Greenland and the wider circumpolar Arctic are no longer peripheral concerns to observers of geopolitics, but are now central sites of geopolitical, economic, and environmental contestation. Focusing on Greenland, the lecture traces how debates over military basing, mineral extraction, Indigenous self-determination, and environmental protection have become tightly intertwined. These overlapping pressures have produced new frictions between Washington, Copenhagen, Brussels, and Nuuk, revealing that Arctic security today is not only about hard security, but also about trade, governance, and competing visions of identity and sovereignty. The lecture will situate the current drama on Greenland in the context of changes in Arctic security as a whole. The lecture will show that Greenland offers a critical lens through which to understand broader shifts in Arctic order: how alliances adapt, how local actors navigate external pressures, and how environmental change is transforming what “security” means in the twenty-first-century Arctic.

Dr. Gabriella Gricius is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Konstanz and a Fellow and the Media Coordinator with the North American and Arctic Defence and Security Network (NAADSN). She is also a Senior Fellow at the Arctic Institute. At the University of Konstanz, she is currently working on Nordic security community formation and hybrid threats in the European Arctic region.

She received her PhD from Colorado State University's Political Science Department where her dissertation explored the prevalence of low-tension discourse in Greenland, Svalbard, the Northern Sea Route, and the Northwest Passage. Her writing is published in Foreign Policy, International Politics, European Security, amongst other outlets, and she has also been interviewed by BBC, the New York Times, and other major news outlets.

If there is anything we can do to make this event accessible to you, please contact us at gosiak@umich.edu. Please be aware that advance notice is necessary as some accommodations may require more time for the university to arrange.