The Rest Is Classified - 120. Greenland Intelligence Scoop: Trump, Xi, and Putin's Battle for the Arctic

Episode Date: January 23, 2026

Why is Trump backing down on his plans to seize Greenland? Are the Russian's already spying in the Arctic? And should we be fearing Chinese influence in the icy north? In this emergency podcast, David and Gordon delve into the intelligence story regarding Greenland and ask why Trump's forcefulness may be distracting us from the plans of China and Russia. ------------------- Make someone a Declassified Club Member this year – go deeper into the world of espionage with exclusive Q&As, interviews with top intelligence insiders, regular livestreams, ad-free listening, early access to episodes and live show tickets, and weekly deep dives into original spy stories. Members also get curated reading lists, special book discounts, prize draws, and access to our private chat community. Just go to ⁠⁠⁠⁠therestisclassified.com⁠⁠⁠ or join on Apple Podcasts. ------------------- EXCLUSIVE NordVPN Deal ➼ ⁠⁠⁠https://nordvpn.com/restisclassified⁠⁠⁠ Try it risk-free now with a 30-day money-back guarantee. ------------------- Pre-order a signed edition of David's latest novel, The Persian, ⁠here.⁠ ------------------- Email: ⁠⁠[e-mail]⁠ Instagram: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@restisclassified⁠ Social Producer: Emma Jackson Assistant Producer: Alfie Rowe Producer: Becki Hills Head of History: Dom Johnson Exec Producer: Tony Pastor Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

For exclusive interviews, bonus episodes, ad-free listening, early access to series, first look at live show tickets, a weekly newsletter, and discounted books. Join the declassified club at the rest is classified.com. Will Donald Trump seize Greenland? And what does that mean for the Arctic and international security? Well, welcome to The Rest Is Classified. I'm Gordon Carrera. And I'm David McCloskey.

And we're taking a break from our normal routine this week because we wanted to offer you all a quick one-off emergency pod looking at Greenland. It's obviously been in the news following Donald Trump's increasingly forceful statements expressing his desire to control the territory, which is, of course, technically, part of NATO-Alli Denmark, and all the talk at Davos about a potential framework deal to resolve that dispute, although things do seem to keep changing by the minute. We've looked at Greenland before on the podcast. We did a series last year on some of the history, which people might be interested in if they want to go back and listen to that and we'll reference it a little bit. But we thought it was worth an update, didn't we, David, to dig a bit deeper into the context

of what's going on now? Yeah, I guess the question, Gordon, is this the new normal? Because we've been saying, I think every week since Venezuela, we've said, ah, we're breaking from our normal routine to just kind of do this one more time. And now we have wandered into a world where I had to read a question to start this episode about the American president seizing a piece of Danish territory. So there we are. This is where we're at. It's obviously we should say it's a fast moving situation. We are recording this on the 21st of January. We're going to go deep on the rest is classified and offer our rest is classified take on the issue of Greenland from a national security perspective and really, I think, try to explain what is behind the increasingly insane

news and presidential statements that come out on this topic. So we'll have a look at some of these these big issues surrounding Arctic and international security, U.S. bases, and of course what the spies are up to. But first, here's a quick message from our sponsors at HP. This episode is sponsored by HP. Most people are not counter-espionage experts, but that won't stop them getting targeted by cyber criminals seeking to extract their secrets. HP understands that approximately four in 10 UK businesses have reported cyber breaches in the past 12 months alone. That's why HP business laptops, desktops, and workstations bought directly on HP store are secure straight out of the box with their endpoint security. No more stressing about dodgy emails or unexplained pop-ups.

