The Arctic Is Heating Up. So Is the Competition to Control It

This transcript has been edited for clarity.

Leslie Vinjamuri: The Arctic. Once a frozen remote backwater. Now a strategic frontline.

Melting ice is opening new shipping lanes, revealing untapped resources, and drawing the attention of Russia, China, the United States, and NATO.

But as nations vie for influence over the Arctic, what's really happening up there, and who is leading this race? 

To help us make sense of it all, I'm joined by journalist Kenneth Rosen, whose upcoming book, Polar War: Submarine Spies, and the Struggle for Power in a Melting Arctic, will be released in the early new year. Also, expert Anna Wieslander, director for Northern Europe at the Atlantic Council, joins us from Spain, but generally based in Stockholm.

I'm Leslie Vinjamuri, president and CEO of the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, and welcome to Deep Dish.

LV: Let me start by asking the primer question, to give us background about the Arctic and why now? Is there so much interest in climate change, in geopolitical competition in the US role? What has happened that we are focusing on the Arctic?

Kenneth Rosen: I think if you ask a lot of Arctic watchers who have been focused on this subject for decades, they would've said this has been ongoing for just as long. Now is nothing new except the Arctic is melting at a rate—sometimes five times—faster than the rest of the world.

A lot of the infrastructure in the Arctic is sat upon permafrost, meaning that as that thaws, the infrastructure there becomes destabilized. But the key aspect for a lot of the nations who call themselves Littoral states, Arctic nations, part of the Arctic Council, the Arctic eight, they are mostly concerned with the shrinking sea ice, which will open up potential shipping lanes across the north.

When the US starts to consider this, it worries about two things. One, the claims to the Northwest passage and whether or not that is international waters or if Canada can claim it as its own. And then what Russia is doing along its Littoral coast vis-a-vis using transport vessels to move liquid natural gas out of the country, and modernizing its military bases from the Cold War.

The US is looking at all this and saying, where have we been? And they have been nowhere in the Arctic, in part because they've let a lot of the infrastructure fall apart since the Cold War where we're looking at, whether it be satellite monitoring sophistications or the military capabilities that we have there. They’re looking at what's happening in the Arctic, watching the ice melt and saying, are we prepared to even compete in that sphere? We are not as a nation.

LV: If you look at the borders, where is Canada relative to the US as an Arctic state, an Arctic power?

KR: The American Arctic claim is really only Alaska. Without Alaska, we aren't an Arctic state. And had we not taken that from Russia and bought it from Russia in the 1800s, we would not be having this conversation. With President Trump's caustic remarks towards Canada, it undermines the fact that Canada is a buffer zone in the Arctic for the American people and for national security interests. Canada has a strong interest in the Arctic and has primarily pursued peace, cooperation, and scientific endeavor, while maintaining that the US has taken a more caustic, vitriolic approach to Arctic discussions. Even though we just have that little bit of land called Alaska.

LV: So when you're friendly with Canada, things look a little bit different than when there's slightly more tension. 

KR: Especially when they have so many capabilities in the north when it comes to over-horizon defenses. We have the DEW line that once populated a lot of Canada, and so yes, we've relied on them for decades.

LV: Last week on the podcast, we focused on Canada. The case for what Canada has given and provided for the US is an important one.

Anna, you're from Sweden. You're right there, where presumably the Arctic is nothing new, as a point of focus. Give us your interpretation of why now. Also, how has Europe been thinking about the Arctic before the current moment, and who were the key players? What are the politics?

Anna Wieslander: For a long time, after the end of the Cold War, the Arctic from a European perspective was mostly about what we call "arctic exceptionalism." It was considered not even a low-tension area, but even a non-tension area between countries, with a lot of focus then on cooperative efforts. Things like human security, research, climate issues, and everything but the military, basically: search and rescue and other things that we could work together on with Russia. 

The Arctic states, not only the US and Canada, but the Nordics and Russia, had no problem until the Russian illegal annexation of Crimea in 2014, which shook things up.

It was a spillover effect into the Arctic, governance, and corporation. Even though there were no problems, there was also little engagement with Arctic issues, except among the Arctic nations. The European Union, for instance, where only a few Arctic states are members, had some engagement in the Arctic through fishery research and so on, but not much. NATO, as an organization, calls the Arctic part where NATO is engaged in the High North, but it was not engaged in planning or even focusing on the Arctic.

