Geopolitical Reawakening in the Arctic
Trump’s plan to extend American sovereignty to Greenland is presented in classical geopolitical terms, framed in Mackinderian lens with Greenland perceived as a contested Rimland whose possession and/or control is essential to the security of the Heartland of mainland North America.
- Geopolitical Reawakening in the Arctic
- Indigenous Power in Practice: From Alaska to Greenland
- Westphalian vs. Indigenous Sovereignty: Toward a Convergence?
- Independence as Identity: The Greenlandic Sovereignty Project
- Between Empires: Greenland’s Search for Balance
- Decolonization by Design: Greenland’s Diplomatic Awakening
- Claiming the World Stage: Nuuk Steps Forward
- Liberation or Absorption? Trump’s Second Approach to Greenland
- Will Trump Liberate or Obliterate an Independent Greenland?
- Negotiated Futures: From Resistance to Realignment
It is thus portrayed as a dual economic and military frontier where strategic expansion can bring benefits of both economic opportunity and military security. This is something the United States knows a fair bit about, with a long history of expansion including its negotiated 1867 purchase of Alaska from Russia, which was framed in both strategic military and economic terms.
America’s century-and-a-half experience as sovereign of Alaska has provided it with a deep learning experience on matters relating to both frontier development and the collaborative management of resources with local and Indigenous communities, fostering the emergence of innovative and increasingly collaborative multilevel governance systems for Alaska Natives, whose total population exceeds 125,000 people – over twice Greenland’s population.
Indigenous Power in Practice: From Alaska to Greenland
One of the central innovations (and what, with subsequent legislative revision and amendment, became an enduring strength after a rocky start) of the pioneering Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act (ANCSA) of 1971 – and that became central to all of Canada’s subsequent Arctic land claims treaties – has been the creation of Native-owned corporations at both the community and regional level to clarify title to the land, demarcate surface and subsurface rights, and empower both resource development and local and regional control over that development.
The exclusion of robust subsistence protections by ANCSA led in Alaska to a movement for retribalizing lands (as called for by Thomas Berger’s Alaska Native Review Commission recommendation), as well as for federal intervention to protect subsistence hunting, trapping and fishing rights through the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act (ANILCA) of 1980.
But in Canada it led to the adoption of a sustainable development model built into the land claims treaty structure itself that allowed the continuing dialectic between pro-subsistence and pro-development factions within the Native community to play out democratically, with subsistence constitutionally protected as an Aboriginal right and defended by new co-management boards representing the interests of hunters’ and trappers’ associations, with economic development encouraged and managed by the newly established Native corporations.
The results while mixed have been largely successful, even if the pace of development has been slow and uneven (while a demerit to the pro-development community, this is celebrated as a victory by the pro-sustainability community), with projects like the Mackenzie Valley Pipeline never quite taking off – the strength and intergenerational momentum of historic grassroots opposition to megaprojects, as we also see with Kvanefjeld in Greenland, can prove stubborn to put into reverse.
Westphalian vs. Indigenous Sovereignty: Toward a Convergence?
The impressive gains and governance innovations in Alaska and Canada extend to Greenland, where its successful devolution of power from Copenhagen to Nuuk has made impressive strides through Home Rule governance in 1979 and more robust Self-Rule governance in 2009, but the end goal has been more ambitious than carving out an autonomous space for increased Indigenous self-governance at the subnational level, focusing instead on achieving independence from Denmark through a sovereign restoration, the only active movement for independence in Arctic North America.
The debate on Greenland’s constitutional future remains ongoing, complex, and nuanced, with a wide variety of views and perspectives.
There is a convergence of transnational movements — such as through the Inuit Circumpolar Council — with the national movement for sovereign restoration. Most political parties agree on the goal of independence but differ greatly on its pace and tenor.
Independence as Identity: The Greenlandic Sovereignty Project
This convergence creates two distinct — and to some, interconnected — paths toward asserting Indigenous sovereign identity: a transnational and a Westphalian model. These have been described and theoretically illuminated by several scholars of Arctic international relations, including Hannes Gerhardt, Jessica Shadian, Rauna Kuokkanen, and Ulrik Gad, in addition to my own humble efforts.
Its quest for independence has long undergirded domestic politics in Greenland; as explained by Gad: “Greenland sees itself on the way from imperial submission to future independence. In that sense, becoming independent is part of Greenlandic identity and in that sense, most Greenlandic domestic politics are almost by definition post-imperial sovereignty games: linguistic games allowed by the concept of sovereignty, played while leaving empire behind.”