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Two counts of sleeping and makeup. One count of using disposable wipes. I knew my routine had to change. So I switched to Garnier-Missler water. It gently cleanses, perfectly removes makeup, up and provides 24-hour hydration. Clear away the evidence with the number one Missler Water worldwide by Garnier. Let's start maybe with the broader issue of Arctic security before we get into Greenland specifically because I think that's the kind of strategic frame in some ways for the conversation that we're going to have about Greenland in particular. Yeah, because I think when we talk about why Greenland's in the news, why Donald Trump talks

about it, he talks about it in terms of national security, world security. international security, and particularly Arctic security. So I think it's worth unpacking some of the kind of security angles, first of all. And one of the ones which comes up frequently is this idea that Greenland is about preventing Chinese and Russian influence in the Arctic and how much that is a real thing. So I think it is worth saying that there is a real thing, which is Arctic security, which is increasingly important. And the battle for the Arctic is heating up, if you can say that about the Arctic. But it is because the Arctic's heating up.

And climate change, which is a thing, is melting the ice. And that is opening up this battle for influence. Last year, the UK's Strategic Defence Review said it was likely the high north will be ice-free each summer by 2040 and some think it's going to be even faster than that. There used to be this phrase, high-north, low-tension. I think unfortunately high north, high tension is the reality we're in because as it unfreezes, there's going to be this battle for influence. Russia, first of all, Russia is the biggest Arctic power in many ways.

A fifth of its territories in the Arctic and it accounts for more than half of the coastline. So it's always had this big Arctic presence, lots of bases in the Arctic. The Koliya Peninsula, which is near Finland, is where much of the Russian nuclear submarine fleet is based and where its nuclear deterrence is. So Russia sees the Arctic as its backyard. And in that way, actually, the melting Arctic is an opportunity for Russia, but also it's something it worries about because I think there's this fear for Russia that they're going to have to defend the Arctic even more as it opens up. And as everyone else moves in and as more things open up. So the Russians are in a way of always been there, always present, always active

with military bases, but perhaps just even more so now, partly, I think, in their minds defensively, though. When it kind of gets to the great game feel of some of this, because I guess great game, you know, this idea of kind of imperial competition over a, I don't know, strategic vacuum in some ways or a piece of territory that's sort of weak and divided, I mean, for much of the Cold War, well, for really, all of history up until now, the Arctic has kind of been like a barrier. You want to know what's coming over it, right? But there's not something to compete over. And now all of the sudden, we're in a world where because of the melting ice, because of the opening of these, you know, sort of sea routes, it's actually like an ocean that everybody is trying to compete for influence inside of. It's not a wall anymore. It's an open field. China's the other power, and that's the other one that Donald Trump has talked about.

China is keen to move in. It's quite interesting. China calls itself a near Arctic power because it's not actually in the Arctic, but it wants to project its influence there. And for China, it's about this idea of a polar silk road, a new northern shipping route, which could be much faster than going through the Suez Canal, potentially cuts the shipping time from Asia to Europe by nearly half. And you've seen China start to project.

more influence up in the North, in the Arctic, using things like scientific missions, education, environmental cooperation, all of that building influence and partnerships across the region because it wants to secure that trade route. It's also building up its fleet of icebreakers. I think this is fascinating, that Russia's already got a pretty big fleet of icebreakers. It's got kind of 40 to 50. China's building them fast to try and gain access and secure access to those shipping routes. And, I mean, China and Russia are working together to some extent, although I think they're also quite suspicious of each other and competing. And I think the Russians are a bit nervous about having the Chinese in what they see as their

Arctic backyard. And in the meantime, it is true, I think, don't you think, David, that the US and other countries have actually been a bit slow to move into this field and to think about the Arctic in the same way, because the Russians have certainly been there the last 10, well, for decades, but building up their bases and restoring some of them in the last 10, 20 years. And I think it's only now that Western countries are really thinking about it again. Yeah, the stats on the disparity in the icebreaker fleets are really illuminating on that front because I think Russia has around 50, and I think the US has two, something like that. And another one coming.

And another one coming, but that is a great, I think, stat to show how sort of bottom of mind the Arctic is for most American policymakers over the last couple decades and certainly for most Americans. Yeah. And it's interesting. I was reading that the U.S. is building up its icebreaker fleet. They're going to have to build the vessels, the first ones, at least in Finland, because they've got the expertise in it.

