A podcast on the Arctic and Antarctica that applies the lens of geopolitics to analyze a wide range of critical issues pertaining to the polar regions and international affairs. In interviews with leading experts, recurring topics include Greenland, the Arctic Council, climate change, critical raw materials, the Antarctic Treaty System, hybrid warfare, science diplomacy, great power competition between the United States, China and Russia, sustainable development, Svalbard, NATO, Arctic shipping, Alaska, AI, technology and critical infrastructure, the Baltic Sea, military and national security, energy, the role of indigenous peoples in Arctic governance, and more. Polar Geopolitics is hosted by Dr. Eric Paglia, a podcast producer and environmental historian at KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, Sweden.
Episodes
Feb 5, 2026
Feb 5, 2026
55 min
Two prominent Greenlandic voices join this special episode of the Polar Geopolitics podcast,
recorded on location at the Arctic Frontiers conference in Tromsø, Norway. Aaja Chemnitz is one of the two Greenlandic members of the Danish Parliament, and Dr. Sara Olsvig is a former minister of the government of Greenland and the current chair of the Inuit Circumpolar Council. They discuss a range of topics including the place of Greenland in the world and within the Kingdom of Denmark, Greenland’s guiding principle of “nothing about us without us”, relations with the United States and the European Union, Arctic indigenous peoples organizations and the Arctic Council, the security of Greenland and the Arctic, and the socio-economic and political future of Greenland, including the question of independence.
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Jan 28, 2026
Jan 28, 2026
38 min
This is a REPRISE of an episode of Polar Geopolitics originally published on 28 March 2025
Jeppe Kofod, Denmark’s foreign minister during Trump’s first Greenland gambit, joins the podcast to analyze the current situation and share insights from his central role in resolving the previous U.S.-Denmark-Greenland crisis in 2019.
Polar Geopolitics has now started a Substack where we will provide edited episode transcripts, original articles and analyses, and other content on geopolitics, the Arctic and Antarctica: https://polargeopolitics.substack.com
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Jan 19, 2026
Jan 19, 2026
1 hr 26 min
This is a REPRISE of an episode of Polar Geopolitics originally published on 15 April 2024
“Greenland is the most dynamic piece in the new Arctic security jigsaw puzzle”, according to a new book that applies the international relations theory of securitization to analyze the security and geopolitics of Greenland and the Arctic. Marc Jacobsen, Ole Wæver and Ulrik Pram Gad, co-editors and authors of Greenland in Arctic Security: (De)securitization Dynamics under Climatic Thaw and Geopolitical Freeze, join the podcast to discuss the configuration of Arctic security and explain how relations between Nuuk, Copenhagen and Washington, as well as issues such as Greenlandic national identity, independence and sovereignty, are strongly influencing the future of the region.
Marc Jacobsen is an Assistant Professor at the Royal Danish Defence College; Ole Wæver is a Professor at the University of Copenhagen; and Ulrik Pram Gad is a Senior Researcher at the Danish Institute for International Studies. Greenland in Arctic Security is available from the University of Michigan Press: https://press.umich.edu/Books/G/Greenland-in-Arctic-Security2
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Jan 18, 2026
Jan 18, 2026
33 min
What geopolitical reasoning is driving Donald Trump’s incessant pursuit of Greenland? As Deputy Assistant to the President and Chief of Staff of the White House National Security Council during the first Trump administration, Alexander B. Gray was closely involved with the initial U.S. attempt to acquire Greenland in 2019. In this episode of the podcast, Mr. Gray, who is today CEO of the strategic advisory firm American Global Strategies, explains why he shares Donald Trump’s strong belief that Greenland should be situated within the political orbit of the United States. He also discusses the role of Greenland, the Arctic and Antarctic, as well as Canada, as key components of the concept of Hemispheric Defense, and explains why he advocates an America First policy for Antarctica.
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Jan 15, 2026
Jan 15, 2026
38 min
Several weeks into the latest, most acute, phase of the ongoing Greenland Crisis, a Danish strategy for keeping the Kingdom intact in the face of the Trump administration’s unwelcome advances can be discerned. Jon Rahbek-Clemmensen from the Center for Arctic Security Studies at Royal Danish Defence College joins the podcast to provide his analysis of Copenhagen’s approach to managing the crisis, and to discuss dynamics inside the Kingdom of Denmark at a time of extreme external pressure from the United States in its attempt to acquire Greenland.
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Jan 14, 2026
Jan 14, 2026
27 min
With transatlantic ties and the future of NATO at stake, security policy analyst Maria Martisiute from the European Policy Center in Brussels joins the podcast to discuss the role of the EU, NATO and member states in attempting to mitigate the Greenland Crisis. She also presents six recommendations for potentially turning the crisis into an opportunity to enhance Arctic security and foster greater cooperation between Denmark, Greenland, the United States, and European countries and institutions on issues ranging from natural resources to collective security. Her recent article on the topic is called It’s a bargain: the case of Greenland.
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Jan 8, 2026
Jan 8, 2026
34 min
The appointment of Jeff Landry as special envoy reflects the Trump administration’s increasingly assertive pursuit of Greenland – what Prof. Steven Lamy of the University of Southern California sees as a strategy of coercive diplomacy directed towards the Kingdom of Denmark. In an interview recorded in late December, Prof. Lamy, a scholar of political science and international relations, joins the podcast to explain how the current US approach towards acquiring Greenland represents a radical departure from post war American foreign policy and resembles a 19th century spheres of influence worldview.
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Nov 19, 2025
Nov 19, 2025
39 min
What might the future of the Arctic look like, and in what ways has the optimistic Arctic future of 15-20 years ago taken a different path than expected at that time? Mia Bennett, associate professor at the University of Washington and producer of the Cryopolitics blog, joins the podcast to discuss the new book she has co-authored with Klaus Dodds, Unfrozen: the fight for the future of the Arctic (Yale UP 2025). The conversation covers topics such as Arctic flashpoints and future scenarios, the effects of a weakened Arctic Council on the political voice of Arctic indigenous peoples, the demise of Arctic Exceptionalism and narratives of a Global Arctic, interest in the Arctic among Asian states, Greenland, and the role of technologies in the circumpolar North.
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