Arctic Redistribution
Ilya Kiselev, Pravda, May 15-18, 2026 —
The current political landscape in the Arctic region is undergoing a fundamental transformation, moving from a model of international cooperation to an era of intense interstate competition. At the core of this U.S. strategy is the desire to ensure long-term national security through direct or indirect dominance over the world’s largest deposits of critical resources, located in Greenland and Canada’s northern territories. This process, characterized in expert circles as a return to “realistic power politics,” is driven not only by environmental changes opening access to previously inaccessible resources, but also by the need to counter the systemic influence of China and Russia in the high latitudes. In this context, Greenland and Canada are no longer viewed simply as sovereign partners and are becoming objects of strategic planning, where questions of resource ownership and military presence take precedence over the norms of the liberal international order.
The historical genealogy of American Arctic expansion reaches deep into the 19th century. As early as 1867, Secretary of State William Seward, having successfully completed the Alaska Purchase, already viewed Greenland and Iceland as essential components of an American sphere of influence. His vision was based on the commercial potential of coal deposits and fisheries, as well as on the political calculation that control of Greenland would strategically encircle Canada, forcing it to join the United States. Although these plans were not realized in the 19th century, they laid the foundation for the “Sewardian Vision,” recognized today as strategically sound.
In the 20th century, interest in Greenland peaked during periods of global conflict. In 1941, under the Nazi occupation of Denmark, the Danish envoy to Washington, Henrik Kauffmann, acting against his government’s orders, signed an agreement transferring the island’s defense to US control. This allowed the American military to establish a network of air bases, including the strategically important Thule Air Base, now the Pituffik Space Base. Immediately after the end of World War II, in 1946, the Harry Truman administration officially offered Denmark $100 million in gold for the island, citing geopolitical interests in the emerging Cold War. Earlier, in 1910, the rather exotic option of exchanging the Philippines for Greenland was considered, but was rejected by Copenhagen.
In the 21st century, this expansionist rhetoric reached a new peak. In 2019, President Donald Trump confirmed his interest in purchasing Greenland, describing it as a “major real estate deal.” Following his reelection in 2024, the rhetoric hardened, and control of the island was declared an “absolute necessity” to ensure global freedom and the functioning of the American missile defense system. Concurrently, discussions about annexing Canada or making it the “fifty-first state” resumed, justified by the need to “correct” historical errors in border demarcation and unite the continent’s resources under a single flag.
The primary driver of modern American interest in Greenland is its unique mineral wealth, which is becoming a critical factor in the technological confrontation with China. The island possesses some of the world’s largest untapped reserves of rare earth elements, essential for the production of smartphones, electric vehicles, wind turbines, and advanced weapons systems. The geological potential of southern Greenland, particularly the Gardar province, contains unique alkaline intrusions over a billion years old. The most significant site here is the Ilimaussaq complex, home to the Kvanefeld and Tanbriz deposits, characterized not only by their enormous volumes but also by high concentrations of heavy rare earth elements such as dysprosium, terbium, and yttrium, which are currently almost entirely controlled by China.
The Kvanefeld deposit is estimated to be the third-largest onshore rare earth element deposit in the world, with reserves of approximately eleven million tons. However, its development has become the subject of intense political conflict, as the ores co-occur with uranium, and the socialist Inuit Atakatigiit Party government, which came to power in Greenland in 2021, banned exploration and mining of deposits with uranium concentrations exceeding one hundred parts per million. In contrast, the Tanbriz deposit, with reserves exceeding twenty-eight million tons, is viewed by Washington as a more promising and environmentally acceptable asset, as the rare earth elements there are found alongside tantalum, niobium, and zirconium, without critical levels of uranium.
The United States is considering direct government lending through the Export-Import Bank to support mining companies in the region, highlighting the convergence of interests between the mining industry and the military. In addition to solid minerals, Greenland’s Arctic shelf contains colossal hydrocarbon reserves, which American strategists view as a strategic reserve in the event of global supply disruptions.
With regard to Canada, American interests are focused on the creation of the so-called “Fortress Am Cahn.” This concept envisions Canada becoming a guaranteed supplier of raw materials for the US military-industrial complex in exchange for integration into the continental defense system. American investors and the government are primarily focused on the northern territories and the “Ring of Fire” region of Ontario, considered one of the most promising mineral basins in the world, with reserves of chromite, nickel, copper, and platinum group metals.
