The sound of gunfire echoes across the ocean. We’re the only boat out on this patch of the Arctic, which is roiling with waves in the lunchtime heat; and we are not under attack. But a thunderous crack, eerily like a gunshot, is what you hear when an iceberg breaks.
It’s just over an hour and a half since I set sail from Colonial Harbour, in Greenland’s capital, Nuuk, and my boat is slaloming through blocks of ice that have calved off the Greenland ice sheet. There are massive bergs, larger than our 25-foot Targa 25 boat; floes the size of breeze blocks, and fist-sized clumps that Christian, the boat’s first mate, scoops out and dumps into a bucket with the fish he’s caught that are piled up inside it.
To my left, I see Naajat Inaat mountain, which, with its sheer face, could be the Great Wall in Game of Thrones. To my right is the peak of Aqitsoq, its side flecked with snowmobile tracks like the marks of a stalking predator.
Greenland has the world’s second-largest ice sheet after Antarctica. It covers about 80% of the island (which is only inhabitable at its edges), spanning 1,500 miles north to south and 680 miles at its widest point, reaching up to 12,000 feet at its rocky peak at Gunnbjørn Fjeld. And it is melting worryingly fast. The ice sheet’s average annual mass loss is now around 200 gigatons, equivalent to about 0.6 millimeters of the world’s sea-level rise per year.
If climate change has serious ecological ramifications, it also has serious geopolitical consequences.
Since observations began in 1979, Arctic sea ice has shrunk by 12% in a decade, making shipping lanes increasingly navigable; between 2014 and 2022, transit through the most popular route in the Arctic, the North Sea route, increased by 755%. Some studies project that, by 2035, some parts of the Arctic will be completely free of ice during summer months and hence totally open to international trade.
Out on the ocean, I can see this process first-hand. “The glaciers always melt a bit at this time of year,” says the boat’s captain Casper. “But not this much this early.” We pass another iceberg and hear a groaning noise. Casper becomes tense. “As the ice melts and these big pieces break off, they eventually shatter as well. They are basically ticking time bombs. If this breaks I’ll hit reverse, and we’ll get out quick.”
Whoever controls these shipping lanes is well-placed to control at least a large part of global trade, not least because Houthis are now attacking the Suez Canal and routes between Asia and the US are about 40% shorter through the Northwest Passage, than through the Panama Canal. The Arctic also remains comparatively underused. In 2022, fewer than 1,700 ships passed through compared with over 23,000 through the busy Suez and 14,000 through Panama.
Little wonder Donald Trump has long coveted Greenland. Back in 2019, he suggested that the US should buy it from Denmark, citing its potential for resource extraction (it is rich in rare earth minerals), and the military advantages of its proximity to the Arctic. The Danes laughed it off, but Trump started his second term with even more aggressive rhetoric.
Then, in late March, Vice President JD Vance visited Greenland. At America’s Pituffik Space Base in the island’s far northwest coast, he echoed Trump’s vow to take control of the island, saying that this would be achieved through appealing to the people of Greenland, warning of increased Russian and Chinese activity in the area. Locals, though, refused to meet him.
But Trump and Vance are not the only ones casting lascivious eyes northwards. Vladimir Putin has intensified Russia’s military and commercial activity in the region. Moscow now operates six dual-use military bases and has a fleet of at least 40 icebreakers there; from 2017-2022, it conducted 60% of all investment in the Arctic region, principally developing infrastructure for transportation and natural resource extraction.
Since 2005, Russia has prioritised refurbishing 13 Soviet-era airbases and made 10 radar stations, 20 border outputs and 10 integrated emergency rescue stations operational at bases across its Arctic coastline. It now has more ground-force bases in the Arctic than Nato, while eight of its 11 submarines capable of launching long-range nuclear weapons are also based there.
There has also been a suspicious increase in attacks on Western facilities in the Arctic. Norway has reported numerous instances of fibre optic cables being severed at its satellite ground station, and cables at an ocean research lab torn away. No one can say for sure it’s the Russians, but everyone knows they are more than capable of this kind of sabotage.
China, too, has the Arctic in its sights. Xi Jinping announced his ambition to make China a “major polar power’ back in 2014. There is a research station on the Norwegian archipelago of Svalbard called the Polar Research Institute of China. Beijing has also tried to buy Arctic territory here as part of broader efforts to establish a Polar Silk Road. Based around developing new trade routes across the Arctic region, this is an extension of its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), designed to create yet more global Chinese trade routes, and influence.
