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Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth appeared to acknowledge that the Pentagon has developed plans to take over Greenland and Panama by force if necessary but refused to answer repeated questions at a hotly combative congressional hearing Thursday about his use of Signal chats to discuss military operations.

Democratic members of the House Armed Services Committee repeatedly got into heated exchanges with Hegseth, with some of the toughest lines of questioning coming from military veterans as many demanded yes or no answers and he tried to avoid direct responses about his actions as Pentagon chief.

In one back-and-forth, Hegseth did provide an eyebrow-raising answer. Rep. Adam Smith, D-Wash., asked whether the Pentagon has developed plans to take Greenland or Panama by force if necessary.

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[-] brezel@piefed.social 102 points 6 months ago

how can it be necessary to invade a country?

[-] gAlienLifeform@lemmy.world 62 points 6 months ago

Whenever a republican president wants to be reelected

[-] liverbe@lemmy.world 31 points 6 months ago

Resources. The answer is always resources.

[-] TranscendentalEmpire@lemmy.today 10 points 6 months ago

Idk, the gdp of Greenland is only 3b a year and it's mostly from fishing. There's really nothing the US could extract from Greenland that would be worth the cost of invading it. There's some potential for mining, but you'd have to build an entire infrastructure to do it, and we don't even want to invest in building infrastructure in the US.

Realistically the only thing that makes Greenland strategically important would be controlling the shipping lanes up north. However, the only strategically significant rival we have that utilizes those shopping lanes are Russia, whom the administration wants to buddy up too.

I think it's just meat they throw out to the media anytime they want to distract from their failures, and of course our pathetic press just gobbles it up every time.

[-] kandoh@reddthat.com 7 points 6 months ago

Lots of great reasons that aren't the actual reason.

Greenland is very big on the map, and if it was apart of the United States then the US would look so big on the map.

Everyone says Trajan was the best roman emperor because the roman empire had the largest amount of territory under him, ergo if Greenland or Canada became part of the US then everyone would say the same thing about Trump.

That is the only reasoning behind this obsession.

[-] TranscendentalEmpire@lemmy.today 3 points 6 months ago

I'd def agree with that before him wanting resources.

[-] SupaTuba@lemm.ee 4 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

It's because of climate change. Rich Americans that pretend climate change isn't real) want to go there to bug out.

[-] plyth@feddit.org 1 points 6 months ago

However, the only strategically significant rival we have that utilizes those shopping lanes are Russia, whom the administration wants to buddy up too.

If that doesn't play out, Putin will be dropped like Saddam.

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[-] teawrecks@sopuli.xyz 3 points 6 months ago

As long as you're counting location as a resource. Ex. Cuba was an advantageous location for the Soviet Union during the cold war.

[-] huppakee@feddit.nl 2 points 6 months ago

Necessary resources*

[-] Reverendender@sh.itjust.works 66 points 6 months ago

This by no means diminishes this guy’s level of evil stupidity, but I’m entirely certain the pentagon had developed plans for all kinds of batshit insane shenanigans, including (but not limited to) invasions of probably most other countries in the world.

[-] cattywampas@lemm.ee 27 points 6 months ago

I think they have alien invasion plans.

[-] bitjunkie@lemmy.world 11 points 6 months ago
[-] FordBeeblebrox@lemmy.world 3 points 6 months ago

Zombies, aliens, Zeus and the gods of Olympus attacking Pearl Harbor…if you can imagine it there’s a folder in the Pentagon somewhere with general plans

[-] Ledericas@lemm.ee 2 points 6 months ago

norse gods, angel invasion.

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[-] Reverendender@sh.itjust.works 2 points 6 months ago

This is documentary footage. You can’t argue with science.

https://youtu.be/O0AUS_XTyLI

[-] Cheradenine@sh.itjust.works 6 points 6 months ago

The DoD had a plan to attack the U.S. and blame it on Cuba. Not an invasion, but attacks.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Northwoods

[-] ricecake@sh.itjust.works 5 points 6 months ago

We stopped maintaining a handful of them, but waay later than you would expect. At some point we decided we didn't need a plan to deal with an invasion by the British empire kept up to date at all times.

[-] rodneyck@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 6 months ago

I thought that was the definition of the pentagon? 🤔

[-] jj4211@lemmy.world 3 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

I find that a credible thought, though one would imagine an answer to say that they try to have plans for any concevaiable scenario, no matter how unlikely, and have done so for years.

One would imagine if he was good at this politics thing, he would have found an answer to distance such plans from the current contentious situation.

And upon reading, he said precisely that...

[-] Reverendender@sh.itjust.works 2 points 6 months ago

Or not even mention them at all, because what possible beneficial purpose could there be to divulging anything related to your military strategy or planning beforehand?

[-] gAlienLifeform@lemmy.world 31 points 6 months ago

I wonder if Denmark regrets this yet (arc)

With 94 votes in favor and only 11 against, the Danish parliament last night (June 11) passed a new defense agreement granting the United States extended access to military bases in three Danish cities: Karup, Skrydstrup, and Aalborg. The deal allows the US military to operate from these sites, store military equipment, conduct maintenance, exercises, and station personnel. The US forces will also have autonomous legal jurisdiction over their own military, relieving them from compliance with Danish law in the first degree.

