President Trump’s statements concerning a proposal to purchase Greenland from Denmark were met with derision throughout the Western world, especially in diplomatic and journalistic circles.

Other pundits even described such plan as a sign of his supposed ‘megalomania.’ Trump’s peculiar style is certainly unorthodox: his inflammatory tweets, his frequent disdain for some traditional American allies, and his willingness to disregard multilateral institutional frameworks often fuel criticism from various flanks.

However, a closer look based on a dispassionate perspective reveals that Donald Trump’s foreign policy is generally consistent with the classical dictates of realpolitik. His assertiveness towards China (likely the heaviest strategic rival of the US) and Iran (a disruptive power which seeks regional hegemony in the Greater Middle East), his attempts to disengage from dangerous operational theaters where no vital US interest is directly at stake, his encouragement of a stronger US presence in outer space and his blunt moves to reshuffle transatlantic relations according to the parameters of the Post-Cold War era all make sense from a long-range geopolitical viewpoint.

Trump’s policies contrast starkly to both George W. Bush’s ambitious neoconservative crusade and Barrack Obama’s commitment to liberal institutionalism. It can be argued that both of these previous approaches were likely derived from ideological notions related to the so-called ‘unipolar moment.’ It is also noteworthy that the legendary Henry Kissinger – a prominent American geostrategist famous for arguing that statecraft must be formulated based on calculations conceived to favor the national interest in the global balance of power – is one of Trump’s closest foreign policy advisers, even if he holds no official position in the administration. This is the context in which the US interest in Greenland must be understood. The issue goes well beyond the realm of real estate deals or improvised grandiose ambitions. In fact, its ramifications are profound in terms of grand strategy.

According to the CIA World Factbook, Greenland’s territory covers slightly more than 2 million square kilometers – this makes it larger than Mexico – most of which is covered by ice. Moreover, with nearly 60,000 inhabitants, its population is remarkably small; it amounts to almost half that of Berkeley, a Californian college town.

Furthermore, since Greenland’s economy is scarcely diversified, it depends mostly on primary activities like fishing. In terms of GDP, Greenland is behind jurisdictions like Tajikistan, Suriname, Montenegro, Barbados, Aruba and Guyana. In other words, Greenland is far from being an economic heavyweight.  Therefore, it is pertinent to wonder why it is being coveted by the current US president.

In order to understand why Greenland represents an attractive asset, one must bear in mind that –due to its relative permanence in time – geography is arguably the most important factor which determines the behavior of international political dynamics. This is the core premise of geopolitical thinking. Hence, the close proximity of Greenland to North America, Scandinavia, and the Arctic is geostrategically significant. In fact, Greenland was the first island of the American hemisphere settled by European colonizers (Norse seamen), several centuries before Columbus arrived in the Caribbean Sea in 1492.

However, establishing a meaningful permanent presence in Greenland is notoriously difficult. Deep tundra is one of the planet’s most hostile biomes for human survival, let alone economic development or conventional military mobilizations. It is simply impossible to live under such harsh conditions without heating, reliable supplies, and special gear. Also, the island’s lack of critical infrastructure represents a formidable structural challenge.

Nevertheless, the melting of polar ice sheets – a result of global climate change – could represent a game-changer. If this long-term trend accelerates in the foreseeable future, then it would be feasible to tap into Greenland’s rich mineral deposits. According to some sources, these resources include ferrous metals, uranium, and rare-earth elements, which are vital for several key productive sectors of the so-called ‘Fourth Industrial Revolution’ and – perhaps more importantly – also for manufacturing high-tech military hardware like lasers, naval sonar systems, nuclear weapons, guided missiles, radars, satellite communications, advanced optical equipment, and combat aircraft.

It must be emphasized that, for reasons related to national security, Washington is interested in diversifying its supply of rare-earth elements in order not to depend disproportionately on China, the world’s top producer of these mineral resources. Based on this fact, the acquisition of Greenland – as an eventual alternative source of said resources – makes a lot of sense.

Moreover, even if the purchase of Greenland sounds bizarre to several international relations scholars, it must not be forgotten that – contrary to what conventional wisdom claims – borders are constantly being redrawn. There are countless examples. Israel gained the Golan Heights as a result of its victory in the Six-Day War, Kosovo became independent from Serbia a decade ago, Germany was reunified after several decades of being separated in two entities and Russia took the Crimean Peninsula from Ukraine merely a few years ago. Likewise, the influence of clashing territorial interests has been determinant in potentially volatile areas, including the Balkans, Kurdistan, the Levant, Kashmir, Tibet, Transcaucasia, and the South China Sea, among others.