So it's a sign that a bit behind in that. building program. So Arctic security is a real thing and a growing thing. I think, though, when you get to Greenland specifically, that's where this argument of Donald Trump starts to break down, because he's talked about, well, there's lots of evidence of Russian and Chinese ships off Greenland, which gives the impression that there's these kind of fleets of Chinese and Russian icebreakers or Navy vessels or other things right off the coast. And that's, there just isn't the evidence for that specifically, is there? What have Russia and China been doing in Greenland?

Last year in the pod, we talked a little bit about how there were sort of Chinese commercial connections or attempts to get access to rare earth concessions or even to ports and Greenland. I mean, is that, is it not happening or is it just kind of more sort of flash than noise? I think that's right. That's where the issue is. And there's not much evidence of Russian influence on Greenland itself. But it's definitely true that Chinese have looked at it, and there's been talk about Chinese investments in ports and infrastructure. But it's kind of a long-term issue,

rather than a really present issue right now in terms of Chinese influence. I think the one thing you could say is that if Greenland did become independent from Denmark and then started looking for investment and economic opportunity and growth. You could imagine it looking to China, and that would be something that would worry the United States. But that is a couple of stages down from where we are at the moment. That dynamic of Greenland as, you know, Danish territory and how the US has traditionally exerted influence over Greenland has been three. Copenhagen. In the past, if there are commercial connections between Greenland and between Chinese,

you know, state-owned companies or these kind of pseudo-private companies in China to get concessions over minerals, let's say. The way Washington has killed them in the past is by going to Denmark and having Denmark squeeze Greenland. And the concern, which again at this point is more looking forward or theoretical would be if you no longer have that influence, which, by the way, what's going on right now seems like a great way to maybe undermine your ability to influence the Danish government toward positive ends. But you would, in theory, lose that ability, right, if Greenland becomes independent. But there's also not an imminent concern there. Is that right? I mean, it's not like this isn't happening in the next six to 12 months.

Yeah, it's another one of those kind of abstract, slightly long distance, It's the same, I think, you mentioned minerals there, and there is this talk about how much access there could be to critical minerals, which are a big deal at the moment, and China has leveraged its control of the critical minerals supply chain against the U.S. in trade talks. And it's true that there are minerals plus oil and other things off Greenland. But again, that doesn't really make sense because, you know, this is, the critical minerals are under the ice or off the sea. there's, I think, 100 miles of paved road on Greenland. There's none of the infrastructure to extract this stuff easily. Again, it's a long-term issue, definitely, but not a short-term issue that either the minerals are accessible. There's lots of other places you can get them, and actually it's the refining of the minerals, which is the real kind of blockage point for the US rather than

access to them. So again, it's a bit like, you know, was Venezuela all about oil? I don't think so. and is Greenland really about critical minerals secretly and resource acquisition? I don't think that stacks up either. Well, what about President Trump's claim that the U.S. needs it for defense? I mean, I think even in his speech at Davos, Trump said pretty openly, you know, this is about a piece of ice, and it's not about the rare earths, you know, it's just about security, right? It's about security in the Arctic for the United States.

I mean, is that, do we buy that? Greenland does have a strategic position. It is very important. One of the origins of all of this is that there is from the Second World War where they realised that there was this thing called the Greenland-I-I-U-K gap, which is where submarines passed through, and Nazi submarines they were tracking and World War II were passing through. And they realized this is a choke point, which is Greenland, Iceland and the UK,

where if you're going from the Baltic and where Russia is now, but in the past it was the Nazis in the Second World War, the submarines coming into the Atlantic, that's where you go through this gap. So there's a strategic issue with that, which people are more worried about now and Russian submarines potentially going through that gap. That is true. That's a thing. And actually the UK Foreign Secretary last year went to Iceland and talked about building up some of the monitoring capability, which I think was using AI and things to detect Russian submarine activity in that gap. So there is a strategic, aspect to Greenland there. And then there's this issue which what we talked about in our previous

