THE GEOPOLITICS OF GREENLAND AND THE ARCTIC

As climate changes accelerate and global power dynamics shift, the Arctic is emerging as one of the most strategically contested regions on earth. Greenland now sits at the center of a geopolitical chess game involving the U.S, China, Russia, and Europe. Due to the polar ice caps melting at such an unprecedented rate, new shipping routes are being created, vast mineral resources are being
exposed and military and economic priorities of world powers are being reshaped. Simultaneously, Greenlanders are navigating questions surrounding their own autonomy, national identity and future development.

America’s recent intervention in Venezuela has turned world attention to other regions of the globe where strategic competition is rife and the Arctic is at the top of that list. The same forces driving tensions in South America – rich mineral resources, strategic one-upmanship, and shifting trade and military alliances – are now flaring in the far north.

Cambridge Forum brings together Arctic geopolitical specialists to explore the key issues at stake in this rapidly changing territory. How are global powers positioning themselves? How will Greenland safeguard its future? And how will climate, resources, alliances and sovereignty shape the Arctic’s next chapter?

Moderated by GBH News reporter Jennifer Moore.

Join the conversation.

Speakers

Heather A. Conley

Heather A. Conley is a nonresident senior fellow at the American Enterprise
Institute, specializing in transatlantic security and Arctic geopolitics. She previously served as president of the German Marshall Fund and held senior roles at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and the U.S. State Department. Conley is known for her work on the Kremlin Playbook series and her research on great‑power
competition in the Arctic. Her analysis has appeared in major outlets, and she is a
frequent commentator on national media. She holds an MA from Johns Hopkins SAIS
and a BA from West Virginia Wesleyan College.

Kenneth R. Rosen

Kenneth R. Rosen is the author of Polar War: Submarines, Spies, and the Struggle for Power in a Melting Arctic. He is also the recipient of a Kurt Schork Award in International Journalism and the Bayeux-Calvados Award for War Correspondents, a two-time finalist for the Livingston Award for his work in Syria and Iraq, and an Ira A. Lipman Fellow at Columbia University. He is the author of Troubled and Bulletproof Vest, and his writing has appeared in The New Yorker, The NYT, The Atlantic, and WIRED. He divides his time between Western Massachusetts and Italy.

Sara Olsvig

Sara Olsvig, PhD, is Chair of the Inuit Circumpolar Council and a prominent Inuk leader in Indigenous rights and Arctic governance. She has served in both the Danish and Greenlandic parliaments, including as Vice Premier and Minister for Social Affairs. Dr. Olsvig has chaired the Arctic Parliamentarians Committee, contributed to Greenland’s Constitutional Commission, and served on the UN Secretary‑General’s Panel on Critical Energy Transition Minerals. She lives in Nuuk with her family.

Jennifer Moore

Moderator Jennifer Moore is a graduate of the University of Missouri School of Journalism, she spent five years in the Persian Gulf region as a freelance journalist contributing to NPR and as a fixer for
CNN-International. She worked as a reporter for the NPR station in the Ozarks, KSMU
Radio, before serving as news director there during the pandemic. She’s a contracted
freelancer for The New York Times and NPR. Her reporting has earned multiple regional and national awards, including a national Edward R. Murrow Award for writing,
the Excellence in Legal Journalism award from The Missouri Bar, and the Honorable Mention for the Toner Prize for Excellence in Political Reporting from Syracuse University.