“Interdependence is and ought to be as much the ideal of man as self‑sufficiency.”- Epicurus
Over the past few years, the United States has launched two high‑profile initiatives that signal a renewed ambition to internalize strategic supplies and control the chokepoints governing who receives what, when, and at what price. This push blends three forces: the desire for self‑sufficiency, a political commitment to reindustrialization, and the pressures of great‑power competition (Farrell et al.,2019). At the centre of all three lies the struggle for critical raw materials. This article focuses on two illustrative examples, among several others, where Washington has moved to secure supply‑chain resilience.
First, the United States increasingly frames Greenland as both a security asset and a source of critical minerals capable of reducing Western dependence on Chinese processing (Klinger, 2017; Abraham, 2015). In this view, basing rights, geopolitical positioning, and resource access converge into a single logic: resource security as national security. Second, the United States has reconfigured its approach to Venezuelan oil. In 2026, negotiations resumed under a controlled licensing framework aimed at steering flows toward U.S. refineries (Reuters, 2026). The goal is no longer just access, but the ability to govern flows, determining which shipments proceed, on what terms, and under which revenue constraints (Mulder, 2022; O’Sullivan, 2017). This represents trade‑route control as national security.
Greenland and Venezuela both illustrate how a hegemon seeks resilience by reducing its exposure to rival coercion, one through building optionality in critical minerals, the other through transforming a sanctions regime into a hierarchical market that Washington can actively shape. This renewed U.S. effort to secure supply‑chain self‑sufficiency echoes earlier periods in which great powers pursued similar goals (List, 1841; Gerschenkron, 1962). Autarky, derived from the Greek autos (self) and arkein (to suffice), describes an economy’s ambition to produce essential goods domestically and shield itself from external shocks or coercive pressures (cf. Aristotle, c. 330 BCE). The concept has deep philosophical roots, later informing the work of political economists such as Friedrich List (1841) and Alexander Gerschenkron (1962), who examined industrialization and state‑driven economic strategies. Scholars of totalitarian economies, such as Timothy Snyder (2012) and Ian Kershaw (2000), have shown how autarkic ambitions shaped the economic logic of twentieth‑century regimes, embedding self‑sufficiency in systems of coercion and centralized control. Contemporary analyses of critical minerals and strategic supply chains (Klinger, 2017; Abraham, 2015) extend these debates into the twenty‑first century, highlighting how states pursue selective self‑reliance in high‑tech inputs, rare earths, and midstream processing.
Historically, autarky manifested through tariff walls, exchange controls, coercive substitution, and industrial priority‑setting, tools designed to shrink a state’s interface with a potentially hostile world (Tooze, 2006; Overy, 1995). At its core, autarky refers to an economy’s attempt to produce essential goods domestically and insulate itself from external shocks or coercive pressure (List, 1841; Gerschenkron, 1962). While few states achieved complete self‑sufficiency, many pursued selective autarky in war‑critical sectors such as food, fuels, or steel (Harrison, 2014). The earliest foundations of autarkic thinking lie in mercantilism during the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries. Mercantilist systems sought to maximize exports, restrict imports, and secure captive supply chains through chartered trading companies and colonial extraction (Heckscher, 1935). The goal was never full isolation but the construction of state‑managed surpluses and protected economic zones, a logic echoed today in neo‑mercantilist export controls and tariff regimes.
The most explicit modern turn toward autarky appeared in Nazi Germany’s Four‑Year Plan of 1936. Hitler’s directive to make the economy kriegsfähig, fit for war, within four years created a centralized apparatus with restricting imports, fixing prices and wages, mobilizing labour, and synthesizing scarce raw materials (Tooze, 2006; Overy, 1995). Germany relied heavily on coercion and forced labour to compensate for structural shortages, producing layer upon layer of Ersatz substitutes when access to high‑quality inputs collapsed (Kershaw, 2000). When substitution failed, strategy turned outward: resource conquest became economic policy, with the drive to seize Eastern Europe closely tied to closing Germany’s autarky gap (Snyder, 2012; Tooze, 2006). This ambition played a significant role in the outbreak of WWII.
The Soviet path to autarky followed a different ideological trajectory but shared similar administrative foundations. Under Gosplan and the Five‑Year Plans, the USSR sought to build internal heavy industry, collectivize agriculture, and minimize dependence on global markets (Davies, 1998; Kotkin, 2018). The emphasis on steel, machinery, and energy created formidable mobilization capabilities but imposed severe social costs, including the catastrophic famines of 1932-33 and chronic shortages in consumer goods (Snyder, 2012; Davies, 1998). During the WWII, Soviet autarky proved resilient yet incomplete. The USSR’s vast territory and industrial relocation eastward sustained production, while Allied Lend‑Lease support, most notably hundreds of thousands of U.S. trucks, provided essential logistical capacity for the Red Army (Harrison, 2014). After 1945, the Soviet Union institutionalized a bloc‑level autarky through Comecon, coordinating production and state monopolies on foreign trade to reduce reliance on Western markets.
