Is the plan for the US + Russia to full on spitroast Europe? What is realistic here, in 3-9 years?

i think u.s. politics are so completely unstable right now that any attempt at long term planning is fruitless and ~~neigh~~ nigh impossible.
- I believe you mean "nigh." Unless you are a horse on the internet.
  
  TIL horses get Lemmy profiles too
  
  thanks!

The US side? Maybe? The Russian side, good fucking luck. They still haven't taken Ukraine. They would be smashed by any EU army.
- If the EU can actually rally together and form a European army...
  ^{edit: spelling}
  
  They absolutely can.
  
  Not what I said, ANY EU country's army will most likely stump the Russians based on their performance in Ukraine, one of the poorest countries in Europe whom at the time in 2014, and then again in 2022 we're relatively unprepared for defending against an invasion.

I think you are overestimating both of their ability to execute.
I’m not saying there is not an enormous danger on the horizon depending on what happens. But as long as Trump stays in charge, maybe even as long as Musk stays in charge, their ability to do real damage will be limited somewhat by their incompetence and their many personal failings. The American system is so corrupt at this point that people can take control of vast elements of the output and power of the system even if they couldn’t pour water out of a boot. But that doesn’t always carry over to their ability to influence things outside of their little weakened environment. Tim Snyder wrote about it in “The Weak Strongman.”
- I think a lot of tyrants like the idea of invasion until they realize how fucking expensive it is to move war equipment across water and that unless you have the actual Mandate of heaven and earth behind you so to speak, you won’t have competent people with you. Trump doesn’t have that, he didn’t win the popular vote or by a large margin which is what the mandate requires, half his voters hate Musk, and he’s driving away more smart people than attracting. Doesn’t matter how effective and coercive your spy network is, takes hearts and minds to win long term.
  
  Yeah. Also, even with the best material and military forces in the world at your disposal, you can still completely fuck it up. The history of war is absolutely filled with empires who had all the advantages and still got clowned on because the leadership just made dumb decisions. And if your MO is similar to Trump’s or Putin’s, none of your trickery works anymore once you get outside of your own little corrupt orbit and have to cope with reality and skilled committed adversaries.
  I dug up the actual article, because it says it better than I can: https://snyder.substack.com/p/the-weak-strongman

Ignoring the practicality of achieving it for a moment, acquiring Greenland and Canada gives an allied Russia and US near full control of the Arctic Ocean corridors. Most of us spend our time staring at 2D Mercator-esque maps, so I highly recommend taking a look at things from the top down to appreciate this:
Also see: https://geology.com/world/arctic-ocean-map.shtml
I think it's best to consider that this is a long term play for control of the Arctic. Sea ice very much remains a factor, but the amount is shrinking every year due to global warming. Over time this opens up new seasonal routes, both for drilling and transport.
Sure, it could just be Trump's narcissism wanting him to add another state during his presidency. The thing to remember is that someone else is always the one giving him these ideas. (see: Project 2025) These imperialistic ambitions on Greenland and Canada of all places did not emerge from nowhere. It's the motives of people who are giving him these ideas that you need to be concerned with.
Svalbard is next.

I mean... look at Signalgate.
These fascists are incompetent.

There are no checks. There are no balances. There is nothing stopping them...
This isn't Trump's vanity - this is the oligarchs, who do not care about nation states, carving up the globe as a resource grab.
The US will annex Greenland. The US will invade Canada. The US will kill protesters, starting with the students.
Concentration camps. Gulags. The disappearing of opponents and mass killings of the undesirables.
Europe will try to unify, but their democracies are already beset by oligarchs, from Putin to Musk, who are financing newly emboldened far-right fringe groups and political candidates.
Europe may rally and pull together.
Or, they may fracture from external pressure and splinter from internal dissention; that is the plan.
- less than 5% of Americans support using economic strong-arming, and less than 1% support military force for Greenland or Canada (source below). Annexing is overwhelming unpopular for both conservatives and liberals. The people, including people in the military, will revolt if Trump uses force to annex any country. And the people of Canada and Greenland have made it very very clear: force will be necessary.
  No comment from me about the rest. Expectations can be bad but keep them in check.
  https://angusreid.org/canada-51st-state-trump/
  
