Diplomacy and International Relations

Greenland Is Not For Sale - Sovereignty, Empire, and the Return of Territorial Appetite

Trump has doubled down on acquiring Greenland, NATO's Rutte has conceded he "has a point" on Arctic security, and a Greenlandic self-government report on independence alternatives is due by year's end. This episode goes beyond the headlines into what sovereignty actually means when a great power treats a NATO ally's territory as a bargaining chip.If you like what you hear please follow me on Substack and Instagram for more content.

The Pope in Moscow's Shadow - Can Religious Diplomacy Do What States Can't?

In this episode I have found sources about the visit by the Vatican's foreign minister to Moscow. Talks circled around Ukraine. At the same time high level officials from CIA was in town. Listen in and get a grip on what is going on. Can the Church move the negotiations in a way that the US and EU haven't been able to? If you like what you hear, please visit Substack for more content and follow me on Instagram.

Who Owns the Water - Hormuz After America

When 140 ships vanished from the Strait of Hormuz within days, it wasn't warfare that shut the route down — it was the insurance market. This episode traces the collapse of the Islamabad memorandum between the US and Iran, the asymmetric American escalation that followed, and how Iran has since stood up its own governing body, the Persian Gulf Strait Authority, charging tolls of up to $2 million per transit — settled in Chinese yuan to sidestep US sanctions. We examine Oman's role as broker between Tehran and Washington, the parallels to Danish mediation diplomacy during the Oslo process, and the legal questions UNCLOS raises when a strait starts behaving like a border. Is this the birth of a new regional security order, or the first sign of a privatized ocean? More content on Substack and Instagram.

Bamako Under Siege - The War the World Isn't Covering

Millions of people in Bamako are living without power, without fuel, without open roads out of the city. A coalition of insurgents has encircled Mali's capital and is strangling it economically — and almost no one in Western media is reporting it. In this episode we trace how a rural insurgency in Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger became a full-blown urban siege; why the region's military juntas tore up their alliance with France and the West and replaced it with Russia's Africa Corps; and why that trade has produced more civilian deaths at the hands of the state than at the hands of the jihadists it was hired to fight. We also ask a harder question: why does this war — nearly 10,000 dead in a year — barely register in the outlets that decide what counts as news? This is the war nobody is talking about. It's time someone did. More content on Substack and Instagram.

Greenland Is Not a Real Estate Deal

In this episode, we analyse the tensing geopolitical situation over Greenland. We do a review of the American demand for control, the threats of punitive tariffs against European allies, and Denmark’s military response. Hear about the build-up of the Danish defense, the deployment of conscripts as a strategic ‘stumbling block’ and the EU’s countermeasures. Finally, we take a look at the complicated agreement from Davos and ask: What does this crisis mean for Greenland’s sovereignty and future NATO cooperation?

Sacred Ground, Secular War: Religion as the Unspoken Variable in the Iran-Israel-Gulf Conflict

Listen in as we go another route than most coverage of the Hormuz crisis and the Turkey-Pakistan-Saudi defence pact treats it as pure realpolitik. But Shia-Sunni dynamics, Iran's revolutionary-Islamic self-conception, and the religious legitimacy stakes for Gulf monarchies are doing real work underneath the "interests" language. That is what we will look at now. If you like this content please follow on Substack and Instagram.

Denmark's Quiet Rearmament: Pragmatic Idealism or the End of an Illusion?

Listen to this episode where I look at how Denmark is hitting NATO's 2% target three years early, has troops in Latvia, and is funnelling billions into Ukraine and all of it under a foreign policy strategy explicitly branded "pragmatic idealism." If you like what you here please follow on Substack and Instagram (IQulture Talking).

Greenland and the collision of national myths

Listen to this episode on Greenland, US and the religious current underneath it all. When Donald Trump promises that Greenland will be “under US control” before his term ends, the story is usually told as one about minerals, military bases, and raw geopolitics. This episode asks whether it is really about something far more sacred: competing religions of sovereignty. We unfold three narratives: Greenland’s long struggle for self‑government and the right to independence under the Self‑Government Act. Denmark’s guilt‑ and responsibility‑driven insistence that “Greenland is not for sale” and that only Greenlanders can decide the island’s future. And an American frontier mythology that treats territory as destiny, casting the Arctic as yet another frontier for national salvation. Along the way, we look at how conscription, military exercises, and bases are used as symbolic rituals of statehood – not just as instruments of deterrence. This isn’t a real‑estate deal; it’s a clash between sacred stories about who has the right to define Greenland’s future. Please consider following IQulture Talking on Instagram or find IQulture on Substack: https://linktr.ee/IQulture

Abraham Accords - History and Religion in Action and the US and Saudi Nuclear Deal

How does ancient history and religion influence a modern nuclear deal? Listen

Tariff Loopholes and Diplomatic Theatre

This episode looks at tariffs and how a lot of diplomatic theatre is happening right now. Focus on Greenland.

