are trying to provoke an emotional reaction, but don't give it to them. Just state calmly, "It will be the pleasure of the next sane American administration to give Greenland backed to the people to whom it belongs with just compensation."
I would agree, except that attacking Greenland, an ally and NATO member, without Congressional authorization (so unconstitutionally) is the kind of crisis likely to result in civil war or revolution.
“We are not going to war with our allies” is a line worth drawing.
I fully agree that it is a line worth drawing, but the American Congress has never successfully restrained a president from taking military action since 1945.
Psychologically astute point, extremely wittily made.
Kiran, this is an excellent analysis of the psychological motivations at play. The "logic of the flasher" metaphor perfectly captures the performative nature of these claims.
What makes this particularly dangerous from an information warfare perspective is that platform mechanics don't distinguish between serious strategy and performance art. The "flasher logic" you identify, seeking outrage for gratification, is actually perfectly optimized for algorithmic amplification.
Controversy drives engagement, engagement drives visibility, and visibility creates the appearance of legitimacy and momentum. I recently analysed how routine German NATO deployments got reframed as anti-US mobilization during the Greenland crisis.
so here's my shameless plug, and I hope it adds context too!
https://thedisinformationobserver.substack.com/p/the-four-stories-of-greenland-europes
I blame eternal foreign adventures for this kind of madness.
Really, they reminded me of the kind of Chechen combatants who take entire hospitals hostage under Shamil Basayev.
American military became increasingly amoralistic and reliant on violence as a result to prolonged forever wars. (maybe I should read "The Centurions" as a warning)
This 👆🏻 it has a neo-colonialist mindset that's been brewing from quite some time now. At the same time I would not characterize all of the US Military like this. I feel based on my limited understanding and knowledge that the rise of focus (in media and in strategy) and almost reliance on SOFs is also a big piece to the puzzle vs. your standard infantry grunt etc.
Reliance on SOFs.
It's the characteristics of Kremlin, the IRGC, and a thousand and one regimes. They always want to concentrate war in a handful of individuals. Warfare became increasingly neo-medieval.
On another note this is a pretty well observed phenomenon since eternity.
But what's the alternative? Total unrestricted warfare?
I'm pretty "into" the gun community and actually I'm equally fascinated and disgusted. It's something special.
The idea of "total war" itself can be up for intense debate. Because even if you look at WWII or going all the way back to the Punic Wars there always will be limits to warfare no matter how all encompassing it can be.
"Total war" is a strictly anti-Clausewitzian concept. For some reason, the Howard and Paret translation uses the phrase in places where Clausewitz is discussing "absolute war" in the sense of the pure theoretical concept, which can never be reached in reality.
Even in a war of extermination, other political considerations (and the friction that affects all human endeavors, especially war) prevent the employment of all resources and exertions towards war.
Also you need to know how much of Western special operation types were connected to apartheid regimes in the 80s.
COIN had a pretty disturbing history. It's born from a perverse mother. (although what's the alternative? Chinese way of COIN? North Vietnamese way of COIN? Hell, Zimbawean way of COIN? I remember there's indeed a guy who wrote about it. Disturbing stuff)
I really would recommend David Drake's "Hammer's Slammers" on how COIN wrecks everything.
I'm not sure there is a motivation to take Greenland that's strategically related to Greenland. These are feints, pretexts all (Venezuela, immigrant terror, tariffs), you choose any current executive action, the action is a pretext for other acts. None of these acts offer strict causal results, ie tariffs are not reigniting internal manufacturing—the opposite is occuring. Greenland is about other things. Like Venezuela, it appears to be a pretext to parsing the criminality potential of the military senior staff as it both exposes the ethical, and helps them purge anyone who'd remain possum. It's simply discerning the ToO separately than southern command in Venezuela, here is NATO's purge.
coutries are not a real thing, countries don’t think, feel, have wills to decide. it’s just regions some small group with means claims as theirs for the time being for some bs reason and uses threats to keep their control. countries are not a morally relevant agent
On another note David Drake proposed a solution to dealing with out of control expeditionary forces in his book "Hammer's Slammers" (OK, Secretary Tromp failed but just give it a thought)