The Arctic, that once thought of as a frozen waste and a home to polar bears, is now one of the globe’s most hotly contested frontiers. The region, decades past the Cold War, had been a test of cooperation—its members cooperating in tandem through the Arctic Council to enhance dialogue, scientific research, and conservation. But with the ice cap melting and a new possibility on the table, the Arctic is a contested land, in which defense deployment and strategic interest re-map the terrain.
No nation has acted faster than Russia. In a gigantic exercise in modernisation, Moscow has built new airbases, bases, and re-opened deep-water ports of the Soviet era across the High North. It dominates over a hundred vessels, dozens of powerful icebreakers—a privilege which opens up unrivalled access to seas hitherto blocked by ice.
The key to the whole is the Northern Sea Route (NSR), a shipping route potentially to match ancient canals economically as early as soon. Russia has invested billions in infrastructure costs until 2035 in an attempt to make the NSR the pillar of trade and defense policy.
America has been playing catch-up, though. Washington’s updated Arctic strategy places military preparedness, domain awareness, and increased partnership with allies first. The bases in Greenland and Iceland are key to observation, warning, and air defense. But the US still falls short of its modest icebreaking capability and infrastructure in relation to Russia’s overwhelming presence. A great majority of America’s strategy focuses on alliances and cooperative exercises with the NATO allies to project power into the region.
The NATO role has increased several times over the last couple of years, reorganizing the power dynamic in the Arctic. Seven out of the eight countries in the Arctic are now under NATO protection, with the accession of Finland and Sweden into the alliance. It has expanded defense planning throughout the Arctic and engaged the alliance more invested in the primary chokepoints.
The GIUK Gap, including Iceland, the United Kingdom, and Greenland, is the most significant transatlantic supply line watch corridor and gateway to guarding it. Iceland, without a military, has become a keystone for surveillance and warning systems, and Denmark continues to ramp up defense spending in the Arctic.
Greenland is increasingly disproportionately crucial to this new rivalry. Situated on the crossroads of new shipping routes, with its enormous mineral wealth and missile defense capabilities, Greenland is of strategic importance. Its strategic resources of rare earth and other materials have lured capital across the West that seeks to de-risk their exposure to open supply chains. For Washington and allies, Greenland is less a distant outpost—it’s a hub of defense and possible commerce.
At its foundation is the speeding up of global warming. The Arctic is warming at a rate over three times higher than the overall increase in global warming, freezing sea ice back with frightful rapidity and remapping ocean sea lanes. The NSR and Northwest Passage are opening longer seasons annually, and projections are that shipping in the Arctic will have a doubled season length by the end of the century. This change would then redirect world trade patterns, creating new avenues of trade when war or environmental pressure shuts down existing routes.
Danger is an integral part of human life. The fragile Arctic environment is increasingly exposed to the pressures of increased shipping, offshore oil and gas extraction, and the threat of accidents in waters of numerous risks. There are natives, thousands of years established, who experience deep agitations as their lifestyle is confronted with the presence of great external powers. Security, economic, and ecological needs have never been so hard to define, particularly with trans-Atlantic cooperation under pressure in recent years.
The only issue now is whether or not the Arctic will be able to continue as a region of relative peace or another theater of great power rivalry. Experience has shown that there is always a place for compromise, as in the Norway-Russia border conflict resolution in 2010 peacefully. More militarization adds more risk of miscalculation.
A flag of scientific discovery and cooperation has turned into a space where military ambition, economic interest, and environmental vulnerability meet. The Arctic’s future is being shaped today, and the world waits anxiously to see who will shape its future.