From Global Diplomacy To Building Moratoriums

Listen as we take a closer look at Climate Diplomacy and how to understand Climate in relation to global politics. If you like what you hear and want to support this independent podcast, please visit https://www.patreon.com/cw/iqulture and follow and subscribe, you will also get access to more content.

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Extra - Holy Sites as Fault Lines - Pope Leo, Saudi Normalization, and Sacred Statecraft

In this episode we take a closer look at how the Saudi nuclear deal is now formally conditioned on joining the Abraham Accords, which is a religious-symbolic act as much as a strategic one. Meanwhile Pope Leo warns against unilateral moves violating "the status quo of the holy sites." Religion is having a come-back in international relations and global politics. Follow IQulture Talking on Instagram for more content.

Summer 18: How the Victors Built International Relations

Listen to this final episode of Diplomacy and International Relations summer series where we reflect on IR's lessons for navigating Denmark's changing global role. If you want to support the podcast, please go to Patreon and subscribe for weekly and monthly briefings on Danish politics, and access to bonus episodes of the podcast. Follow this link: https://www.patreon.com/cw/iqulture/

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Extra - EU Defense Billions and_Greenland's Independence

Everyone covers the Trump–Frederiksen soundbites. Almost no one covers that the European Commission just proposed doubling support for Greenland in the 2028–2034 budget, and that Commissioner Síkela was in Nuuk updating the EU Arctic strategy. The real Greenland story is a quiet bidding war in budget lines, not sale rumors. Follow IQulture Talking on Instagram for more content.

Summer 17: How Westphalia Invented the Modern State

Listen to this episode of Diplomacy and International Relations summer series where declining US hegemony reshapes NATO, EU, and Danish security strategy. If you want to support the podcast, please go to Patreon and subscribe for weekly and monthly briefings on Danish politics, and access to bonus episodes of the podcast.Follow this link: https://www.patreon.com/cw/iqulture/

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Extra - Tariff Loopholes and Diplomatic Theater

In this episode we look at the Rubio–Lavrov talks in Manila that lasted barely 35 minutes with no framework, while in the meantime the real action happened in the Senate gallery with Zelensky watching a sanctions vote. It is an episode on what diplomatic rituals mean when everyone knows they're empty — and where leverage has actually migrated (sanctions law, Patriot co-production deals, jamming technology). Follow IQulture Talking in Instagram for more content.

Summer 16: Global Politics on Your Dinner Plate

Listen to this episode of Diplomacy and International Relations summer series where food security reveals the surprisingly political world of global agriculture. If you want to support the podcast, please go to Patreon and subscribe for weekly and monthly briefings on Danish politics, and access to bonus episodes of the podcast. Follow this link: https://www.patreon.com/cw/iqulture/

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Summer 15: Why Countries are a Modern Hallucination

Listen to this episode of Diplomacy and International Relations summer series where climate negotiations test the limits of international cooperation. If you want support the podcast, please go to Patreon and subscribe for weekly and monthly on Danish politics, and access to bonus episodes of the podcast. Follow this link: https://www.patreon.com/cw/iqulture/

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Summer 14: The Open Source Code of Modern Terror

Listen to this episode of Diplomacy and International Relations summer series where we unpack terrorist networks, radicalisation, and Denmark's security response. If you want to support the podcast, please go to Patreon and subscribe for weekly and monthly briefings on Danish politics, and access to bonus episodes of the podcast. Follow this link: https://www.patreon.com/cw/iqulture/

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Summer 13: How Smartphones and Umbrellas Challenge Power

Listen to this episode of Diplomacy and International Relations summer series where protests, elections, and populism challenge elite foreign policymaking. If you want to support the podcast, please go to Patreon and subscribe for weekly and monthly briefings on Danish politics, and access to bonus episodes of the podcast.Follow this link: https://www.patreon.com/cw/iqulture/

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