Furthermore, the US already has a military foothold there, even if it is still relatively modest. Originally built in the 1940s, the Thule Air Base – named after a mythical land supposedly located in the northernmost corners of the known world – is involved in aerospace surveillance tasks and the operation of early warning systems. Thus, it is an important component of both the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) and the Air Force Space Command. Plus, the US military also operates a small constellation of scientific research centres in Greenland.

Another aspect that explains the American geopolitical interest in Greenland is that, from a perspective of grand strategy, the US also needs a strong beachhead in close proximity to the North Pole – preferably even closer than Alaska – in order to act as a competitive player in the contested race to control the Arctic. It must be kept in mind that the Eurasian powers – Russia and, to a lesser extent China – have been assertively seeking a dominant position this critical region.

According to Russian geostrategic thinking, control of the Arctic is an instrumental step to achieve global hegemony, considering the vast amount of natural resources it contains and, above all, its position as a potential corridor that can eventually offer an interconnectedness that can link the Northern parts of Europe, East Asia, and the American hemisphere in both military and commercial navigation.

Moreover, if the circumpolar region becomes warmer in the long run, then Russia would be able to revitalize Siberia and develop warm water ports. Moscow has craved substantial sea power projection capabilities and easy access to warm water ports since the time of the Czars, an ambition that has never been fulfilled.

The Kremlin is highly aware of the Arctic’s value. Accordingly, the Russian presence has become increasingly visible in the region. Russia placed its national flag at the bottom of the Arctic Ocean back in 2007, as a symbolical gesture that coveys Moscow’s formal claim that a substantial portion of the Arctic is actually an extension of the Siberian continental shelf and that, accordingly, it must be recognized as sovereign territory of the Russian Federation.

Furthermore, Russian strategic bombers regularly patrol the country’s Arctic perimeters, something that has triggered conspicuous frictions with the air forces of other circumpolar states.
Additionally, Russia has an unmatched leading edge regarding the construction of nuclear icebreakers.

Another stakeholder in the Arctic version of the ‘Great Game’ is, predictably, the People’s Republic of China, even though its role has been more discreet than the one played the Russians. Beijing actually began investing in mining operations in Greenland in 2015, a move that could be interpreted as an attempt to enhance China’s market share as the world’s dominant supplier of rare-earth elements. According to some estimates, Greenland contains 38.5m tonnes of rare-earth oxides, whereas the rest of the world’s reserves reach 120m tonnes. It certainly represents a tempting prize worth pursuing.

Furthermore, China is interested in building infrastructure projects and port facilities throughout Russia’s Arctic coastline – which includes locations like Murmansk, Vladivostok and Arkhangelsk – in order to enable the use of circumpolar waterways for both commercial shipping and the extraction of natural resources. This bilateral arrangement between Russia and China has been referred to as the ‘Ice Silk Road.’ It is pertinent to highlight that, for Beijing, such plans normally transcend the field of economics and business. In fact, they often respond to underlying geopolitical considerations as well.

Hence, regardless of Donald Trump’s heterodox style, geopolitics constitutes a chessboard ultimately ruled by the action of impersonal forces. Therefore, it is understandable that Washington seeks to position itself – through the purchase of a highly geostrategic if icy island – as an assertive player that intends to compete for the direct control of a region whose importance is becoming greater for the evolution of the global balance of power in decades to come.
Moreover, the strategic benefits would be enormously superior to the costs (mostly related to the monetary amount that would have to be paid and the negligible impact derived from the demographic absorption of Greenland’s small population).

If this bold attempt does not go anywhere (which is by far the most likely scenario considering Denmark’s emphatic refusal to sell Greenland), it is logical to assume that the American leviathan will find other ways to counter the advance of the Eurasian behemoths in the Arctic Circle. It has to. After all, it is a geopolitical imperative that, one way or another, cannot be overlooked.

Contrary to what some mainstream international scholars argue, geography is far from being irrelevant as a decisive condition that frames the course of international politics.
The world is far from being flat. Locations matter and, in the ruthless game of high strategy, some places are more important than others for different reasons.Accordingly, the struggle to control them drives systemic geopolitical tensions.

