Who is an Expert on Greenland?
The recent media frenzy surrounding Greenland demands a rethink of who can be considered an expert. Photo: Visit Greenland
The Arctic Institute Knowledge Production Series 2025
- The Arctic Institute’s Knowledge Production in the Arctic Series 2025: An Introduction
- Germany at the Poles: Exploring Legitimacy
- Who is an Expert on Greenland?
Trump’s 2019 and 2024 efforts to obtain Greenland for the United States were a double shock to the Arctic community. For many, it was reminiscent of an imperial America that sought to acquire more territory for its sphere of influence. In both 2019 and 2024, media news outlets immediately reached out to “recognized” experts on Greenland to understand the viability of this proposed purchase and how Trump’s actions could be understood in the context of the Arctic. Both cases, however, also offer an interesting puzzle: who is an expert on Greenland? When news outlets seek expertise, who do they reach out to? In the commentary below, I suggest that there was a vast diversity of experts that media news outlets reached out to. In doing so, they illustrated how an understanding of the Arctic cannot solely rely upon one type of expertise. Instead, news outlets reached out to political scientists and policy practitioners, Greenlandic politicians, Danish policymakers and academics, and those studying US foreign policy. However, the vast majority of outlets did not quote hard scientists or economists on the nuances of Greenland’s block grant or the technical specificities on critical mineral mining. Certainly, both factors were raised in every article, but an expert on Greenland was largely limited to a political spectrum, rather than including other types of expertise that would have painted a more complete picture of the situation on Greenland. While the provocative incident is certainly still a shock to the Arctic community, an examination of the response to this event reinforces the notion that understanding any part of the Arctic is a task that must involve multiple types of expertise.
The Return of an Imperial US or a Strategic Political Move?
Media outlets first sought to understand how to situate Trump’s statements in broader U.S. policy, both in 2019 and 2024. Was it, as some argued, an older variation of the U.S. used to behave in the world? For example, Dr. Rob Huebert, an Associate Professor at the University of Calgary, was quoted in a CBC article that Trump’s actions in 2024 represented a return to a ‘Manifest Destiny’ style of thinking. POLITICO also published a 2024 explainer in which they interviewed the previous National Security Council chief during the Trump administration and a former State Department lawyer and legal advisor and other officials on Trump’s intentions. In 2019, similarly, Foreign Policy quoted Stephanie Pezard, a senior political scientist at the RAND Corporation on broader geopolitical changes in the Arctic and how US foreign policy might adapt to this new world.
Others suggested that while the move was not strategically thought out, that there was political calculus behind it. The strategic position of Greenland for the US has had historical weight – particularly regarding the Pituffik (then Thule Air Base) Space Base’s role in the Cold War. Greenland was an important site for missile defense and also had maritime proximity to the GIUK (Greenland-Iceland-United Kingdom) Gap, an important maritime area for US-Soviet tensions. News outlets sought to understand whether this logic held true in modern strategic competition and thus reached out to those with such expertise. Particularly in 2024, War on the Rocks published a piece by Dr. Jon Rahbek-Clemmensen highlighting why the logic behind a US Free Association with Greenland does not hold up to scrutiny. Organizations like The Arctic Institute itself also acknowledged in 2019 that there was a huge spike in media requests having to do solely with understanding Trump’s strategic interests in Greenland.
Danish and Greenlandic Expertise: Greenland is Not for Sale
Perhaps the most commonly used and sought-after expertise in 2019 and 2024 was from Greenland and Denmark itself. Many news outlets used quotes and interviews from experts on Greenlandic politics to understand whether this purchase was even feasible. The vast majority of experts, politicians, and practitioners immediately rebuked this proposal in 2019, and have had to couch their responses in 2024 given changes in the Danish-Greenlandic relationship. Many Danish experts were quoted in the media, as the circle of those studying Greenland is relatively small and thus media outlets were able to reach a critical mass of those studying Greenland through a foreign policy perspective quickly. For example, Dr. Marc Jacobsen, Associate Professor with the Royal Danish Defense College, suggested that Denmark didn’t take the Greenland bid as a laughing matter, either in 2019 or in 2024. Others such as Dr. Jens Wendel-Hansen, a researcher at Aarhus University on Danish-Greenlandic relations and Dr. Kristian Soby Kristiansen, director of the Center for Military Studies in Copenhagen, were quoted on this complicated relationship between the two entities. CNN also interviewed Danish officials to get an explanation of how 2024 was different from 2019.
So too were Greenlanders themselves also sought after for their knowledge. Politicians and political leaders in Greenland were asked for comments on their reading of the situation in both cases. In a 2024 New York Times article, for example, then-Greenlandic Prime Minister Mute B. Egede stated “We are not for sale and will never be for sale. We must not lose our long struggle for freedom.” Greenlandic member of Parliament Aaja Chemnitz was also cited as an expert on the recent stunt involving Trump Jr. in Greenland. In 2019 similarly, local Greenlanders were quoted as saying “You can’t just buy an island or a people.”
Where is the Science and Economics Behind Greenland’s Importance?
Interestingly and unexpectedly, the vast majority of news outlets primarily quoted political scientists and those with experience working on or living in Greenland, but they largely ignored experts on Greenland’s economic situation, particularly those who could clarify information about the block grant the island nation receives from Denmark. Many news articles mentioned the block grant but did not quote economics experts on how the block grant works. Similarly, stories both from 2019 and 2024 acknowledged that Greenland had a significant degree of critical mineral mining potential but did not fully engage with external experts – at least quoted experts – on how mining processes work in Greenland or the general public mood surrounding mining. While few individual scientists were quoted as sources of expertise, many outlets such as the Straits Times quoted a European Commission 2023 survey that explicitly handled Greenlandic critical raw materials. However, many of the articles did draw upon environmental experts to describe the environmental impacts of mining.
An insider to the Arctic community would agree that a nuanced conception of the Arctic is not solely a question that can be answered by a political scientist. The interdisciplinary nature of understanding the Arctic must rely upon expertise from environmental scientists, Indigenous knowledge, economic and political expertise and area knowledge that is specific to different parts of the Arctic. Even while some may decry the alarmism surrounding how Greenland is being portrayed in the media, the different type of expertise at hand and sought out for these pieces provides some relief that the knowledge informing these stories is nuanced and mediated amongst different scales and types of knowledge. That being said, expertise on Greenland must not be solely limited to the political – but rather should also include interdisciplinary forms of knowledge that would – if included – offer a more complex read of the Arctic’s most popular island.
Gabriella Gricius is a Senior Fellow at The Arctic Institute.