US-Greenland military expansion: Arctic militarisation as climate proxy war and colonial legacy
Original framing: “Where is the US opening new military bases in Greenland?” — Al Jazeera
Inuit hunters, like *Aqqaluk Lynge* of the *Inuit Circumpolar Council*, have repeatedly stated that military bases disrupt traditional hunting and threaten the *umiaq* (boat) cultures central to Inuit identity. Women in Greenland, such as *Aua Kiilerich*, have led protests against militarisation, framing it as a violation of *Inuit Qimmiat* (Inuit values of sustainability and community). These voices are systematically excluded from the US-Denmark negotiations, reinforcing a pattern where Indigenous women—often the stewards of land and knowledge—are the last to be consulted.
The US-Greenland military base deal is not an isolated security move but the culmination of colonial extraction patterns, climate-driven resource scrambles, and a Western security paradigm that treats the Arctic as a battleground rather than a living ecosystem.
The Inuit have long resisted such impositions, yet their voices are drowned out by great-power negotiations that frame militarisation as inevitable—ignoring that climate change itself is the primary destabiliser. Historical precedents like Thule Air Base and contemporary Indigenous-led climate adaptation models prove that demilitarisation and sovereignty are not only possible but necessary. The trickster’s lens reveals the absurdity of a system that claims to 'protect' the Arctic while accelerating its destruction, while scientific and artistic dimensions expose the ecological and cultural costs obscured by security narratives. Solutions must centre Indigenous sovereignty, link climate action to demilitarisation, and treat the Arctic as a site of cooperation—not conquest.