series of podcasts, which is it is important and it has been historically because of its location for space and missiles. And it's that thing where if you look at the map and you turn it around a different way, you can see Greenland's strategic position because the shortest route for missiles or in the past bombers to go from the Soviet Union, now Russia to the continental or United States is over Greenland. It's over the North Pole, not any other route. So that's the strategic reason why Greenland, which is otherwise might seem very remote, is actually quite central when you look at the world in that way.

And that goes back to this base that the US does have. This is the one I visited back in 2008. It was Toulé, and it's now Putufik space base, which is this wild place on the very northern... tip of Greenland, really remote with a huge runway that the United States built, which we looked at this in the podcast series, was because this was a really important strategic base, because they were running in the Cold War, these things called Chrome Dome missions, which was US bombers flying sorties continually from this base, armed with nuclear missiles, because

if the Soviet Union attacked, they were ready and already in the air to head. over the pole and bomb the Soviet Union. And one of these planes actually crashes and parts of the nuclear weapon, not the actual nuclear core, but the explosives around it go off and the parts of the bomb at least go through the ice and into the water. It's a kind of mad story. So I was there in 2008 visiting this crazy base on top of the world, which was absolutely fascinating because it told you about Greenland Strategic Position.

particularly then it had been the Cold War. And at one point in the Cold War, it had thousands of people there. But it has diminished. I think it's worth saying that it's down to, I think, a couple of hundred people in that base now. And it's still there because it's got a radar warning station. And this is the relevant point, I guess, for what Donald Trump is claiming, is what's there now, and I stood outside it, is this huge radar century system, massive. I think we've got pictures of it, which monitors activity in space. and potentially missile launches and what's going on over the top of the earth. And, you know, I remember when we drove there in a car, the car engine started kind of popping because of the power of the radar. It was kind of weird how intense it was. And you weren't able to do math ever again after that, right? No, exactly. I've never been the same since, David.

They're staring at staring into the dome of the radar for a few minutes straight. Yeah, exactly. Point being, back to the... is that if Donald Trump talks about Golden Dome and wanting to build this missile defense system to protect the United States, you could argue that that base has a role to play and is important. But two really important points.

One is, the US kind of neglected and let its military base run down over the years. And secondly, the 1951 treaty with Denmark about Greenland says the US can basically do whatever at once anyway with that base or militarily on the island. They've got the freedom to do it anyway. It doesn't require owning Greenland to expand that base or to even potentially put more bases in. The US has got a pretty free reign already. That is the nub of it, right? We essentially have military sovereignty over Greenland at this point. Yeah. I mean, with some limits, but effectively

a pretty free hand. If we wanted to build more bases in Greenland, we would be be able to do that, though. There would be a way to make that happen. So I guess it raises this question of why does Donald Trump want complete and total control of Greenland? What's, yeah, what do you think the answer is? That's the thing, because I think up to now you can make the case that Arctic security is a bigger thing. Greenland has a strategic position. Arctic security has been neglected. You can even make the case, which the most, the most, the most, the most, you more hawkish people in the US do, is Denmark capable or willing to spend the money to defend Greenland and to build the kind of bases and the US might need to build more bases if it wants

to build Golden Dome? You can make all of those cases and still say, well, the US could still do that with Danish cooperation without owning the real estate. Could do it through the existing deal or cut a new deal if it felt it needed it. So I think that's where the problem is. If If the US had been making a subtler argument about Arctic security and international security in the strategic role of Greenland, I think it could have made a pretty good case as to why the US needs to take a bigger role on Greenland in order to defend it and deal with the Arctic security issues. But it's that issue of the kind of language of ownership and control and acquisition, which I think is where all the obstacles are coming from. And it's this idea that

