...simply by negotiating agreements with Denmark, a (formerly*) willing ally. But we reduced our military presence there because Greenland's current strategic importance is greatly reduced. This absurd situation is, of course, all about resources (as you mention, primarily REMs).

It's hard to overstate what an absolute disaster actually following through on that bluster about using military means to annex Greenland would be. Yes, we could probably take and hold the territory against NATO opposition. For a while: the inevitable fallout from such a "victory," however, would be catastrophic. Even leaving aside losing our basing rights across essentially all of Europe, the tremendous losses of blood and materiel (have we forgotten what fighting peer or near-peer enemies is like?), the elimination of a huge market for US goods and services, and seizure of US assets, probably the biggest harm would come from European dumping of US debt. Such an action would crater the US economy, particularly as other big holders, nations we didn't decide to attack, would be forced to sell off their US debt holdings, too, or risk taking massive losses their economies couldn't sustain. Countries like Japan, for example.

And of course there's no way in hell Xi wouldn't pounce on this huge weakening of the US (militarily and financially) to move on Taiwan. Goodbye Taiwan (and it's world-leading chip industry).

* Of course now they'd probably tell us to pound sand...after all that insane, irresponsible blustering from Temu Caligula