গ্রিনল্যান্ড ও যুক্তরাষ্ট্রের কৌশলগত উচ্চাকাঙ্ক্ষা : ন্যাটোর প্রতি চ্যালেঞ্জ এবং বৈশ্বিক রাজনীতির দ্বিচারিতা/ Greenland and U.S. Strategic Ambitions: Challenges to NATO and the Double Standards of Global Politics

Abstract

This paper examines the growing strategic interest of the United States in Greenland and its broader implications for NATO unity and global power politics. Although Greenland is a self-governing territory under the sovereignty of Denmark, recent geopolitical developments particularly in the Arctic have brought it to the center of U.S. strategic calculations. The paper seeks to answer four key questions: why the United States has shown renewed interest in capturing or politically absorbing Greenland, what strategic and natural resources Greenland holds, how such ambitions risk undermining NATO cohesion, and what global shifts may follow if the United States succeeds in asserting control.

         The study argues that U.S. interest in Greenland is driven primarily by Arctic militarization, climate change, and great power competition. Melting ice has opened new sea routes and access to vast reserves of rare earth minerals, hydrocarbons, and critical resources essential for advanced technologies and defense industries. Greenland’s geographic location also provides strategic leverage over the Arctic and the North Atlantic, reinforcing U.S. missile defense and surveillance capabilities.

         However, the paper highlights that any U.S. attempt to annex or dominate Greenland would pose a serious challenge to NATO unity. Denmark’s membership in NATO means that pressure on Greenland by a fellow ally exposes contradictions within the alliance, weakening its normative foundations based on sovereignty, collective security, and mutual trust. Such actions risk setting a precedent that internal power asymmetries within NATO can override international norms.

         More critically, the paper situates the Greenland issue within the broader framework of double standards in global politics. While the United States condemns Russia’s security-based justification for territorial control in Ukraine, its own strategic logic toward Greenland reflects a similar realist approach. This selective application of norms undermines the credibility of the liberal international order.

           Finally, the paper contends that a successful U.S. takeover of Greenland would accelerate global power shifts, intensify Arctic competition, normalize territorial revisionism by great powers, and further erode the rule-based international system. Greenland thus emerges not merely as a territorial issue, but as a symbol of the changing dynamics of twenty-first-century geopolitics.