A-Infos (en) Italy, UCADI #193 - A new frontier for Europe (ca, de, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

To face the attack brought by Anglo-Saxon economic and financial 
capitalism, Europe seems to be aiming for a partnership with Latin 
America, considered as the space for expansion of the economic area of 
intervention of the European Union, and this while the Chinese market 
seems to close to the presence of European products, both because of the 
polarization of the relationships between the different macroeconomic 
and political areas that characterize a world that is now multilateral, 
and because of the effect of the technological gap and the differentials 
relating to the impact of production factors on the costs that Chinese 
technological innovation produces, allowing it to be more competitive.
However, a Cooperation Treaty in the agricultural field presents 
critical issues not only related to the reported impact on the common 
agricultural policy - the true constitutive pillar of the European Union 
- due to the competition that comes from the partnership with Latin 
American producers, but also because it does not take into account, in 
our opinion, the economic scenarios that the new situation created in 
international relations determines.
With the installation of the new administration in the United States, it 
is inevitable to witness a retreat of the US dominance that seems to be 
increasingly entrenched around the defense of a revised Monroe Doctrine, 
which extends the borders of the US fortress from the control of the 
Panama Canal to Greenland and aims to incorporate Mexico and Canada as 
parts of the US "interstate domain". Failing to bring back the 
decentralization of production and the shift of manufacturing activities 
to these countries in order to correct the relationship between exports 
and imports, the American administration is considering incorporating 
the aforementioned state entities into a single state economic area. In 
this new scenario, the climate crisis plays a role and the changes it 
produces in a strategically important area of the planet, which until 
now has been absent from the dispute, due to its "impracticability" due 
to the role played by the so-called "unpaid sentinel", that is, by the 
ice, which until now has blocked the routes that pass through the Arctic 
Ocean and which, through this passage, much easier than the one through 
the Cape of Good Hope, connect the Pacific with the Atlantic[1]. The 
entire area is managed by the Arctic Council, composed of eight member 
states: Canada, Denmark (including the autonomous territory of 
Greenland), Finland, Iceland, Norway, Russia, Sweden and the United 
States, in which China participates as an associate. This area is 
becoming passable due to the thaw, crossed by different routes: from the 
Pacific to the Atlantic, with the Northwest Passage (NWP), which in fact 
develops entirely in Canadian territory. This route presents greater 
technical difficulties due to the conformation of the seabed and the 
presence of older ice that is resistant to summer melting, but it would 
be extremely attractive and convenient from an economic point of view, 
allowing access to its resources, estimated at 30% of natural gas 
reserves, 13% of oil reserves and vast deposits of both so-called base 
metals (such as aluminum, iron, copper, nickel and tin) and noble metals 
(gold, platinum and silver), as well as mineral reserves of uranium and 
graphite. Furthermore, which is perhaps even more important for an 
increasingly digitalized society, for the deposits of rare earths, 
essential for micro-components, used in the most varied technologies, 
from the aeronautical industry to cell phones. Then there would be 
fishing rights, with enormous repercussions in the food sector due to 
the movement of fish fauna northwards as a result of warming waters.
Another route would allow goods to pass from the Pacific coast to the 
North Sea, passing through the Kara Sea to the Bering Strait: the North 
Sea Route (NSR), with a saving in navigation times between Asia and 
Europe of about 12 days, on average, compared to the route that passes 
through the Suez Canal, with significant savings not only in terms of 
time, but also of CO2 emissions into the atmosphere and, what is perhaps 
most important today, in absolute safety. This is inducing Russia, which 
holds a large part of the control of the coasts, to create a network of 
ports served by a modern fleet of nuclear-powered icebreakers (the 
launch of 50 new ships is planned) that should ensure transit for most 
of the year.  The project sees the partnership of China, which 
participates with its own capital, its own naval means, investing in the 
construction of port facilities and through the increase of its 
commercial fleet, which should allow it to transport goods from China to 
the European market more quickly and quickly, avoiding the longer, more 
expensive and dangerous Mediterranean route, due to the turbulence in 
the Arabian Gulf and even more avoiding having to circumnavigate Africa, 
with a decidedly exponential increase in costs and transport times. It 
is quite evident that such a revolution in trade routes brings about a 
radical change in economic relations, excluding and marginalizing from 
development the historical area of trade relations, constituted by the 
Mediterranean which would become closed and inessential to world trade. 
but even more it would end up exalting and highlighting the economic and 
strategic role of Greenland, which more than in the projects of Trump 
and the United States constitutes an area of extreme interest for 
Europe, which has good cards to address the problem since, at least 
formally, the territory of Greenland is an integral part of one of the 
States of the European Union, Denmark.

