Silicon Valley type of companies grew to be giants by exploiting personal data of users without any regard for privacy and lax regulations. European companies can’t match them because of the regulations and privacy laws. It’s not the lack of talent or investment that is holding EU back.
There's no reasonable debate about whether the US has the capability to capture Greenland. Obviously they do. It's in their backyard in an area the US military has been patrolling for decades, with (admittedly decrepit) US bases already present.
The question is whether the US is willing to pay the costs to do so. Sending European troops is attempting to raise the costs of invasion so that any rational actor would decide against it. Of course, we wouldn't be in this situation if all the parties involved were rational actors.
We had the capability to capture Iraq and Afghanistan too. Occupying a territory is the actual hard point. For one, Greenland is in the middle of nowhere compared to everywhere else the US has to keep eyes on, whereas its in the back yard of Canada and the UK.
More importantly though, its an incredibly cold and unhospitable place thats inhabited by 50k people whose little kids have more arctic survival skills than US special forces and who really, really don't want us there. Unlike Afghanistan, you can't patrol the skies nonstop with drones either due to the cold.
Basically, this isn't a choice between owning Greenland or keeping all our allies. Its a choice between keeping all our allies vs getting bogged down into the ultimate guerilla war and suddenly having nothing but hostile neighbors to the north.
Are the Greenlanders really up for a guerilla war? Resistance in Iraq and Afghanistan was driven by a common religion and a long history of wars.
If Greenland really did become a state, they'd actually have a fair bit of political power. At least, until oil companies shipped in tens of thousands of employees. I can't see the Greenlanders laying IEDs for American troops, but I suppose I can see them making life very, very hard for civilians.
Trump has been very open in his admiration of Andrew Jackson and emulating him. Its no mystry what would happen to the Greenlanders if Trump took Greenland.
This has worked very well in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan.
It is a giant island in the Arctic Ocean, populated by Inuit and people born on a pair of skis. If they don't want you here, they will make sure you freeze to death in a troop transporter stuck in the snow.
It would destroy NATO, the global financial system, our supply chains are so intertwined that pharmaceuticals, air transport, and most advanced technologies would be completely disrupted for years.
Intellectual property rights, judicial cooperation, international recognition, and all those things would be dead.
I doubt it raises the costs of invasion very much. I don't expect the Danish to fight to the last man. If shooting starts, they will evacuate quickly.
But it meant that the US will have fired shots at NATO soldiers, rather than just walking in and declaring themselves in charge. That raises the political and economic stakes, if not the military ones.
It's making absolutely clear that this means the end of NATO, and puts all EU/US relationships in doubt. It could even mean that we were automatically at war. They're hoping that somebody around the President will consider that too high a price to pay. Which is a long shot, but is probably the least-worst option.
Remember, the US already has treaty rights to build bases: the defence strategy of Greenland before this nonsense was "be a member of NATO, nobody would be dumb enough to attack us because if they did the USA would defend us".
We would see exactly what people in the US have been dealing with for 10 years. Everybody would wring their hands and say "unbelievable!" and then nobody with the actual capability to do anything about it actually does.
The entire world is just rooting for Father Time on this particular problem.
If the US actually did invade Greenland it would mean the end of US Europe trade and cooperation as we know it and the end of NATO (and likely UN). China would suddenly be the main trading partner, also in military equipment. It would be the end of US as it is today.
I believe that's true: if Trump attacked Greenland, NATO would fall apart (regardless of Europe's response, if they allow it or not), and then Putin would have a once in a generation chance to take the baltics, maybe mess with Poland. He would have to take that chance, and then Europe would have to retaliate, and its effectively WW3.
Spooky times, let's hope things fizzle out back to a rule based Pax Americana.
Edit: Interestingly, the likelyhood of things fizzling out would jump up quite a bit if Trump or Putin were to die. I think the US system of government is prone to electing Trumps, but it's not a given, I think the cult of personality would die and things would relax for now.
> Putin would have a once in a generation chance to take the baltics, maybe mess with Poland
No resources for that. Russians are increasingly using horses instead of mechanization like IFVs or APCs. If he would try it, then it would open second frontline with Europe in Baltics while still fighting with Ukrainians. Awfully stupid idea.
From the UK: I suspect the response would be the same as the response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2014 and the use of chemical weapons in the UK: a stiffly worded letter and some legal action, followed by efforts to disentangle economically. Maybe we'll sanction an oligarch or two.
While it is free for readers, authors or author institutions still need to pay to publish the papers.
> Authors from institutions not participating in ACM Open will need to pay an APC to publish their papers, unless they qualify for a financial or discretionary waiver. To find out whether an APC applies to your article, please consult the list of participating institutions in ACM Open and review the APC Waivers and Discounts Policy. Keep in mind that waivers are rare and are granted based on specific criteria set by ACM.
Is that … a bad thing? I know that peer reviewing takes time (although iirc journals don’t pay reviewers). And there is overhead around publishing which needs to be covered somehow.
Academic publishing is _notoriously_ profitable. Authorship and the bulk of the editorial process is done by others for free, and these days you often aren't even creating a physical copy. Their overheads are really pretty minimal. What the money (subscriptions and / or APCs) gets is the kudos associated with the publication.
It is reasonable to say: well if they aren't providing anything of value then the market ought to bypass them. The reality is that the publishers have been very canny in protecting their position, and sharp practice is rife.
They charge a substantial premium for that service. The open access publication fees are typically hundreds or even thousands of dollars per article.
There are other platforms that can offer a similar service for much cheaper, but scientists incentivised to publish on established journals that have a higher impact metrics.
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