Donald Trump's saying, we need complete and total control of Greenland. And if you speak to people, they say, well, he looked at a map in his first term. And he basically said, why don't we own that? Why is that Danish? Why does that belong to Denmark over here, this small European country in his mind, and not to us when it's in our hemisphere? And I do think it is as simple as that for a real state guy, don't you think? I think that's a large part of it. There's a tendency here are the states to kind of take what Trump is doing and then to layer on some strategic rationale. And you could make the case, I suppose. I'm going to talk out of both sides of my mouth here for a second. You could make the case, I suppose, that this is Trump's effort to sort of position

the U.S. for what's going to be sort of a decades-long competition for influence. of the Arctic and you want to deter adversaries from expanding on Greenland. You want to position yourself for, you know, access to these new sea lanes and access to resources. You want to ensure that the Arctic doesn't become kind of a strategic vacuum or the U.S. doesn't have the same influence that Russia and China might. But I don't think that that's what's going on here. And it does seem like at the end of the day, it might be as simple as this guy wants to add more territory to the United States of America and to say that, you know, he accomplished that. Yeah. Legacy. Legacy building. Because it's hard to, you know, I'm sure we'll talk about this more. At the end, it's kind of hard to understand why, if you could position yourself for this conflict or this competition for influence, without undermining the Western alliance,

in fact, which you probably want unified for this competition, if you could do all of that without having to crack relations with the Europeans or with the Canadians, why not do this the easy way? Well, I do that way, yeah. And get to the same outcomes. Because in that case, you don't actually own the territory, and that does seem to be a lot of what this is about.

Yeah, and I do think he has become slightly fixated with it. in that, looking at it and thinking, I want that. I was listening to, I was at a talk, Fiona Hill, the former Russia advisor in Trump's first term, the National Security Council, was talking at an event just the other day. And she said, it's an interesting phrase. She said, Greenland is to Trump as Ukraine is to Putin. Now, it sounds like an incendiary claim. And I'm not suggesting that Trump is equivalent to Putin or that Trump is going to fight for Greenland

in the way Ukraine. But I think her point was actually it's about a fixation that comes into someone's mind. And I think in Putin's mind, the idea that he had to have Ukraine and it couldn't, if it was linked to NATO or moving close to NATO, it was an absolute threat to his security. He became fixated by that. And I think her point is that that is similar to what Donald Trump is starting to feel or has started to feel with Greenland. It's like, I just have to have that. Because if I don't have it, then you know, Chinese or Russians are going to move in and it's going to be a threat to it to my security. And I do think there is something for all the rationalizations you can do. There's something kind of emotive there, really. Yeah. It's very smegal-esque, isn't it?

Yeah. My precious. Well, maybe there Gordon with Lord of the Rings analogy sort of landing, landing the plane on the fixation that our president seems to have with Greenland. Let's take a break when we come back. We'll see what the spies are up to. Well, welcome back as the Arctic allegedly heats up, Gordon. The spies are sure to follow, aren't they? I mean, what kind of competition for influence would this be if we didn't have a whole bunch of intelligence gathering and espionage going on up in the Arctic?

Yeah, I was trying to think. I don't think historically there's been like a, MI-17, which is like the Arctic Bureau. Although there was that James Bond film where there was an Arctic base, I think, for one of the baddies. I can't remember. I think that's the one with the invisible car. Yeah, but anyway. So I think there is a little bit of history of this, but not much. I guess that's the point is that the Arctic, for all its importance, you don't really hear that much about human intelligence gathering. I think there's been a lot of signals intelligence gathering and bases up in the Arctic and things like that because you're looking for a,

submarines moving. So there's that kind of technical intelligence, which has long been up there, monitoring sub-movements, monitoring military facilities, trying to collect probably communications and stuff like that. So it feels like that's been there. There's been a few signs, I don't know if you've seen much, but of more human espionage of other things going on. So the Russians, I think, There was an illegal, one of these deep cover spies that they were running up in Norway, I think, who'd done some work and was a kind of posing as an academic lecturing on Arctic security, clearly collecting information on that. So the Norwegians have also talked quite a lot about Russian spies on their border, about drone activity.