  They don't seem overly concerned with public opinion or the possibility they might be removed from power by the vote.
  likely, they are banking on us to revolt so they can deploy the military domestically.
  If the whole thing seems like unchecked expectations - so did the dissolution of NATO prior to 2016.
- I could see Trump taking this attitude until he meets his very first encounter with the actual degree of stress he'd have to suffer to execute it.
  He would then immediately give up and blame, I don't know, Egypt or something.
  Trump has no willpower or self-regulation skills at all. He is not a planner, a leader, or a strategist. He's not willing to work, ever, for any reason. A war is beyond his capacity.
  And nobody willing to align with him is competent.

The US won't annex Greenland, that would basically make a pariah of them on the international scene. Like Russia there would be economic sanctions, trade deals would be broken, american assets abroad would be seized and this could include american military bases. So yeah, most likely the US governmint is gonna keep acting like a childish bully trying to drive a wedge between Greenland and Denmark. And maybe between every european nations…
- that would basically make a pariah of them on the international scene.
  Uh.
  
  I see your point, but it's all talk right now. There's still US military everywhere, the dollar is still strong, McDonald's is still selling hamburgers, people are still watching Hollywood movies and TV shows and still subscribing to Netflix.
  I'm not saying actual shunning and sanctioning of America can't happen, but we're absolutely nowhere near it right now. People are just yelling, and mostly on the internet.
  Tesla is getting hit, but they're only one company.
  An actual boycott of America as a whole would be a massive lifestyle change for huge portions of the world and that kind of scale is not where we are at this moment. We're all just bloviating.
  
  Yeah… they're already in a bad spot. But one can always dig oneself into a deeper hole.
- Nah the next president of the USA would just get the nobel peace price for not being Trump lol. Remember Iraq and Afghanistan?

I presume yes.
Trump's US and Putin's Russia are natural ideological allies - both oligarchic and autocratic kleptocracies dominated by quasi-religious moralism and repression, militaristic imperialism and white supremacism and both warped and corrupted to the benefit of the wealthiest few.
Western Europe, with a greater (if still less than optimum) focus on egalitarianism, social welfare, equality of justice, international cooperation and respect for the law, is the natural ideological enemy of both.
So yes - I believe the long term goal is for a US/Russia alliance to go to war against and devastate western Europe, to destroy the EU and NATO and essentially bring Europe into the fold, to build a globe-encircling empire of corruption, oppression and malfeasance -a modern-day feudal system with the wealthy few (individuals and corporations) as the new nobility and the people - American, Russian and European alike - reduced to the status of serfs.
- I doubt they really have plans that far, and if they do, I doubt that a full on war to destroy western Europe would be that plan, vs trying the same tactics to manipulate the population as have been tried on the US. The US, and Russia, have the capacity, at least from their nuclear arsenals, to destroy Europe, certainly, but that capacity exists within Europe too. A full on war with Europe is unlikely for the same reason that a full on war between the US and the Soviet Union did not occur.
  Beyond that, it should be considered that shared autocracy is not a particularly great incentive for alliance. It can represent a source of common interest for the elite against anything that threatens autocracy in general, but beyond that, there is no reason for an oligarch in one country to not see an oligarch in another power as much more than competition. If you want to own and control all you can, someone else also doing that is to be regarded with suspicion, not natural trust.

The plan Putin and Xi have is probably to get the US mired in conflicts with Mexico and Canada, which would leave Europe isolated and more willing to deal with Russia. Russia has a lot of energy reserves, and they want to use them as leverage against Europe. Control of Ukraine energy reserves should be a top priority for Russia.
The US is sending lots of oil/ng over to Europe to make cutting off Russian oil feasible. Without US oil, Europe is going to have a hard time functioning, and they would have to start talking with the Russians.
- This is why renewable energy isn't just for energy security, it's for national security.
  
  100% agree. Climate change too, but national security if nothing else.

