Front Burner - What if Greenland’s next?

Episode Date: January 12, 2026

Right now, the future of Greenland hangs in the balance. And with it, an entire system of military and political alliances that has underpinned the global order since the end of the Second World War.So when U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio says he’s going to meet with Danish leaders to talk about Greenland this week, that’s what diplomats, historians and politicians the world over say is at stake.This could have massive implications for Canada, both as a NATO member and target of Trump’s expansionist appetites.Casey Michel joins us. He’s a journalist and author of the upcoming book ‘United States of Oligarchy’. He recently wrote a piece for Foreign Policy titled “Annexing Greenland would be a Strategic Catastrophe.”

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Hi, everyone. It's Jamie. But right now, we are going to do something on Greenland, whether they like it or not. So right now, the future of Greenland hangs in the balance. And with it, an entire system of military and political alliances that has underpinned the global order since the end of the Second World War. So when U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio says that he's going to meet with Danish leaders to talk about Greenland this week. That's what diplomats, historians, and politicians the world over say is at stake. They point to senior Trump advisor Stephen Miller saying on CNN, nobody's going to fight the United States militarily over the future of Greenland.

And Trump saying that he needs to own Greenland to prevent Russia and China from doing so, and that he can do it. You know, the easy way, but if we don't do it, the easy way, we're going to do it the hard way. The whole thing has sent a chill through Europe and Canada. My guest today is Casey Michelle, journalist and author of the upcoming book, United States of oligarchy. He recently wrote a piece for foreign policy that said, among other things, annexing Greenland would be a strategic catastrophe. So we're going to talk about why he thinks that is today. Casey, hi, it's great to have you on the show. Hi, Jamie. Thanks so much for having me.

So before we start unpacking why you think an annexation of Greenland is for those who view America's allies as its greatest asset, a suicidal maneuver without modern. compare. That's a quote from you. I just want to talk a bit about why it matters to the administration or why it might matter. Trump and others have said this is about countering Chinese and Russian presence in a strategic region where shipping routes are opening up because of ice melting and there are resources. You take a look outside of Greenland right now. There are Russian destroyers. There are Chinese destroyers and bigger. There are Russian submarines all over the place. we're not going to have Russia or China occupy Greenland, and that's what they're going to do if we don't. So we're going to be doing something.

What are China and Russia doing in the region right now? Well, so what China and Russia are doing in the region right now are what they're doing in many other regions. They have a presence in international waters. They consider it a place of potential national security concerns for them. It's not as if they don't have any interest in that, but you could say the same thing about the South Pacific. You could say the same thing about the Indian Ocean. You could say the same thing about Antarctica. It's no different than that whatsoever in the waters around Greenland.

But the way that the administration has framed it, by all appearances, according to them, Greenland is positively crawling with Russian and Chinese troops and surveillance and ships and is inevitably going to become a protectorate of either Russia or China, which is why the United States of America under the Trump administration needs to move in. Now, of course, this is all a fantasy. This is all effectively fabricated. There's a great quote from a Danish official not long ago saying that Russian and Chinese troops can't even see Greenland with binoculars from their ships. It's not as if Greenland is

about to fall into the lapse of Moscow or Beijing. But this is a phenomenon. This is a framing that we have seen throughout 250 years of American expansionism, this idea that it's a national security concern. We have to annex places in the now American Midwest or Texas or Hawaii. This is a story as old as the United States itself, this idea that there's a threat and that we have to expand to meet that threat for American national security. That's what the administration is Let me push back on what you were saying just a little bit here. So I was reading a different piece in foreign policy, not the one that you wrote, that outlined how Moscow maintains 12 military bases, 16 deep water ports in the region. Russia is also the only country in the world with a nuclear-powered icebreaker fleet, currently numbering eight shifts and aims to add more and that China is also increasing its presence. Importantly, working with Russia to develop designs for a year-round container ship capable of transatlanticians. the Arctic and just, you know, listening to that, you know, like how would you respond to that? And also how would you respond to the argument that this specific area is more strategic than some of the other ones that you mentioned before?