While Biden was concentrating on Ukraine, China’s hold in the global north increased. And now Moscow is allying with Beijing. In 2023, they signed a cooperation agreement between their coast guards and conducted joint naval patrols in the region. The US is only now belatedly waking up to the importance of the area to hemispheric security, with JD Vance talking about the new reality. The White House knows that seizing Greenland would prevent both from cementing their Arctic presence.
The Arctic is now a prime battlefield for a modern Great Game, one that is likely to dominate a century beset by climate change and resource scarcity. In this new imperial age, the US, China and Russia are bound, ineluctably, for conflict in three areas: strategic defence, logistics and resources. This region is crucial to them all. Welcome to the age of the Global Arctic, with Greenland at its heart.
***
The city of Nuuk is a dowdy footprint of humanity on the southwestern edge of Greenland, an odd mixture of icy tundra and industrial estate. The outskirts and the port are a landscape of heavy goods vehicles, oil drums and belching smoke. Tangles of steel, that once formed industrial machinery, sit rusting by the sides of the road, poking through the snow like metal innards.
Life is tight for most people here, though there is support in abundance. Greenland, a local tells me, has the third largest public sector in the world: after Cuba and North Korea. The welfare state is also an important part of how Greenland operates. Of the annual five billion kroner grant from Denmark, a huge proportion goes on welfare. According to 2022 government statistics, 23.7% of the population receive unemployment, housing subsidies, child benefit, or some other forms of public benefits.
Life is also claustrophobic. In one bistrot, I spot Greenland’s now ex-PM feeding a baby. In the Nuuk Centre, Greenland’s only shopping mall, I see another ex-Prime Minister sipping a latte. The next day, in their tiny parliament I spot yet another former prime minister, not standing on ceremony, but informally dressed in dungarees and overalls.
The tiny population was swamped by journalists after Donald Trump said he wanted to annex the island. With the Danes outraged by his moves on their sovereign territory, the Greenlanders are caught awkwardly in between. They’re not keen on becoming the 51st state. According to a January (admittedly Danish) poll 85% of Greenlanders oppose joining the US, while 45% see Trump’s interest as a threat.
But nor are they totally happy with Denmark. History here is fraught. In 1953, Greenland was incorporated as an equal member of the Kingdom of Denmark, granting Danish citizenship to its people, but little political autonomy. By 1979, Home Rule was established via referendum giving Greenland control over a range of internal affairs, such as education and healthcare. The 2009 Self-Government Act gave Greenland more control over its police, judiciary and natural resources and underpins the political status quo. But less savoury events live in the collective memory, not least the forced relocation in 1953 of over 100 Inuit families from Thule to accommodate the US Air Base, and a chilling 1951 Danish social experiment that snatched 22 Inuit children from their families and took them to Denmark to be trained as role models for Greenlanders.
For its part, the US does have history here, too. It defended Greenland during World War II when Denmark was under Nazi occupation, building several military bases there. It was crucial for refuelling purposes for aircraft crossing the Atlantic. Its weather monitoring stations supplied early warnings for military operations (including D-Day), and the US navy used its waters to detect German U-Boat activity. After the war, President Harry Truman formally offered to purchase it for $100 million but this was rejected. Following that, a 1946 deal with Denmark formalised the US’s military right to operate bases here, while maintaining Danish sovereignty over the island.
Defence, then, has always been important to this part of the world. Today, if Russia were to fire missiles at the US, they would fly over Greenland and the North Pole. As a result, America’s Pituffik Space Base supports missile warning, missile defence and space surveillance missions. Trump wants the base to become part of the US “Golden Dome” missile defence system. Modelled on Israel’s Iron Dome, this would consist of a multilayer defensive system capable of destroying ground-based missiles from space, within seconds of launch.
But the security of this territory is also vital for UK and Europe because of the Greenland-Iceland-UK (GUIK) gap, the naval chokepoint vital for Russian access to the Atlantic. If the gap is secured, the Russian Navy will be unable to venture outside the Barents and White seas, and Moscow’s ability to control maritime routes there will be totally undermined.
If defence and logistics are already setting imperial powers at odds in the Arctic, it is perhaps the third element that may yet transmute competition to conflict: resources.
