Carriers would provide air superiority to prevent any reinforcements from landing. That’s all. Trump is willing to push a war of attrition on this one, because again, he’s an idiot.
If a nuclear sub did manage to sink a US supercarrier, Trump would likely try to galvanize support in a “Remember the Maine!” fashion. I doubt it would shift actual support much at all. Quite the opposite; without doing the legwork for a paper thin excuse ahead of time and building a media frenzy the way the Bush II admin did, it only highlights how dumb and pointless the whole thing is, and that he’s putting American service members at risk for no gain whatsoever.
Oh, and that nuclear sub would be hunted down and sunk in response. The EU doesn’t have the forces to win a war of attrition.
The only way I see this working out for the EU is if there’s a major purge of the US military beforehand. That would ensure loyalty to Trump, but it would toss competence into a woodchipper. Edit: see the Finish Winter War for how well purges work out. And the Finns technically still lost that one.
If it goes long enough for new production to matter, the EU is actually better equipped for a war of attrition, being bigger and having some kind of unity. Would it actually be a drawn-out war of attrition, or something else? Hard to say, because like you’ve pointed out the whole thing is so dumb.
Again, carriers aren’t the only variable in play, even if they are very good at creating a zone of air superiority. Greenland isn’t the only theater here, it’s not a single point you can sit on top of, and it’s not even mostly inhabited. I’ll try not to repeat myself about the other factors I’ve mentioned.
Even in a scenario where the EU massively increases production of tanks and guns and drones, they still have to get those things into the theater of operations. One thing the US military is really, really good at is logistics. The EU up until now has little modern experience at it, because the US did it all for them.
That’s true, although I’m skeptical they couldn’t overcome it. There’s no shortage of educational overlap, or of big European institutions.
Thinking about this a bit, if the US rolls some kind of icebreaker convoy up there to occupy Nuuk, they could respond by seizing all the US bases in Europe and taking anyone they catch as a prisoner. That seems like an exchange in the EU’s favour; Greenland’s just not a very major place. There’s arguments for everything from non-military retaliation only to nuking New York, though.
Carriers would provide air superiority to prevent any reinforcements from landing. That’s all. Trump is willing to push a war of attrition on this one, because again, he’s an idiot.
If a nuclear sub did manage to sink a US supercarrier, Trump would likely try to galvanize support in a “Remember the Maine!” fashion. I doubt it would shift actual support much at all. Quite the opposite; without doing the legwork for a paper thin excuse ahead of time and building a media frenzy the way the Bush II admin did, it only highlights how dumb and pointless the whole thing is, and that he’s putting American service members at risk for no gain whatsoever.
Oh, and that nuclear sub would be hunted down and sunk in response. The EU doesn’t have the forces to win a war of attrition.
The only way I see this working out for the EU is if there’s a major purge of the US military beforehand. That would ensure loyalty to Trump, but it would toss competence into a woodchipper. Edit: see the Finish Winter War for how well purges work out. And the Finns technically still lost that one.
If it goes long enough for new production to matter, the EU is actually better equipped for a war of attrition, being bigger and having some kind of unity. Would it actually be a drawn-out war of attrition, or something else? Hard to say, because like you’ve pointed out the whole thing is so dumb.
Again, carriers aren’t the only variable in play, even if they are very good at creating a zone of air superiority. Greenland isn’t the only theater here, it’s not a single point you can sit on top of, and it’s not even mostly inhabited. I’ll try not to repeat myself about the other factors I’ve mentioned.
Even in a scenario where the EU massively increases production of tanks and guns and drones, they still have to get those things into the theater of operations. One thing the US military is really, really good at is logistics. The EU up until now has little modern experience at it, because the US did it all for them.
That’s true, although I’m skeptical they couldn’t overcome it. There’s no shortage of educational overlap, or of big European institutions.
Thinking about this a bit, if the US rolls some kind of icebreaker convoy up there to occupy Nuuk, they could respond by seizing all the US bases in Europe and taking anyone they catch as a prisoner. That seems like an exchange in the EU’s favour; Greenland’s just not a very major place. There’s arguments for everything from non-military retaliation only to nuking New York, though.