The Anatomy of Scarcity

  

The Anatomy of Scarcity.

Part 1. The Myth of "Just Business": Resources: The Bloodstream of War

When Donald Trump first mentioned buying Greenland, the international community's reaction was divided. The first group shook their heads, dismissing it as the eccentricity of a real estate Mogul who had confused geopolitics with the luxury housing market. The second, more serious analysts, began to discuss the island's strategic location. But both sides often overlook the underlying motivation for this interest.

The public often hears the sentiment: "Why look for a military subtext? It's just business, just metals." However, let's be honest: in human history, the phrase "it's just business" ceases to apply precisely when that business concerns the survival of the state. Economics and war are not two distinct spheres, but communicating vessels.

Axiom of Survival: Trade or Take?

There's a rigorous theory in economic history, formulated by researchers Ronald Findlay and Kevin O'Rourke. It sounds cynical, but it's true: war and trade are interchangeable strategies for accessing resources.

The logic here is as simple as an accounting report:

🔸 As long as the resource can be purchased cheaply and safely, countries trade. It's profitable.

🔸 As soon as the price becomes exorbitant or the seller begins to use the resource for blackmail ("I'll turn off the valve"), the costs of trade exceed the costs of war.

🔸 At this point, the diplomats fall silent and cannons start talking.

We're used to thinking of modern wars as fought for democracy, freedom, or against tyranny. But if you  dust off the historical record, it becomes clear that behind the fine slogans lies the periodic table.

History Lesson: Bird Droppings and National Security

To understand the drama surrounding Greenland, it's helpful to go back to 1856. That year, the United States passed a law that today seems like the stuff of comedy: the Guano Islands Act.

This act authorized any US citizen to seize any uninhabited islands where guano—dried bird droppings—was found. It would seem, what's a great power, and what's bird droppings?

But in the 19th century, guano was the number one strategic resource. It was the only effective nitrogen fertilizer. Without it, the depleted soils of America and Europe could not feed the growing population.

🔹 Guano shortage meant famine.

🔹 Famine meant riots and the fall of governments.

Therefore, actual wars were waged over bird droppings. Spain bombed the ports of Peru and Chile (the First Pacific War) to control fertilizer deposits. The United States annexed dozens of islands in the Pacific Ocean. This wasn't "business." It was a matter of the nation's biological survival.

Today, rare earth elements (REEs) play the role of "bird droppings." And Greenland is a gigantic storehouse of these "vitamins" for modern industry.

Chinese Wisdom: Salt and Iron

In the East, this truth was understood even earlier. Chinese chronicles preserve a wonderful example from the history of the Han Dynasty (1st century BC)—the famous "Salt and Iron Debate."

The "liberals" (Confucians) of the time demanded that the state withdraw from the economy, allowing private traders to trade freely. Minister Sang Hongyang objected. He placed a simple formula on the emperor's desk:

1️⃣ Salt is a food preservative (biological survival).

2️⃣ Iron is weapons and plows (military and agricultural survival).

3️⃣ To hand this over to private hands or, God forbid, to the hands of enemies is to sign the empire's death warrant.

Sang Hongyang won. China established a state monopoly on resources, which allowed it to maintain an army and fend off the Xiongnu nomads. Since then, it has been written into China's political DNA: resources are an instrument of power.

Why can't the F-35 fly without "dirt"?

Let's return to the present day. Greenland. An island covered in ice, beneath which lies something without which the West could lose the next great war before a shot is fired.

The modern fifth-generation F-35 fighter jet is a marvel of engineering. But this marvel won't fly without approximately 417 kg of rare earth metals.

▪️ Yttrium, terbium, and dysprosium are needed for laser guidance systems, heat-resistant engine alloys, and stealth coatings.

▪️ Virginia-class nuclear submarines require more than 4 tons of these materials each.

▪️ Arleigh Burke-class destroyers are packed with electronics based on the same elements.