Yeah. Yeah. It's a great question, Jamie, because there's absolutely an argument to be made that the Arctic by and large, not just Greenland itself, but the Arctic writ large, is absolutely becoming one of these emerging security theaters for national security concerns for the United States, for China, for Russia. for Europe and, of course, for Canada as well. And that is absolutely a reality as we see melting, glaciers, melting ice and rising waters, the opening of new trade routes and the opening of accessibility in new ways, especially maritime ways, for places like Russia and China. And of course, we have seen increased cooperation between Russia and China in recent years, most especially following Russia's invasion of Ukraine. But that, again, does not mean that Greenland is going to fall right into the lapse of these two powers if the U.S. doesn't do anything. I think the thing to remember at the end of the day is Greenland is a part of Denmark,

which is a treaty ally of the United States of America, of Canada. It's already protected by these security umbrellas, by the nuclear umbrella that the United States of America presents. This is already part of America's security architecture. And I know we'll talk about this in a little bit more, but if the U.S. goes out of its way to forcibly annex Greenland, that shatters all of that. Of course, it doesn't mean Russia and China come in, but that security architecture in North America, in the North Atlantic, transatlantic relations, that falls apart completely and we are in a brand new world. I want to get into that in a little bit more depth soon. But just I heard Trump talking, I wonder if you heard it to the New York Times last week. And he was really making the case that he can do a lot more with Greenland by owning it versus I guess his point was leasing it. He was really talking about this like a

developer. I think that ownership gives you a thing that you can't do, whether you're talking about a lease or a treaty. Ownership gives you things and elements that you can't get from just signing a document that you can have a bit. I suppose the other way to look at it is in terms of like working with your allies and Greenlanders and Denmark. And so what do you make of those comments? So yes, Jamie, I think that interview was especially revealing. Of course, Trump has been saying for for months, certainly the entire of his second term, the entirety of his second term, and even going back to his first term that the United States of America needs to have Greenland. And I think that interview you mentioned was especially telling, because it's not just him repeating the same things

that the United States needs to annex it for its national security, but he said, because that's what I feel is psychologically needed for success. And I think that's so revealing because, again, Donald Trump is a builder. He's a real estate man. He's someone who had in his own special real estate way, territories to himself, to his own name. And he sees Greenland as a real estate deal that leasing it or maybe striking up new commercial arrangements, even if the United States doesn't itself own it, that falls short. That is not what he views as success. The only thing he views as success, again, psychologically, not just in terms of national security, is actually claiming it as American. Doesn't matter what the Greenlanders want. Doesn't matter

what American allies want. It is only what Donald Trump himself and his administration. want. Let's dig into the resources in the region a little bit more, you know, since we're talking about why the United States wants, wants Greenland, the Arctic is home to 13% of the world's conventional oil, 30% of undiscovered gas resources. Greenland is also home to rare earth minerals, something that we've talked about on the show before. And just tell me more about how these resources fit into this. Yeah, Greenland is really kind of a periodic table of elements in and of itself. Almost anything that you could hope to find, certainly through excavation, through mining,

you can find in Greenland. You named a few of them just now zinc, copper, gold, oil and gas, even things like uranium and platinum. I mean, these are all in Greenland proper. Of course, Much of them are difficult, if not impossible, to actually extract right now, largely because of the ice sheet. But again, that ice is melting. And there are new technological innovations for accessing these deposits. It really is a treasure chest waiting to be, of course, mined and extracted. As the United States of America sees it right now, really regardless of what the Greenlanders want. And I know that you are writing a chapter in your upcoming book on oligarchic interests in Greenland.

and just tell me more about who and what is interested in the territory and why. Well, we've already seen significant American investment in Greenland, again, mainly in mining and oil and gas. And many of those companies have significant, if not direct, links to many of the same kind of corporate donor class that we have seen supporting Donald Trump for years and years and certainly returning in to the White House itself. And again, these are figures like Mark Zuckerberg, figures like Jeff Bezos, hedge funds like Andreson Horowitz. I mean, again, of the biggest names out there in terms of those who have supported Donald Trump in this kind of emergent American oligarchic class just so happen to be the ones who will benefit most directly

if the United States of America goes out and seizes Greenland and does away with any kind of environmental regulations, any kind of democratic oversight whatsoever. They stand to gain hand over fist by American annexation of Greenland itself. There was one other pro-transparency voice in Washington who took a look. And he had a great quote. He said this was a, quote, circle of grift that we saw emerging this relationship between Donald Trump and these American investors in Greenland, of course, who are also significant donors to Donald Trump himself. Tell me more about what we know about what some of them are invested in right now. Well, so these are groups.

