(dramatic music)
- [Johnny] Whoever controls the oceans has the power,
and here in the high north,
a new ocean is being born.
(tense music)
- I am wandering through a graveyard
of American military equipment,
on the largest island in the world.
Like what I'm seeing here
is just a bunch of American military infrastructure
that was set up during World War II,
used during the Cold War,
and now it's just abandoned.
Like this massive dish that was a part of
the Cold War defense in the Arctic that the US used,
creating a chain of radar
so that if the Soviets invaded from the Arctic,
they would be able to detect it.
And this giant dish is one of those radar boosters.
After the Cold War,
the US sold this town and all of its buildings
back to the Greenlandic government for $1.
They didn't need it anymore.
That's because the world was at peace,
everything was good.
And the Arctic was just a frozen place,
that now with the Soviet Union falling apart,
was not strategically that important;
but,
things are changing.
I want to show you what this looks like,
what it actually looks like on the ground here in Greenland.
Get you up to speed on everything you need to know
to understand what is certainly going to be
one of the most important geopolitical issues
for years to come.
- Increasing tensions.
- [Male News Anchor] Looming war in the Arctic,
as a massive military build-up,
- [Female News Anchor] Happens in the Arctic Circle,
could have far-reaching implications for us all.
- I'm at an airport in rural Greenland.
It's like in this Fjord system,
near the village of Uummannaq.
And I'm realizing that I need to let you in on something,
which is today's video is sponsored by Storyblocks.
I've been using Storyblocks for a decade,
long before I was ever a YouTuber.
I was just a video maker and I was using Storyblocks;
they used to be called Videoblocks,
now they're called Storyblocks.
So I'm able to go out here into the field,
take all these beautiful shots, right?
I'm taking all these amazing shots of Greenland.
Most of the time I'm not able to do this.
This is an expensive thing,
to come out here and get all these shots.
Most of the time I'm in my office,
making videos about the world.
How do I do that?
Storyblocks.
Storyblocks is a giant repository of visual assets,
footage, templates, sound effects,
that you can use to bring your story to life.
So for me, mostly that's the footage.
I go onto Storyblocks,
I type in what I need and I get loads of results.
And then the best part is,
I can download unlimited clips.
Like you pay one subscription
and you can go buck wild
and download as many clips as you want.
This is a very good feeling
for anyone who's had to pay to license footage
per clip, or per second.
Storyblocks is just like you pay a subscription,
it's a very reliable, no hidden fees,
reliable rate every month
and you get as many clips as you want.
This works for individual creators that are small, big,
this works for big production companies,
like when I was working at
production companies or different places,
I would use Storyblocks.
It's for creators, production companies of all sizes.
I use Storyblocks all the time,
and I'm really glad that they have decided
to sponsor one of my videos.
I've actually thought about it,
I was out here shooting
and I was getting all this amazing drone footage
and I was like,
I should get some of this up onto Storyblocks.
So right now I've actually uploaded a bunch
of my own clips from this trip,
from Greenland, to Storyblocks.
These are gorgeous clips, I'm telling you.
I got some of the best footage of my life
while I was here.
And a bunch of that is up on Storyblocks.
So, oh, and I didn't mention this,
but Storyblocks also has After Effects templates,
like animation templates,
that you can use to start off your animations.
I know how to do animation, I love animation,
but I secretly use templates all the time
because they make life so much easier.
Oh, and they just put out this plug-in,
right in Premiere and After Effects,
where you can have like Storyblocks inside of the editor.
So you're not actually going to a website and downloading,
you're just browsing Storyblocks inside of the editor,
which is a (emulating explosion noise) like mind blowing.
What is happening?
Life is so much easier
when you have unlimited access to clips and assets
right inside of your editor.
So, giant fan of Storyblocks over here,
really grateful that they're supporting today's video.
There's a link in my description,
it is Storyblocks.com/JohnnyHarris.
Clicking that link helps support this channel,
not surprisingly,
but it also shows you how you can get in on this.
You can go find what the pricing looks like for you,
you can go get a bunch of my clips
that I've uploaded to Storyblocks,
here from Greenland,
and hopefully you'll be a better, stronger,
more versatile creator because of it.