That's kicking up a gear. Of course, we've had these new countries join NATO, Sweden and Finland, which has also added, to Russia's desire to spy up there and to make the whole Arctic region a bit busier. And you hear talk about influence operations, about China and Russia, perhaps running influence operations to try and work on local populations, perhaps to stir them up against, whether it's the Canadians or whoever else. So I think, I think, you know, you hear bits about that. So it's definitely picking up, isn't it? I guess the more complicated question is, is what are the Americans up to, David?

Well, you know who's running a great influence operation to turn large portions of Greenland's population against the United States right now? I think I know who. Who do you think it is? Is it the Russians? It's Gordon? Whatever, whatever influence operation or active measure, the Russians may have been running to sort of like so discord between Greenland and Denmark or to divide nature. and the Americans to divide the Western Alliance

has now been I would say overtaken by events. We used to talk about things being OBE inside the CIA. You know, if you were trying to write a piece,

it would be OBE if it was just overtaken. I feel like whatever the Russians were doing has now been overtaken by, we'll just stand back and watch. Yeah. But yeah, exactly.

You don't, you can just kind of step that down. I mean, there was this interesting Wall Street Journal report that came out I think last spring about the U.S. stepping up intelligence gathering efforts regarding Greenland itself, which I think is fascinating. I don't remember when I was inside the agency, I don't remember there being Greenland analysts. There certainly were analysts who would work on like Denmark and there were, you know, we kind of, and I'm going to get some flack for my old comrades. But we kind of had this said working on what felt like very important top. on the Middle East, you know, Syria, Iran, working on counterterrorism issues, you know,

civil war on Iraq, whatever it might be, that kind of those were the places where you're writing a lot of PDBs, you're working long hours. And then you had these kind of, you know, knife and fork set analysts who were covering the Benelux countries and the politics and economics of Europe. And you just kind of thought, eh, that's, I don't know. I don't know if that's the speed I want to be operating at. But now, if you're the Danish, you know, leadership analyst, man, you're, you're like, you're busy. I just have this vision of this, the Greenland analyst, so he'd been kind of slumbering in his cubicle at Langley, suddenly being like woken up and been like, go brief the president.

So, yeah, go get moving. I mean, this Wall Street Journal article, though, said that the director of national intelligence, the DNI, Tulsi Gabbard, had issued, and I actually, about, I'm not familiar with this term. This might be news since I left. A collection emphasis. message, which sounds kind of weak sauce to intelligence agency heads back in May. They were directed to learn more about Greenland's independence movement and attitudes on

American resource extraction on the island. And a collection emphasis message from the DNI sounds like something that the director of any other intel agency might be permitted to throw into their waste paper basket if they so desire. I'm not sure how much Trump is really interacting with the PDB. But I would have to wager that there would have been articles written over the past year for the PDB on Greenland's independence movement on what the Russians and the Chinese are up to in the Arctic or in Greenland in particular. You know, the other interesting thing here, which is from this Wall Street Journal article, also suggests, it doesn't say it quite directly, but suggests that some of the spying would be happening against the Danes. and that's, you know, obviously that gets kind of sensitive.

But the Danes are different from the Brits, the Canadians, the Five Eyes members, right? And so the US spies on NATO allies, right? We do that. That is not uncommon. So this is probably this is something that's happening prior to Trump, even if there's more emphasis on it now. Yeah, I do know that when that report came out in the Wall Street Journal, the Danish foreign minister said just after it that he was concerned about the report. telling a news agency, it worries me a lot because we don't spy between friends. And I was thinking to myself, oh, you've got a bit to learn over the Danish foreign minister. Because, I mean,

for a start, you never clearly read the Snowden files and the fact that, you know, the US was collecting, collecting on Angela Merkel, the Chancellor of Germany cell phone. So there was a bit of me which was like, welcome to the, to reality. But of course, you don't want to talk about it. But I mean, I think that, yeah, there are different aspects of it because some of that collection might be, let's understand what the dynamics are in Greenland. And there's a kind of legitimate bit maybe, which is, are the Chinese buying influence, you know, what's going on? Are the Chinese running influence operations in Greenland?

