With more momentum, and thus a higher likelihood of coming to fruition, it becomes more important than ever to understand some of the strategic nuances and asymmetries at work that may challenge the ease of an American expansion but which, if better understood, could help smooth the way forward to the 51st star on the American flag.

Alaska and Greenland are very different and yet share numerous commonalities. Alaska has over 10 times the population of Greenland, and its demography is far more mixed with numerous Indigenous cultures as well as a majority settler population, more akin to Yukon with its shared Gold Rush history. Demographically, Greenland has more in common with Nunavut, including their shared overwhelming Inuit demographic predominance and their remote, coastal marine mammal hunting communities, as well as the strength and endurance of their respective Inuit dialects. But their economies struggle to modernize and resource extraction plays an outsized role in the projected future of both. Limited infrastructure, part and parcel of their isolation and rugged geography, also unite them. As do their dependencies on external federal subsidies for basic services in the absence of a sufficient tax base.

When thinking about Greenland versus Alaska (and, to a lesser degree, the rest of mainland Arctic North America), the SA国际影视传媒淎merica is from Mars, Europe is from VenusSA国际影视传媒� aphorism comes to mind. You can sense the Mars versus Venus dichotomy somewhat when you transit the Alaska Highway heading southeast, passing from the more wild-west SA国际影视传媒渓ast frontierSA国际影视传媒� of Alaska into Canada, with its more British-incubated political culture sharing commonalities with the European mainland, where a more centralized, state-led political-economy is in place. This is evident as you transit Arctic North America, passing from Alaska into Yukon and beyond. Both sides of the Alaska-Canada border have boom-and-bust histories of resource rushes, but the former has a kinder, gentler edge that can be attributed to the age-old clash between raw capitalism and more continental socialism. In Greenland, this gap is even more palpable. It is well known for its absence of private land ownership, and for its state-led economy which remains more centralized and sluggish than found on the other side of Arctic North America and where both the extraction of uranium and offshore oil exploration, two economic lifelines in much of Arctic North America, were put on hold in 2021.

But itSA国际影视传媒檚 not on the mainland of Arctic North America that you find an Ayn Randian paradise of land holders in charge a capitalist Utopia, though Alaska has much of this spirit as does Yukon, and even the Northwest Territories, to a lesser degree, with its active mining economy. Indeed, the NWT has possessed the mechanism to continually thwart efforts to build a gas pipeline along the Mackenzie River since the 1970s, preventing the regionSA国际影视传媒檚 full integration into CanadaSA国际影视传媒檚 western petroleum economy. But in Alaska, particularly since 1980 when the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act (ANILCA) federalized so much Alaska land, redressing the calls after the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act (ANCSA) for a retribalization of land away from the new corporations created by the land claim not with tribal land tenure but instead a federal land grab (making Alaska more, not less, like Greenland), we may see land title clarified. But there's even less private land available to the individual with more land title now held by Washington than either the State of Alaska or the Alaska Native Corporations, leaving the state a patchwork of government-controlled political economies that frustrates many an economic actor.

But the real magic was the way land was subdivided under ANCSA between village corporations and regional corporations, and how surface and subsurface rights were divvied up (while resource revenues were themselves divided among the different regions, so resource-poor parts of rural Alaska were not left out of future prosperity, a quasi-socialistic and perennially unpopular provision of ANCSA in the more resource-rich regions like the North Slope). And investment capital was funnelled into the corporations (even while the SA国际影视传媒�20-year time bombSA国际影视传媒� was still ticking, and before legislative revision defused that worry, which could have seen the wholesale alienation of native-owned land from Alaska natives had it not be redressed ex post facto) to leverage natural resources to bring prosperity to Alaska natives. Some critics of ANCSASA国际影视传媒檚 original blueprint believe the native corporations were designed to fail, and the land title was designed to devolve to the non-native majority through defaults on debt and the sale of distressed assets after the 20-year moratorium concluded (had ANCSA not been successfully re-engineered). Indeed, this doomsday scenario almost happened: many Alaska native corporations came perilously close to failure, selling off their net operating losses (NOLs) for one last infusion of cash in the 1990s. Government intervention and the revision of ANCSA allowed the land claim to survive its original flaws.

Across the border, Canada watched and learned from what then was believed by nearly all to be an unmitigated catastrophe across the border, instead protecting native ownership of the land for perpetuity, along with traditional use thereof, including the automatic enrolment of newly-born natives (left out of ANCSA in 1971, one reason the cynics believe it was expected to fail after 20 years) so that there would in Canada be perpetual, intergenerational continuity of native stewardship of the land and its resources. Canada got it right (but owes much to Alaska for its innovative effort to bridge the traditional and modern worlds), and Alaskans have sought to cobble together, with the ANCSA-ANILCA combination (along with the recognition by Washington in 1993 of Alaska natives as tribes under federal law, affording some of the protections they have in Canada under its constitution), yielding a hybrid system that regained nearly all of the institutional balances and protections found in Canadian land claims. In its entirety, the land claim story in Arctic North America is a story of land redistribution and native rights empowerment that strengthened with time but a close look under the hood sees many bumps and bruises, from ANCSASA国际影视传媒檚 original design flaws to NunavutSA国际影视传媒檚 implementation struggles amid its own SA国际影视传媒渄eep stateSA国际影视传媒� resistance to native empowerment in Ottawa (while nonetheless professing an undying brotherly love).