The paradox of the situation is that today China controls between 60% and 90% (according to various estimates) of the global recycling of these metals. To build a missile designed to deter China, the US is forced to buy materials... from China. It's as if Stalin in 1942 had bought steel for his T-34 tanks from Nazi Germany.

Trump's logic and fear of Russia

When Trump talks about buying Greenland, he's acting strictly within the "Salt and Iron" logic. He understands that the current supply chain is a noose around the neck of the American military-industrial complex.

Greenland has some of the world's largest undeveloped reserves of rare earth elements and uranium (the Kvanefjeld deposit).

🔹 If the US controls these resources, the West has an autonomous defense industry.

🔹 If China enters the island (through investments, as they tried to do with the island's airports in 2018), Beijing gets its hand on the kill switch of the American defense industry.

🔹 If Russia (which is already militarizing the Arctic at a frantic pace) takes advantage of Denmark's weakness, NATO will receive a hole in its northern flank and resource blackmail.

Russia, by the way, understands this game perfectly. The entire history of Russian expansion has been a pursuit of resources. First, it was fur ("soft gold"), then oil, and now control of the Arctic shelf and Ukrainian lithium. For Moscow, resources have always been not a commodity, but a weapon. A gas valve is viewed there in the same way as an Iskander missile launcher.

Summary

Separating the "danger of war" from the "metals business" is a dangerous illusion. The danger of war arises precisely when someone can monopolize the resources needed for war.

We live in an era when geology once again dictates politics. Greenland has become a battleground not because of its beautiful glaciers, but because whoever controls its mineral wealth holds the keys to technological dominance in the 21st century.

In the next article, we will examine in detail how China has woven its "silk noose" and why Beijing prefers to buy ports and mines instead of sending aircraft carriers.

Part 2. The Silk Noose: Sun Tzu’s Legacy: Winning Without Pulling the Trigger

In the first part, we discovered that resources are the blood of war. Western civilization is accustomed to solving problems of scarcity with ostentatious methods: gunboats off the coast, naval blockades, expeditionary forces. We see threats where the shooting takes place.

China, however, is playing a different game. While the West was building aircraft carriers, Beijing was building supply chains. China's resource warfare strategy resembles a slow strangulation with a silk cord: the victim only notices something is wrong when the oxygen supply is cut off.

Drawing on documents detailing the evolution of Chinese strategy, we examine how Beijing turned the periodic table into a weapon of mass destruction.

War for the "Heavenly Horses"

To understand Xi Jinping's logic, we need to rewind history two thousand years ago. The documents we analyze contain a key episode: the "War of the Heavenly Horses" (104–101 BC).

Emperor Wu Ti faced a problem: his army was losing to the Xiongnu nomads. The nomads had fast and resilient horses, but the Chinese did not. The horse was then the equivalent of a modern tank or fighter jet. It was a critical military technology.

What did the emperor do? He sent a massive army thousands of kilometers to the Fergana Valley (modern-day Uzbekistan). The goal of the campaign wasn't land, gold, or slaves. It was simply stallions.

🔹 China lost tens of thousands of soldiers.

🔹 The Empire spent colossal amounts of money.

🔹 But China got the technology (horses), created cavalry and defeated the enemies.

This historical lesson is ingrained in the Chinese elite: control of a key technology or resource is worth any sacrifice, because it guarantees security for centuries. Today, the place of "heavenly horses" has been taken by semiconductors and rare earth metals.

Prophecy of Deng Xiaoping

In 1992, the architect of China's reforms, Deng Xiaoping, uttered a phrase that was dismissed in the West as mere bravado: "The Middle East has oil, and China has rare earth elements."

Deng wasn't joking. He was stating the beginning of a great monopoly.

While the US and Europe were moving dirty production to Asia, enjoying the cheap prices and clean air at home, China was methodically buying up, building, and closing the market.

The documents describe in detail the differences in approaches:

1️⃣ Western approach: Market efficiency. We dig wherever it's cheaper to dig.

2️⃣ The Chinese approach: Strategic security. It doesn't matter whether it's profitable now. What matters is that no one else can do it in 20 years.

