Greenland opens new capital airport terminal, hopes to boost tourism, increase economic autonomy

I was among the first passengers at the new Nuuk terminal today.

Today a new international airport terminal opened at Nuuk, the capital of Greenland, and I was among its first passengers. (All photos by RJ Peltz-Steele CC BY-NC-SA 4.0.)

A couple of days ago I wrote about Greenland's autonomy from Denmark, observing that tourism and fisheries, at present levels, might not be enough to sustain the economy of an independent Greenland, notwithstanding popular support for the proposition. The new terminal and runways at Nuuk, co-located with the older facility, are a calculated measure to amp up tourism and ween off Greenland of dependence on Danish aid.

The old Nuuk GOH terminal, closed today, is adjacent to the new.

As I mentioned in my previous post, Greenland infrastructure is still marked by U.S. defensive developments during World War II. The Kingdom of Denmark was occupied by the Nazis and turned over the protection of Greenland to the United States. Part of that American legacy is the country's international airport at Kangerlussuaq, a village deep in the fjords north of Nuuk and well inland, eastward, of second-city Sisimiut. 

Constructed as a military air base in 1941, Kangerlussuaq airport was a strategic refueling point. It was therefore equipped with a runway that could handle large aircraft. After the war, and for decades since, Kangerlussuaq's capacity made it the international hub for Air Greenland.

A larger-than-most Air Greenland plane prepares to fly from Kangerlussuaq to Copenhagen.

Landing at Nuuk is not for the faint of heart.

But Kangerlussuaq makes no sense for civilian use, much less for tourism. Only about 500 people live there, compared with about 17,500 in Nuuk. So intercontinental passengers traveling to or from Nuuk, such as me today, must also make the short hop between Nuuk and Kangerlussuaq. With limited flights in and out of Greenland to begin with, the cost and inconvenience of an added leg is an impediment to the tourism market that Greenland sorely wishes to develop.

As well, the old Nuuk runway was not designed for volume or large aircraft. Because of surrounding mountains and frequent cloud cover, the approach is notoriously challenging for pilots. In fact, when I landed at Nuuk a couple of days ago on a domestic flight, my Air Greenland pilot aborted landing northbound in the dense fog. We circled round and sailed alongside snowy mountain peaks—a bit unnerving—to land in the clearer southbound direction.

New Nuuk's first guests got gift bags.

Today's opening at Nuuk is a soft one, of the terminal only. The bigger, new runways are still under construction, the old runway still in use. Intercontinental passengers such as me still must fly to Kangerlussuaq. That will change when the new Nuuk airport becomes fully operational; plans aim for later this year. In fact, the runway at Kangerlussuaq has become degraded by subsiding permafrost, and the plan is to scuttle that airport for non-military use.

The great hall of the new Nuuk airport is not yet ready for prime time. A plastic sheet covers the escalator, and limited strips of seating equipped with electrical outlets are not yet plugged in to anything. There are not yet any concessions; free coffee and breads were on offer this morning.

For the time being, all roads lead to Kangerlussuaq.

The place looks promising. Warmly enthusiastic representatives this morning awarded the terminal's first 200 passengers "Greenland Airports" "goodie bags" containing travel-size containers and "Greenland airports" luggage tags.

For now, Nuuk airport will retain its IATA code, GOH, which was derived from the Danish name for Nuuk: Godthåb, or "Good Hope."

UPDATE, Aug. 5, 2024: One of my favorite YouTube channels, the B1M, has posted an excellent video with more detail and context than I had about the expansion of Greenland's airports, albeit with production dating to 2023. If you want to learn more, I recommend B1M, How to Build an Arctic Airport, YouTube (posted July 24, 2024).

The Nuuk tarmac at GOH: new runways lie beyond the old, where a plane taxis.

Air Greenland operates a diverse fleet of planes and helicopters to connect the largely roadless country.

Polisci papers track Ukraine war to Arctic, UN, internet

The war in Ukraine occasioned several papers at last weekend's annual meeting of the New England Political Science Association (NEPSA) in Mystic, Connecticut.

The NEPSA meeting offers an outstanding opportunity to preview cutting edge research presented in a low-stakes and supportive setting. Long-time NEPSA Executive Director Steven Lichtman, a professor of political science at Shippensburg University, is the brilliant maestro, setting the right collegial tone while supervising a rigorous selection process that guarantees top-shelf work.

Rotating location in New England states, NEPSA has become one of those regional conferences that is so highly regarded as to draw participation from across the country and from neighboring disciplines including law. The program is open to faculty and graduate students; law students of mine have participated in the past. This year the program opened two panels to undergraduate researchers. An extremely selective submission process yielded undergraduate presenters fully capable of going toe to toe with working scholars.

Prof. Steven Lichtman, 2016
RJ Peltz-Steele CC BY-NC-SA 4.0

There is scarcely a corner of politics and its study not being reshaped by the war in Ukraine. So it's no surprise that the war motivated many of the papers at this year's NEPSA. For all that I learned from myriad presenters, I thought I might share just a taste of takeaways related to the war.

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A Ph.D. candidate at the University of New Hampshire (UNH), Tim Hoheneder is thinking about the effect of the Ukraine war on Arctic politics. He explained that Russia assumed the rotating chair of the eight-state Arctic Council just before the full-scale invasion of Ukraine. The United States said it would not participate on the council during the term of the Russian chair, which ends this summer, in 2023. The United States did say it would continue to work bilaterally with other states on Arctic issues.

Now what will become of the council is up in the air. Major issues affecting global security, involving nuclear proliferation, militarization, indigenous rights, and climate change, hang in uncertainty. Hoheneder's paper is "Science Diplomacy as a Neofunctionalist Tool in a Post-Ukrainian Invasion Arctic."

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A master's student at UNH, Sarah DeSimone is considering how the U.N. Security Council might be made functional since the Russian veto has neutralized any meaningful response to the war. She explained both the long history of attempted Security Council reform and the recent history of failed resolutions on Ukraine. 

The only reform to the Security Council to gain traction has been the recent Liechtenstein "Veto Initiative," DeSimone explained. The initiative modestly would require that a council state explain a veto. DeSimone voiced support for an amalgam of proposals that have been floated before: First, the veto should be prohibited in matters of genocide, human rights violations, and serious violations of international law. Second, in conjunction with the prohibition, an oversight mechanism should preclude countries from voting on matters in which they are directly concerned. 

Without Security Council reform, DeSimone warned, lack of credibility will render the United Nations "obsolete." DeSimone's paper is "Reforms to the Security Council: Salvaging the Liberal World Order by Examining the Crisis in Ukraine."

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A senior at Providence College and editor-in-chief of the student newspaper, The Cowl, Sarah McLaughlin spent 46 unenviable days immersed in a Russian social media image board, Dvach (Двач). Her findings are fascinating. She discovered a world of hyper-masculine Russian nationalists almost as disgusted with Vladimir Putin as they are with Ukraine. The community evinces nostalgia for a perceived past of conservative values and faults Putin for not living up to anti-western and anti-liberal values. The community opposes the war in Ukraine and the mobilization of Russians to support it, even as participants depict the idealized Russian man as strong, hardworking, and dutiful to country. Animals, especially pigs and monkeys, represent Ukrainians, women, and Putin in demeaning memes.

McLaughlin's paper is "Russia the Bear, Putin the Pig: Russian Nationalism and the Imagined Community of Memes."

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NEPSA's next annual meeting is slated for spring 2024 in Newport, R.I.  Look for a call for papers by September with a December 2023 deadline.