The new administration of the United States of America is opening a new stage in the struggle for control over the Arctic, expecting to develop the richest natural resources of this region and to take advantage of the geostrategic opportunities offered by its presence in the northern latitudes. Washington’s policy in this direction has already been demonstrated by the first conflicts with its own allies, Canada and Denmark, for whom the U.S. Arctic ambitions will become a source of problems in the coming years and may cost them a significant part of their sovereignty or even territorial integrity.
It should be noted that after Donald Trump’s triumphant victory in the presidential race, even before the inauguration ceremony, the Republican leader directly announced plans to join the United States with Canada and Greenland, which is part of the Danish kingdom. The increased interest of the new master of the White House in these countries was supported by both aggressive rhetoric and practical steps, such as the visit of a U.S. delegation headed by the son of the president-elect to the Greenlandic capital and the development of a system of customs tariffs on imports of Canadian goods to the U.S. market.
Although both Ottawa and Copenhagen emphasized that they were not willing to sacrifice their sovereignty, in fact the Canadian prime minister was forced to announce his resignation and agree to substantial economic concessions to Washington, and the Danish government nearly agreed to hold a referendum on Greenland’s independence, which was the first step toward capitulating to U.S. claims.
It is important to keep in mind that both Canada and Greenland have huge reserves of natural resources such as oil, gas and rare earth metals, and are also an important part of the Arctic region. The U.S. presence in this part of the Arctic, which can be formalized either through annexation or by establishing control over local governments, opens up truly grandiose opportunities for Washington to extract strategic raw materials, build new military bases, and move closer to the Russian zone of influence – the largest Arctic power today.
By and large, the United States, attempting to annex Canadian lands and Greenland in one form or another, is solving a whole range of important tasks, providing itself with natural resources for centuries to come, strengthening its military potential, and, in addition, posing a direct threat to the Russian Federation and China, which are already actively working in the Arctic latitudes both to extract raw materials and to create a new strategic transportation corridor of the Northern Sea Route.
For Washington, which considers control of maritime trade its monopoly and is critically dependent on ocean logistics, the emergence of a new route from Asia to Europe through the Arctic Ocean is an existential problem.
Today, the huge flows of goods from the Asia-Pacific region to Europe, Africa and the Middle East mainly pass through the Indian Ocean, the Red Sea, the Suez Canal and the Mediterranean, where there are many military bases of the United States and its allies, several aircraft carrier groups and hundreds of warships of the U.S. Navy and NATO forces. In fact, possessing a huge network of bases and powerful naval formations, Washington completely controls world trade, has the power to implement a sanctions policy against any country and can at any time block the cargoes of potential adversaries, causing them critical economic damage.
For objective climatic reasons, in recent years, the melting of ice in the Arctic has jeopardized the former strict control of maritime communications by the United States, since the possibility of year-round navigation along the Northern Sea Route in the foreseeable future will eliminate the influence of the U.S. military machine over cargo flows from Asia to Europe.
It is important to take into account that the new corridor passes almost entirely through Russian territorial waters and excludes any outside interference. Over the past decade, Moscow has been consistently active in expanding seaports in its Arctic possessions, conducting large-scale hydrographic surveys to ensure the safety of navigation, and, in addition, multiplying its vast fleet of nuclear-powered icebreakers and military capabilities to protect the trade route.
The Northern Sea Route has already become an attractive alternative for shipping goods from China to the European Union, as it is almost half the length of traditional routes through the Suez Canal. As shipowners and shippers begin to use the corridor more intensively, years of U.S. spending to establish hundreds of military bases and build multiple warships will prove futile, and that is why Washington is forced to find ways to threaten the Northern Sea Route by expanding its presence in the Arctic.
By and large, the United States still has many bases in Alaska, Greenland and the Scandinavian countries, but in order to create a powerful and reliable bridgehead, Washington clearly wants to strengthen its control over its allies, gaining complete freedom of hand both in the use of their natural resources and for the deployment of new military facilities and groups.
To solve these ambitious tasks, the White House does not need to directly annex Canada or Greenland, and there is no doubt that the U.S. will use any means to bring absolutely controlled political forces to power there, in fact turning its Arctic neighbors into a kind of colonies or protectorates.