The Refining Trap: Why Isn't the Mine Enough?

The main myth that needs to be dispelled is that the rare earth metal shortage is not a shortage of ore. Lithium, cobalt, and neodymium are abundant in many places, even in the US and Australia.

The problem is in the "dirty work" - processing and enrichment.

China has created what analysts call "asymmetric interdependence."

🔸 You can dig ore in California.

🔸 But to turn that ore into a magnet for a Tomahawk missile, you'd have to ship it to a factory in China.

🔸 Because there are no other full-cycle factories with such capacity and low cost anywhere else.

This is the "silk noose." China isn't seizing US territory. It's simply keeping its hand on the switch of American industry. In 2010, Beijing already demonstrated a demo version of this war by blocking rare earth metal exports to Japan over an island dispute. Japanese electronics came to a standstill within a couple of weeks.

Hydrohegemony: Water as a Lever

China's resource war isn't just about metals. The dossier includes a frightening term: "hydrohegemony."

Look at a map of the Mekong River. It originates in Tibet (China) and flows through Laos, Thailand, Cambodia, and Vietnam, providing sustenance (rice, fish, drinking water) to tens of millions of people.

China has built a cascade of 11 dams in the upper reaches of the river.

🔹 Now Beijing literally controls the tap.

🔹 In dry years, China can store water, causing drought downstream.

🔹 Or, on the contrary, dump water, causing floods.

It's the perfect weapon of coercion. Southeast Asian countries are forced to be loyal to Beijing because their harvests depend on its will. No gunfire. Just engineers at the dams.

Greenland: The Last Puzzle

Now it becomes clear why China has become so active in Greenland and why this is making Washington so nervous.

Greenland is the West's attempt to break free from the "silk noose." The Kvanefjeld deposit could provide NATO with an alternative source of uranium and rare earth elements, breaking the Chinese monopoly.

Understanding this, Chinese companies (such as Shenghe Resources) have been trying to enter Greenland projects first. They don't need profits from these mines. They want them to operate independently of competitors or under their control.

Summary

The Chinese doctrine of war is fundamentally different from that of Russia or America.

Russia is fighting for resources in order to sell them and fill the treasury (or the pockets of the elite).

The United States is fighting for resources to ensure the smooth functioning of the global market.

China is fighting for resources to create a system where the whole world depends on its decisions.

If the first article was about,Whyresources are important, then this article is aboutHowDependency is created. In the third part, we'll descend from the heavens of geopolitics into the muddy trenches and look at Russia's methods—from private military companies in Africa to the war in Ukraine. Where China uses contracts and dams, Moscow prefers a sledgehammer.

Part 3. The Predator of Eurasia: From Sable Skins to Donbas Lithium

In the previous section, we examined China's "silk noose" strategy. Beijing is playing the long game, creating complex technological chains and debt traps. It's a grandmaster's game, strangling the opponent with a smile and a handshake.

Russia's approach is fundamentally different. If China is an engineer closing a dam, then Russia is a marauder with a sledgehammer. Russia's resource strategy has historically been built not on creating added value, but on physical seizure, control, and blackmail.

Drawing on the document "Russia's Resource Wars," let's peel back the ideological veneer from the Kremlin's actions and look at the bare facts. You'll see that behind the slogans about the "Russian world" and the "fight against Nazism" lies a simple budget.

Soft Gold: Why is Russia so Big?

Have you ever wondered why the Muscovite kingdom suddenly surged eastward, swallowing up the vast expanse of Siberia? History textbooks talk about "great geographical discoveries" and "the exploits of the Cossacks." Economists put it more simply: sable.

In the 16th and 17th centuries, furs were for Moscow what petrodollars or Bitcoin are today: a currency convertible across the globe.

🔸 "Yasak" (fur tax) from the conquered peoples of Siberia formed the basis of the tsars' budget.

🔸 The expansion followed strictly the migration routes of fur-bearing animals. As soon as sables were hunted in one region, the Cossacks would move on, all the way to Kamchatka and Alaska.

