Geopolitical Bulletin

---

Solidariogb | Edition | Up to 20 September 2026

1. Trump announces deal with Denmark on Greenland and claims to have secured “permanent control”

Summary: US President Donald Trump announced on 18 September on Truth Social that the US had reached an agreement with Denmark and Greenland that “grants the United States permanent control over Greenland’s security and other needs”. Trump described the pact as an “Infinite Life Agreement” and stated that Washington would “immediately” begin building a larger-scale military presence on the island.

Key differences: Trump’s version differs markedly from the Danish statement. The office of the Danish Prime Minister issued a statement the same day stressing that the agreement “recognises the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Kingdom of Denmark, as well as the right to self-determination of the people of Greenland”. Prime Minister Frederiksen said the agreement “recognises Greenland’s interests”. According to a State Department official, the pact prohibits non-NATO countries from establishing bases or making sensitive investments in Greenland, but US forces will “cooperate” with Denmark and Greenland, rather than exercising unilateral “control”.

Context: The US has maintained a military presence on the island since the signing of the 1951 Greenland Defence Agreement. Analysts note that the agreement “contains almost no new elements” and that Washington could have achieved most of its objectives through direct negotiations. The agreement is due to be formally signed next week during the UN General Assembly, but still requires approval from the Danish and Greenlandic parliaments.

2. Trump says he is “close to a major decision” on the war with Iran; stalemate between Washington and Tehran persists

“Major decision”: In an interview with Axios on 17 September, Trump stated that he is close to a “key turning point” in the war with Iran and that he must consider whether to resume large-scale attacks to end the conflict. “I have a big decision ahead of me. Do I want to go in and wipe them out? It’s a big decision.” Trump had suggested on several occasions that the war would “end soon”; this statement came ahead of his planned meeting next week with the leaders of six Gulf countries during the UN General Assembly.

Iran’s negotiating conditions: The Secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, Mohsen Rezaei, told Al Jazeera on 19 September that Tehran has already conveyed its negotiating conditions to the US through mediators from Qatar and Pakistan, and is awaiting Trump’s response. Of the seven conditions put forward, three were made public: ending the war on all fronts, unfreezing Iranian assets and lifting the US naval blockade. Rezaei also stated that Iran “has not yet decided to withdraw from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty” and that the decision “depends on Washington’s behaviour”.

Military situation: Iran’s Armed Forces General Staff warned on 20 September that if the US and certain Middle Eastern countries “make a mistake”, they will receive “painful” blows. The statement claims there is intelligence indicating that Washington decided at a recent meeting in Europe to resume actions against Iran with the support of regional countries, and warned that all US bases and interests in the area will be targets of “unlimited and uninterrupted” attacks. The same day, the Iranian Army announced it had shot down an “advanced Orbiter reconnaissance drone” over the Strait of Hormuz.

3. Russia protests against the deployment of US “Typhon” systems in Japan and demands their immediate withdrawal

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova reported on 18 September that Moscow had delivered protest notes to Japan on 3 September, through channels in Moscow and Tokyo, demanding the withdrawal of the US-deployed “Typhon” ground-launched medium-range missile system on the island of Kyushu.

The note stresses that this Japanese measure “is unacceptable under any pretext, regardless of the duration or modality of the deployment”, and demands that Japan “fully recognise the results of the Second World War, including the territorial arrangements relating to the Southern Kuril Islands”. Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Rudenko had already summoned the Japanese ambassador to Russia on 16 September, urging Tokyo to “take the content of the note very seriously”.

4. Iran’s Revolutionary Guard attacks an oil tanker in the Strait of Hormuz

Between 17 and 18 September, the Navy of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) announced it had attacked the oil tanker “Trend”, flying the flag of Togo, in the Strait of Hormuz. The IRGC claimed the vessel was attempting to “illegally cross” the strait and maintained that its action was provoked and disoriented by “US military forces”. The tanker was hit and caught fire, leaving it unable to manoeuvre.

The UK Maritime Commercial Operations Office confirmed the same day that it had received a report of a “security incident” in the Strait of Hormuz, noting that the crew was safe and that no environmental impacts were recorded, although it did not confirm the identity of the vessel involved. The IRGC reiterated its warning: any illegal crossing of the Strait of Hormuz will result in the destruction of the offending vessel.

5. Continued escalation of the conflict between Yemen’s Houthis and Saudi Arabia

Cross-border attacks: On 19 September, the Houthis claimed to have launched a massive missile and drone attack on Riyadh, the Saudi capital, and on the industrial centre of Yanbu, on the Red Sea coast. Houthi military spokesman Yahya Sarea said the operations involved “a large number of ballistic and cruise missiles and drones”. Saudi Arabia reported intercepting the projectile aimed at Riyadh, according to the Saudi newspaper Okaz.

