The Real Reasons Greenland Matters

0:28If you love epic stories of myth and legend, listen up. brings myth to life with serious production value, full-scale battles, and a sweeping original orchestral score. At its core, this is a return to classic epic storytelling, where faith, prophecy, and sacrifice truly matter. Stream the Pendragon cycle, Rise of the Merlin, only on Daily Wire Plus. Welcome to another episode of Conversations with Coleman. Today's episode is all about Greenland. I remember the first time I thought about Greenland. I was a kid and someone told me that Greenland was actually full of ice and Iceland was actually full of green and I thought that was funny.

1:05That was also as it happens the last time I thought about Greenland. That is until the President of the United States decided that we were going to buy it or take it by force. If you're like me, you did not know anything about Greenland until very recently and now suddenly the largest island in the world is in the news every day. But don't worry, if you haven't been paying close attention, today's guest will catch you up on all the context you need to know to understand the basic contours of this issue. Heather Conley is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute where she focuses on transatlantic security and geopolitics in Europe, Eurasia, and relevant for this conversation, the Arctic.

1:44In this episode, we talk about what Greenland is politically, why it matters, how it intersects with Trump's threats to leave NATO, what China and Russia have to do with Greenland, what's going on in Trump's head, and much more. So without further ado, Heather Conley.

2:09Okay, Heather Conley, thanks so much for coming on the show. It's great to be with you. Thanks so much. So we're here to talk about Greenland today. we've all been thinking about Greenland more than we ever have. As Americans, I think it's, I speak for all of us when I say, I have thought more about Greenland in the past six months than I have ever even heard the word said in the first 29 years of my life. So this is an area where I imagine most Americans have close to zero context on why the issue matters, what Greenland even is. And so I want to just start before we get into the Trump administration's pronouncements and bellicose statements and goals and so forth.

2:57I want to give the typical American or broadly Western audience member some background on Greenland. You can go as far back or start as recently as you think is relevant. What actually is Greenland as a political entity and how did it come to obtain its modern political status? Well, a great question. I feel like this is Greenland 101. So let's go, let's go back a little bit. Actually, let's go back to 1867. And that is when the United States purchased Alaska from the Russian Empire. And at that time, President Johnson contemplated purchasing Greenland. They decided not to do that, they took a lot of flack at the time for the purchase of Alaska.

3:42And then in 1916, 1917, the United States purchased from the Kingdom of Denmark, was known as the Danish West Indies, which is currently the U.S. Virgin Islands. So the United States purchased that. And at the time, in 1917, reaffirmed that Greenland was part of the Kingdom of Denmark. Now, fast forward, World War II. Greenland, first the Roosevelt administration and then the Truman administration were very concerned that during the Second World War, there certainly could have been a plausible scenario when the Nazis occupied Denmark that they could possibly try to seize Greenland. And because it was such an important area to manage the critical sea lanes of the North Atlantic, In 1946, the Truman administration very quietly, very privately offered to buy Greenland.

4:43And it was very quietly said, no, thank you. The Kingdom of Denmark said, no, we're not willing to sell it. And then from that point, three years later, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization was founded in 1949, NATO. And in some ways, that really removed the need to acquire Greenland because the Kingdom of Denmark and Greenland as part of the Kingdom of Denmark became part of NATO. And then two years later, in 1951, the United States and the Kingdom of Denmark signed a really important bilateral defense agreement, which pretty much allowed the United States to do what it wanted to do militarily in Greenland.

5:24So at that time, and then as the Cold War was really beginning, the United States opened numerous military installations. And we had a very cooperative relationship with Greenland, with the Kingdom of Denmark. It was not easy. One of our aircraft lost some nuclear bombs on Greenland they had to find in the 1960s. So it was a very impactful relationship. But it always served us very well. So NATO was at the foundation, and then our bilateral defense agreement was really what allowed the United States to exercise great military posture on Greenland. Now, the history of Greenland, yes, it has been part of the Kingdom of Denmark for centuries.