Let's get back to this story
because there's a lot to cover.
I have been moving through Greenland,
exploring this massive island.
Mostly I've been in the Fjords
in these rural communities,
hunting for seals and birds,
riding on dog sleds,
getting to know how ice works.
Ice is way more complicated than you can imagine
and the people here know it very well.
And filling in my gap of knowledge.
It's a gap of knowledge that I think a lot of people have.
Like a lot of people know Greenland
for memes about how little is known about Greenland.
Or maybe you know it as the island
that is always exaggerated in its size
by the Mercator map projection,
but maybe that's probably just map nerds
who think of it that way.
But anyway, the fact is this place
is not very well known or understood,
but I'm telling you that is about to change.
The top of our planet is a giant ocean.
For centuries, Empires who control the oceans
are the ones that had the power, but not up here.
This ocean has always been frozen, desolate
and inaccessible to powerful navies
in search of power and influence.
So the Arctic has remained a geopolitically quiet place.
This is one reason why Inuit traditions
have been able to stay alive here,
though that's a whole nuanced subject
and I went on a deep dive
in another video I made from Greenland.
The fact is that things are changing.
A new man-made blanket of carbon is now in the air
and it's been trapping more
and more heat on our globe and warming it.
Just a few degrees,
but somehow enough to change everything.
Here's what the ice up here looked like
at its lowest point in the eighties,
and here's what it looked like
at its lowest point last year.
Yeah.
And this new ocean in the high north
is heating four times faster than the rest of the planet.
And where there are liquid oceans,
there will be countries looking to control those oceans.
The new shipping routes, the oil and gas, the minerals,
and just generally the opportunity
to control and influence a new place.
So you've got Canada who's laying claim
to the northwest passage,
saying that this valuable new shipping route
cuts right through their territory and should be theirs.
You've got Russia with all these military bases
dotting their Arctic frontier.
They're also claiming all of this ocean,
all the way up to the North Pole.
They even put a flag on the ocean floor a few years ago.
The US is spending over a billion dollars
to buy and build icebreaker ships to patrol the Arctic.
And even the rising super-power China,
a non-Arctic nation,
is trying to get in on the influence up here.
Working with their ally Russia
to create an ice silk road,
investing 10 billion in projects
across the Nordic region.
So yeah, lots of activity happening all over this region,
I've just scratched the surface
on a few highlights here,
but the fact is the Arctic is getting a lot of attention
and one major focus is here in Greenland;
a place that has been pretty ignored by great powers.
Until, that is, there's something they need
or there's something to gain,
which is exactly what's becoming the case
as the ice melts and this new ocean appears.
Are you a global super power
looking to project influence in the newly opening Arctic?
Look no further than Greenland,
the gateway to the Arctic Ocean.
Most of Greenland, this massive island,
is located conveniently within the Arctic Circle.
This is why it was the chosen jumping-off point
for Arctic explorers who were trying
to be the first to reach the North Pole
in the early nineteen hundreds.
In fact, the US recognized that this massive island was
a smart geopolitical location a long time ago,
convincing Greenland's colonizers
to help them evict an Inuit community,
so that they could put an airbase up here.
The top of the world turned out
to be a perfect location
to traverse their growing empire
and to spy on the Soviets during the Cold War.
They even had nuclear weapons up here for a time.
And it wasn't just one base;
over the course of the 20th century,
the US set up a handful of military bases in Greenland.
They used this island to put up
these massive radar systems,
which would serve as early warning
in case a Soviet invasion came from the North.
And now it just looks
like a full-blown prop from a "Star Wars" movie.
I mean, look at these.
So Greenland's strategic potential was clear,
but once the Soviet threat went away,
the US mostly abandoned its presence here;
though they still have that base way up North
and they've turned it actually
into the base of their Space Force.
But they eventually closed down
their embassy in the capitol,
and Greenland went back to being
nothing really useful to the great powers.
Just a frozen island at the doorstep of a frozen ocean.
So Greenland, this massive Arctic island
at the gateway to the Arctic Ocean
is now becoming much more important.
That's because this ocean that's always been frozen
is melting more and more every year,
opening it up to new trade routes, to new resources,
to new versions of influence that can be exerted
at the top of our planet.
