By Gustavo de Arístegui, as published by La Razón.
11 January 2026
Greenland’s mineral resources shape its independence and security
“Geography is destiny.”
This maxim, attributed to Napoleon and refined by the founding fathers of geopolitics, has never been more relevant than when observing the map of the Arctic. For centuries, the North Pole was an insurmountable barrier, a frozen desert that chilled imperial ambitions. Today, climate change has transformed that barrier into a theatre of operations. Greenland has ceased to be an inert giant on the margins of world maps and has become the central piece — the fulcrum — of the global strategic chessboard. On this immense and sparsely populated island collide Russia’s existential needs, China’s commercial voracity, the return of American hard power, and the bewilderment of a Europe that, trapped in its bureaucratic labyrinth, continues to resist understanding the grammar of power.
Russia’s “geographical prison” and the Arctic escape
To understand Moscow’s obsession with the Arctic, one must first understand its strategic claustrophobia. Russia is the largest country on Earth, yet geopolitically it behaves like a besieged power. As naval historian Alfred Thayer Mahan pointed out, a continental power without unrestricted access to the world’s oceans can never challenge global hegemony. The Kremlin possesses four major naval projection zones, and geography — reinforced by NATO’s security architecture — has turned three of them into deadly traps.
The Baltic Fleet, based in Kaliningrad and Saint Petersburg, faces a critical situation. Following Finland’s and Sweden’s accession to the Atlantic Alliance, the Baltic Sea has effectively become a NATO lake: nine of the ten littoral states are Alliance members. To reach the Atlantic, Russian vessels must cross Danish straits — narrow corridors easily mined or blocked.
The Black Sea Fleet, although capable of projecting power over Ukraine and Syria, remains enclosed. Its only outlet to the Mediterranean depends on the Montreux Convention and on Turkey, guardian of the Bosphorus and the Dardanelles. In a large-scale conflict, Ankara holds the key to locking the gate.
In the Far East, the Pacific Fleet confronts the first island chain. Japan controls the La Pérouse and Tsushima straits, while U.S. bases in Okinawa and Guam monitor any movement toward open waters.
It is here that the Arctic ceases to be an option and becomes a vital necessity. The Northern Fleet, based on the Kola Peninsula, is Russia’s only naval force with direct access to the high seas. Yet even this outlet has a choke point: the GIUK Gap, the maritime corridor between Greenland, Iceland, and the United Kingdom. In Russian military doctrine, Greenland is not ice; it is the western wall of its strategic bastion. If NATO controls the island and reinforces Iceland, Russian nuclear submarines are bottlenecked before they can threaten the U.S. East Coast. The modernization of the Northern Fleet and the deployment of Borei-class submarines and Zircon hypersonic missiles pursue a clear objective: to keep the Arctic door open.
The Polar Silk Road and the Dragon’s temptation
If for Russia the Arctic means security, for China it means economy and diversification. Beijing, self-defined in its 2018 White Paper as a “near-Arctic state,” looks north with a calculator in hand. Polar ice melt promises to open maritime routes that would reduce the distance between Shanghai and Rotterdam by nearly 30% compared to the journey through the Suez Canal.
But there is an even more decisive strategic factor: the Malacca dilemma. More than 80% of China’s energy imports pass through that strait, a choke point vulnerable to blockade by the U.S. Navy or its regional allies. The Polar Silk Road would offer China a commercial artery immune to American interference in the Indian Ocean.
Greenland is essential in this equation for two reasons. First, its logistical position: it is the natural stopover for any vessel transiting from the Arctic to the North Atlantic. Second, its resources: the Kvanefjeld deposit, in the south of the island, contains one of the world’s largest untapped reserves of rare earths and uranium. China, which currently controls more than 80% of global production and nearly 95% of global processing of these critical minerals for green and military technologies, has repeatedly attempted to acquire stakes in Greenlandic projects.
THE NEW U.S. FOREIGN POLICY
The struggle for the Arctic
Russian geography pushes its doctrine northward
as its only oceanic outlet
(Map references and distances preserved as in the original)
The Arctic Fulcrum: Greenland and Europe’s geopolitical solitude
► Russia, China, and the United States compete for control of the world’s largest island, which melting ice will turn into a strategic frontier
Gustavo de Arístegui