Rod Martin argues Greenland’s Arctic dominance—melting ice, Chinese/Russian icebreakers, and untapped rare earths—demands U.S. control via free association, bypassing Danish colonialism’s failures; he frames it as Reagan-esque "moral realism," not imperialism, while dismissing global warming skepticism. On Iran, he highlights 12,000 executed protesters, Trump’s tariff threats, and a predicted secular democracy post-regime collapse, rejecting monarchy restoration without democracy, mirroring Spain’s transition under Juan Carlos. [Automatically generated summary]
Could Greenland Become America's 51st State?00:15:12
If you're looking to create, grow, and sustain your wealth, download and subscribe to the Pain Points of Wealth podcast at bebullish.com with Bob, Ryan, and Chris Payne.
It's your podcast for market insights, money tips, and real talk on the economy.
Download and subscribe at bebullish.com.
The Stone Zone.
Entertaining and informative on the Red Apple Podcast Network.
Welcome back into the Stone Zone.
So could Greenland, a Danish colony in our hemisphere, actually become America's 51st state?
Joining me to talk about that is one of my favorite public intellectuals.
That's Rod Martin.
He's the founder and CEO of Martin Capital, but he also helms the Rod Martin Report.
I like Rod Martin because he's a technology entrepreneur, an investor, and a futurist, but he's also a realist and a thinker.
So when he writes, I love to read it.
I love to repost his stuff.
And I always like to get his take on these things.
He's been way out ahead of others in analyzing the situation regarding Greenland.
Rod, welcome into the Stone Zone.
Great to be here.
Great to be here.
So do you believe that Greenland is a key part of effectuating what we're calling the Don Rowe doctrine in this hemisphere?
And if so, why is that?
Well, the president's exactly right to be concerned about acquiring Greenland.
And of course, he's not the first president to do so.
To listen to the in the media, you would get the idea that he's off on some crazy bender.
But Dwight Eisenhower wanted to acquire Greenland.
He wasn't even the first.
And there has been a consistent understanding of the need for this.
There just hasn't been a lot of attention.
Well, it's a new day.
We live in an age in which either through global warming, which I think many of us are properly skeptical of, or through the advent of growing nuclear power capabilities resulting in the likely prospect of a lot of nuclear icebreakers on the part of China and the United States and Russia, you actually have sea lanes in the north that are of increasing vitality.
And Greenland commands those sea lanes very much as it did during the Cold War and World War II between itself and Iceland and the UK.
These are absolutely vital to American security, but there's more.
Greenland is also a source of a tremendous quantity of rare earth minerals and other natural resources, especially oil and gas offshore, that are vital to the future.
And they are all difficult to access.
They are all far beyond the technical and financial resources of Denmark to exploit.
So what we have is a situation where the 57,000 Greenlanders are stuck in needless poverty under colonial domination by a European power, if you can call it that, and really have no hope of any of this ever happening for them apart from a major power coming in and developing it.
So the president's right.
If we don't act, China or Russia will.
And there's not a lot Greenland, I'm sorry, Denmark can do about it.
This is a money pit for them, a billion-dollar subsidy a year, and accomplishing absolutely nothing.
So at the outset, you said, should they become 51st state?
Probably not.
They want to be independent.
There's a way to achieve everything for everybody.
We can end Denmark's need to subsidize them.
We can take over that role of patron.
Greenland can become independent, and we can form a compact of free association with them, as we have with the Mariana Islands and with the Marshals and with Palau.
They get all the benefits of independence with none of the costs, and everybody's happy.
As you know, President Donald Trump has identified the Greenland question as a question of national security.
While Denmark's leaders have downplayed the threat to Greenland posed by the Russians or the Chinese amidst President Trump's outspoken desire to acquire this frozen island, Denmark's own intelligence agency recently released an assessment bluntly warning of Russian and Chinese military ambitions and expansion towards Greenland and the entire Arctic.
You've also written very compellingly about the importance of the development of nuclear power in the Arctic in this new frontier.
So for those who try to say, well, Trump's bellicose language, his desires to obtain Greenland are similar to the war in Iraq, let's say, under the neocons.
I don't believe that.