These are organizations. These are companies like cobald metals, which has been leading this, quote, modern gold rush. And again, is LinkedIn has received investments from Zuckerberg and from Bezos and from Andrews. recent Horowitz. These are companies like Critical Metals Corp, which is, again, it's not just the donor class. Critical Metals Corp has seen investment from the hedge fund that was run by Trump's Commerce Secretary, Howard Lutnik. So again, you have this direct interpersonal overlap right there. And of course, again, many of those investors are not just giving to Donald Trump himself or his reelection campaign, but are also donating to things like Trump media, which is maybe not in the news

quite as much these days, but is, again, one more way to directly line Donald Trump's party. as president. I want to ask you specifically about Peter Thiel. So this is the PayPal and Palantir Titan. And he is someone who wants to set up these crypto-powered network states on undeveloped territory. And he is invested in this company called Praxis, right? Which has scouted Greenland. And I've also heard these areas refer to as freedom cities. Like, what is this? So this is where it kind of, I think a lot of folks have this idea, okay, there's kind of basic corruption, these wealthy Americans are paying Donald Trump, they're getting what they want in terms of American policy. But it also is just a little bit weirder. It's a little bit stranger, maybe even

a little bit darker than that. Again, this is where figures like Peter Thiel and some of the others that have actually named already come into play because they through either their funds or even themselves directly have been backing this organization called Praxis, which wants to create this kind of crypto utopia without any regulations whatsoever. No democracy, no oversight, no transparency into what these wealthy figures can and will be doing in Greenland itself. They want to have a new area where they can kind of experiment however they want to create this crypto utopia where they can effectively rule as unchecked kings or tyrants or whatever term you'd like to use. And Peter Thiel has been involved with this. Again, other figures, wealthy Americans like John Lawnsdale,

even the Winklewast twins, I think of former Facebook fame, have been investing in this organization called Praxis, which wants nothing to do, again, with any kind of restraint, any kind of restrictions about what it can do in Greenland, regardless of what other Americans or certainly what Greenlanders themselves want. Ha, this is really, I did not know about any of this. It's really interesting, so strange, Jamie. I have to tell you, it's a very strange rabbit hole to have gone down over the last few months. Choose clicks. Choose the algorithm. Doom scrolling at 3am, eyes tired, brain rewired. Choose headlines that scream.

Choose fake friends, deep fakes, bots, and comment wars that never end. Choose truth bent and broken until you can't tell up from down or write from wrong. Choose the chaos. Choose the noise. Or don't. Choose news, not noise. CBC News. Okay.

So now that we've dug into a bit of why Greenland, is of such interest. Let's flesh out your argument more on why you think annexing it would be a strategic catastrophe for the United States and just expand for me on the end of NATO and why it would effectively end the alliance, in your opinion. So we touched on this a little bit earlier, but again, it's worth your memory. Greenland is part of Denmark. It is not an independent country. It is not something that can act on its own. It has been part of Denmark for hundreds of years. Denmark, of course, a NATO member state, an ally of the United States of America.

If the United States of America then goes and forcibly pries apart, cleaves apart, a fellow member of NATO, that is not only something we have never seen in the multi-decade long history of NATO itself, but that's the effective end of NATO itself. How can an alliance remain? if every member state suddenly realizes another member, that is to say the United States of America, can target them apparently by kind of out of the blue with no real national security concerns,

how can they trust that the United States of America won't do the same to them? Denmark, warning a move on Greenland would mean the end of NATO. I believe that the American president should be taken seriously when he says he wants Greenland. But I also want to make clear that if the United States chooses to attack another NATO country, militarily, then everything stops.

Again, I think this has been one of the kind of saving graces that NATO has brought to bear. Over the past few decades, people don't really recognize or realize it has helped prevent many territorial disputes, not only in North America, but also in Europe itself. This would be the end of that. This would be the end of that era, and by all appearances, the end of NATO itself. Well, just tell me more about that because you argue in your piece of the expansion of NATO in the 90s and 2000s stood upon border concern. and what happened there? Yeah.

So if we go back to the 1990s, the emergence of not only post-communist governments in Europe, but also new post-Soviet states in and of themselves in the now defunct Soviet Union. One of the real concerns in Washington was these new border disputes that would emerge in countries like Hungary and Romania or elsewhere in eastern and central Europe that go back decades, that go back centuries, and that would flare up once more. now that there was this new geopolitical order coming. There was also concerns. I didn't mention it in the piece,

but there were also concerns about some of those countries developing their own nuclear arsenal, places like Poland, realizing that perhaps they couldn't trust the Russian government to say what it was saying, do what it was doing, and that the only solution would be nuclear weapons.

These were all considerations and all concerns in Washington, D.C., which is what helped convince the Clinton administration at the time, that expanding NATO to these new states was in American interests. And we've certainly seen that payoff. We haven't seen any interstate wars between the Hungarians and the Romanians. We haven't seen any Polish nuclear arsenal. Of course, if NATO ends and that American umbrella goes away, who's to say what the future holds? But yes, that was absolutely a

consideration in expanding NATO in the 1990s. What about Trump's argument that today NATO is essentially irrelevant anyhow, right? That everyone, all anyone cares about is the U.S. anyways, because all of these other NATO countries have not been keeping up with their commitments on defense and they're all weak. Anyhow. I think a lot of things that Donald Trump says, however buffoonish or outlandish, they certainly are, they often come with a kind of kernel of truth to them. And he's absolutely right.