Indeed, most Greenlanders want to be independent, as reflected in the decisive outcome of their 2008 referendum on Greenlandic autonomy, with a 75.54 percent yes vote, and as subsequently reaffirmed in more recent polls in the years since.
With independence on Greenland’s political agenda however, in contrast to other regions of the Arctic where self-government has been pursued through largely subnational structures of governance embraced by transnational Indigenous organizations such as the ICC, it has manifested in a more Westphalian sovereign form, focused more upon practicalities and economic realities. As Kuokkanen describes: “Practical challenges … are emphasized over more abstract questions of the rights of Indigenous peoples which are of less importance in a setting where nearly ninety percent of the population are Indigenous Inuit.”
While some scholars, including Hannes Gerhardt (“Westphalian” vs. “transnational”) and Jessica Shadian (“Westphalian” vs. “post-Westphalian”), juxtapose as divergent these contending approaches for achieving Indigenous sovereignty, Kuokkanen sees in Greenland the potential for a synthesis of the two (“Indigenous Westphalian Sovereignty”). As Kuokkanen writes, “I propose that Inuit Greenlanders are advancing what I call ‘Indigenous Westphalian Sovereignty,’ a unique approach to self-determination in the Indigenous world.”
Between Empires: Greenland’s Search for Balance
Greenland thus sits right at a crossroads of this dialectic on Indigenous sovereignty. and could thus become a bridge toward its synthesis. As Kuokkanen writes: “In today’s interconnected world, the Westphalian view of the world as divided into mutually exclusive territories appears deficient.
It disregards the reality of overlapping and multiple authorities and communities, and the interdependence that characterizes the human experience. It also ignores Indigenous conceptions of self-determination and sovereignty, in which the notion of shared territories and jurisdictions and co-existing sovereignties are common.”
Like all syntheses of contending theses and antitheses, Greenland’s path has been chock-full of contradictions and paradoxes, a situation only compounded by President Trump’s increasingly muscular overture to assume sovereignty over the island.
Indeed, while many Greenlanders prefer to maintain traditional subsistence use of Greenland’s pristine and lands and waters, others desire to bring their bountiful natural resources to market, leading to a healthy political dialectic that plays out democratically through shifting electoral outcomes, as illustrated by the divergent results of its 2021 and 2025 national elections.
With America’s present pursuit of Greenland driven in part by its quest for strategic minerals – under Trump 2.0, American foreign policy and national security are increasingly conceived through a lens increasingly defined by strategic minerals and economic development – it is too soon to know if pro-development sentiments will rise in lockstep with American interest.
As Kuokkanen frames it: “The great dilemma for Greenland, on which nearly all Greenlanders agree, is finding the balance between the pressing need for new revenue sources, for diversifying the country’s struggling economy, and for engaging in resource extraction, while meeting high environmental and social standards so that the Inuit hunting and fishing culture (dependent on healthy natural resources) is not jeopardized.”
Decolonization by Design: Greenland’s Diplomatic Awakening
The discussion between Greenland with Denmark over its eventual independence has taken place within a bilateral, predominantly Westphalian model of decolonization that is distinct when compared to sub- and transnational approaches that have predominated in Alaska and Canada, where Indigeneity has been protected through collaboration with the state, but where over time there has resulted an increased balancing of tribal and national interests with greater representation of Indigenous voices at higher levels of domestic governance.
This increasing representation and empowerment of Indigenous voices and values has led to the emergence of what Jessica Shadian describes as “post-Westphalian” sovereignty, a transcendent sovereign form that has been embraced by transnational Indigenous organizations such as the Inuit Circumpolar Council along with the other Indigenous organizations holding Permanent Participant status on the Arctic Council.
In Canada, the formation of the Nunavut Territory in 1999 to govern the Nunavut Land Claim settlement area established in 1993 established a novel, albeit subnational, territorial structure in Canada (created by the division of the old Northwest Territories into the new Nunavut Territory and the newly truncated Northwest Territories after plebiscites and referenda on Nunavut’s secession from the NWT were held) and in Alaska, the Inupiat of the North Slope created their very own borough government as allowed under the Alaska state constitution in 1972.