If anything, the territorial competition among great powers whose strategic national interests are often difficult to reconcile is as strong as ever. Another interesting lesson is that when geographic circumstances change, structural incentives to reshuffle operational parameters and to redefine priorities emerge. Not surprisingly, geography is a factor which has powerfully shaped the course of history many times.

Considering the evidence, that is unlikely to change anytime soon. The only difference is that contemporary geopolitical realities are far more complex and dynamic than their precedents from previous centuries – but their key essential principles are still valid. After all, the active omnipresence of impersonal forces cannot simply be abolished.
Jose Miguel Alonso-Trabanco

The civil society is unceasingly denouncing the mining companies´ behaviour in Africa. Most of the denounced cases involve companies from developed countries such as the French AREVA, the Swiss Glencore, the French-Israeli Beny Steinmetz, the British Rio Tinto, AngloAmerican, AngloGold Ashanti and Vedanta Resources, the Spanish SEPHOS, the Chinese Haiyu or the Canadian Barrick Gold.

These companies are just a few examples of companies known for their bad practices that have gone unpunished. These practices include environmental scandals and human rights violations in the communities where they are established, cases of corruption, violation of international treaties on good practices of extractive companies or non-compliance with international agreements to combat climate change.

The predatory attitude of mining companies persists in addition to the social and environmental conflicts they provoke in their extractive operations. The tension between the companies and the affected local communities causes mutual distrust that generates social unrest and in many cases violence. On the one hand, the mining companies are striving to clean up their image through the corporate social responsibility that is clearly insufficient and often false, such as that carried out by Fuelstock in Madagascar.

Extractive companies complain that they are always under suspicion and are often questioned and denounced for their behaviour. On the other hand, the local communities are the first to feel the harmful effects of mining operations, such as air and water pollution, illegal dumping of dangerous materials, infrastructure wear and tear, an increase in diseases associated with mining activity, etc. But extractives do not only affect the environment of local communities, they also have a significant impact on climate change.

The vast reserves of minerals and Hydrocarbons located in the subsoil of the African continent are the target of greedy multinationals of Western countries and China. However, despite the profits originated by these minerals, only extractive companies enjoy their economic benefits. Most of extractive companies are set up in Africa through non-transparent contracts between governments and companies.

The local communities affected  by extractive industries do not receive fair compensation for the exploitation of their soils and are often forced to abandon their lands.  Companies do not invest part of their profits in these communities to compensate them for the lack of arable land or to alleviate the negative consequences of the environmental impact.

In the case of National governments in Africa their income received from extractive industries are very low. Governments receive minimal amounts compared to the economic benefits that companies receive with the mining. In many cases the extractive industry enjoys long periods of tax exemption and when they start paying taxes based on their profits the percentages are minimal. For example, of the 2600 million euros of profits obtained from the exploitation of the Coltan in the DRC in 2016, the Congolese government received 88 million.

Mining codes in different countries in Africa have been changing in the last decade under the influence of the International Monetary Fund (IMF). The most recent case was a few months ago when the IMF called on African government to adapt the mining codes to favour the Transnational Companies. Moreover, tax rates on company profits are particularly low in mining codes such as the DRC which is 2% or 4% in Zambia. These Codes do not promote transparency or prosecution of tax evasion. It is estimated that last year Africa lost $80 billion through illicit financial flows.

Unfortunately, the regulatory standards for ethical corporate behaviour at the international level are voluntary. There are no legally binding regulations requiring extractive companies to respect environmental commitments against climate change.

Nor are there binding standards that hold them accountable for their human rights obligations. The United Nations initiative on Business and Human Rights is continually being blocked by the European Union and the United States. Without even attending to its content they refuse to participate in the discussion under ridiculous excuses such as an unambitious standard…

Faced with such a bleak outlook, companies have a relevant responsibility. The respect of the environment and the commitment to fight against climate change must be a priority for companies and above all for the new president of the European Commission who said that she is committed to a green agenda.

Including the commitments of international agreements against climate change into European directives must be a priority of the utmost urgency. The effects of climate change are increasingly evident in the natural disasters that take place all over the planet. The EU cannot simply commit itself to the exclusion of certain harmful practices from its territory, but must demand the same behaviour from its companies when they operate abroad. The national governments of the Member States must also demand from their companies an ethical and respectful commitment to international treaties.

The new course of the relations between Africa and the EU of the post Cotonou agreement 2020 cannot be a rhetorical game of words but a truthful commitment that promotes a fair distribution of wealth.