6:08But in 1979, the Kingdom of Denmark created established home rule government, meaning that the Greenlanders could begin to make some decisions for themselves. And then in 2009, the Greenlandic government was able to make decisions for their economic relations. But Denmark has ultimate responsibility for foreign policy, national security. So it's been a relationship between Copenhagen, Denmark, and Greenland. It's been one of devolution of powers back to the local authorities. and it's always been an area of strong security, defense, and economic cooperation between the United States and Greenland and the Kingdom of Denmark.

6:54Is that okay for Greenland 101? Yeah, that's great. We can unpack that a little bit. It's a lot. It's a lot. That was very good. Just two follow-up questions. One is just explain why Greenland is actually strategic. Why does it matter so much? Why is it a strategic piece of land geopolitically? So it's helpful for listeners to grab a map because it's always hard to do this without a map. But so Greenland occupies a very strategic part of land in the North Atlantic and obviously from the North Atlantic to the Arctic region. So certainly, as I mentioned, during World War II, it was very important for us to be able to control and militarily support Greenland to keep these sea lanes open so U.S.

7:48forces and equipment could go to Europe to continue to supply U.S. forces to fight the Second World War. During the Cold War, the Arctic also became very important as the Eisenhower administration created the distant early warning line that called the Dew Line. And basically, it's the arc of the Arctic region. It's where, you know, we protect North America from first Soviet Russian missiles. And so that is why today on the northwest coast of Greenland, the United States has its most northerly military base, the Bidufik Space Base. And that is where we have an early warning radar that helps to detect those missiles.

8:32Greenland also plays a very important role in detecting Russian nuclear submarines. And there's a famous Greenland-Iceland-United Kingdom gap, the GI-UK gap. And that was the gap is where if not detected with anti-submarine aircraft and things like that, Russian submarines could slip through and potentially threaten, you know, the East Coast, the United States. So during the Cold War, it was very important to, you know, sort of think hunt for Red October to make sure that we could detect and deter those submarines. Now, fast forward to today, Greenland remains very important to, again, as a location for missile defense for North America.

9:15It remains very important for the exact same reason of detecting increased maritime vessels. They could be cargo ships, commercial ships. They could be shadow oil tankers. They could be scientific vessels to be able to detect and make sure we have an awareness of the ships that are in the Arctic. We're seeing an increase, particularly for Russia, they are increasing their military posture along the Russian Arctic, building new bases that, again, if you have a map, are closer to Greenland, closer to the United States. And we are seeing an increase in Chinese, particularly scientific research vessels and as well as container vessels, you know, in the Arctic region.

9:59So this is really a moment to understand our history. Greenland has always been important to the protection of North America and to the North Atlantic region. And we know as the Arctic continues to transform environmentally, it's opening up new economic opportunities, new maritime passages, new critical minerals opportunity, that we need to be more persistently present in the region to monitor, to detect, to deter, and ultimately to defend. But nowhere, Coleman, in that is that we need to own Greenland. We have all the tools we need with our Arctic allies, and all of the Arctic countries, minus Russia, of course, are now part of NATO when Sweden and Finland joined.

10:45So we have this great Arctic alliance that needs to do more and strengthen more. But right now, our position on acquiring Greenland is now antagonizing those very important allies. In fact, those allies now are preparing themselves to defend against the United States. So I'll ask you in a moment why we're antagonizing our allies in this way. And obviously, we as a country aren't doing it. Trump is doing it. But before we get to that, I want to understand the relationship between the people who live in Greenland and Denmark. So one analogy for Americans might be Puerto Rico, which has a degree of home rule, is ultimately governed by Congress and by the president.

11:31but de facto has quite a bit of independence in terms of its local laws. Puerto Ricans are American citizens, ultimately, but they aren't the 51st state. So they're something. And that has been to a large degree by the consent of the people that live on the island, that they'd rather be a so-called commonwealth than either be a state or be an independent country, on the other hand. Is that analogous to what Greenland is? And how does the population of Greenland relate to their own identity as kind of an entity? Yeah, I think the analogy of Puerto Rico, it works, certainly, because the Kingdom of Denmark provides upwards of$700 million of subsidies annually for those approximately 56 ,000, 57 ,000 Greenlanders on Greenland.