I believe that this is, in fact, a national security question confronting our country.
It absolutely is.
And there's nothing neoconservative about it.
This is the same kind of moral realism we saw under Ronald Reagan, where you use short, sharp uses of American power, such as we just did in Caracas, to achieve a multiplicity of ends.
Well, there's no need for a short, sharp use of power here, but there is a need for a very Trumpian, maximalist position going into a negotiation that compels the people on the other side of the table to get creative about actually solving the problem.
And the end result of that is always a good deal for everyone.
Anybody who wants to play ball with Donald Trump is going to win in the process as he wins in the process.
It's the people like the Ayatollah and Putin and Xi Jinping who are going to lose because if you don't want to play ball with Donald Trump, he's going to whack you.
And it's going to really actually be incredibly entertaining for many of us.
And it's going to be a very effective course of action for the United States.
So that's just not going to be in the cards here, but it is going to get these guys to sit down and talk.
And we saw the beginning of that today with the foreign ministers from Greenland and Denmark coming to meet with Marco Rubio.
That's a good development, and they can say whatever bellicose things they want.
But at the end of the day, they came to Washington and they're talking about the problem.
And we're going to get to a good solution.
This president will see to that.
Rural Americans deserve access to the best of what our nation has to offer, especially health care.
Across every state and every community, America's rural hospitals are the first line of defense, protecting our families, neighbors, and loved ones.
No matter where you live, hospital care doesn't clock out.
They're there 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year.
Each year, America's over 5,000 hospitals care for millions of patients, providing 24-7 emergency care, delivering babies, cancer treatments, and other life-saving care that patients rely on.
Behind every one of those patients are doctors, nurses, and caregivers working tirelessly to keep people healthy and safe.
Hospitals are our community's lifelines.
They employ our neighbors and keep our families healthy.
But now, some in Congress are threatening access to care.
Tell Congress, protect patient care to keep America strong.
Don't cut rural health care.
Folks, if you're just tuning in, we're talking to Rod Martin of the Rod Martin Report.
You can go to rodmartin.org.
I strongly recommend you subscribe either at Substack or at Rod's own website.
Always incisive analysis of the political developments and economic developments around the globe.
You know, Rod, I'm a political animal, and therefore I don't see what the harm would be to putting this question up before the people of Greenland in a referendum.
Why are the globalists so doggedly opposed to democracy and letting the people of Greenland speak about their future?
Well, it really is odd, isn't it?
Because polling has long shown that the Greenlanders want to be independent of Denmark.
Denmark has not been a good colonial master.
And there is, of course, this inherent bellicosity in the president's approach.
So, of course, that makes people nervous.
But the truth of the matter is they would be independent if they could.
And they've been very clear about that.
And the unhappiness with Denmark is widespread and longstanding.
So if they could be independent without the costs of independence, that would solve the problem for everybody.
Again, a compact of free association, such as we've already entered into with three separate independent countries in the Pacific, all island countries, I might add, is perfect for them.
It's expensive to have a military.
It's expensive to have embassies in 195 countries or even a fraction of that.
It's expensive to be part of the United Nations and all these different things.
And the United States just takes care of that for the people in free association with us.
So they get to be free.
They get to do whatever they want internally.
America gets appropriate defense considerations and we pay the freight on all those foreign policy matters.
This would solve the problem.
And yes, once the Greenlanders fully understand that that's an option on the table, I think you get to a referendum.
And I think this is exactly what they're going to vote for.
Yeah, the EU and NATO talk tough, but I don't think they have much to back it up.
And I think the president's going to call their bluff here.
Rod, while I've got you, I've got to ask you your take on the developments swiftly happening there in Iran, where the regime, which is extraordinarily brutal, people need to understand that mass public executions are part of their bag of tricks.
This is one of the most brutal governments in the world.
It's not really a government.
I think former President Richard Nixon, when he was at the Shah's funeral, correctly appointed this as a mob, which is what it really is.
Your take on the situation in Iran.
Well, the Crown Prince, Reza Pahlavi, was interviewed today.
He says that his best information suggests that the regime has murdered 12,000 protesters.
These are unarmed people.