These commitments must be concrete and binding, such as the increase in royalties paid by extractive companies to governments in Africa; direct investment by companies in local communities affected by mining operations; a commitment to restore mining areas once the exploitations are over; or the fight against corruption through the exclusion of members of the government and public officials from company shareholdings.These are simple transparency commitments that European companies and the EU are reluctant to carry out.

José Luis Gutiérrez Aranda,
Trade Policy Officer,
Africa Europe Faith and Justice Network (AEFJN)

Robert Mugabe is the sort of figure that always caused discomfort. He was a permanent revolutionary, becoming, in time, the despotic ruler who frittered away revolutionary gain. He played multiple roles in international political consciousness.

As Zimbabwe’s strongman, he was demonised and lionised in equal measure for a good deal of his time in power. His role from the 1990s – Mugabe, the West’s all-too-convenient bogeyman and hobgoblin – tended to outweigh other considerations. In the end, even his supporters had to concede that he had outstayed his welcome, another African leader gone to seed.

In 2008, Mahmood Mamdani noted the generally held view in publications ranging from The Economist to The Guardian that Mugabe the Thug reigned. Yes, he had helped in laying waste to the economy, refusing to share power with a more vocal and present opposition, and created an internal crisis with his land distribution policy. But this did little to explain his longevity, his recipe of partial coercion and consent, the teacher-visionary and the bribing mob leader. “In any case, the preoccupation with his character does little to illuminate the socio-historical issues involved.”

The obsession with character is found in both the literature and the popular culture depicting Mugabe. The stock story is this: he taught in Ghana in 1963, a key figure in the nationalist movement split in what was then Rhodesia, becoming Secretary-General of the Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU). The Shona dominated ZANU was formed from the original Ndebele ethnic minority-dominated Zimbabwe African People’s Union (ZAPU).

Prison followed in 1964; Mugabe fled to Mozambique in 1974 though not before a spell of imprisonment at the hands of Zambia’s Kenneth Kaunda (his escape was probably engineered by Zambians); by 1977, he had assumed control of the organisation, though Mozambique’s President Samora Machel never quite trusted him, taking a leaf out of Kaunda’s book in detailing the mischief-maker, albeit briefly.
Military victory was sought against the Smith regime in what was then white-controlled Rhodesia, and it was with some reluctance that Mugabe found himself a signatory to the British-sponsored settlement in 1979, by Lord Carrington, Kaunda, the Commonwealth Secretary-General, Shridath Ramphal, and, ironically enough, white apartheid South Africa.

On becoming leader, he was deliciously accommodating in his rhetoric, despite having entertained the prospect of confiscating land owned by whites a la Marx-Lenin and wishing to hold white leaders to account in war crimes trials. In his national address in 1980, he spoke of the bonds of amity; he wished for bygones to be bygones. “If you were my enemy, you are now my friend. If you hated me, you cannot avoid the love that binds me to you and you to me.”

Initially, Mugabe the progressive shone through: healthcare and education programs were expanded; literacy rates and living standards rose; white farmers were reassured that mobs would not be knocking on their doors. Whites were included in a mixed cabinet; heads reappointed in the army, the police, and the Central Intelligence Organisation. But he had his eye on dealing with rivals.

In 1983, former members of ZAPU’s military outfit attacked targets in Matabeleland. The result was uncompromisingly bloody: anywhere upwards of 20,000 civilians killed; many more tortured, maimed, tormented. In four years, ZAPU had been defeated, absorbed into the ZANU-PF structure. The extinguishment of such rivalry paved the way for a Mugabe presidency and near-absolute rule.

By the 1990s, economic conditions were biting. Real wages fell; the International Monetary Fund demanded domestic readjustments to the economy. Economic stagnation kept company with increasingly repressive policies against journalists, students, and opponents. Calculatingly, Mugabe propitiated war veterans by awarding them generous pensions in 1997. Then came the next threat: the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) led by Morgan Tsvangirai.

In February 2000, a national vote on a redesigned draft constitution, the progeny of ZANU-PF, proposed British compensation for land; absent that, white farms would be seized without due compensation. Its defeat by a narrow margin saw Mugabe step up his campaign, featuring farm occupations and the sponsorship of veterans to assist in invasions of farms owned by white farmers. Mugabe was returning to an old platform.