12:30health care, education, social. So they pay an enormous amount of subsidies to support the Greenlandic population, in addition to providing defense, law enforcement, all of that. But the Greenlanders do, you know, get to decide economically what is in their best interest. Now, as I mentioned, the Kingdom of Denmark still retains decisions over foreign policy and national security. So I'll give you an example. In 2018, there were Chinese firms that were interested in building airport infrastructure in Greenland. And now this was something, again, it's an economic investment under their devolved relationship.

13:16Certainly the Greenlandic authorities could make that decision. But because it was China, because of the national security dimensions of that, actually Copenhagen weighed in with a lot of conversations with the United States and said, no, we do not want China to make infrastructure investments in Greenland. So Denmark stopped those procedures, those tenders, and actually made the investments in some of the airport activities. So there's always a little tension between the economic decisions. And of course, as we know, with economic security, so much of it is national security. So before President Trump, and again, this began in 2019 in the first term, began to make very strong signaling about acquiring, owning Greenland, you know, there were a lot of tensions between the capital of Greenland, Nuuk, and the capital of Denmark, Copenhagen.

14:12You know, in many ways, both their home rule government does allow, for some point, the Greenlandic people to make a decision about whether they want to be independent from Denmark. The challenge for the Greenlandic population is they haven't found the alternative for the subsidies, the 700 million annually, because their economy is fairly small. So if you remember the Scottish referendum from 2014, that's always the challenge. How do you find the economic viability after you declare independence? And so there were some tensions, certainly, and frustrations both sides. But ever since President Trump has been focused on acquisition, my goodness, we have done more to unify the Greenlandic people and the Danish government together than I've seen in my professional experience.

15:06And I was part of a negotiating team when we upgraded our early warning radar on Padufik Base in 2004. It was a scratchy, tenuous relationship. And now they are completely unified to protect and unify themselves against the United States. Yeah, it's really an amazing own goal that Trump has achieved here. You know, it made all the more absurd and ridiculous when you consider, as you mentioned, the population of Greenland. You're talking about like 50 ,000 people. which is roughly the same population as the suburb I grew up in in North Jersey. So it's not that many people. You could imagine an alternative strategy where, say we all agreed that America wants closer ties and even more rights than we already have in Greenland.

15:56You could basically try to have a quiet town hall meeting with pretty much all of Greenland and make the case to them, right? I mean, you can imagine all kinds of gentle outreach and just like the soft glove of diplomacy rather than the hard fist of whatever Trump is doing, especially given that there's like three people living there. And if you convince a critical mass, we could get a lot of good outcomes. But it's a very strange thing that's been happening. Yeah, I mean, you're absolutely right. The frustrating part is, for the last year, the Danish and Greenland governments have been saying, look, we are very open to the United States increasing its military posture on Greenland.

16:43We are extremely enthusiastic to welcome more economic engagement, like critical minerals development. So as the Danish and Greenland governments said, not for sale, open for business, we want more America. And so that was on offer the whole time, just not ownership. The Greenlandic people do not want to swap, you know, one power, Denmark, for the United States. They seek independence for themselves. And so I'm not even sure even if it was quiet, like, again, sort of what President Truman did in 1946, a real quiet, under-the-table offer. I think it's a misreading. The Greenlandic people, as they move towards independence or thinking about it, they want to do it on their own terms.

17:30And it is for them to decide. But our soft power, unfortunately, at least last summer, had a bit of more covert activity. In fact, the Danish government called in the U.S. charge d 'affaires, the interim ambassador, this summer and highlighted that they were seeing evidence of, you know, U.S. influence operatives in Greenland communities trying to sort of get support for, you know, acquiring, being acquired by the United States. That's not how allies should work. If you go with an offer and the ally says, no, thank you, then you find a way to enhance collaboration. That door has always been open.

