Radio War Nerd EP #498 — Greenlandia, feat. Jakob Stenfalk

Was Mark joking, or does he not know Häagen Dazs is an American brand?

"in a country with a real opposition" is SUCH a key point imo, ain't nobody dying for the shambling remnant of the Obama/Biden/Harris dynasty. even in 1991 people died trying to save the Soviet Union! not many, but more than zero

Fantastic episode

Greenland was dogshit even compared to Butler’s typical output.

Great, really informative episode, great guest, "we could spend a whole show on [shipping flow]" - genuinely, absolutely yes please! Would adore this, it's really not covered at all. Very relevant to war - see Maersk involvement in gaza genocide for one example. One note: many Inuit people consider esk*mo a slur (some self identification with the term aside), similar to GRT people and the term g*psy (hence the asterisks).

Great episode, and to add a humorous episode in the history of Yankees in Greenland, Camp Century was planned to be a nuke-proof base under the ice until they realized 1) that the ice moves and 2) they would quickly be drowning in their own poop. Surprisingly of all podcasts, Boonta Vista did an episode on it that you can find by searching “Theo Philes V,” I highly recommend

I have a pet theory about the Panama thing, I was reading that the lake has had a drought for years and have been on and off with cut backs on the number of crossings allowed to save the water, so this could come into Trump's weird fixation with the water, and how technocrats aren't letting people use the water that's there. I remember during his first run he mentioned the low-flow bathroom fixtures, now earlier there was the stunt where he foced the Corps of Engineers to open some random dam in the central valley to absolutely zero effect. Folks they're keeping the water for themselves! We're going to get our water back!

I don't visit facebook and hadn't seen Jakob's posts on Patreon. Quite the revelation! Much looking forward to the next time you bring him on. ASAP maybe?

Great episode. Some good insights too regarding Trump's motivations. A follow-up episode regarding the balance of payment/trade, which was also alluded to would be a good follow-up episode some day too (e.g. colonies that are "money losing" enterprises).

I think they missed how it going to happen there has been a bunch of articles about how Greenland wants independence which America will obviously fund, then once that happens trump has won, it won't happen immediately but america will swarm in

Nothing like a podcast can undeceive.

"They're testing in production like the Oceangate guy" - that just fucking killed me.

First, a small nit- the film "Greenland" had people fleeing to Greenland to escape an on-coming comet, not a nuclear war. Second, the US has something of a history of stealing Greenland's minerals. In 1894, Peary took three large fragments of the Cape York meteor (Ahnighito, The Woman, The Dog) from Greenland to the American Museum of Natural History in NYC, where they remain on display to this day. Apparently the Inuit people had used them as a source of metal for several centuries but never mind that. Lastly, given that Trump wants to generate maximum distraction, sending a few platoons from the 10th Mountain Division would be enough to take over Greenland at almost no cost and would generate the kind of apoplectic headlines and coverage he craves. It is a totally crazy idea, but that is well within his wheelhouse. That this is even a subject for discussion is mind-boggling. A line from the song, "The Bum Won," in the musical "Fiorello," "who would guess that the people would go to the polls and elect a fanatic? People can do what they want to but I have a feeling it ain't democratic."

Well done, Jakob. The No More Mr Nice Guy Trump 2.0 vindictiveness, DOGE brazenness, and the risk aversive, don’t make waves tendency of the civil service is playing out in fascinating/horrifying ways, and I’m glad this was touched upon. Appreciated Jakob’s comments contrasting the likely Goldman Sachs approach to a similar assault, and the hypothetical breaking point. Curious and terrified at how this will play out and look forward hearing further discussion on RWN.

I think I missed it, but is the mineral wealth of Greenland inaccessible to exploitation?

Thank you, Mark, John, Brendon and Jakob! This was a great episode with a level-headed attempt at teasing out some of the dynamics at play regarding all of this. Left media (or whatever) in the Anglosphere is uninterested in anything beyond what this says about Trump and what it means for the US. It doesn’t really get any better over here, most Scandi media in general is seemingly unable to conceive of any geopolitical perspective or curiosity that decouples itself from the terms laid out by the imperial core almost a century ago. We should all be so lucky if you came across another reason to brush up against the workings and history (naivety, hypocrisy??) of the NATO goings-on around here 😇🥹🇳🇴🥴 Once again, tusen takk!

This guest is just the war nerd doing a danish accent. You can’t fool me, John!

Does the US attacking Denmark trigger article 5

+1 for the episode about how empires hide the ball about colonial resource extraction

john finally getting social security just as the system bricks is extremely on brand

My father actually went out to Thule (now Pituffik) to clean up after that American bomber carrying nukes crashed in Greenland. He was in the part of the U.S. Navy that dealt with nuclear weapons (it was an Air Force base, like Jakob said, but the Air Force can't do anything for themselves). He talks about spending a lot of time scanning the icefield for alpha particles (alpha radiation is funny, it can be blocked by human skin or even a sheet of paper, but it's extremely toxic if inhaled or ingested). Bent over, running the device along the ice for hours at a time, in those arctic conditions... sounds pretty miserable to me. The bomber smashed through the ice, which then refroze over it. I assume they recovered any sensitive material from the bombs it was carrying, but who knows. I donno if anyone ever bothered to dredge the plane up out of the water or if they just left it there. My father was only part of the operation early on, then other guys took over later. Apparently the crashed bomber was part of some dumbass American project to test the Soviets' ability to detect and respond to incursions into their airspace over the arctic circle. I have no idea what the point was besides to waste taxpayer money and make a few hundred guys freeze their balls off hanging out with the Danes. If we could blow up, like, Murmansk and Arkhangelsk without warning, so what? Not like it'd stop them from nuking us back.

Apologists for colonialism often refer to frequent bankruptcies of plantations to argue no money was made. But of course, the planters taking out huge loans to start a plantation and get yellow fever on another continent were never the real winners. The money made was in the banks and the colonial plunder was in the homes of the European metropole.

Tak for det. Love the dry Danish sense of humour. The dodgy reality show "Ice Cold Gold" showed them mining for precious stones there more than 10 years ago. Apparently there's two active mines today for rubies/sapphires and for anorthosite. But I absolutely think this is about China and rare earth competition, of which Greenland is thought to have some of the largest deposits and has a large controversial Kvanefjeld project rejected due to high uranium "bycatch". The US EXIM bank is already funding projects in Aus/Brazil so imagine it's a big issue on their minds. BTW, I thought Denmark got rich by using Baltic toll booths! 😉

Very creative topic and appropriate guest.

Great episode!