- cross-posted to:
- economy
- cross-posted to:
- economy
KEY POINTS
NATO members are deploying small numbers of troops to Greenland for a joint military exercise, after a tense meeting with the White House about the island’s future.
French President Emmanuel Macron referred to the exercise as “Operation Arctic Endurance.”
Talks between U.S., Danish, and Greenlandic officials were “frank but constructive” but did not resolve the “fundamental disagreement” of Greenland’s future, the Danish foreign minister said.
Russia figured out how to beat democracies.
It’s like a big business facing the threat of changing times, with newer, younger competitors taking a bite out of their profits. Do they try to shift their whole business model, try to pivot their whole behemoth operation? No. It’s much more cost effective to hire lobbyists and buy senators, to pass legislation to kill their competition. Even if they spend millions on this endeavor, it’s much cheaper and safer than actually changing their business.
Likewise, Russia has realized that fucking with the US directly is tricky, so they found a lever. They built huge troll farms, they launched a monumental propaganda campaign they developed new software and technologies for coordinating this propaganda. This was a huge investment, likely more than any country has ever spent on propaganda. But it was effective, it put an easy to manipulate psychopath who doesn’t care about the United States into the White House. While the price to accomplish the feat was high, the payoff was probably better.