And so great powers are once again
paying attention to this place,
because great powers no longer see
a desolate frozen island.
They see opportunity, they see an island perfectly located
close to new, enticing shipping lanes.
They see an island with territorial waters
full of new resources,
whose territorial claims theoretically extend
all the way past the North Pole,
incidentally overlapping with Russia and Canada.
They see the potential of this place
being a repository of rare earth elements,
the stuff we need to build modern electronics,
like cell phones, computer hard drives,
and electric vehicles.
Suddenly this place is becoming a lot more valuable
in the eyes of people who want power.
A fact that was highlighted by a guy
who spent his life sniffing out real estate deals
on land that was about to become valuable.
- Trump wants to buy Greenland.
- It's a large real estate deal.
So the concept came up
and I said certainly I'd be,
strategically it's interesting.
- Yeah, that actually happened.
Boy, that was a crazy four years.
I'm glad it's over.
Anyway, the point is that
Greenland is now getting loads of attention
and becoming much more valuable,
which brings me here,
to perhaps the clearest symbol
of this renewed interest in Greenland.
This is the new US consulate in Nuuk.
After saying they planned to buy the country,
the Trump administration backed down
after Denmark was like, hell no.
Get outta here.
And instead took a different approach.
They ramped up efforts to build relations
between Greenland and the United States,
building mutual economic interests,
which resulted in the opening of
this consulate just in 2020.
The US now has a diplomatic presence,
a physical presence in Greenland;
this big frozen island
that no global superpower really thought
was that important until recently.
- I'm pleased to announce we will re-open
our consulate in Nuuk, Greenland,
this summer for the first time since 1953.
- So this actually reminds me
of a story I did a while back,
when I was up in the Arctic for Vox Borders,
and I was visiting a Russian consulate
on this little island.
And it truly never ceases to surprise me
that in an era of sophisticated alliances,
and international institutions,
and sophisticated military weaponry,
we still resort to just putting
human bodies and buildings in places
that we want to have influence in,
like it's a board game.
Some things will never change.
But as the US looks to deepen its ties with Greenland,
so is another power, another global superpower.
One that incidentally is nowhere near the Arctic.
But who knows that if they want
to be the top dog on the world stage,
they're gonna need a foothold in this new region.
- [Male News Anchor] A race for resources
could lead to a boil over.
- A lot of focus is placed on the Chinese,
they do control a significant amount of supply.
- We are so adamant that these areas of the world,
that are the arteries of trade and shipping,
remain peaceful.
- There is a worry of this Chinese,
possible infiltration, in the country.
- In 2017, Greenland wanted to build more airports,
like the one behind me that they're building.
Here in Greenland,
they don't have a lot of infrastructure for big airplanes.
So you can't get big commercial flights
in and out of large amounts of the country.
You have to fly around in small planes and helicopters.
Which is kind of cool if you're going on an adventure,
but if you're trying to develop your country,
you need bigger airports.
The problem is building airports is expensive.
And no one wanted to fund this,
except for:
China.
The prime minister of Greenland
went to Beijing, their friend,
and said, hey do you want to help us fund our new airports?
China was like, yes,
we will give you a loan to fund the airports,
but it has to be a Chinese construction company
that builds the airports.
And Greenland was like, okay, let's do it.
That sounds great.
And immediately over in the United States,
alarm bells start going off.
This is not good.
The context here is that China has a habit
of giving loans to countries
that they want to have influence in,
in the future.
They do this a lot in Africa,
like they give loans,
knowing that they now have leverage
over all of these countries
who now owe them money.
Anyway, so the United States sees
this potential deal happening
between Greenland and China and hates it.
Greenland, this place that is so strategically located,
that is right next to the United States,
that is really a huge part of the future
of global influence in the Arctic,
suddenly in debt to China?
No! In fact, the Pentagon freaked out
and was like,
what if Greenland defaults on their payments to China
and China seizes the airports
and starts using it for their military?
Little bit of an alarmist doomsday scenario,
but it's true.
Like when you owe someone money,
they have leverage over you.
The US did not like this.
So the US goes to Denmark and tells them to kill the deal.