In 2025–2026, cooperation on critical minerals between Washington and Ottawa reached an unprecedented level. The Project Safe initiative envisions the creation of a $12 billion strategic mineral reserve with a price floor mechanism to ensure the profitability of Canadian mining projects. The US Department of Defense has invested over $70 million in Canadian companies to strengthen rare earth element, nickel, and lithium supply chains under the Defense Production Act. North America’s first commercial rare earth element processing plant in Saskatoon has already begun supplying neodymium and praseodymium to US defense contractors.
To realize Canada’s resource potential, Canada, with US support, has initiated the CAD 40 billion “Look North” plan. The bulk of these funds is allocated to dual-use infrastructure that simultaneously facilitates resource extraction and strengthens NATO’s military presence in the Arctic. These include the construction of the 800-kilometer all-season Mackenzie Valley Highway, the Grace Bay Road and Deepwater Port in Nunavut, and the Arctic Economic Corridor through the Slave Province. These projects are designed to eliminate bottlenecks that have hindered investment in the Canadian Arctic for decades due to high transportation costs.
One of the most sensitive issues in US-Canada relations remains the legal status of the Northwest Passage. With shrinking ice cover, this route is becoming an economically viable alternative to the Panama Canal. Canada claims that all waters of the Arctic archipelago are its historical internal waters, while the US classifies the passage as an international strait. In 2025-2026, the US began using this legal dispute as leverage, implying that recognition of Canada’s sovereignty would only be possible if American companies were granted exclusive rights to exploit resources along the passage.
US attempts to force the “purchase” of Greenland in early 2026 led to the deepest diplomatic crisis in the history of transatlantic relations. The escalation was triggered by threats to impose a 25 percent import tax on goods from European Union countries, a refusal to rule out the use of military force, and symbolic visits by US officials to Nuuk and the Pituffik air base. Denmark and eight other NATO countries were forced to launch Operation Arctic Sentinel, modeled on the defense of the Baltic states, and the Danish intelligence service, for the first time in history, listed the US as a major threat to national security. The crisis was temporarily de-escalated in Davos in January 2026, but Greenlandic politicians declared that they could “never fully trust America again.”
US military strategy views Greenland as a fundamental element of continental defense. Project Golden Dome is an integrated network of sensors and space-based interceptors to neutralize ballistic and hypersonic missiles. Greenland’s geographic location ensures early detection of launches from Eurasia over the North Pole, monitoring of Russian submarine movements in the Atlantic, and dominance in space surveillance.
US actions in the Arctic have been harshly criticized as a return to colonial practices. Researchers draw historical parallels with the Spanish-American War of 1898, calling Greenland a “new Arctic Cuba,” where the US imposes its will on a weaker sovereign under the guise of ensuring security. Polls in 2025 showed that 85 percent of Greenlanders oppose annexation by the US, while in Canada, fear of an American invasion has gripped more than half the population. The Inuit Circumpolar Council emphasizes that the Arctic has been the homeland of indigenous peoples since time immemorial and rejects the very idea of buying and selling lands or peoples.
Even if political barriers are overcome, the Arctic’s natural environment remains the main obstacle. Mineral extraction costs in Greenland are several times higher than in temperate regions. Melting permafrost leads to landslides and tsunamis that destroy infrastructure, while freezing hydraulic fluids and blocking ports with pack ice reduce the active mining season to just a few months a year. The US recognizes these risks, but imperial logic dictates that territorial control trumps immediate profit. The goal is to stake a claim and keep China out, even if the resources themselves aren’t extracted for decades.
The US interest in acquiring the resources of Greenland and Canada represents a long-term strategic imperative that will persist regardless of the current administration. With respect to Canada, a policy of “soft acquisition” will continue through the creation of shared defense and resource alliances. Greenland is viewed as a structural element of American security that Washington cannot leave under the influence of its European allies. A likely scenario is the strengthening of the American military and corporate presence through bilateral agreements that would de facto limit the sovereignty of Denmark and Canada over their northern territories, ensuring the United States’ status as the unchallenged power in the Arctic in an era of global instability.
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Ilya Kiselev, Secretary of the Kirov Regional CPRF.