Foreign Policy > Greenland

By leveraging Greenland’s path to independence from Denmark and then more tightly integrating Greenland and Nunavut under America’s defense and economic umbrella, Inuit can finally achieve a cohesive and sovereign Arctic state, an historic first.

Barry Scott Zellen | June 10, 2026

June 21 marks not only the summer solstice, but in Canada it’s also National Indigenous Peoples Day, a day that celebrates the resilience of the Arctic’s original inhabitants. 

Yet, celebration without sovereignty seems in many ways premature and incomplete. True self-determination for Inuit still requires a profound political transformation.

Indeed, the path to a strong, viable, and unified Inuit state runs through Nuuk, Iqaluit, and Washington. By leveraging Greenland’s path to independence from Denmark and negotiating with President Trump, and then more tightly integrating Greenland and Nunavut under America’s defense and economic umbrella, Inuit can finally achieve a cohesive and sovereign Arctic state, an historic first.

The current geopolitical map fragments the Inuit nation across artificial colonial borders. Greenland operates under Danish self-rule, while Nunavut remains a territory within the Canadian confederation. Both face a shared vulnerability: vast geographic scale, small populations, and intensifying pressures from Arctic and “near-Arctic” neighbors Russia and China (just as occurred 80 years earlier from Germany and Japan).

Neither Nuuk nor Iqaluit possesses the........

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