Before he was president in 2016, 2017, most of the NATO member states were not meeting that 2% threshold, right? NATO member states are required to spend 2% of the GDP on national security and defense. And many of them weren't since Donald Trump's emergence. to the presidency in 2017, many of them now do. The NATO defense spending and NATO defense architecture and the strengthening of that is clearly on the upswing, motivated not only by Trump's election in 2016, but of course Russia's invasion

of Ukraine. What he says now is a complete farce in terms of NATO not being able to defend itself or these NATO member states not pulling their fair weight and their fair share. Of course, the United States still has far and away the biggest defense posturing and defense budget of any member states, but it's not fair to say that NATO, member states, even including Canada, are not pulling their fair weight in the United States needs to go its own way. Let's home in on Canada specifically.

Of course, this is our backyard. And what do you think an annexation of Greenland would mean for this country? So I wrote this in that article in foreign policy that you mentioned. I think this would be a little more than a strategic nightmare for Canada. And again, if you look at it geographically, of course. of Greenland acting as an effective massive backstop or doorstop on Canada's eastern flank and northeastern flank and any kind of Canadian maneuverability either in the North Atlantic or even in the Arctic itself. And all of a sudden you would have the United States of America effectively encircling Canada. Of course, not fully. There are still certainly maritime routes that would be available.

But if you look at it from a basic national security architecture and geostrategic architecture, it would be the effect of encirclement by Americans, by an American government. of course, that is expansionist, that has claimed its rights to interfere and expand however it wants in the Western Hemisphere, and that is now led by a president who has said time and again, he wants the annexation of Canada. Again, I don't think, I think the time for viewing Donald Trump's rhetoric and on anything in the Western Hemisphere as laughable or as a joke or as trolling, that has to be put to bed, especially once the United States of America moves on Greenland. this idea that Canada would be made a 51st state or that there'd be of American troops somehow in Canada, maybe not a full-on, full-scale invasion of Montreal or Vancouver, but who's to say that American troops won't start popping up in the Canadian Arctic Islands? Baffin, Baffin Island, for example.

It's right there. And it is all too easy for me to see, Donald Trump's saying, for the sake of protecting American Greenland, we need those islands. What right does Canada have to them anyway? there's no one there and they are full of all kinds of resources that only the United States of America can actually develop. It is extremely easy for me to see him saying that. And of course, I have no idea what the knock on effects of that are going to be. I also think this is a national security and strategic disaster for the United States, but the United States will not be alone in seeing those threats emerge. Another thing that I think might be worth considering for Canadians here is whether as this moves along the U.S. is successful in convincing like a percentage of Greenlanders that they should join

because you could see how that could be replicated in Canada and Alberta, for example, where we have a separatist movement, right? So there are domestic, real, a lot of domestic potential consequences for us here. So in the wake of Venezuela, it really seemed like the response from Europe and Canada was quite tepid, but less so on the Greenland stuff, right? The Europeans and Canadians have come out pretty strong with statements about the sovereignty of Greenland. A joint statement issued by the leaders of France, Britain, Germany, Italy, Poland, Spain and Denmark the same day said it is for Denmark and Greenland and them only to decide on matters concerning Denmark and Greenland.

We stand with Denmark. We stand with Greenland. We're, you know, our closest partnership is with the United States and we'll work with everybody to make sure that we move forward together. Other world leaders took a more direct tone. No member of NATO should attack or threaten another member of NATO, warned the Polish Prime Minister. Otherwise, the alliance would lose its meaning, he said. Denmark and Greenland have both been very clear that they're not interested in any of this. On Friday, Greenland's Prime Minister and four-party leaders released a statement saying they don't want to be Americans.

and also within his own party, there's a split. Republican senators and congressmen have come out against this. Senator John Kennedy said an invasion would be weapons grade stupid. Mitch McConnell wrote threats and intimidation by U.S. officials over American ownership of Greenland aren't as unseemly as they are counterproductive. And do you think any of these responses could influence the administration? Well, I think it's been fantastic to see those responses from European people. capitals and certainly from the Canadians as well. I would have loved to have seen them maybe even a year ago to help push back this, push back against this even earlier. Again, I don't have any