Across both the Nazi and Soviet regimes, autarky delivered rapid mobilization and a potent narrative of sovereignty but at extraordinary cost. These systems suffered from inefficient allocation, technological stagnation driven by substitutes, and the embedding of economic aims within structures of political coercion (Overy, 1995; Harrison, 2014). Germany’s model collapsed under strategic overreach, while the Soviet version survived by hybridizing, relying on internal capacity in peacetime but external lifelines when existentially threatened (Kotkin, 2018).
The end of the Cold War ushered in an era of hyper‑interdependence from the early 1990s through the early 2020s. Efficiency became the dominant ideology: globalized supply chains, just‑in‑time production, and the offshoring of midstream processing were treated as unquestioned best practices. These systems reduced costs but accumulated hidden vulnerabilities, single‑point refineries and concentrated processing hubs as well as centralized production and logistics system setup (Farrell et al., 2019). For decades, these weaknesses remained latent, masked by relatively stable geopolitical conditions.
By the 2020s, however, a combination of global pandemics, renewed great‑power rivalry, and a sharply expanded use of sanctions exposed how easily interdependence could be weaponized (Farrell et al., 2019; Mulder, 2022). What had been celebrated as efficiency increasingly appeared as exposure. States discovered that the very networks enabling prosperity could be turned into levers of coercion, financial clearing systems, shipping insurance, midstream processing, and standards regimes (O’Sullivan, 2017). The resulting policy shift has been a move toward selective autarky. Rather than attempting complete self‑sufficiency, a practical impossibility, states have begun rebuilding critical midstream capacity, diversifying strategic supply chains, and developing allied production networks through initiatives such as “friendshoring” (Graham et al., 2023). The objective is not isolation but insulation: ensuring that the most vulnerable links in the chain fall outside an adversary’s reach (Klinger, 2017).
The rare‑earths sector illustrates this shift clearly. China’s dominance in midstream refining represents one of the world’s most significant chokepoints, controlling the refining and separation stages that transform mined ore into usable industrial inputs (Klinger, 2017; Biedermann, 2014). In a crisis, the actor controlling midstream processing controls access to rare‑earth elements, regardless of where those minerals are extracted. Western shortages stem less from geology than from political choices, stringent environmental rules, a lack of processing capacity, and decades of underinvestment in extractive infrastructure (Abraham, 2015). Modern autarky therefore requires more than territorial control over raw materials. It demands sustained political willingness, substantial financing, and long‑term industrial planning, all without the coercive tools used by earlier autarkic regimes such as Nazi Germany or the Soviet Union (Tooze, 2006; Harrison, 2014). In democratic systems, where force cannot be used to suppress local resistance, selective autarky becomes slower, more complex, and fundamentally dependent on partnerships rather than command (Klinger, 2017; Bridge, 2008).
The rare‑earth challenge reveals a central paradox of modern autarky: the West’s supply gaps are rooted less in geology than in politics, environmental constraints, and limited midstream capacity (Klinger, 2017; Abraham, 2015). Nowhere is this more evident than in Greenland, which possesses substantial deposits of rare earth elements, uranium, graphite, zinc, and other strategically important minerals (Blakemore et al., 2026; Schwartz et al., 2026). Greenland ranks among the top global locations for rare earth reserves, with an estimated 1.5 million tons and several world‑class deposits such as Kvanefjeld and Tanbreez (Schwartz et al., 2026). Yet despite this mineral wealth, Greenland has seen no commercial rare‑earth mining to date. The primary barriers are not technical capacity but infrastructure limitations, environmental conditions, and political constraints. Greenland’s harsh Arctic climate, minimal transportation network, and difficult geology have repeatedly prevented the development of viable rare‑earth mining operations (Funk et al., 2026). These conditions create long project lead times, heightened risk, and high capital requirements.
Even more significant is the issue of social license, the informal but essential acceptance of extraction by local communities. Greenland’s population is small, politically engaged, and environmentally cautious, shaped by a long history of external exploitation and concerns about ecological impacts (Blakemore et al., 2026). Local resistance has been strong enough to halt or delay several high‑profile mining projects, particularly those involving radioactive elements or large tailings facilities. Washington’s recent rhetorical escalation, framing Greenland primarily through a national‑security lens or even discussing acquisition, risks intensifying political resistance. Statements by the U.S. administration in 2025-26 suggesting that Greenland could be “taken” or “controlled” have been met with alarm in Nuuk and Copenhagen, reinforcing fears of external pressure and undermining the very trust required for resource development partnerships (Funk et al., 2026; Schwartz et al., 2026). Efforts to treat Greenland as a strategic asset rather than a political partner may therefore make future mineral extraction less, not more, feasible.
Taken together, these dynamics underscore a broader truth of twenty‑first‑century autarky. Securing critical minerals requires not only investment in processing and extraction capacity but long‑term political engagement, community trust, and respect for local autonomy. Modern resource strategy must operate through collaboration rather than coercion, relying on partnership‑based approaches that are inherently slower and more complex than the authoritarian models of the twentieth century (Blakemore et al., 2026; Klinger, 2017). Social license, once damaged, is difficult to rebuild, making it one of the most decisive constraints on contemporary autarkic ambitions.