The prevailing psycho-portraiture for such behaviour is never consistent. One variant finds its culprit in a decision Mugabe made in 1996. Secretary Grace Marufu, 41 years Mugabe’s junior, became his wife, considered within certain circles a less than worthy replacement for Sally, who died in 1992. Wilf Mbanga, editor of The Zimbabwean newspaper spared no punches, seeing in Marufu a lever pulling, power-hungry creature akin to Lady Macbeth. “He changed the moment Sally died, when he married a young gold-digger.”

His former home affairs minister, Dumiso Dabengwa, pinpointed a different year when the great compromiser and negotiator changed: 2000. There are no gold-digging suggestions, merely political manipulations filtered with a bit of paranoia. “He held compromising material over several of his colleagues and they knew they would face criminal charges if they opposed him.”

Overwhelmingly, the narrative is of the great hope that failed, the rebel who trips. This echo of the good man gone bad is detectable in celluloid, with the fictional state of Matobo in The Interpreter, featuring as its political backdrop a bookish schoolteacher who defeated a white-minority regime but fouled up matters by turning into a tyrant.
“The CIA-backed film,” suggested the then acting Minister for Information and Publicity, Chen Chimutengwende, “showed that Zimbabwe’s enemies did not rest.”

Mugabe was every bit the contradiction of the colonial-postcolonial figure, supported one day as the romantic revolutionary to be praised, reviled as the authoritarian figure to condemn, the next. The revolutionary to be feted was a motif that continued through the 1980s, despite signs that the hero was getting particularly bloodthirsty. A string of honours were bestowed like floral tributes to a conquering warrior: an honorary doctorate of laws from the University of Massachusetts in 1984, despite the butchering of the Ndebele; an honorary doctorate from the University of Edinburgh (subsequently revoked in July 2007); a knighthood from Queen Elizabeth II in 1994.

Accounts such as Martin Meredith’s Our Votes, Our Guns: Robert Mugabe and the Tragedy of Zimbabwe, point to the aphrodisiac of power, violence as currency, the cultivated links with the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s Laurent Kabila, and the creation of a crony state. The DRC connection softened the blows of international sanctions, at least to some extent, keeping rural voters in clover and the security forces content. Such arrangements, involving a juggling of loot and measuring out the spoils, is rarely indefinite.

The narrative of the power-mad creature runs through as a counter to the liberal thesis that Mugabe started with promise, and went sour. This would have been tantamount to suggesting that Lenin insisted on changing the world through even-tempered tea ceremonies and soft-voiced mediation, only to endorse revolutionary violence at a later date. James Kirchick, oft fascinated by the wiles of demagoguery, saw the strains of brutality early: Mugabe’s time in prison, as with other revolutionaries, led to a certain pupillage with power, a sense of its necessity. Degrees in law and economics were earned via correspondence from the University of London, a way to pass carceral time for subversive actions against the white Smith regime in 1964. All that time, he nursed Marxist-Leninist dreams.

As leader of the movement to oust the white regime, Mugabe was not sparing with his use of violence. In this, he differed from the founder of the ZANU, Ndabaningi Sithole, who renounced terrorism and subversion after his 1969 sentence for incitement. Nor was he averse to internal suppression: his cadres had to be trustworthy in the cause.

Over time, the distance between Mugabe the ruler, and the Zimbabwean citizenry, grew. International sanctions, applied with much callousness, bit. Hyperinflation set in. The state was left bankrupt.
Food shortages in 2004 did not sway him. “We are not hungry,” Mugabe told Sky News. “Why foist this food upon us? We don’t want to be choked. We have enough.”

In November 2017, a coup by senior military personnel was launched in terms that seemed almost polite, a sort of dinner party seizure. Mugabe was placed under house arrest; his ZANU-PF party had decided that the time had come. The risk of Marufu coming to power was becoming all too real, though this femme fatale rationale can only be pushed so far. There were celebrations in the streets. Thirty-seven years prior, there were similar calls of jubilation for the new leader. Left with his medical ailments, Mugabe died at Gleneagles Hospital, Singapore on 6 September at the age of 95, farewelled by his successor President Emmerson Mnangagwa as “an icon of liberation, a pan Africanist who dedicated his life to the emancipation of his people.” The muse of history can be atrociously fickle.

Binoy Kampmark

Photo: A bust of former President Robert Mugabe sits between model crocodiles, on a wall at his official residence in the Zimbabwean capital of Harare. Ben Curtis/AP