Or are some of those Chinese bids or commercial bids cover for a kind of state activity to gain a foothold in the eye? And you could see why. The Chinese never do that, Gordon. The Chinese don't do that, right? Yeah, definitely not. Why would you, you would use a commercial footprint as a foothold for your political influence? Allegedly. Allegedly.

So you could see why there are things that if you, the US, you might put at the more legitimate end. The next level is you might want to understand the Greenlandic population because you want to influence them yourselves, because you're going to run a campaign to try and win them over. And then the next stage is, are you spying on Denmark and Danish leaders to know what they're doing and is someone collecting on them? There are different stages of sensitivity and complexity there, but it wasn't clear from that report, and I'm sure no one can confirm it. But all of those are plausible to me, you know, that those are things that people might be interested in. So what do you think happens, Gordon, to NATO or to the five eyes, let's say, if, which I can't believe I'm saying this, but if we take Greenland by force, what has? happens. Well, I think if the US takes Greenland by force, which to be fair to Donald Trump,

he said at Davos they're not going to do, then I think NATO dies, as it is, would have to be reconstituted something else, maybe a European alliance without the US. The trust that the US has got the Europeans back is already declining even without that. But I think that would be the end. So I think that is at the worst case scenario. I think there are kind of previous steps even though, which do cause strains in the alliance and do undermine it. And I think we'll play into the intelligence game. And I think for the UK, it's pretty tricky, isn't it? Because when Kirstama at the start of the week, as this all blew up, not quite literally,

but nearly after some of those messages, he was there. And it was interesting because he gave this press conference in Downing Street. And I did notice quite a few times he was like, this is big, this is important, We've got to stand up for ourselves, all these things. But by the way, maintaining the defence, intelligence, and nuclear relationship with the US is important. And there was a kind of sign there which was these things are important. And more to the point, they are quite difficult to disentangle. You don't do that overnight, even if you were thinking about it.

So I think there was a sign there. This is not simple, straightforward things. Don't rush to do anything which does permanent lasting damage to this alliance. because it's important to the UK security. And I think that was a clear message from him. But I don't know what you think. I think, for instance, Five Eyes. So Five Eyes is US, UK, Australia, New Zealand and Canada.

Now, yeah. But how does, I mean, you tell me, how does Five Eyes work when the Canadians are worried about what the US are doing? I mean, it becomes a less effective alliance, doesn't it? because I just, the trust starts to go. I saw a report, I think this was yesterday. I'm not, I'm not sure if it was credible, but that the Canadians had actually wargamed a U.S. invasion from the South.

Did you see this? I didn't see it. No, I didn't see that. Yeah, I shouldn't be spewing that without having double checked that I just saw it on social media. And it seemed to come from like a relatively credible Western reporter. But it's, oh, and Becky is saying it was reporting. Yeah, it's reported at the Times. Must be true.

It probably is true. If I were the Canadians, you might at least give some thought to it and then put it out there that you did this so that you can show that there's a cost potentially to the US. But in the intelligence world, this is wild because if you're the Canadians, you'd want to have intelligence on what the chances are that this might happen.

