The Arctic is warming at nearly four times the rate of the globe, shrinking sea ice dramatically and reconfiguring the region. Those are the days when the far north was so far beyond reach; melting ice has opened up new sea routes and economic opportunities. Indeed, commentators speak of a “shrinking ice cap” and fresh “sea routes” to render the Arctic “strategically more important.”
Sea-ice maps, for example, show Arctic ice in late summer to have reached all-time lows (no more than 3.74 million km² in 2020, significantly less than the 1981–2010 average). Not only causing worldwide impacts – changes in the oceans and climate system – it has created new trade routes and discovered unexploited resources. Briefly, “the Arctic is changing by the minute, with vast geopolitical…consequences,” scientists warn.
Emerging Arctic Shipping Routes
One of the direct impacts of the meltdown is the emergence of new shipping routes. Russia’s Northern Sea Route (NSR) (over Siberia) in summer 2023 sees container ships transit the Arctic Ocean for the first time on a routine timetable. Between July and November 2023, seven round-trip trips by four Chinese-flagged container ships (the “NewNew” fleet) were completed on the NSR.
By 2024, the NSR was thriving – between January and August 2024, it had ~30 transits with around 1.3 million tons of cargo. Almost all of it (≈98%) was between Russian and Chinese ports, showing how climate change and geopolitics support each other (direct NSR routes from China to Russia are roughly 10 days shorter than via the Suez Canal).
The Northwest Passage (across Canada) is less travelled, although ice melting also extends its shipping season. Asian-European routes are becoming shorter, in fact. China has advocated for a “Polar Silk Road” – envisioning an “Arctic corridor” of corridors that connect Europe and Asia – and even calls itself a “near-Arctic state,” seeking to influence northern shipping regulation. There are forecasts that some percentage of worldwide shipping will move through Arctic routes by 2030.
Legal and logistical problems remain out there (Canada maintains sovereignty over its waters in the Arctic, for example), but melting ice is clearly opening up routes that were once fantasies. Greater connectivity will bring new actors and interests into the Arctic supply chain, with new governance arrangements to follow.
Resource Wealth and Economic Interests
The Arctic is also resource-rich. The U.S. Geological Survey (2008) estimated that the circumpolar Arctic holds around 13% of all the world’s unconventionally discovered oil and 30% of all the world’s unconventionally discovered natural gas. Current production in the region already accounts for about 10% of world oil and 25% of natural gas.
Vast oil and gas deposits lie in the Russian Kara and Barents Seas and Alaska’s North Slope (combined on the order of 90 billion barrels of oil and 1,669 trillion cubic feet of gas). Even excluding hydrocarbons, minerals are attracting a stampede. Greenland and Northern Canadian ice melting are revealing iron, copper, nickel, and platinum-group metals deposits. In particular, Arctic plateaus contain vast reserves of the rare earth elements neodymium and dysprosium, critical to renewables and batteries.
Governments and companies globally are interested in gaining access to them. Norway, for instance, granted new Arctic licenses to mine in 2023, while US companies (including ConocoPhillips in Alaska) are poised to open new Arctic energy projects. Others warn that foreign investment and troop deployments will go together in far-flung Arctic initiatives. It all adds up to competition for Arctic resources escalating.
In the meantime, the harsh environment does make extraction expensive, softening the stampede – one analyst estimates that it is expensive to produce oil in the Arctic, so many companies therefore aim at softer deposits elsewhere to begin with. But the sheer richness of Arctic mineral and fossil resources ensures that security of energy and resources is becoming a paramount concern for the eight Arctic states and their supporters.
Military Presence and Security Dynamics
The Arctic used to be a Cold War frontier (think nuclear submarine gaps and bomber gaps). Today, military presence is on the rise once again because great powers like to defend their interests in the Arctic. Russia has prioritised the region, its 2024 defence strategy classifies the Far East and Arctic as “regions of national and strategic interest,” and it has spent lavishly on Arctic troops. Russia boasts the global’s largest fleet of icebreakers and holds over half of the Arctic coast, and it has reopened scores of Soviet-era Arctic bases since 2005.
Russia’s Northern Fleet (on the Kola Peninsula) features nuclear-powered submarines, missile defence sites, airfields and radar installations near Finland, Sweden and Norway. The IISS places Russia with one-third more military bases north of the Arctic Circle than all of NATO’s combined forces. Moscow’s new strategy is to hold and defend the Northern Sea Route and control the High North, even negotiating energy agreements (like the stalled Arctic LNG 2 project) as well as military bristling.
NATO allies have taken notice. The top military leaders in NATO and the NATO Secretary-General officially declare that the Alliance is spreading its influence in the Arctic region due to Russian policy. New infrastructure and training investments are being made by NATO in Scandinavia and in Alaska. Canada, Norway, and other Arctic NATO allies are purchasing patrol boats with Arctic capability, spy planes and drones; e.g., Canada will purchase new early-warning radar and sub-hunting aircraft.
The U.S. has also added investments, such as Congress’s investment in the construction of three new heavy icebreakers (Polar Security Cutters) – the first is entering service – and the Navy and Coast Guard are common shared operators in the Arctic on a continuous basis. Northern Command has warned that increased Arctic domain awareness (in the form of satellites and sensors) would be required to track such threats as Russian or other countries’ hypersonic weapons or submarine patrols. The Arctic, in general, is a new strategic front, in total.
