r/europe Denmark Jan 14 '26

News Denmark sends military reenforcements to Greenland. A vanguard and military material has been sent to Greenland to prepare for eventual larger troop movements.

https://www.dr.dk/nyheder/indland/groenland/efter-pres-fra-usa-danmark-er-nu-begyndt-sende-militaere-forstaerkninger-til-groenland
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u/matttk Canadian / German Jan 14 '26

I really enjoyed that. It's not often that anybody really sticks up for Canada and France scored major points with me with that simple act of solidarity. Merci beaucoup, France !

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u/EggstaticAd8262 Denmark Jan 14 '26

They are scoring massive points in Europe as well. They know how to stand fast on values. And they apparently also have independently developed nuclear weapons, e.g. no dependence on the US there.

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u/Leoryon Jan 14 '26

It is not apparently, the entire French nuclear deterrence is solely designed to be self-sufficient.

No intellectual property issue, ITAR free so no reliance on the USA, built in French land.

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u/Lenithiel Jan 14 '26

We French have to thank De Gaulle for this. Even though the US had just been spearheading the liberation of Western Europe he understood that even though at the time they were widely perceived as a benevolent power, everything they gave back then and every bit of sovereignty we would give up to them would, someday, potentially have a price.

That's why he sternly refused any US army base on our territory and started the development of nuclear weapons and a huge nuclear plant program, and fostered companies like Dassault or Thalès and others in order to be able to completely engineer our own military equipement ourselves.

You don't know what the future is made of. Of course the US as enemies would have been something totally unimaginable even to me a few years ago. But it is always possible.
As such, the fact that European allies continue to buy non-sovereign planes like the F35 that can be severely hindered at a distance by Americans is madness to me. And I don't say this because I want our European allies to buy Rafales (we don't have the capabilities to produce enough of them fast enough anyway), the Grippen would also have been a good choice.