But the people that you're worried about are part of the main intelligence alliance on which you rely for all of your intelligence. I mean, it's crazy. And the five eyes, we should say, they share a lot of stuff, but not everything. There are points when New Zealand was kind of really on the margins of the alliance. And so there's different groupings within it. It's not as simple as that everything gets shared. And you can see it, you can see it basically becoming less effective and less useful,

and they're being less sharing as there's less trust in that alliance. what are the lines from the report that Becky has copied to the chat here is great. Canada's resistance would rely upon insurgency tactics similar to those deployed by the Mujah Hadin in Afghanistan in the fight against the Soviet Union, according to reports. So, I mean, you know, I don't love the thought, Gordon, that I would potentially, I'd get a Stigger missile fired at me, you know, above Toronto as I'm, you know, as we march into Canada. I mean, it's just, it's kind of wild, isn't it? Some of this stuff is wild.

The problem inside the intelligence sharing component of this, Because as you say in the, take the U.S. U.S. U.K. dynamic inside Five Eyes, you rely on us for your nuclear deterrent. And unwinding that is really hard. It's a long-term game. Yeah. That's a long-term game. Inside the intelligence sharing components, be they human or SIGAN or otherwise, the problem from the standpoint of the Brits, the Canadians, any, any non-U.S. member of the Five Eyes is that the U.S. is responsible for. for so much of the intelligence that is shared and the resources that get doled out inside

this group. Because like the U.S. does things like we pay the OPEX, the operating expenditure, for SIGAN installations that the UK runs. And so the problem is that asymmetry. And this is why I think your Starmer is making these kind of slightly mealy-mouthed statements about, you know, what the UK would be able to do is because if we all inside the five, eyes have a hundred units of something, but you only contribute 10 of those. I can push you around, because ultimately, if this thing falls apart, the U.S. gets less, but you guys get a lot less. And that's that dynamic, I think, is the kind of ugly. That's the ugly dynamic. Once it gets transactional, once it gets transactional, it's pretty hard. I mean, I do think particularly geography matters.

I mean, there are a lot of U.S. bases. When the U.S. intercepted that Shadowfleet tanker. He did it from UK bases. There are, you know, Filingdale's, you know, early warning system base, which is in the UK in Yorkshire, there's Menworth Hill. There is Ramstein in Germany, which is a massive logistics base for the U.S. military. So there are these things. SIGAT installations in Oman in Cyprus.

All around the world. In Australia, at Pine Gap, right? And all of those would actually, if you withdrew those, would do damage to U.S. capabilities. But the problem is, you're right. it would also signal the blowing up an alliance, which would do more damage to intelligence partners or to strategic partners. So if you end up in that place, then we're all in a bad way. And I think that is what people are saying is we do not need to go to that yet. But I suppose last point for me would be no one wants to blow up the relationship quickly. Everyone wants to see if they can make

as much of its advice as possible. But you would be mad if you're the UK, if you weren't quietly thinking, how do we de-risk this relationship? We spent a long time thinking how do we de-risk our economic dependencies on China or our relationships on China? You'd be mad if you're in the UK or Europe as well and you weren't thinking how do we de-risk in the medium term and maybe quite quietly our dependencies and relationships with the United States just in case we need to go that way. And I think that is not a positive sign for the relationship, but that's what it feels like. That's exactly right. I think that is a great. place. Not great. You don't

I mean, but that is the place to leave this. Please let us know what you think, you know, of emergency episodes like this. Because obviously, if you've been paying attention to our programming over the past three weeks, we've been deep in what's actually going on today. We are, I think,

planning Gordon, that we will return next week to Kim Filby. Yeah, I lost. The story of the young Kim Philby at last, Britain's greatest traitor. But do let us know what you think about these emergency episodes and I think this is, you know, this issue and the broader dynamic of tension and mistrust inside the Five Eyes and the USUK relationship is one we're going to keep coming back to.

Yeah, I think that's right. We should definitely come back to it. So just a reminder, Kim Filby, hopefully next week. If you want to hear all of those episodes as soon as they drop, do join the Declassified Club. But the rest is classified.com. You'll also get access to some great bonus materials, some interviews and a special tape where you'll be. you get to hear Kim Filby himself talk. But otherwise, we hope you've enjoyed this special emergency session on Greenland. And we'll see you next time. We'll see you next time.