Situation on the ground: In early September, the Houthis captured the Red Sea port of Mocha (on 10 September) and Mayun Island in the Bab el-Mandeb strait (on 11 September), their largest territorial advance since the 2022 ceasefire. Mocha is located some 80 kilometres from the Bab el-Mandeb strait, through which around 12% of world trade passes. The UN Special Envoy for Yemen, Grundberg, recently warned that the country faces the greatest risk of returning to war since the start of the conflict and that the international community must respond to this new and more dangerous phase.

Regional context: The escalation comes within the framework of the broader war that began with US and Israeli attacks on Iran in late February. The conflict between the Houthis and Saudi Arabia has become a new front in that regional war.

6. Cuba suffers its seventh nationwide blackout of the year

On 18 September, Cuba’s Ministry of Energy and Mines announced the total disconnection of the National Electric System. Cuba’s Electric Union later explained that the blackout was caused by a “failure in transmission lines”, aggravated by “unstable weather conditions”.

It is the seventh nationwide blackout of 2026 and the twelfth since late 2024. In recent weeks, power cuts in several provinces have lasted more than 30 hours, with stretches of more than 60 consecutive hours in some territories. The Cuban government attributes the crisis to the US blockade, which hinders fuel imports, and to ageing infrastructure.

7. Other developments

• Pakistan: A double suicide attack on a police residential complex in the Kohat district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province left at least 31 dead, including 5 police officers, and dozens wounded on 18 September.
• Philippines: A shooting at a secondary school in the municipality of Banga, in South Cotabato province, left at least 6 dead (five students and the attacker) and more than 17 wounded on 18 September. The attacker, a teenage student at the school, took his own life after the attack.
• Brazil: President Lula da Silva said he “flatly rejects” the US proposal to obtain priority access to Brazilian critical minerals, calling the terms “unacceptable”. The document was sent to the “dead archive”.
• Russian legislative elections: Elections for the ninth convocation of the State Duma were held from 18 to 20 September. It is the first national parliamentary election since the start of the special military operation in Ukraine.
• Julian Assange returns to social media: The WikiLeaks founder posted “I’m back” on platform X on 17 September, after more than two years of silence. His wife confirmed that “there will be more news next week”.

Analysis

Here is how I would read these events through that analytical framework — as an interpretive exercise, not as my personal position, since on these issues I prefer to give you analytical tools rather than a political conclusion of my own:

1. Greenland: reconfiguration of territorial ownership and control of Arctic routes

Trump’s announcement of “permanent control” over Greenland’s security — beyond the discursive gap with Copenhagen — forms part of a dispute over the control of a strategic space that combines three material dimensions: Arctic maritime routes (opening up with the ice melt), critical mineral resources (rare earths, uranium, iron) and military positions of containment against Russia and China. The “Infinite Life Agreement” formula would function as a juridical-discursive superstructure legitimising a de facto expansion of the US military presence, presented as “cooperation” with Denmark and Greenland. The fact that analysts point out that there is “almost no new content” suggests that what is relevant is not the formal change in property rights, but the establishment of a doctrine: no competitor of the hegemonic bloc may access that territory. It is the Arctic dimension of the same logic that operates in

2. Iran and the Strait of Hormuz: economic war and the geopolitics of resources

Trump’s statement about an imminent “major decision” regarding Iran, together with Iran’s negotiating conditions (end of the war, unfreezing of assets, lifting of the naval blockade), and the IRGC attack on an oil tanker in Hormuz, shape a single field of dispute: control of the energy corridor through which approximately 20% of the world’s oil passes. The materialist methodology would read here not a religious or “security” conflict, but an economic war over the control of fossil energy routes and over the capacity to impose conditions of reproduction on the adversary. The three public Iranian demands are, in material terms: lifting the financial siege (frozen assets), restoring the circulation of goods (end of the naval blockade) and halting the destruction of infrastructure (end of the war). Iran’s threat to attack “all US bases and interests” if Washington resumes actions indicates that Tehran has the capacity to raise the material cost of any aggression, not merely to respond symbolically.

3. Russia-Japan-US: missile containment and rearmament as a dispute over the security space in Asia-Pacific

The Russian protest over the deployment of “Typhon” systems in Kyushu — and the Chinese note to the same effect — is read as a dispute over the balance of forces in north-east Asia. The Typhon system, with the capacity to launch medium-range missiles, modifies the reaction-time threshold and the geography of risk for Russia and China. Russia’s demand that Japan “fully recognise the results of the Second World War, including the territorial arrangements on the Southern Kurils” connects the current military dispute with unresolved historical territorial claims. In materialist terms: Japanese rearmament and the deployment of US military infrastructure in the region are part of the reorganisation of the hegemonic bloc’s containment apparatus in Asia-Pacific, with Japan as an advanced platform.