The US already has soldiers on Greenland as part of the Space ~~Farce~~ Force. I'm sure you mean an occupying force though, and that voting block tends to be isolationist but they also change on a whim ao who knows.
I can't see popular support for war efforts to invade other countries to expand US territory going over well. I also see a huge blowback from NATO and while the US has a lot of range the main reason for it to project that is because our two massive borders are currently friendly nations. If the US pisses off NATO, it would need to defend all the borders at the same time because Mexico might not be part of NATO but it sure wouldn't have our back.
We can beat up small middle eastern countries, but that is also because there isn't a multinational counteroffensive. Plus Russia has blown their cover on just how shitty and incompetent their military actually is, so while they could do a lot of damage with wave tactics, they are already so desperate for human wave fodder that they hit up North Korea.
Russia might cause truble, but it won't be carving anything up. The US is going to shoot itself in the dick if it pisses off NATO because the public hates long, drawn out wars.
The US and Russia might try anyway, but it won't be something they win.

Another factor: China is planning to be ready to take Taiwan in 2027. I'm guessing Trump would endorse it, as he has with Ukraine to Russia.
After the China invasion, seems like the time that he would announce plans to invade Greenland/Canada/Panama soon afterwards, if there is a serious plan to actually take over allied territory.
- Yeah. China invading Taiwan would be a good time to capitalise on chaos.
  And probably cause a world war in the process :(
  
  Wouldn't it be weird if our timeline didn't lead to a world war?

The "brain trust" thinks Europe is a bunch of freeloaders, reliant on the US for their security, but disgusted at how the US provides it. The Greenland/Canada thing is intended to force Europe to build up its militaries.
It is also serving as a distraction to the shooting war they are trying to start in Central and South America.

Russia is looking to reestablish its Soviet borders, with a focus on Europe. Belarus is a Russian puppet, but Ukraine can go either way and Ukrainian territory is strategically important to Russia. Beyond that, Russia would probably want to bring in the Baltic nations as well, which is probably what intelligence agencies refer to as Russia wanting to attack Europe.
Beyond reforming the old empire, Russia wants to establish a greater sphere of influence in Europe and weaken potential rivals. A united EU is a threat in that can provide a unified response to Russian expansion.

Realistically we'll all be dead by 2050 after the nukes go off.

!politicaldiscussion@lemmy.world
- !politicalporn@lemmy.world

The USA under Trump wants to make being an empire worth it financially while getting some territorial gains.
Greenland could be a second Alaska for the USA as Greenland has untapped mineral reserves and a strategic location in the Arctic Circle. Annexing Canada would be on par with the Louisiana Purchase or gains from the Mexican-American War. Panama is a major strategic asset.
Trump wants to leave Europe because he doesn't see anything for him by staying.

No, I highly doubt that. For one, it isn't feasible. A declaration of war wouldn't make it through congress, and is highly unlikely that the US military would actually execute such orders.
The primary purpose of Trumps posturing - at least in my analysis - is a removed way of intimidating EU countries into militarization to enable shifting US troops to other theatres (Middle East, Asia).
- The US hasn't properly declared war since 1942, despite being at war pretty much constantly since. If Trump decides to open the gates at Thule airbase and little green men take over Greenland, who's going to do anything about it (domestically or abroad)?
- That's not it at all. You are making it sound like the narcissistic moron is playing 5d chess.
  
  Idk if I'd call it 5d chess, more like a showman that uses drama with the intent of social manipulation without any scruples. That's how he managed to win both the 2016 & 2024 elections.
- I'm with you. I refuse to believe the American machinery would allow us to attack an ally any time soon. A lot would need to change.

The U.S. is eyeing Greenland
I believe that the Great Tricktator is already determined to rob it. Question is only, how, that means, which exact tactic he is going to apply.
I am so fucking glad Europe got nukes.
The Cold War is over. We live in very different times now. Try to understand it.
to further erode European sovereignty?
This whole situation is not about Europe. Europe is a mere nuisance.
- Could you explain further about what you mean by trying to understand?
  What is the whole situation about and why is Europe a nuisance? What is trump main goal here.
  
  This guy here explained it good:
  https://feddit.org/post/9039190
  https://archive.ph/xjFq9