120. Greenland Intelligence Scoop: Trump, Xi, and Putin's Battle for the Arctic

The Rest Is Classified

Goalhanger

History

4.4 • 2K Ratings

🗓️ 23 January 2026

⏱️ 44 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Why is Trump backing down on his plans to seize Greenland? Are the Russian's already spying in the Arctic? And should we be fearing Chinese influence in the icy north? In this emergency podcast, David and Gordon delve into the intelligence story regarding Greenland and ask why Trump's forcefulness may be distracting us from the plans of China and Russia. ------------------- Make someone a Declassified Club Member this year – go deeper into the world of espionage with exclusive Q&As, interviews with top intelligence insiders, regular livestreams, ad-free listening, early access to episodes and live show tickets, and weekly deep dives into original spy stories. Members also get curated reading lists, special book discounts, prize draws, and access to our private chat community. Just go to ⁠⁠⁠⁠therestisclassified.com⁠⁠⁠ or join on Apple Podcasts. ------------------- EXCLUSIVE NordVPN Deal ➼ ⁠⁠⁠https://nordvpn.com/restisclassified⁠⁠⁠ Try it risk-free now with a 30-day money-back guarantee. ------------------- Pre-order a signed edition of David's latest novel, The Persian, ⁠here.⁠ ------------------- Email: ⁠⁠therestisclassified@goalhanger.com⁠ Instagram: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@restisclassified⁠ Social Producer: Emma Jackson Assistant Producer: Alfie Rowe Producer: Becki Hills Head of History: Dom Johnson Exec Producer: Tony Pastor Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	For exclusive interviews, bonus episodes, ad-free listening, early access to series, first
0:09.2	look at live show tickets, a weekly newsletter, and discounted books, join the declassified
0:14.1	club at the rest is classified.com. Will Donald Trump seize Greenland?
0:19.6	And what does that mean for the Arctic and international security?
0:23.6	Well, welcome to the rest is classified.
0:25.6	I'm Gordon Carrera.
0:26.6	And I'm David McCloskey.
0:27.6	And we're taking a break from our normal routine this week because we wanted to offer you all a quick one-off emergency pod looking at Greenland.
0:35.6	It's obviously been in the news following Donald Trump's
0:38.7	increasingly forceful statements expressing his desire to control the territory, which is of course
0:44.9	technically part of NATO ally Denmark and all the talk at Davos about a potential framework deal
0:51.2	to resolve that dispute, although things do seem to keep changing by the
0:54.7	minute. We've looked at Greenland before on the podcast. We did series last year on some of the
0:59.2	history, which people might be interested in if they want to go back and listen to that and
1:03.3	we'll reference it a little bit. But we thought it was worth an update, didn't we, David,
1:06.8	to dig a bit deeper into the context of what's going on now. Yeah, I guess the question, Gordon, is this the new normal?
1:13.6	Because we've been saying, I think every week since Venezuela, we've said,
1:17.6	ah, we're breaking from our normal routine to just kind of do this one more time.
1:21.6	And now we have wandered into a world where I had to read a question to start this episode
1:26.6	about the American president seizing a piece of Danish territory.
1:31.4	So there we are. This is where we're at. It's obviously we should say it's a fast-moving situation.
1:38.1	We are recording this on the 21st of January. We're going to go deep on the rest is classified and offer our rest is classified
	...

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