This is important for understanding the current situation: the Russian state was initially built as a mechanism for extracting resources from colonized territories. The goods changed, but the methods did not.

African Safari: Gold for a Roof

Fast forward to the 21st century. While Western diplomats express concern about the situation in Africa, Moscow is using methods described in pirate adventure novels.

The documents detail the case of the Wagner Group (and its successors, such as the Afrika Korps). It is a perfect model of Russian resource predation.

The scheme is primitive and effective:

1️⃣ There is an unstable country with rich mineral resources (Central African Republic, Sudan, Mali).

2️⃣ The local dictator or junta is offered military protection (a mafia-style 'protection racket') from the rebels.

3️⃣ Payment is not taken in cash (dictators often don't have it), but in concessions for gold, diamond, and uranium mining.

In the Central African Republic, Russian mercenaries have seized control of the Ndassima gold mines. This isn't geopolitics in the grand sense; it's pure banditry on a national scale. The gold mined is used to circumvent sanctions, filling the Kremlin's shadow budget for the war in Europe.

Ukraine: Periodic Table Under Fire

The most cynical and terrifying example of a resource war is unfolding right now. Russian propaganda can talk all it wants about "protecting Russian speakers" or "NATO borders," but the map of the fighting surprisingly matches the geological map of Ukraine's mineral wealth.

According to the analysis from the uploaded dossier, the occupation of Ukrainian territories has a clear material basis:

🔹 Energy: The seizure of the Donbas coal basins and the Black Sea shelf has deprived Ukraine of the opportunity to become an energy competitor to Russia in Europe.

🔹 Lithium and Titanium: The Zaporizhzhia and Donetsk regions are home to Europe's largest deposits of lithium (a key component of batteries) and titanium (used in aircraft manufacturing). Control over these deposits is Moscow's attempt to hold Europe's "green transition" hostage.

🔹 Grain and ports: The blockade of sea routes and the theft of grain have shown that food is as much a weapon for Moscow as a Kalibr missile.

Moscow isn't fighting against mythical "Nazis." It's fighting to seize trillions of dollars' worth of assets from Ukraine and prevent the emergence of an alternative resource supplier for Europe.

Arctic blackmail

And finally, let's return to the North. Why is Russia so concerned about Greenland, and why is it militarizing its Arctic so much?

Melting ice is opening up the Northern Sea Route (NSR)—the shortest route from Asia to Europe. Russia has declared this route its "internal waters" (contrary to international law) and is demanding tolls for passage, threatening to send warships.

If Greenland (which controls the Arctic's exit to the Atlantic) is securely integrated into the US and NATO defense system, Russia's monopoly in the North will collapse. For the Kremlin, the Arctic is the last frontier where they still feel in control.

Summary

To sum up the third part, we can formulate the “formula of the Russian world” in terms of resources:

▪️ If China creates dependency by buying ports and building factories...

▪️ Russia creates dependence by seizing fields and threatening to turn off the tap.

For Russia, resources are not a commodity. They are a tool for domination. Gas is used to freeze Europe. Grain is used to frighten Africa with famine. Uranium is used to blackmail the United States.

This is precisely why the Greenland issue is so important. Leaving such a strategic prize unclaimed in a world where such predators operate is an unaffordable luxury.

In this final, fourth article, we will draw all the lines together and answer the main question: why buying Greenland (or at least a firm alliance with it) is the cheapest insurance against World War III that the West can buy.

Part 4. The Greenland Gambit: Why Trump Is Right, and Critics Are Looking in the Rearview Mirror

We've reached the end of our series. In the previous parts, we examined three key pieces of the global puzzle:

1️⃣ Resources are not a commodity, but a tool for survival (historical axiom).

2️⃣ China is building a monopoly on technology, tightening the "silk noose" around the West's neck.

3️⃣ Russia wages predatory wars, seizing raw materials by physical force.

Now, with these maps in hand, let's look at Greenland. When Donald Trump proposed buying the island, the press erupted in cartoons. But if you set aside your emotions and look at the map through the eyes of a military strategist or geologist, the laughter dies down. What remains is a cold, calculating mind.