18:14President Trump just does not want to go through it. And as he said just this morning, there is no going back. But boy, this road ahead, if he's not going to go back, is going to be fraught and very painful and difficult. To what degree have Russia and China tried to gain a foothold in Greenland? What has that actually looked like? What are their aims? And how serious a threat is that? Well, there are real concerns about Russia and China's military and economic presence in the Arctic. We just aren't seeing, well, let me begin. We aren't seeing an enormous amount of Chinese presence. As I mentioned, in 2018, we did see sort of the Polar Silk Road or the Arctic version of Belt and Road Initiative.

19:05There were some strong interest in the Chinese becoming more involved in infrastructure, even in mining projects, critical minerals in Greenland. But again, this is where good diplomacy, American diplomacy, Danish diplomacy diverted that. What we see right now near and around Greenland has been Chinese scientific research vessels, icebreakers. And what concerns me the most about that, honestly, is part of their research is they are using manned submersibles and they're doing a lot of science, and I'm going to put that in quote science, along the seabed floor, particularly along areas that have some question marks about the extension of outer continental shells.

19:50But it's mostly coming in science and we're seeing an uptick in Chinese container vessels that are testing out these new polar routes, the Northern Sea route, which goes through the Russian Arctic, and then the Transpolar route, which actually goes up and over the North Pole or the Central Arctic. So China's presence in and around Greenland has been fairly muted. It's mostly science and economic. But as we know with any Chinese presence, you are getting what we call dual use. You are getting military applications with their civilian applications. Russia, as I mentioned, is a much more significant presence in the North Atlantic, submarine activity, intelligence ships.

20:37We are certainly seeing, you know, intelligence and hybrid use of shadow tankers. Certainly our British colleagues have been picking up much more activity, military, naval exercises. And as I mentioned, they're certainly building and modernizing their military footprint in their very far north, Franz Josef land, Alexander land. We're also seeing just because, again, of the shortening of distances that the Arctic represents, the Russians do test most of their hypersonic, their missile, new missile capabilities, their new underwater capabilities from the Arctic. And of course, Russia's nuclear submarine fleet is based in the Arctic.

21:22This is the part, Coleman, that I have to say, I have to scratch my head. The intensification that we're seeing of both Russia and China exercising together, air exercises, naval exercises, isn't happening in the North Atlantic Arctic. It's actually happening near Alaska. It's happening in the North Pacific Arctic. And that's because we're seeing a lot of Chinese LNG carriers. They're going up to get Russian Arctic LNG from the Yamal Peninsula and coming back through the narrow Bering Straits near Alaska. We've been detecting just this summer. There were, for the first time ever, five Chinese scientific research vessels.

22:01I'm going to put that in quotes again because it's not all science. appearing in the Beaufort-Chukchi, the Bering Sea. And this is where, honestly, the United States needs to take a lot more attention to the North Pacific Arctic, making sure that we can protect the Alaskan maritime domain. Certainly, the Russians have been testing our air sovereignty near and around Alaska. So we have two Arctics for the North America, the North Pacific Arctic, the North Atlantic Arctic. and all this focus on Greenland, which is important and it remains important. I actually think we need to take care of a little bit of business right now in the North Pacific and make sure we can detect China and Russian activities near and around Alaska.

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23:24So tune in to On Notice. That's notice spelled N-O-T-U-S. It's available every Monday, wherever you get your podcasts or on YouTube. So as with many features of the Trump presidencies, both terms, reality increasingly mirrors entertainment. And obviously Trump was successful on The Apprentice. He has, I think, an instinct for drawing eyeballs, most of all, by his statements and by his actions. And there is, you know, more than anything in this term, the pronouncements about Greenland have had the character of sort of watching a TV show because everything else seems at least potentially real, right?

24:10I mean, we've seen Iran bombing the nuclear facilities in Iran was an immensely serious matter. It never really felt like a joke, although not everyone expected him to do it. uh likewise venezuela very serious matters there like the notion of invading greenland seems like it just sounds like a joke it's it's hard to take it seriously and uh the perpetual question with trump is does he mean it and i think he likes for people to be asking whether he means it i think this is part of his this is part of his mo and at this moment he's operating at a moment of very high leverage because he's now done several things which even some of his supporters did not predict he would do.

