ARCTIC: Denmark’s Defense Investment & more –14th Oct 2025

Bures from Keswick Village! This is the Rorshok Arctic Update from the 14th of October twenty twenty-five. A quick summary of what’s going down North of the Arctic Circle!

The biggest political story of the Arctic in the last year has been the US attempting to take control of Greenland, and this week saw a further escalation. On Tuesday the 7th, the US Senate confirmed Ken Howery as ambassador to the Kingdom of Denmark, which also covers Greenland and the Faroe Islands.

When President Trump nominated Howery to the position last December, he stated that Howery’s primary task would be to ensure the US takes ownership and control of Greenland, calling it an absolute necessity. With Trump’s choice of ambassador confirmed, a new phase of Arctic diplomacy is about to begin.

President Trump’s Arctic priorities were made very clear this week. On Thursday the 9th, The Washington Post revealed that they have received documents showing that the Trump administration is considering a new foreign aid plan. The striking line of this aid plan is the granting of $50 million US dollars to Greenland to specifically protect the country’s polar bears.

Yet, in his own Alaskan Arctic, conservation is far from Trump’s mind. On Saturday the 11th, The Associated Press reported that Republican lawmakers will soon target the ending of the Marine Mammal Protection Act, which was enacted in nineteen seventy-two to protect polar bears, whales, and seals.

These two events raise the question, Is Trump using polar bears as a tool of control in Greenland while allowing Alaskan bears to disappear?

The Greenlandic government has also made its political stance clear. On Wednesday the 8th, Jens-Frederik Nielsen, the Greenlandic Prime Minister, addressed the European Parliament. He said his country is ready to deepen ties with the EU, welcoming the Union’s recent commitment to invest over $580 million US dollars in Greenlandic infrastructure, with mining being a particular focus of heavy investment.

Nielsen didn’t mention Trump in his speech, instead he just said that Greenland remains open to cooperating with the US as long as there is mutual respect between the two nations.

The Danish government is taking a much more serious view toward ensuring Greenlandic sovereignty. On Friday the 10th, Denmark’s Defense Ministry announced a boost of over $4 billion US dollars toward its Arctic military and security. This funding will be used to set up a new Arctic command headquarters in Nuuk, Greenland’s capital, build undersea cabling between the two countries, and purchase Arctic ships, maritime patrol planes, drones and an early warning radar.

The Danish government worked with the Greenlandic and Faroese governments to devise a package that addresses the most serious security concerns of the three nations, to create an Arctic region ready for any external threats.

Finland is getting a new military headquarters too, this time from NATO. On Wednesday the 8th, the news agency, High North News, reported that NATO has opened its northernmost command center, in Mikkeli, Finland. It is tasked with conducting allied exercises and other peacetime activities. Then, in a state of emergency, it will plan, command and control land operations and defense in the High North. NATO believes there is a strong need for increased defense in the European Arctic, and Finland is leading the charge for northern security.

Speaking of Finland, on Thursday the 9th, a joint press release from the Finnish and US governments revealed that the two countries have signed an agreement where Finland will construct four new icebreaker vessels for the US Coast Guard. Finland will also contribute expertise toward the building of a further seven vessels at US shipyards.

Petteri Orpo, the Finnish Prime Minister, called this a huge economic boost and expects this deal to create thousands of jobs in Finland. With unemployment in the country recently hitting ten percent, this deal will bring relief to many.

While the US government has been getting involved in many other Arctic nations this week, there’s news coming out of Alaska as well. On Thursday the 9th, the US Senate voted to repeal restrictions on mining, drilling and other development in the state. The major project this repeal will impact is Ambler Road, which we’ve covered in previous shows.

Recall that Ambler Road is a proposed over 200-mile road, about 340 kilometers, through an Alaska wilderness to allow mining of copper, cobalt, gold and other minerals. Former President Biden blocked the project on environmental grounds, but President Trump’s priority is to extract as much wealth as possible from the land.

In other news, on Friday the 10th, Alexey Chekunkov, the Russian Far East and Arctic Development Minister, announced the state budget for the socio-economic development of the Russian Arctic zone in twenty twenty-six-twenty twenty-seven. The $250 million US dollars in funding will be used for a mixture of economic tax reliefs, development projects, and measures to support Indigenous communities across northern Russia.

There’s millions being spent in northern Norway too, but for less positive reasons. On the last New Year’s Eve, Norway suffered its first oil spill that spread from offshore, all the way to Norwegian beaches. This was the North A oil platform, operated by oil company Equinor.

On Thursday the 9th, state broadcaster NRK reported that so far, Equinor has spent about $12 million US dollars on cleanup operations for this spill, but has only cleaned about twenty percent of the almost 80,000 liters of oil it had spilled. The cleanup ended for the year on Wednesday the 1st as winter approaches.

The Norwegian Environment Agency has accused Equinor of not doing enough to remedy the situation.

On that note about ocean health, a new crop of beluga whales might soon be going to northern Canada. At the Marine Land amusement park in Ontario, thirty beluga whales face being euthanized unless they can find a new home, as the park owners say that they can't afford to keep them.

On Tuesday the 7th, Inuit leaders in Nunavut called for a plan to bring the famous white whales back to their Arctic homelands by releasing them into the Hudson Bay. Tommy Palliser, of the Nunavik Marine Region Wildlife Board, has said that the native Hudson Bay beluga population is in serious decline, and this group of captive belugas might boost the survival hopes of the population.

Arctic seals need help too. On Friday the 10th, the conservation body, the International Union for Conservation of Nature updated their threat status list for species worldwide, and Arctic seals are in trouble.

Three Arctic seal species have had their endangered statuses increased: the hooded seal has declined from Vulnerable to Endangered, and more worryingly, the bearded seal and harp seal have moved from Least Concern to Near Threatened.

The bearded and harp species are the most common northern seals, and were some of the only Arctic animals to show resilience to climate change. But as sea ice melts and the environment changes, even the most resilient animals in the north are now in trouble.

The updated list affects animals worldwide. Check it out with the link in the show notes.

And to close this edition, we’ve got news from Iceland as there’s a new approach to support the Icelandic language. On Thursday the 9th, The Ministry of Culture published a draft bill which proposes that any film or TV streamers operating in Iceland must be required by law to pay a cultural contribution in the form of a tax amounting to five percent of total revenues from subscription sales in Iceland.

The reason for this bill is that Icelanders are turning to international streamers much more than Icelandic television, and the foreign companies rarely invest in creating Icelandic-language productions. This is impacting both the creative industries and language learning in Iceland, and the Ministry of Culture hopes to raise money for the creation of new programs that address the government’s concerns.

Aaand that’s it for this week! Thank you for joining us!

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Mana