Greenland as a platform for European investments

If the European Commission were headed by a far-sighted political class, 
made up of leaders who plan for the future development of society and 
not by a group of incapable, demented and stupidly warmongering people, 
certainly the majority of the Union's resources and attention should be 
channeled towards investments in Greenland, considering that this 
territory is increasingly free of ice, virtually uninhabited, and 
constitutes the natural economic-productive platform that can bring 
prosperity in the future to the European continent, which does not have 
the natural and energy resources for its economic activities, but could 
find in the territory of Greenland, in its geothermal resources, in 
those of minerals, hydrocarbons, gas and so on, and raw materials 
necessary to relaunch its weak economy, which needs precisely these 
resources.
Certainly an investment in the area would require large amounts of 
capital and a lot of attention, given that the environmental conditions 
in which to operate would be extremely adverse, would take place in a 
very harsh and unpredictable climate: the presence of icebergs, the 
difficulties of satellite coverage, leave room for considerable risks 
for the men who will have to operate in that environment, the crews of 
the ships and make rescue operations difficult, risky and expensive. The 
absolute lack of basic infrastructures such as ports, airports, road and 
rail links, makes a short-term future of large-scale container ship 
traffic unlikely while it is more likely that the Arctic routes will see 
their use in the transport of raw resources, with highly specialized 
ships and crews. And yet the availability of resources that the 
territory of Greenland presents, possible and probable developments of 
the trade routes make the investment plausible and convenient, which 
certainly presents strategic characteristics and developments.

The role of Russia and China

For its part, Russia seems to be aware of the vital interest that this 
area has for the country from an economic and strategic point of view 
and is trying to maintain the tactical advantage acquired, accelerating 
the construction of infrastructure and the settlement of populations 
along the route, so as to guarantee services to ships that are expected 
to travel this waterway, very important for world trade. The war in 
Ukraine, if on the one hand has led, with the accession of Finland and 
Sweden to NATO, to a restriction of the operational space for the 
Russians, on the other hand it has brought Russia closer to China, 
ensuring that the Sino-Russian collaboration resulting from the Western 
push, rather than a marriage based on reasons of strategic interest, 
constituted a necessary response to the attack to which Russia itself 
was subjected. This does not change the fact that common problems such 
as those relating to the regulation of fishing or safety at sea, cannot 
and should not be addressed in a spirit of collaboration.  But we must 
be aware that the decisions taken now are those that will help define 
the state of the area in the near future, and they must be carefully 
considered.
Russia, strong in the fact that it is by extension the state with the 
largest population residing beyond the Arctic Circle, has expanded its 
claims since 2015, supported by international law to the point that they 
now extend to 463,000 square miles of seabed, competing with Canada and 
Denmark, with whom however bilateral negotiations are underway under the 
UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS, not recognized by the 
United States). Its interest in this area has grown to the extent that 
the war in Ukraine has brought its commercial axis closer to Asia.
It is no coincidence that Russia's decision to reorganize its military 
forces in the area dates back to 2014, creating an Arctic Command with 
the aim of protecting the military structures of the territory, also by 
establishing some Arctic brigades, framed together with the Northern 
Fleet in the fifth Russian military district, to underline the priority 
and importance of the sector. The Russian government has invested more 
than a billion dollars in the renovation of thirteen airports and in the 
strengthening of radar stations with the Sopka-2 system, which is used 
for example on Wrangler Island, just three hundred miles from Alaska. 
Already, 20% of Russia's GDP, 22% of its exports and about 10% of all 
investments made on Russian soil are concentrated in the Arctic. About 
75% of Russian oil and 95% of natural gas are found in the North. We are 
faced with an importance that is only destined to increase in the next 
twenty to thirty years: for Russia, for which the Arctic is an area of 
vital interest, where the defense and control of its territory 
(including waters) and its resources is an essential condition for the 
economic survival of the State and the maintenance of the role of great 
power to which it aspires. However, the majority of civil investment 
projects, especially in infrastructure for the extraction of natural 
resources and for maritime transport, are dependent on foreign capital, 
especially Chinese. On the other hand, China has implemented its 
strategy of the "Silk Roads with those of the Polar Silk Road" (Polar 
Silk Road Initiative), which is expressed in infrastructural investments 
and development of local communities, through the convergence of Chinese 
capital, technologies and knowledge by promoting the construction and 
laying of high-speed data transfer cables on the Arctic seabed, in order 
to improve digital communication between Asia and Europe, also building 
nuclear-powered icebreakers, as well as oil tankers and cargo ships 
designed for polar navigation, with the aim of strengthening its 
influence in this area, especially now that, following the war in 
Ukraine, Russia has reoriented its energy and mineral exports towards 
Asia and draws on Beijing to obtain long-term capital and technologies 
for the infrastructural development of northern Russia, in exchange 
above all for energy resources, essential for consumption and 
diversification in Chinese supplies. An example is the Yamal LNG 
project, a $27 billion investment to extract, process and transport 
natural gas in the Yamal Peninsula, the result of a joint venture 
between the Chinese CNPC and the Russian Novatek.