These structures are regional but range in size from a municipal borough to a vast territory. They reflect a willingness to articulate Indigenous sovereignty through transnational organizations as well as through local, regional, and territorial structures.
Claiming the World Stage: Nuuk Steps Forward
This stands in marked contrast to Greenland, where the conversation remains focused on the restoration of a fully self-governing Inuit nation. Described by Gad as a “sovereign nation-state in the making,” this project would align with the end of colonial rule by Denmark, culminating negotiations across multiple decades.
At the same time, Greenland has been building a diplomatic presence that both parallels and augments Danish diplomacy. This includes the formation of its own representation offices around the world — in Washington, Reykjavik, Beijing, and at NATO headquarters in Brussels.
Just last year, Greenland released its own Arctic strategy — traditionally the purview of Arctic states — now articulated by an emergent Arctic nation-state that eloquently and persuasively argues throughout: “nothing about us without us.”
With President Trump’s return to the oval office in January 2025, Greenland now has a second chance to reconsider Trump’s 2019 offer for it to become part of the American constitutional family – and in so doing, help to push the conversation back to a more balanced and inclusive role for Greenland in the region’s future, and away from recent statements made suggesting a role for economic coercion and the potential use of force.
Liberation or Absorption? Trump’s Second Approach to Greenland
This time, Nuuk will and rightly should expect a seat at the table, as called for in its first Arctic strategy, Greenland in the World – Nothing About Us Without Us. President Trump pledged that he is not opposed to this; as he told a joint session of the United States Congress on March 4, 2025:
“We strongly support your right to determine your own future, and if you choose, we welcome you into the United States of America,” which will “keep you safe, we will make you rich, and together, we will take Greenland to heights like you have never thought possible before.”
Vice President JD Vance, when traveling to Greenland on a controversial delegation a few weeks later reaffirmed this support:
“We respect, as the president said in his State of the Union address, we respect the self-determination of Greenland” and “believe in the self-determination of the population of the people of Greenland. And our argument is very simple. It is not with the people of Greenland, who I think are incredible and have an incredible opportunity here. Our argument really is with the leadership of Denmark, which is under-invested in Greenland and under-invested in security architecture. That simply must change. It is the policy of the United States that that will change.”
As reported in the New York Times, “Greenland’s prime minister said the territory would like to work more closely with the United States on defence and natural resources,” citing former Prime Minister Múte Egede’s remarks to a press conference in Nuuk: “The reality is we are going to work with the US – yesterday, today and tomorrow. We have to be very smart on how we act. … The power struggles between the superpowers are rising and are now knocking on our door.”
Will Trump Liberate or Obliterate an Independent Greenland?
How might such a conversation between Greenland and the United States unfold? Perhaps the conversation with Trump will start with his initial territorial acquisition vision and evolve from there toward genuine support for Greenland’s independence as America’s renewed relationship with Greenlanders grows, along with his desire to extend more robust American protection to Greenland in its struggle to be free. This conversation is only just getting started, and we have at least three more years to watch it unfold.
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During this time, there will be many new opportunities for Greenlanders to win the confidence of President Trump, and, through spirited negotiation, persuade him to embrace their vision of sovereign restoration and collaborative diplomacy with the United States and its other NATO partners, as articulated in its innovative, collaborative and visionary 2024 Arctic strategy.
New and unexpected alignments of interest can emerge from talks between parties initially opposed to one another on such contentious matters as sovereignty and the national interest.
Negotiated Futures: From Resistance to Realignment
Indeed, we have seen just such a phenomenon in recent negotiations between Ukraine and the United States over mineral rights. These talks began as what Ukraine perceived to be an imperious resource grab by a great power.
However, the discussions evolved into a more collaborative, balanced, and reciprocal co-management and joint investment agreement. This model is reminiscent of the modern land claims treaties that have helped transform the mainland of Arctic North America into a region where tribal and state interests have found a sustainable equilibrium.
It could happen again. Indeed, in time, after this novel but in so many ways unwanted courtship by America of Greenland comes to its inevitable conclusion, we may witness not the outright and naked annexation of a self-governing, predominantly Indigenous island nation as so many fear, but instead a sovereign restoration of Arctic North America’s first and only truly Indigenous state, affirming rather than subverting the continued alignment of Indigenous and state interests at the top of the world.
Instead of the much-feared conquest of Greenland, we may thus bear witness to its liberation, a scenario largely unimagined today.