Denmark does it, they agree.
And suddenly Denmark is now funding
two thirds of these airport projects.
China got rejected on these airport deals
thanks to US pressure,
but they didn't give up.
They started setting their sights
on those rare earth minerals
that we talked about earlier.
The vital ingredients for your phone,
your computer and your electric car.
China holds a near monopoly
on mining and processing these minerals.
So they see Greenland as an opportunity
to continue that near monopoly,
but also an opportunity to access the Arctic;
another place where they can compete with Western interests.
It started when this Chinese corporation
made a deal to fund a zinc and lead mine
in the far north of Greenland.
It was all going to plan until
the Australian owners of this mine
suddenly decided to end their deal.
Oh, and shortly thereafter,
they got a 650 million dollar cheque
from the United States to fund the project.
Once again, the US blocked their rival
from getting a foothold in the Arctic.
Another Chinese company has had
their mining licenses revoked entirely
by the government of Greenland.
So between this diplomatic pressure,
as well as some local anti-mining political sentiment,
China has been blocked time and time again
from getting its foothold on this island.
- China's words and actions
raised doubts about its intentions.
Beijing claims to be a near-Arctic state,
yet the shortest distance between China
and the Arctic is 900 miles.
- So yeah, the USA has made its stance very clear
that they don't want China, a non-Arctic nation,
to be meddling in this region,
to be gaining a foothold in the gateway to the Arctic;
this region that is opening up,
that is becoming really important.
And in addition to blocking China's efforts,
the US has also stepped up their own efforts
to get more US influence and presence in this place.
To prepare for the future of geopolitical conflict.
The US is doing investments on its own,
investing billions of dollars
in military infrastructure in this region,
including a $4 billion upgrade
of that air and space installation in the north.
They're also committing to military
training exercise within the Arctic.
The US Army has been sending their soldiers
to train in Arctic-like conditions,
to mimic what conflict might look
and feel like in the high North.
The US government is offering
millions of dollars in aid directly to Greenland,
to help them develop their mining and tourism sectors.
So yeah, once again,
we see the struggle for influence
playing out between great powers
in all of these kind of hard-to-see battlefields.
Loans, infrastructure, blocking trade deals,
diplomatic pressure, military presence.
This is kind of the flavor of modern conflict.
I mean, not the Russian flavor of modern conflict,
but like the great powers conflict
plays out in these other ways,
these hard-to-see ways, these bureaucratic systematic ways.
But who cares about these big superpowers
and what they want for Greenland?
I came to the capitol, Nuuk,
to talk to my friend Qupanuk
about what Greenlanders actually want.
After all, this is their island.
They should decide how it's used and by whom.
- We are not just looking at
the western world through Denmark anymore,
but we are seeing more globally.
So we are starting to realize,
more and more, how lucky we actually are.
- That's super interesting.
It turns out that about half of Greenlanders
actually think it's a good thing
that China is increasing in
its power and influence around the globe.
But when you ask them specifically
about China investing in Greenland,
they're more hesitant,
with nearly 70% saying that they oppose
foreign investment from China.
But a country like Greenland,
which has such a fraught history with colonizers,
also has reservations about Western interests here too.
- And a lot of injustices have been,
and are still, being done
in colonial and de-colonial nations.
More and more things are just being shown now,
because people are more aware of their rights,
and more aware of the rights that are being violated.
- [Johnny] So Greenlanders are waking up
to their power in this situation,
waking up to the leverage that they have
in this new global competition.
And while they might have their concerns
about China and the West,
they're looking for the best deal for their country.
- The first ones must be our closest friends
and like-minded nations.
And then if other countries
want to invest in Greenland and in our way,
we are open for business.
- [Johnny] So as we move into this new era
of great power competition,
the map is changing in unexpected ways.
Add to that the warming globe
that is creating a new ocean,
and suddenly this island
so often forgotten by great powers,
is now in a position of leverage.
- There are many Greenlandic people
who haven't realized how powerful we can be.
How much is like,
I don't know how small Denmark is without Greenland.
It like it's a tiny, tiny country,
if they didn't have us.
we should be more aware of it
and be more proud of it
and realize how powerful we can actually be in the future.
(contemplative music)