Major Powers and Rivalries
Russia considers the Arctic to be at the heart of both its security and economic concerns. Leadership of the Arctic has been equated by President Putin with national prestige and global leadership. In addition to the military bases, Russia is racing against time to construct Arctic shipping, ports and pipelines. It is also wooing China aggressively – after invading Ukraine, Russia turned its eyes north towards Beijing as a potential ally. Chinese state firms have invested billions of dollars in easing the development of Russian Arctic oil, gas and mining ventures (including funding the Yamal LNG complex).
Russia and China have even held joint military training exercises; most recently, in August 2023, Russian and Chinese warplanes simultaneously patrolled the northern approaches to Alaska (intercepted by NORAD), and their navies frequently transit adjacent Arctic seas. Others fear that Moscow will employ the Arctic as a card in global diplomacy, offering resource coordination or arms-control concessions as bargaining chips with the West.
China itself is increasingly an Arctic power. Beijing promises publicly to care for Arctic stability, but clearly is acting to gain access and influence. Xi Jinping in 2014 declared China a future “Polar Power,” and China terms itself a “near-Arctic state” to stake a claim there. China has invested in polar research stations (e.g., in Svalbard), dispatched icebreaker expeditions, and funded northern infrastructure projects since it became an observer in the Arctic Council. It promotes a vision for an “Ice Silk Road” – a network of interconnecting trans-Arctic shipping lanes – and has invested in Greenland mining ventures (rare earths and uranium) and other activities.
American security analysts watch events cautiously. A RAND report concludes that “the threat should not be exaggerated” because China’s on-the-ground presence remains very weak. But they record China’s unmistakable desire “to not be left out” of Arctic evolution. Contemporary history has the consequence of drawing attention to the changeover and the NORAD intercept of a Russian-Chinese bomber flight pair together over Alaska in July 2024 was the first ever such pair to be observed, the first such level of Sino-Russian Arctic collaboration.
There is just one littoral democracy in the Arctic that is the United States (and Canada). U.S. policy for many decades was aimed at more climate and science than hard power in the Far North. But the compartmentalization days are over. The U.S. has openly talked about the Arctic as a “strategic priority,” and the 2024 Pentagon strategy for the Arctic is about building presence and allied cooperation there. Washington is increasing domain awareness (i.e. radars and surveillance satellites) and investing in infrastructure.
Along with the new icebreakers, the U.S. is conducting more Arctic training and combined operations (e.g. Arctic Shield maneuvers, Operation ICE CAMP submarine maneuvers). Congress even cited a cooperative continental defense mission (NORAD) for Greenland. Just as Russia recognizes, the U.S. realizes that allied Arctic nations (most of which are members of the NATO alliance) must cooperate on security. Finland and Sweden joined NATO as full members in 2023, so now seven out of eight Arctic nations belong to NATO. The 2024 Washington NATO summit emphasized deterrence in the Arctic, noting that a war there would affect the entire Alliance.
International Governance and Cooperation
The Arctic Council remains the official, senior multilateral forum of the region, but only deals with environmental protection, scientific research and sustainable development – no mandate on security. It has the eight Arctic states (Canada, Denmark (Greenland), Finland, Iceland, Norway, Russia, Sweden, USA) and indigenous people representatives, and has admitted non-Arctic observer states (China, India, EU, etc.) admitted. Until 2022, it embodied “Arctic exceptionalism”, even during the Cold War, Arctic nations mostly worked together on shared problems.
That equation is falling apart. Since the war in Ukraine, the Council’s system of unanimous consensus has been put on hold – Western members have put cooperating with the Russian chair on hold. The experts warn that the era of an Arctic free of conflict is over, and one merely says “Arctic exceptionalism is withering,” and the Arctic is suddenly “at risk of becoming a strategic flashpoint.”
Other organisations and laws also intrude into the Arctic. All the Arctic states claim exclusive economic zones and continental shelves under UNCLOS, drawing borders beyond untrammelled seabed resource exploitation. NATO, on the other hand, thinks more and more of the North as a distinct theatre; its new Strategic Concept puts Northern Europe and the Atlantic first as crucial. The head of the NATO military committee even aimed at China’s Arctic aspiration in 2023 – eliciting a response from Beijing’s Arctic envoy in a Reykjavik forum.
Official Arctic security discussion beyond military alliances, however, is lacking. There is no counterpart to the Geneva-based Antarctic Treaty in the Arctic yet. Briefly, the governance is imbalanced and science and environment are governed in common, while security and trade are becoming more bilateral or multilateral races.
The Arctic Geopolitics – Conclusion
The warming Arctic has turned into a hotbed of climate, trade and defence. Once a centuries-old cold hinterland, the Far North is now a “next frontier for great power competition,” one analyst terms it. Major players – America and Russia, and China (and even the middle powers like Germany, Japan or South Korea) – all have increasingly strong interests in the High North. Climate change ensures that the region’s transformation will occur sooner in the coming years (some predict an ice-free summer by the 2030s). Policymakers thus face difficult choices; while new Arctic routes and resources hold out economic gains, they hold out strategic rivalry as well.
Non-cooperation, though, can lead to miscalculation. Chatham House analyst Mathieu Boulègue warns, “we know the Arctic is changing, but…we don’t yet know how major players will respond”. To penetrate these changes – and reinforcing peaceable governance – is crucial today, if the Arctic is to remain part of an orderly world.
Article by Shaloo Singh