{"id":59428,"date":"2026-09-29T09:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-09-29T12:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/latinoamerica21.com\/?p=59428"},"modified":"2026-09-29T14:33:10","modified_gmt":"2026-09-29T17:33:10","slug":"the-geopolitics-ahead-beyond-greenland-and-the-falkland-islands","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/latinoamerica21.com\/en\/the-geopolitics-ahead-beyond-greenland-and-the-falkland-islands\/","title":{"rendered":"The geopolitics ahead: beyond Greenland and the Falkland Islands"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Recent, very rapid strategic moves suggest that something profound may be changing in the strategic organization of the West. The Global South in general, and South America in particular, should not ignore it.
<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The crisis in the Strait of Hormuz and the recurring rhetoric about Iran, <\/a>deployed once again by Donald Trump in his address to the United Nations General Assembly<\/a> (UNGA), may end up overshadowing an interesting geopolitical game that is unfolding right now in the North Atlantic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Last week, Ursula von der Leyen, President of the European Commission, proposed that Canada become the European Union\u2019s (EU) first \u201cassociated state\u201d<\/a> and that a European Security Council<\/a> be created, with the United Kingdom, Norway, and Ukraine also taking part.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The US immediately announced an agreement with Denmark<\/a> that would guarantee it permanent access to critical resources and infrastructure, as well as a permanent military presence in Greenland. It was signed days later in New York, taking advantage of the UNGA meeting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Something significant appears to be happening in the Arctic region. The West seems to be preparing for what it sees as a prolonged \u201ccontainment\u201d of Russia and China, Cold War-style, and, consistent with this, appears to be placing the geographical reference point of that \u201cStrategic Front Line<\/a>\u201d at the North Pole.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There is no real rupture between the EU, Canada, and the US in the way the West is proceeding. Everything suggests, in fact, that Washington would continue to retain control: spending would be redistributed<\/a>, but the ties and chain of command would remain intact.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is worth remembering that Denmark\u2014to which Greenland is<\/a> linked\u2014is a member of both the EU and NATO; that all the countries in the \u201cEuropean Security Council,\u201d with the exception of Ukraine\u2014which would enter through the back door\u2014are NATO members; and that Canada and the United Kingdom maintain ties with the US that go beyond NATO<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What is interesting about the geopolitical realignment being described is that, in addition to rethinking the geopolitical centrality of the Heartland\u2014a<\/em> concept formulated by the British geographer Halford Mackinder<\/a> at the beginning of the 20th century\u2014it appears to respond to both a tactical and an economic logic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The main intention of the US appears to be to reduce its current defense spending, which is becoming increasingly difficult to sustain, by concentrating its efforts on the exploitation and processing of strategic minerals and on the development and control of critical infrastructure. It is in this context that its interest in Greenland takes on geopolitical significance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A reading that currently appears to be gaining ground in US think tanks devoted to foreign policy, such as CSIS<\/a>, RAND Corporation<\/a>, the Atlantic Council<\/a>, and the Hudson Institute<\/a>, is that there is no other way to compete with China and Russia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What seems clear is that, for Europe and Canada, if a realignment such as the one described were to materialize, financial costs would increase and their economies would complete their restructuring, shifting from a Welfare State to a Warfare State<\/a>. The end result for both areas would not necessarily mean greater global influence or genuine \u201cstrategic autonomy.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Global South in general, and South America in particular, despite being far from the region undergoing this realignment, should not ignore a situation that could have a major impact on international balances. Indeed, on global governance itself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What is important to understand here is that we may not be talking merely about a temporary confrontation around the North Pole, but about a strategic undertaking designed to reorganize, starting from the planet\u2019s geographical extremes, global security, flows, and access to resources and critical infrastructure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Through the poles\u2014where <\/a>invaluable and largely untapped strategic resources are<\/a> concentrated\u2014almost any part of the world can be reached more quickly, and South America is the region of the world closest to Antarctica. In fact, it is the only one through which the South Pole can be accessed, even in winter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Perhaps not coincidentally, while events were unfolding in the North Atlantic in recent days and the UNGA was taking place in New York, in the South Atlantic Javier Milei\u2014Argentina’s president and a Trump ally\u2014revived Argentina\u2019s claim to sovereignty over the Falkland Islands<\/a>, a claim he had practically rejected in July when <\/a>Argentina\u2019s national football team players displayed the Falklands flag during the World Cup<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Milei was not merely being rhetorical: he announced sanctions against the oil companies involved<\/a> in the concession at the root of the latest tensions with London and, at the same time, proposed resuming construction of an integrated naval base in Ushuaia<\/a>, which had been planned by his predecessor, Alberto Fern\u00e1ndez.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The key point is that experts in the field know that talking about the Falkland Islands and Ushuaia means talking about access to Antarctica<\/a> and control of the flows between the South Atlantic and South Pacific<\/a>. Both priorities, of course, are very Trumpian<\/em>. Could a geopolitical realignment similar to the one that appears to be taking shape in the Northern Hemisphere be emerging in the South? Time will tell\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Recent, rapid strategic moves suggest that something profound may be changing in the West\u2019s strategic organization.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":316,"featured_media":59397,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"episode_type":"","audio_file":"","podmotor_file_id":"","podmotor_episode_id":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","filesize_raw":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","itunes_episode_number":"","itunes_title":"","itunes_season_number":"","itunes_episode_type":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[17039],"tags":[17180],"gps":[],"class_list":["post-59428","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-internet-es-en","tag-ideas"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/latinoamerica21.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59428","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/latinoamerica21.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/latinoamerica21.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinoamerica21.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/316"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinoamerica21.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=59428"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/latinoamerica21.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59428\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":59432,"href":"https:\/\/latinoamerica21.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59428\/revisions\/59432"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinoamerica21.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/59397"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/latinoamerica21.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=59428"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinoamerica21.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=59428"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinoamerica21.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=59428"},{"taxonomy":"gps","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinoamerica21.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/gps?post=59428"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}