Competition with the United States

Before attributing to the Arctic a strategic importance relative to the 
defense of their sphere of independence, the United States sees in this 
area a space strictly pertaining to what they call their "backyard". 
When Trump candidly declares that he wants to "buy" Greenland, he must 
be taken extremely seriously. For the United States, the Arctic is of 
strategic and economic importance at the same time, so much so that it 
has obtained permission to install the Thule base there, located 1,118 
km north of the Arctic Circle and 1,524 km south of the North Pole. In 
1953, the United States purchased the territory to be used for the base 
from the Danish government, which at the time relocated the Inuit 
populations who lived in the area 110 km away, building the village of 
Qaanaaq. Subsequently, the bases of Karup, Skrydstrup and Aalborg were 
built, as well as the port of Esbjerg, for the delivery of personnel, 
vehicles and weapons. However, despite having purchased the territory, 
Greenland's sovereign rights remain and are administered by the Danish 
government, while the United States pays a "rent" of "temporary transfer 
of sovereignty", of 300 million dollars per year. In economic circles, 
the initiatives of American investors are known - including Jeff Bezos, 
Michael Bloomberg and Bill Gates - who are said to be supporting Kobold 
Metals: with their own capital with the aim of controlling the deposits 
of precious metals useful to the electricity industry that appear to 
exist on the territory of Greenland as studies commissioned by these 
economic and entrepreneurial groups have ascertained. Trump is acting as 
an interpreter of these interests even if he knows well that the 
European Union and the Danish government intend to continue to exercise 
exclusive jurisdiction over the territory of Greenland and that they 
have no intention of selling. Nevertheless, it is certain that it will 
do everything to realize its aims and take advantage of the residual 
power of an empire now in decline to use the disputed territory to raise 
the borders of a sort of Atlantic Wall to make it insurmountable to the 
economic penetration and strategic control of its competitors. It has 
yet to be established how the new US administration will allocate the 
economic resources available for the region, but it is clear that some 
gaps must be filled mainly in terms of infrastructure, construction of 
naval vessels with operational capacity in the Arctic and icebreakers 
and training of personnel and above all allocation of public and private 
resources. For now, only military initiatives are known that concern the 
projects of the US Department of Defense such as those contained in the 
Army document entitled "Regaining Arctic Dominance", while the latest 
doctrinal publication of the Navy concerns the US strategy to be 
implemented by the Multi-Domain Task Force (MDTF), which refers to a 
joint approach that has been tested for a few years, but has not yet 
entered into American military doctrine, which could find confirmation 
of its validity in the Arctic region, also considering that the United 
States can count on the help of other countries that gravitate around 
the Arctic Ocean, which certainly have a better and more articulated 
infrastructure network.
This does not take away the fact that we will probably witness a 
declaration by the new American administration that will define Russia 
and China as a threat to the security and prosperity of the Arctic 
region. It will therefore be interesting to see how much European 
politicians will be able to intervene to defend the interests of the 
European Union, claiming the rights of the Union to preside over the 
development of the Arctic of its communication routes, of the 
territories that overlook this sea and in particular of the territory of 
Greenland which constitutes a privileged area of interest for the Union.

[1]According to NASA, there has been a decline in ice cover on average 
of 13.5% every ten years, between 1979 and 2012, with an overall 
reduction of about 40% in the last four decades. Comparing the situation 
between 1979 and 2024 in millions of square meters of ice; if in 1979 
there were 2.7, areas equal to 1.5 have remained frozen; a decline equal 
to 60% of the frozen surface.

The Editorial Staff
https://www.ucadi.org/2025/01/25/una-nuova-frontiera-per-leuropa/
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