Thule/Pituffik is why the whole "buying Greenland" thing never made sense to me, no matter how you try to look at it or steelman it... Before they were threatened with being purchased and invaded, Greenland and Denmark were our allies, and it's not like Greenland had a shortage of (non-green) land. If it was about military access, we could have just asked to build another base.
FuriouslyAdrift · 3m ago
Greenland has been under intense pressure from China and Russia trying to gobble up anything they can.
Just one example. There are others of China and/or Russian interests buying up British, Dutch, Australian, etc companies that have existing contracts and then switching it over to their control.
No need to ask. As mentioned in the article, the U.S. has the right, by treaty, to build military bases in Greenland already.
20after4 · 1h ago
Are there mineral/energy resources there to extract? That's the only thing that would make sense to me.
kevin_thibedeau · 30m ago
Fishing rights and control of the northwest passage are up there.
AlotOfReading · 12m ago
Greenland controls half of one end of the northwest passage. The other end is controlled by the US via Alaska and the Bering strait. Doesn't seem like there's much additional benefit to justify burning a bunch of international goodwill on the matter.
It's the wrong question though! The US is sitting on piles of rare earth deposits—it still doesn't mine them. It can't compete on pure cost with the mining industry in China. It's discussed extensively (e.g. here[0]) that the mining, and particularly chemical processing of ores, is labor/resource-intensive, expensive, and hazardous to ecology and to humans. It has nothing to do with the raw availability—these are super abundant ores, not rare at all, despite the name.
Jack Lifton in [0] adds the perspective that rare earth processing involves a large amount of institutional knowledge, that would take time for the US to reacquire, since we forget everything when we stopped mining many decades ago. While in the interim, China has spent its time as the world's rare earth monopoly optimizing the chemical processes, widening their moat. It's like the manufacturing question, where's it about institutional knowledge and industrial ecosystems—nothing at all like oil/gas where it's solely about where the minerals are.
My wild guess is to make our adversaries and the world think we are capable of being a nation that attempts to conquer other lands. More so make our adversaries like Russia know we are not weak and we can conquer too and or we are now unhinged too don't even think about messing with us.
Whether my assumption is right or wrong its a different vibe then the peacemaker image/vibe previous administrations have followed.
GoldenMonkey · 48m ago
A Different take. Greenland is strategic to the security of North America. And had been severely neglected by Denmark. Just like all Nato countries, not contributing financially to security as required.
This saber rattling had the desired effect and result. More military investment in Greenland. But, using other ppl's money... Denmark.
And in Canada's case with becoming a 51'st state... they too are now committed to meeting NATO $ obligations.
MaxHoppersGhost · 26m ago
Agreed. Europe has been mooching off US military spend for decades. I also wouldn’t expect Denmark has the military capability to hold Greenland in a war.
ChocolateGod · 15m ago
The US has been one of the biggest pushers for European nations to rely on NATO.
exe34 · 28m ago
Yes, and hopefully investment will be predominantly in European/Canadian companies.
lottamus · 1h ago
Interesting assumption. Could be the administration is attempting to seem “relatable” before negotiating with Russia and China.
keepamovin · 2h ago
OK there's that (Site J is fascinating). But there's also another in-mountain base near Helheim Glacier, and an under ice research base midway between Helheim and Jacobshavn Glacier (Site G or H?)
lol given your background you should probably definitely know!
hammock · 1h ago
The most interesting ones are probably secret.
“Helix” was a fictional TV show about a bio lab in the arctic.
alnwlsn · 3h ago
Is this the one where they brought in a nuclear reactor?
edit: Yes, it was the PM-2A. A "portable" (but larger) version similar to the infamous SL-1.
This is amazing. Would love to see what it looks like down there now.
ChrisMarshallNY · 3h ago
I have a friend that was stationed there. He's pretty old. I think it was in the 1960s.
JKCalhoun · 3h ago
Wild. The most Hoth-like thing I've seen.
hammock · 1h ago
Hoth was almost certainly inspired by Camp Century (first profiled in the Saturday Evening Post in 1960)
wslh · 3h ago
Really.
Offtopic: Andor series is the best Star Wars.
xnx · 3h ago
I too will use any excuse to proselytize Andor. Speaking of Andor, it's the best Star Wars anything of all time and some of the best TV period.
average_r_user · 2h ago
Can confirm, peak Star Wars.
All the references to the original movies are on point
alabastervlog · 2h ago
Eh... it's extremely flabby, like most of these franchise-tied TV series (all the Marvel ones have the same problem, both the Netflix and Disney ones, though the Netflix ones are far worse about it). Tons of scenes where I want to yell at the editor "fucking cut away! It's over!" and then it goes on another 20 seconds, shots where it clearly should have cut a couple seconds earlier, whole pieces of dialog that are painfully redundant, restating things or adding nothing to either plot or character, et c, and it adds up.
My best guess for why they do this is that it fills time with fewer set-ups and sets, saving production costs. I can't figure out another angle for how this could be saving money per minute of "content".