special insight into the administration. There are certainly those in the administration, not least Secretary of State National Security Advisor Marco Rubio, who by all our parents is completely appreciate the role of NATO and certainly completely appreciate the threat of places like Russia and what NATO can continue to do and don't necessarily want to throw the baby out with the bathwater in in that way. I'm especially heartened to see the kind of pushback in Congress itself because I think, and again, this may be getting a little bit into the weeds itself, but, you know, Donald Trump can say whatever he wants. He can declare whatever he wants. He could spark whatever national security crisis that he wants. He cannot unilaterally annex Greenland. That requires the consent of Congress,

whether it is a treaty, a formal treaty with either Greenland or Denmark. That would require two-thirds of the Senate or even something like a joint resolution passed in Congress, which only requires the majority of Congress through itself passed. The other option here, according to Marco Rubio, is that they buy it, right? And there are about 60,000 people on the island. I've seen reporting that they're considering offering around $100,000 per person, which is a lot of money. Like, how likely do you think this is as a possibility?

That is this idea of buying Greenland. Of course, the U.S. has purchased other territories in the past, most especially Alaska, back in 1867. This is not something that Americans haven't done in the past. But I think this is the easiest scenario that they foresee moving forward in the administration is we could just buy Greenlanders consent for annexation. That would help mitigate many of the concerns about things like imperialism, help mitigate many of the things like imperialism, help mitigate many of the things like concerns. like concerns about the continuation of NATO itself. Again, what we're talking about at the end of the day is not just national security, it's not just, you know, geostrategic policies. We're also talking about the consent of the Greenlanders themselves, which I do think can be overlooked in some of these

discussions. This is, as Donald Trump has framed it, purely colonialism through and through of the U.S. claiming Greenland as its own without any Greenlander consent. If the U.S. can get Greenlanders consent, that helps mitigate, again, those concerns about colonialism. Now, there are legal tangles, things with Denmark, of course, would continue. It would be a lot easier for the Americans of Greenland somehow declares independence and then immediately rushes into an American embrace. That would be the smoothest transition with the least possibility of pushback from American allies, which I'm sure is what the administration, or at least many the administration want.

But again, I don't know that that's necessarily likely. We've seen, I don't know how many Greenlanders at this point say, because of Donald Trump's comments, I now want nothing to do with the United States and maybe even nothing to do with independence itself, and I suspect that will continue. He's a bad individual just saying we're something he has to get. I think it's not the way of treating people

like we're small mice or something like. And a message to President Trump from a member of the ruling coalition. I think that we're not a business. We're our people. We're people with our own country and culture, language. We are not a product.

So I think people should, should really think about that. I know Donald Trump is a businessman, but Greenland is not a product. We're people. I suppose the other option is like a trilateral agreement here between Denmark, Greenland, and the United States, and just take me through what that could look like. There are a number of other possibilities that don't include formal American annexation. We can see an expansion on the kind of rights of the United States of America currently enjoys in Greenland, which is pretty broad already in terms of basing rights, in terms of surveillance, and in terms of accessibility. That can certainly be expanded.

There are other parameters. There are other potential agreements that the U.S. has struck up with other nation states that give it the right to veto any other security alliances that those countries, whether it's Palau or Micronesia, preventing them from striking up any kind of security arrangement with, for instance, China. That's certainly a possibility that we could foresee. Just to really zoom out here, the speed at which we are seeing, seeing this global reordering is really it's astounding. Just in the last two weeks, we have seen all these renewed threats against Greenland, Venezuela. There is now reporting that the U.S. is considering strikes in Iran. And what is your greatest worry right now? Well, you know, the greatest worry is that we are sprinting toward a world in which spheres of influence dominates and those primary spheres of the United States of America and China and Russia.

and in a vacuum without any sense of historic understanding that may be appealing to those who say, yes, maybe the United States of America should be the only one dominating the Western Hemisphere. Russia should be in Europe. China should be in Asia. And maybe there are a few other smaller powers that have their own spheres. But of course, we have seen it. If there's one truism throughout history, it is that spheres of influence always collapse, always corrode, always implode, and always end up blowing up in disastrous wars.

This was the world before World War I. This was the world that was trying to emerge before World War II, with places like Germany and Japan claiming their own spheres of influence. They always butt up against one another. You have these colonized nations that are always chafing against these colonial overlords. They never last. They are a farce and a fool's errand. And that is my concern that this emergence that we are seeing, potentially, of a spheres of influence world,

will once again lead to outright disaster with all kinds of knock-on effects. not just for Canada, not just for Europe, not just for Greenland, but for the United States of America as well. Casey, thank you very much for this. Really appreciate it. Thanks so much, Jamie. All right. That is all for today. I'm Jamie Pustle. Thanks so much for listening. Talk to you tomorrow. For more CBC podcasts, go to cbc.ca slash podcasts.