25:00He's followed through on certain promises that many people thought were all talk, from tariffs on the entire world to bombing Iran to extracting Maduro from Venezuela and so forth. So he's at a moment where no one any longer wants to say, okay, that's Trump just talking because we've seen too many examples where the just talking become a policy. And yet, he can't really mean invading Greenland, right? So I think we have to take the president very, very seriously. And I think there's a little bit of a through line. Even, you know, the Venezuela operation, you know, the president certainly cited many times that he sought to topple Maduro in the first term.

25:46And we saw that that played out in actuality in the second term. This Greenland acquisition came from the first term. And again, we're starting to see the manifestations of that. As I mentioned, the summertime, the highlighting of potentially covert activity, U.S. covert activity in Greenland, at least the Danish government felt that there was evidence to support that. And then I think exactly as you said, because the president in his first year of office and the second term has not hesitated to use military strikes to achieve his goals. So I think we have to take them seriously. Europe is taking it very seriously, exactly as you said, because of the potential, you know, the Iran strikes last year, the Maduro C's operation, they take this very, very seriously.

26:37But you're right. And I have to say, this is where my own professional experience and imagination. I cannot imagine a scenario where the U.S. places forces on Greenland and potentially could come into contact with Danish forces protecting Greenland. This is extraordinary. And this is why the Danish prime minister has said, the day this happens, NATO stops. And obviously, the European reaction we are seeing, I think we just take a pause for a hot second on this. You've seen Europeans over the last year sort of roll with these punches. Liberation Day and tariffs, they have always, they've dedicated themselves to not freaking out, to finding a way forward, have dialogue, get to a better outcome.

27:27And this is where they're not doing that anymore. You are now hearing, you're hearing this in Davos. We're just going to hear this. It's not the World Economic Forum. It's the World Greenland Forum. You are just hearing leader after leader saying, enough, I draw the line at territorial integrity and sovereignty. And this is what I think, for the first time, the president is really encountering European resistance to this. And it's angering him greatly. And this is where we don't know where this goes. Because if he's saying there's no way back and European leaders are saying, well, we're not going where you want us to go, where does this end?

28:06So I just think all I take him at his word, all options are at the table. But this is where the American people, Congress, you know, the cabinet need to start to become an impediment to this. And if they are not, the Europeans are going to have to, I think, retaliate, which is the tragedy because we're fighting ourselves when our adversaries are, you know, continuing, Russia's continuing to prosecute an incredible war against the Ukrainian people that are freezing right now, literally. China is exercising a complete blockade and invasion of Taiwan. We're missing this plot here. And this is the many tragedies of why we're having this conversation today about Greenland.

28:53Okay, so help me think through the game theory of the issue of Greenland and how it relates to Trump's longstanding skepticism of NATO. so for years well many presidents in a row have talked about the fact that NATO allies don't contribute enough to their own defense and in effect are free riding on American military spending and that's there's always been uh more than a grain of truth to that critique and that's been a bipartisan critique of Europe uh none of them went as far as Trump did, which is to sow doubt about the idea of NATO itself and essentially threaten to leave NATO. And he's done similar things with our commitments in South Korea.

29:40And you could see how all of this, from his perspective, he may be thinking, look, if they don't feel the fire under their butts, they're never going to actually going to start spending more, right? They're only going to be motivated by fear. And the rest is just talk is cheap, right? So I'm imagining a scenario where Trump is in the White House for the first four years, and he's asking his national security advisors, he's asking H.R. McMaster and Joan Bolton, in his very Trumpian way, why the hell can't we just leave NATO? Right? And they sit him down and they say, Donald, look, if you want to just think purely in terms of the U.S.

30:20self-interest, not in terms of the stability of the world, not in terms of Russia's power, not in terms of our responsibilities as a global superpower, but just be as brutally selfish as possible. We're going to lose access to, among other things, one of the greatest pieces of real estate that we now have considerable amount of access to, namely Greenland. And you can imagine that this might have come up in conversation. And then at a certain point, he says, well, why the hell can't we just take Greenland? If this is one of the pieces of leverage that NATO essentially has over my desire to leave it.