4. Cuba: blockade as a weapon of structural pressure and social reproduction

The seventh nationwide blackout of the year — with the electricity system collapsed and stretches of more than 60 hours without power in some provinces in recent weeks — would be read as the material effect of a strategy of suffocating the conditions of social reproduction. The combination of sanctions that hinder fuel imports, ageing infrastructure and external energy dependence configures a reproduction crisis that directly affects daily life: water, transport, food preservation, communications. The materialist analysis does not limit itself to denouncing the blockade: it also recognises the internal contradictions of the model

5. Yemen and Saudi Arabia: control of maritime routes and proxy war

The Houthi capture of Mocha and Mayun Island, in the Bab el-Mandeb Strait — through which close to 12% of world trade passes — and the attacks on Riyadh and Yanbu, are read as a dispute over the control of a strategic maritime corridor. The war in Yemen, frequently presented as a sectarian or proxy conflict, has a clear material dimension: who controls access to the Red Sea and, therefore, the circulation of goods and energy between Asia and Europe. The UN warning about the greatest risk of returning to war indicates that the dispute over the corridor is being waged on the civilian population as part of the material cost of the conflict. The Saudi blockade and air strikes, on the one hand, and the Houthi attacks on Saudi oil infrastructure, on the other, are blows to each adversary’s capacity for material reproduction.

6. Pakistan: armed violence and the dispute over internal territorial control

The double suicide attack in Kohat — 31 dead, including 5 police officers — would be read in terms of a dispute over territorial control and the state’s coercive capacity in regions where central power competes with non-state armed actors. It is not merely “terrorism”: it is a struggle for the monopoly of violence in a strategic territory (close to the border with Afghanistan, a transit and influence route). The materialist methodology would ask: what resources, routes or positions are being disputed in that area? What local correlations of forces allow an attack of this magnitude to occur? The answer exceeds the “security” framework and enters that of the political geography of resources and population control.

7. Brazil and critical minerals: rejection of the subordination of strategic resources

Lula’s refusal of the US proposal for priority access to Brazilian critical minerals — with the document sent to the “dead archive” — is read as a point of friction in the global dispute over strategic resources. In a context of energy transition and competition for lithium, niobium, rare earths and other inputs, Brazil occupies a position of potential supplier and seeks not to remain subordinated to the conditions of the hegemonic bloc. The rejection is not merely diplomatic: it is a defence of sovereignty over resources as the material basis of a project of autonomous development. The materialist methodology would read it as a contradiction between fractions of capital (transnational capital seeking guaranteed access vs. national or state capital seeking to retain control) and as a point of dispute in the geopolitics of the energy transition.

8. Russia: legislative elections and superstructural legitimation

The State Duma elections of 18 to 20 September would be read, in materialist terms, as a mechanism of superstructural legitimation of existing power relations. The analysis would not focus on the results (predictable) but on the function of the electoral institution within the reproduction of the bloc in power: ratifying the political direction, formally integrating the regions, and presenting as “popular participation” what is the reproduction of a correlation of forces. The methodology would ask: what fractions of capital and what social sectors are represented in the Duma? What internal contradictions of the bloc are expressed or silenced in the electoral process?

9. Julian Assange and the dispute over information as a resource

Assange’s return to X with “I’m back” and the announcement of “more news next week” would be read as a point of visibility in the dispute over the control of information. In a context of media bans, the reappearance of a figure associated with the leaking of classified documents raises the materialist question: who controls information flows and what material interests are affected by their circulation? Information is not a neutral good: it is a resource of power in the dispute over legitimacy and the capacity to mobilise or demobilise.

Cross-cutting axes of the bulletin

1. Control of strategic corridors: Greenland (Arctic), Hormuz (Persian Gulf), Bab el-Mandeb (Red Sea), Kyushu (Asia-Pacific). The dispute over energy and trade routes runs through almost all the flashpoints.
2. Strategic resources: critical minerals (Brazil), hydrocarbons (Iran), rare earths (Greenland). The energy transition and technological competition are reconfiguring the geopolitics of resources.
3. Suffocation of the conditions of social reproduction: Cuba (energy), Yemen (displacement). Blockade and war as methods of structural pressure on the population.
4. Rearmament and containment: Typhon in Japan, the doctrine of “permanent control” in Greenland, mutual US-Iran threats. The reorganisation of the hegemonic bloc’s military apparatus.
5. Superstructural legitimation: elections in Russia, the discourse of “mutual benefit” in Greenland. The political and juridical superstructure as an instance of legitimation of material relations of force.

END OF BULLETIN

---