US Resource Scramble Must Spur Africa to 'Protect Its Own Interests', Scholar Warns

This resurgence of territorial acquisition—reviving the Monroe Doctrine playbook rebranded as the "Donroe Doctrine" to project US hegemony into the Arctic, forces Africa into an uncomfortable reckoning.

As Washington eyes Greenland's estimated US$4.5 trillion in untapped rare earths and minerals, treating the island not as a sovereign partner but as strategic real estate to be claimed, Africa can no longer afford to view distant Arctic maneuvers as issues that don't concern it. The same logic of acquisition that once carved up Africa now resurfaces in the North Atlantic, raising an urgent question: if the US is already redrawing maps and reviving imperial playbooks over Greenland's resources, what makes Africa's own mineral wealth any safer from the same predatory instincts?

To examine this geopolitically significant issue, African Currents spoke with Professor Maano Ramutsindela, a scholar of political geography and political economy in the Department of Environmental and Geographical Science at the University of Cape Town, South Africa. He said Greenland’s strategic resources and geopolitical importance could reshape global trade dynamics and challenge postcolonial norms on territorial acquisition.

"Greenland is opening up possibilities that we have never thought about. And these possibilities are punctuated by the green transition and the critical minerals that are important for that transition [...]. So, looking at Africa here, the African Union and players on the continent and the diaspora will have to think about anticipatory geopolitics here. We need to read between the lines and not simply say, Greenland is far from us, whatever happens there, we don't worry about. What we would need to do is to engage in anticipated politics, to be calculative, to know that we have got the resources. What is going to happen to the resources that we have if the scenario that's unfolding is concluded? [...]. The history of territories is very interesting, but for the African, in Africa we have got the experience of what territory meant for the imperial powers. So, if we have got the re-territorialization of the world, chances are that we will have more claims, then counterclaims, and then the world will remain unstable," Professor Ramutsindela said.

Want to hear more from our guest? Catch the full conversation on the African Currents podcast, brought to you by Sputnik Africa.

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