Greenland isn't just ice and beautiful fjords. It's a key highland, the loss of which would mean losing World War III.

Unsinkable aircraft carrier

Let's start with geography, which, as we know, cannot be changed. Look at the globe from above, from the North Pole. You'll see that Greenland is a "plug" blocking the exit from the Arctic to the Atlantic.

During the Cold War, there was the concept of the "GIUK gap." These were narrow sea passages through which Soviet submarines were forced to penetrate in order to attack US convoys heading to Europe.

🔹 Whoever controls Greenland controls these passages.

🔹 Whoever controls Greenland has the entire European part of Russia under his gun.

Thule Air Base, the northernmost outpost of the US Air Force, is located on the island. It is America's eyes and ears. It houses the radars that are designed to be the first to detect Russian ballistic missile launches over the North Pole. Losing access to Thule would mean going blind.

Warehouse of Forgotten Treasures

But military geography is only half the story. The other half is the periodic table, hidden beneath the melting ice.

In previous articles, we discussed China's control over rare earth metal processing. This gives Beijing the power to blackmail the entire high-tech world. Greenland may be the only quick way to break this monopoly.

The Kvanefjeld (Kuannersuit) deposit in the south of the island contains gigantic reserves of rare earth oxides and uranium.

🔸 Here you will find everything you need for electric cars, wind turbines, and iPhones.

🔸 Here is what is needed for F-35 fighters, nuclear submarines and guidance systems.

China knows this all too well. In 2016, the Chinese company Shenghe Resources became the largest shareholder in the company holding the Kvanefjeld license. Beijing followed its classic strategy: "Why fight when you can buy shares?"

The Battle of the Airports: Chronicle of an Invisible War

The most telling moment described in our documents occurred in 2018. Greenland needed new airports to develop tourism. They didn't want to ask Copenhagen for money. Then, like a genie from a bottle, China appeared with an offer: "We'll build everything, we'll provide loans, everything will be cheap."

Panic set in in Washington (then still under the first Trump administration). The logic was ironclad:

1️⃣ China is building airports and driving Greenland into debt.

2️⃣ Greenland cannot repay its debt.

3️⃣ China takes over infrastructure to pay off debts (like the Hambantota port in Sri Lanka).

4️⃣ As a result, Chinese military aircraft land near American radars in Thule.

The US put pressure on Denmark, and Copenhagen was forced to urgently find funds to oust the Chinese from the project. It was a classic hybrid battle that went unnoticed by the general public.

Why 'Buying' Is a Metaphor for Security

When Trump said "buy," he was using developer terminology, but the meaning was geopolitical. In 1917, the United States had already purchased the Virgin Islands from Denmark for $25 million in gold. Why? To prevent Imperial Germany from building a base there. It was a security purchase.

Today, "buying Greenland" doesn't mean handing over a suitcase full of cash to the Queen of Denmark. It means fully integrating the island into the US defense and economic system.

🔹 This is an investment in rare earth metal mining to avoid dependence on China.

🔹 This guarantees that Russian dual-use "scientific stations" will not appear on the island.

🔹 This is a blockade of the North Atlantic for the Russian fleet.

The final conclusion of the "Anatomy of Scarcity" series

We live in a world where the old rules of free trade are dying.

▪️ China uses trade as a weapon, creating dependence.

▪️ Russia uses resources as a weapon, destroying cities and blackmailing with cold.

In this reality, relying on the "invisible hand of the market" is suicidal. If the West wants to preserve its way of life, its technologies, and its security, it must control critical nodes in the resource network.Mogul

Greenland is the ultimate prize in this race. Whoever controls it in 20 years will dictate terms to the entire Northern Hemisphere. Trump's proposal may sound crude, but from a Realpolitik perspective, it's entirely rational.

History teaches us: it's better to buy territory (or loyalty) than to recapture it from the enemy at the cost of the blood of your own soldiers. Resources are the blood of war. And Greenland is a blood bank the West has no right to lose.