The new season makes that really clear, because each 3-episode "movie" is 130ish minutes long and clearly could have been one 90ish minute film without losing anything important at all, still with plenty of time for relaxed-pace character development and such.
jon-wood · 2h ago
> whole pieces of dialog that are painfully redundant, restating things or adding nothing to either plot or character
Modern TV is made to be consumed (I use that word intentionally, not watched) by people who aren't really paying attention to what's happening, so you need to restate any major plot point several times to make sure it sticks.
alabastervlog · 2h ago
I do think the cost thing is a factor.
You've got 30 seconds you shot that, when the editor sits down to put it all together, definitely needs to be trimmed. But if you do that, it's 30 fewer seconds of "content". Your business measures output in terms of minutes of content, finished or watched. If you leave it in, the scene's worse, but how many viewers will stop watching because of it? Fewer than what it's worth to have that extra half-minute of "content". So it stays.
And operating this way, you can shoot 7 minutes of dialog that'd be trimmed to 4.5 minutes in a good edit (it's many individual shots, and most have at least a little on the beginning or end that need to go), instead trimming only what's absolutely necessary and get 5 or maybe 5.5 minutes out of it; do that over an entire 40 minute episode and you've saved yourself an entire longish scene that you'd have had to set up for otherwise, to fill the same time. Each set-up is expensive, so that's also saving you money despite being the same amount of "content".
Calwestjobs · 2h ago
yes, nuclear submarine can not shoot nuclear warhead thru ice that is true.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42262547 ("NASA aircraft uncover Cold War nuclear missile tunnels under Greenland ice sheet (space.com)"—42 comments)
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42249801 ("California scientists accidentally find nuclear fever dream in Arctic snow (sfgate.com)"—4 commments)
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28374013 ("The U.S. Army tried portable nuclear power at remote bases 60 years ago (atlasobscura.com)" (2021)—152 comments)
Presumably, you mean Pituffik Space Base[1], formerly Thule Air Base, and Thule Site J?
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pituffik_Space_Base
2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thule_Site_J
Just one example. There are others of China and/or Russian interests buying up British, Dutch, Australian, etc companies that have existing contracts and then switching it over to their control.
https://www.euronews.com/next/2021/11/23/greenland-mining-ch...
Jack Lifton in [0] adds the perspective that rare earth processing involves a large amount of institutional knowledge, that would take time for the US to reacquire, since we forget everything when we stopped mining many decades ago. While in the interim, China has spent its time as the world's rare earth monopoly optimizing the chemical processes, widening their moat. It's like the manufacturing question, where's it about institutional knowledge and industrial ecosystems—nothing at all like oil/gas where it's solely about where the minerals are.
[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43953272
Whether my assumption is right or wrong its a different vibe then the peacemaker image/vibe previous administrations have followed.
This saber rattling had the desired effect and result. More military investment in Greenland. But, using other ppl's money... Denmark.
And in Canada's case with becoming a 51'st state... they too are now committed to meeting NATO $ obligations.
lol given your background you should probably definitely know!
“Helix” was a fictional TV show about a bio lab in the arctic.
edit: Yes, it was the PM-2A. A "portable" (but larger) version similar to the infamous SL-1.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Army_Nuclear_Power_Program#Lis...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KG5tWbTCocA ("Camp Century, The City Under The Ice - 1964 - CharlieDeanArchives / Archival Footage")
(Found via https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30408226#30411047 (under "Newcomer's Welcome Package: Thule Air Base, Greenland [pdf] (militaryonesource.mil)"—60 comments (nb. the OP is a dead link)))
Offtopic: Andor series is the best Star Wars.
My best guess for why they do this is that it fills time with fewer set-ups and sets, saving production costs. I can't figure out another angle for how this could be saving money per minute of "content".
The new season makes that really clear, because each 3-episode "movie" is 130ish minutes long and clearly could have been one 90ish minute film without losing anything important at all, still with plenty of time for relaxed-pace character development and such.
Modern TV is made to be consumed (I use that word intentionally, not watched) by people who aren't really paying attention to what's happening, so you need to restate any major plot point several times to make sure it sticks.
You've got 30 seconds you shot that, when the editor sits down to put it all together, definitely needs to be trimmed. But if you do that, it's 30 fewer seconds of "content". Your business measures output in terms of minutes of content, finished or watched. If you leave it in, the scene's worse, but how many viewers will stop watching because of it? Fewer than what it's worth to have that extra half-minute of "content". So it stays.
And operating this way, you can shoot 7 minutes of dialog that'd be trimmed to 4.5 minutes in a good edit (it's many individual shots, and most have at least a little on the beginning or end that need to go), instead trimming only what's absolutely necessary and get 5 or maybe 5.5 minutes out of it; do that over an entire 40 minute episode and you've saved yourself an entire longish scene that you'd have had to set up for otherwise, to fill the same time. Each set-up is expensive, so that's also saving you money despite being the same amount of "content".