Greenland has the world’s eighth largest reserves of rare earth minerals and other key minerals such as lithium and cobalt. These include 39 of the 50 minerals the US has deemed critical to national security and economic stability. Most notable are those minerals crucial to production of magnets for powering electric vehicles; those used in semiconductor chips to power AI technologies; and those used in military technologies, such as F-35 fighter jets (which contain 400 kg each) and Virginia-class submarines (over four tonnes each).
Following decades of rapacity in Africa, China now has access to the largest reserves of these minerals. It also accounts for almost 70% of rare earth mineral production compared with the US’s 12%. China supplies over 50% of US demand for 24 critical minerals, including more than 90% of its demand for rare earth elements. The US is obviously losing the minerals race, and Greenland would help close the gap, as would Ukraine’s deposits of rare earth minerals. The Americans understand it is a race they, and the West, cannot afford to lose, because that way lies Chinese hegemony.
***
The Inatsisartut, which houses Greenland’s parliament, is a squat grey building with wood panelling in the centre of Nuuk. The politics are idiosyncratic. Greenlandic independence is an aspiration that goes back decades — every party has it on their ticket — but the fact that the world’s largest island has only 57,000 people makes the dream of secession fundamentally unfeasible. The rhetoric speaks more to a process of securing self-governance within Denmark, as well as nation-building. It will have to remain in a union: either with Denmark or someone else.
Outsiders are increasingly encroaching. Over the last seven years, says Naaja Nathanielsen, a government minister, three events have emphasised Greenland’s rising strategic importance. The first was the pandemic, which showed how fragile global supply chains can be, particularly because so many trade routes depended on China. Countries such as Greenland are now key alternative sources of critical commodities. Second was the climate crisis. “The need for green transition is not just leftist politics, it’s real,” Nathanielsen tells me. “Countries must cope with future energy needs. We have almost all the minerals necessary for green energy.”
Greenland is already 70% hydropowered (this will increase to 90% by 2030), and has enormous solar and wind potential. This makes it well placed to respond to the third crisis on Nathanielsen’s list, which is the war in Ukraine: Greenland could help Europe break its unforgivable dependence on Russian oil, gas and coal.
Yet it’s not enough to have resources: they must also be extracted. Over 80% of Greenland is covered in ice, often with few roads between settlements and mining deposits. Greenland’s ancient crystalline bedrock means that minerals are deeply embedded and hard to extract from hard and ancient rock. Rare earth minerals often come in a very low grade, meaning only a small percentage of the mineral in each rock is mined. So Greenland must rely on foreign help to properly exploit its natural wealth. A deal, beyond the existing status quo, will have to be made with someone. Trump is determined that it will be with him. So far, the Danes, and the EU, have done nothing but complain at US behaviour. What is the alternative?
“So far, the Danes, and the EU, have done nothing but complain at US behaviour. What is the alternative?”
The Greenlanders I meet don’t want to be a part of the US, but they are open to more cooperation. The Danes are too, which is why Trump’s behaviour is so confusing. It’s possible to achieve mineral extraction in a non-military, respectful, and supportive way, they repeatedly tell me. “Greenlanders are not a commodity,” is the phrase I hear over and over. Greenland is part of the Western alliance, and a fellow democracy, and its people believe they are entitled to respect. But the rhetoric makes people suspicious and afraid, and this is a problem — not just for the US and Greenland, but for the West as a whole.
Regardless of local mistrust, it remains that greater US cooperation is a win-win in everything from resources to strategic cooperation. “It’s not a debated issue,” says Nathanielsen. “We’re fine with more international involvement in Greenland, as long as we’re informed and involved.”
But the world is in crisis: and for as long as America’s geopolitical battle with China continues, expect Trump’s aggressive rhetoric to persist. “Those who grew up in the Eighties and Nineties were lucky to do so in a world of peace when prosperity was based on free trade and soft diplomacy,” Nathanialssen adds. “But that is changing and it’s very difficult to grasp this new, militaristic view of the world. The US interest in all these countries is strategic. It’s about Trump getting Washington’s geopolitical ducks in a row. I totally understand the logic behind it. It’s the approach I scorn.”
But if Greenland is a key battleground of the Great Game to come, Trump is its talisman: the harbinger of a new age, in which power is more unvarnished, and imperialistic impulses more naked. It is a new world, one that is being redefined by geography and climate. But as Casper said, as we sailed into harbour the previous day, “In Greenland, we always say that it’s not us who are in control, but Mother Earth, the field commander.” As the political temperature rises, and the ice caps continue to melt, we may yet learn this the hard way.