[-] Cheradenine@sh.itjust.works 10 points 6 months ago

There must be some interesting behind the scenes to this, considering trump has repeatedly threatened their sovereignty in Greenland

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[-] BrianTheeBiscuiteer@lemmy.world 7 points 6 months ago

We'd absolutely use Denmark as a springboard to invade Greenland.

[-] KumaSudosa@feddit.dk 2 points 6 months ago

Oh trust me, the Danish people find this highly criricisable. It's been debated a lot over the past months - but the government - which is made up of the neoliberal parties who's always had their tongues way up USA's ass - has done everything they can to push it under the rug and to make it as secretive as possible. These people see only profit and the thought of "losing" USA as a partner is worse than the fact that we just invited the enemy in - with a deal where they can do whatever they want to do and we can't even take them to court. Officially it's because of "the Russian threat" but the only country that'd ever invade Denmark or has ever threatened to do so is USA.. Russia has a few other countries to go through and they can't even win their current war.

We've just always been an American puppet state.

[-] MyOpinion@lemmy.today 19 points 6 months ago

What is wrong with these morons.

[-] Thedogdrinkscoffee@lemmy.ca 15 points 6 months ago
[-] cygnus@lemmy.ca 18 points 6 months ago

Well, there are "plans" and then there are plans. I'm certain Canada has a "plan" for military operations against the US should that be necessary, but we aren't planning it.

[-] Zagam@piefed.social 11 points 6 months ago

I have plans to start flossing regularly too.

[-] gedaliyah@lemmy.world 13 points 6 months ago

It's less weird to have a contingency plan than it is to specifically mention it.

[-] Gammelfisch@lemmy.world 12 points 6 months ago

The US wants to attack a NATO partner?!?! Krasnov is working for the Kremlin to destabilize NATO.

[-] huppakee@feddit.nl 2 points 6 months ago

no, only 'if necessary' lol

[-] MantisToboggon@lazysoci.al 12 points 6 months ago

did he hear they have booze there or something?

[-] Harvey656@lemmy.world 10 points 6 months ago

A quick search shows Greenlands population is 56,865. In what world would 56 thousand people, half of which are likely incapable of fighting due to age or sickness, be of any meaningful threat that we would need 'contingency' plans against them. Even if all 56 thousand could fight it would be a non war lasting hours against the military. That gigantic country has a similar population of my home COUNTY.

This shit is dumber than invading the middle east over oil. Is their hard on for... minerals and err... resources? Im not entirely sure why they want Greenland so much. This is stupid.

[-] LilB0kChoy@midwest.social 8 points 6 months ago

The contingency plan probably isn't about the people at all. It's likely the government has had a plan for a long time, maybe since WWII, about any number of countries including Greenland. Strategic points to either destroy or control. How to repel an invading force as well as how to invade against a repelling force.

That's who the US has become over the last 80 years.

[-] Harvey656@lemmy.world 3 points 6 months ago

So wait, your saying it's about the golden dome or trumps anti nuke wall or whatever i gods name he was talking about.

I stand by the "this is stupid" comment.

[-] LilB0kChoy@midwest.social 5 points 6 months ago

No, it has nothing to do with the "Golden Dome" nonsense.

The US did all sorts of war game scenarios and plan making during and directly after WWII and they've never stopped.

There's actually probably a lot of countries who have done the same, though I'm not sure to the extent the US has.

The fact that the US has a plan like this by itself isn't newsworthy. Who it's coming from makes it noteworthy because, while the plan may have been created decades ago, it's a very unsubtle threat against another nation.

I agree that this is stupid, but understanding is important because this is how they weasel out of things. If confronted or challenged they'll say, "Oh, that plan was put together decades ago." Everything they do is done with cover because not only are they fascists, they're cowards too.

[-] brygphilomena@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 6 months ago

That's 2k more than my small suburb I live in. That's nothing at all.

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[-] RBWells@lemmy.world 10 points 6 months ago

It's not necessary to take Greenland at all, so there's no need for a contingency plan. "if necessary" makes no sense.

[-] NotAGamer@lemmy.org 9 points 6 months ago
[-] OrteilGenou@lemmy.world 3 points 6 months ago
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[-] Buske@lemmy.world 7 points 6 months ago

So Russia is going to test article 5, and so is the US. Interesting.

[-] Eat_Your_Paisley@lemmy.world 5 points 6 months ago

We have contingency plans to invade just about every country on earth, if we didn't military planners wouldn't be doing their job

[-] wanderwisley@lemm.ee 4 points 6 months ago

Fingers crossed for a space alien invasion.

[-] Apollonius_Cone@lemmy.world 3 points 6 months ago
[-] DicJacobus@lemmy.world 2 points 6 months ago

Everyone has contigency plans for war with their neighbors and allies.

the difference between Most of the world, and Agressive countries like Russia, America, Israel, Iran and China, is that the rest of the world generally has those plans be "if Attacked by X, We will do Y"

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this post was submitted on 13 Jun 2025
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