JD Vance on Thursday accused Denmark — a fellow NATO member — and the rest of Europe of failing to protect Greenland from the intentions of Russia and China.
“I guess my advice to European leaders and anybody else would be to take the president of the United States seriously,” Vance told journalists at the White House when asked about Greenland.
After the US military successfully captured Venezuela’s leader Nicolas Maduro last weekend, Donald Trump renewed his push to acquire Greenland, with the use of military force not out of the question.
Vance especially urged Europe to respond to Trump’s insistence that the United States needs the island for “missile defense.”
That article doesn’t give a single reason why it would be advantageous for Denmark to preemptively break the treaty.
You realize that treaties have legal repercussions built into them if they’re broken, right? And that Denmark is waiting for us to incur those repercussions (like sanctions), rather than them?
If they’re potentially fighting an invasion, why would they want to trigger additional hardships for themselves by breaking the treaty?
You really haven’t thought about any of this, holy shit.
You’re confidently missing the point.
No one is saying Denmark should “break the treaty for fun.” The argument is about strategic preemption, not vibes. Treaties aren’t magic shields, they’re conditional frameworks that already collapse the moment an invasion happens. Yes, treaties have repercussions. That’s exactly why the discussion exists. Sanctions vs. occupation is not a hard comparison. One hurts your economy; the other erases your sovereignty. Pretending those are equivalent outcomes is absurd. And “waiting for us to incur repercussions” only makes sense if waiting actually improves Denmark’s position. If an invasion is imminent, waiting doesn’t preserve legality, it just burns time and leverage.
Also, international law explicitly allows anticipatory self-defense under imminent threat. This isn’t some Reddit-brained loophole; it’s been debated for decades. You acting like no one’s considered that doesn’t make it true.
So yeah — people have thought about this. You just seem locked into a cartoon version of how treaties and warfare actually work.
Please explain how this meets the “last window of opportunity” restriction on anticipatory self-defense.
Because the next step is troops in greenland. Good luck with that.
Anyone who can so readily throw out the principle of anticipatory self defense knows that isn’t a “last window of opportunity” scenario.
Why do you want Denmark to break the law so badly?
Sp they dont roll over and give trump more ammo to conti ue to take over foreign territories. Or have you not heard. Hes now president of venezuela. Why do YOU want to wait ustil theres an entire fleet of ships off greenlands coast to begin preparing.
…because the last window of opportunity for anticipatory self-defense has been repeatedly ruled by the international community to not extend that far?
Troops massing at borders is precisely the situation that the last window of opportunity is referring to.
I’m starting to think you don’t actually know the statutes involved or their previous legal cases, because if you did you’d know your “argument” is completely worthless.
https://apnews.com/article/greenland-united-states-denmark-trump-vance-rubio-meeting-cc278af4f3daf725029101966ba03568
“Anything less than having greenland in our hand is unacceptable”
You dont seem to understand trump doesnt give a fuck about your statutes or your “law”. You know what makes “law”. The biggest gun.
No troops massing at your border is PAST the last opportunity. You have already lost at that point. You dont seem to understand how this will play out.
This is the last opportunity.
Yup. You definitely have no idea how treaties or international relations work.
I get that it’s scary that the US is doing it, but this is far from the first time world leaders have blustered about wanting territory that wasn’t theirs.
The international community didn’t support preemptive action even when 50,000 troops were massed on Ukrainian borders, they’re not going to do it when a single US combat asset hasn’t moved towards Greenland yet, and not a single policy decision has been enacted.
Edit- don’t get me wrong, if we start blockading Greenland, massing naval and amphibious forces, or building up ground units on the base in Greenland, then absolutely bomb the shit out of them, but the international community will never support action before that. It’s ludicrous to think they would.