The constraints shaping modern autarky reveal a set of structural limits that even great powers cannot escape. Midstream capacity remains the most decisive chokepoint. The United States can invest heavily in Greenlandic exploration or negotiate long‑term offtake agreements, but without refining and separation capabilities located within trusted regulatory jurisdictions, raw materials will still pass through the very bottlenecks’ autarky seeks to avoid (Klinger, 2017; Abraham, 2015). As rare‑earth markets demonstrate, the actor controlling the midstream, rather than the mine, controls strategic leverage (Biedermann, 2014). Ownership matters far less than the ability to process.
Social license forms the second constraint. In places like Greenland, extraction is politically viable only with sustained community acceptance. Local resistance to mining is deeply rooted in environmental concerns, autonomy politics, and historical experiences of external exploitation (Blakemore et al., 2026). Modern democracies cannot bypass community opposition through coercive means, unlike twentieth‑century autarkic regimes such as Nazi Germany or the Soviet Union (Tooze, 2006; Harrison, 2014). Autarkic strategies that ignore local sentiment risk triggering backlash that can halt projects entirely.
Sanctions constitute the third structural limit. The Venezuelan case illustrates how global oil markets adapt to coercive pressure: shadow fleets, non‑Western insurers, and alternative buyers dilute U.S. leverage even under intensive sanctions (Mulder, 2022; O’Sullivan, 2017). Venezuela has cultivated workarounds through new trade partners and off‑book shipping networks. The limits of sanctions create diminishing returns for states attempting to use economic coercion as a pillar of autarkic strategy.
Allies and institutions form the fourth constraint. Even in a world of selective autarky, trusted partners remain essential for coordinating infrastructure, finance, logistics, and regulatory standards (Farrell et al., 2019; Bridge, 2008). Moves by Washington that appear unilateral, such as framing Greenland primarily as a U.S. strategic acquisition or security asset, have already unsettled European allies and raised concerns in Copenhagen and Nuuk (Schwartz et al., 2026; Funk et al., 2026). Resource policy framed in terms of control rather than partnership risks undermining the very coalitions required for networked self‑sufficiency.
Finally, modern autarky carries a sovereignty‑optics cost. Efforts to internalize strategic supplies on foreign territory require visible commitments to local autonomy: joint‑venture branding, transparent revenue‑sharing, locally anchored training pipelines, and community development schemes (Blakemore et al., 2026). These measures are slow and expensive, but far less costly than political backlash that could permanently close access. In Greenland, this optics challenge may become Washington’s long‑term problem if current rhetoric persists (Schwartz et al., 2026).
Taken together, these constraints demonstrate that modern autarky is not simply a matter of securing resources or controlling supply chains. It is fundamentally about managing a complex political environment in which midstream capacity, allied confidence, and local legitimacy are as important as geology or market access (Klinger, 2017). Autarky succeeds only when all three elements align. When they do not, it collapses into coercion, inefficiency, or strategic overreach, patterns visible in earlier autarkic experiments of the twentieth century (Tooze, 2006; Harrison, 2014).
Autarky in 2026 returns us to the tension that opened this analysis. The United States is simultaneously pressuring Greenland for critical minerals and rewiring Venezuelan oil flows through legal, financial, and maritime controls. Though these cases appear distinct, they reveal the same strategic instinct: modern autarky is not withdrawal from global markets but the construction of controllable operating zones, subsystems engineered to function even when the wider international order becomes unreliable (Farrell et al., 2019).
Yet the very effort to build such subsystems exposes a central paradox. To reduce dependence, great powers must do more abroad, not less. Attempts to internalize critical inputs necessarily spill outward into local regulatory structures, foreign political processes, and the technical standards that bind supply chains together (O’Sullivan, 2017; Mulder, 2022). China’s Belt and Road Initiative illustrate one version of this logic: a networked system designed to stabilize resource flows and logistical corridors through infrastructure, financing, and political influence (Brautigam, 2010). It offers an instructive, if imperfect, template for how deeply externalized twenty‑first‑century “self‑sufficiency” has become.
Seen from this perspective, autarky is no longer about producing everything at home. It is a form of strategic systems engineering, an effort to stabilize the inputs a state cannot afford to lose by embedding them within networks it can shape (Klinger, 2017; Bridge, 2008). Greenland demonstrates how fragile these designs become when confronted with political resistance, environmental constraints, and social‑license dynamics (Blakemore et al., 2026). Venezuela shows how assertive economic coercion can reshape flows yet still confront shadow markets, alternative buyers, and geopolitical volatility (CNBC, 2025).
The final lesson mirrors the first. Modern autarky is neither isolationism nor expansionism; it is a political project of resilience. Its success depends not on how much a state can produce alone, but on how effectively it can engineer the parts of the global system it does not trust: midstream capacity, logistics corridors, social license, and alliances that sustain them (Abraham, 2015). Without these elements, autarky collapses back into coercion, technological substitution, and strategic overreach, echoing the failures of earlier eras (Tooze, 2006; Harrison, 2014). With them, it becomes a coherent governing logic for a fractured world, a way to preserve continuity amid geopolitical turbulence.