And this is exactly why we have a Second Amendment in this country, because the truth is, if only the state has guns, then everyone is at the mercy of the state.
And that's exactly what's happened in Iran.
So the president came out very strongly, I thought, you know, said very clearly, keep protesting.
Help is on the way.
Well, we don't know exactly what that means.
It certainly includes the 25% tariff he just slapped on any country that continues to do business with Iran.
But there are a range of military operations that are available that he is strongly implying we're going to employ.
And the only question is what is the mix and what is the date?
And when he says help's on the way and then it doesn't happen within 24 hours, we shouldn't be unnerved by that.
The truth of the matter is Iran's halfway around the world.
And it's not as easy to do this as it would be in Caracas.
But what is certain is this military under this president and PTEG Seth and the team that Trump has assembled is absolutely going to be successful in what they do.
And I think we could be on the brink of this regime toppling.
I agree with your analysis.
I'm not sure Americans fully appreciate the courage of the Iranian people.
This is an incredibly brutal regime with a vicious secret police.
Now there's huge disinformation that those protesters are being killed are being killed by Israeli agents who are doing it as a provocation.
I reject that entirely.
This is a manifestation of the fact that conditions in Iran have really eroded to the fact that people's quality of life has been badly disturbed.
There's a lack of food.
There's a lack of fuel.
There's a lack of gainful employment.
This is a society that is collapsing before our very eyes.
And I don't think you're going to have an invasion.
I'm not sure that's going to be necessary.
I think this brutal regime is going to topple on its own.
And then the question becomes, what comes next?
I am opposed to moving from a theocracy back to a monarchy.
I don't think that's the answer.
Obviously, I would like to see the nation have free, fair, open elections and a democratic process to select a way forward.
I'm not sure that that is immediately realistic.
What do you see coming up in Iran post-regime?
Well, you and I have friends on both sides of the question of is Reza Pahlavi the right guy to lead a transition.
And some of our friends are concerned that he may be in league with the Revolutionary Guard, and other of our friends poo-hoo that.
And the truth of the matter is we can't know until something happens.
But Reza Pahlavi has consistently called for a transitional government that becomes a secular democracy.
And he seems to be patterning what he has in mind on Juan Carlos in Spain.
After Franco died, he had decided to bring back the monarchy, and Juan Carlos was the next one in line.
And so he sets up Juan Carlos, who immediately calls elections and creates a constitutional monarchy not that different from the one in Great Britain.
So if Reza Pahlavi were able to bring that to pass, it would be just unbelievable for the region.
Reza Pahlavi's Vision00:02:14
First of all, the main threat to every Gulf state and to Israel would just be gone.
Iran would become not just a free country, but an ally of the United States and of Israel as it was before the Islamic Revolution in 79.
But we're also seeing some interesting developments on the religious side.
People have clearly rejected the Islamic theocracy.
And in the process, a great many of them seem to be rejecting Islam itself.
So we're seeing a rise of Zoroastrianism, which is the historic religion of Persia.
We're also seeing a rise of Christianity in a lot of places.
So this could really be a staggering development for the Middle East, and we could see the resumption of the westernization of one of the most important countries in the region.
Folks, if you're just tuning in, we're talking to Rod Martin of the Rod Martin Report.
Go to rodmartin.org.
And when we come back, I want to get Rod Martin's views on the events in Venezuela.
So whatever you do, don't touch that dial.
We'll be right back.
Thanks for listening to The Stone Zone with Roger Stone.
You can hear The Stone Zone with Roger Stone weeknights at 8 on 77 WABC.
If you like the podcast, share it with your friends and listen anytime at wabcradio.com and download the WABC Radio app.
Hit that subscribe button on all major podcast platforms.
Plus, follow WABC on social, on Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, and X. See you next time for a new episode so you never have to wonder what the heck is going on here.
At Manhattan University, a graduate degree is not out of reach.
You'll gain real-world skills, credentials, employers' value, and connections to New York City's top companies.
Choose from their new master of science degrees in healthcare, informatics, digital marketing and analytics, business analytics, or financial analytics.
All built around hands-on learning and industry partnerships.
Graduate ready to lead, not just work.
Take the next step at manhattan.edu slash graduate.