I used to go there 10 years ago and ask NATO headquarters, "So what's going on in the Arctic from your point of view?" And they're like, "There is nothing here. You have to go to Oslo or somewhere else and ask, because this is nothing. This is not where it happens."

LV: What about climate change? If it wasn't a geopolitical concern or national security concern for the individual countries, was there a real focus from the High North on the problem of climate change?

AW: I visited Greenland myself in 2009 and watched the Ilulissat Glacier melt in front of my eyes, basically. So yes, I think there has been awareness. But you must also remember that at that time, we thought that perhaps the ice and the effects of climate change were twice the pace of the rest of the globe.

Now we estimate it's almost four times the pace of the average climate change we're seeing. The consequences are immense, and the melting ice layers are accelerating, with all of those consequences that it has for the environment, people, and animals. Interestingly, countries like China, which is not an Arctic state, began studying the effects of climate change quite early. The melting ice in the Arctic has been part of those research efforts for a long time.

LV: Climate change now also creates opportunity, right? Shipping that introduces the prospect for greater competition. You mentioned the 2014 moment as a key inflection. Ken, is that where you see the inflection point? Where we tip from the quiet backwaters of the Arctic, some nice cooperation among those on the Arctic Council, scientific endeavor to competition, for economic, but especially for geopolitical reasons...is it a 2014 moment? America's still slow if it's a 2014 moment.

KR: For Crimea 2014 and for the Nordic states, certainly 2014 was an absolute wake-up call. You can argue that it was the Bedrock Foundation that led to Sweden and Finland joining NATO when they did a handful of years later. But I would say 2007 would've been the time that America was like, "What's happening in the Arctic? We've totally ignored it since the Cold War." Russia and several people went down in a submersible, and Russia planted flags in the Arctic Ocean, staking claim to the High North and the North Pole.

That was the same year that then-Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said there was nothing to worry about; we're just doing something cool to show off what we're capable of. But when Americans started to think we should reconsider our position in the High North, we should double down on our base in Tulle, northern Greenland (now Pituffik Space Base), and take a closer look at where our failings lie. But it wasn't until the last five years that those efforts really sped up.

LV: Anna, when does cooperation on the Arctic Council begin to break down?

AW: In 2014, there were some cooperative formats that were frozen because of the Chad summit, which had just formed a couple of years before, and really did not take off because there was no point in having it. But, until 2022, the Arctic Council actually functioned for most of it.

At that time, this freeze on activities became much more widespread. For many years, I was in discussions with Russians on the Arctic. That was fully possible because the Arctic is not like Antarctica; most things are regulated among Arctic states, territories, and disputes, among others. It had been a process within the United Nations, under international law, and for a long time, it worked. It has not been in Russia's interest to rock that boat either because it serves them that there is some kind of order up in the Arctic. 

Russia is by far the largest Arctic state with the longest coastline. It has military dominance up there. It has a lot of its natural resources there. In its relation with China, where it's usually the junior partner in the Arctic, it's a bit the opposite. China has no territorial claim and has to play more of a win-win game in order to get its foot into the Arctic, which is very interested in with the sea routes. Across the pole, that is what China is aiming for mostly. That would cut days and days of shipping, and make them independent of other routes that are controlled by the US.

This is what they are watching closely. They're building icebreakers, putting up communication satellite systems, and watching closely through their research network how this is proceeding.

LV: So the story that I'm hearing from both of you is a pretty clear focus and strategic, long-term thinking about the Arctic from Russia and China. Ken, in June of last year, you wrote a piece on the end of American exceptionalism in the High North. You're both intimating that the US hasn't had a unified, coherent strategy to deal with the competition that might be coming from China and Russia. Tell us more about that, Ken.

KR: When I was traveling in Northern Sweden, Finland had just ceded, Sweden was coming shortly, and the military planners I was speaking to were saying they were so grateful because there had been for a very long time a big gray emptiness on the military planning maps for the High North for NATO's Achilles Heel. 

This really unified the ability to plan and project power across the North, having those two countries join NATO. The US benefited from this because it could support its allies' station troops there. Defense cooperation agreements fell into place shortly thereafter between Finland and the US, and Sweden and the US, with Secretary of State Blinken coming out there to confirm that American troops and American equipment could now be pushed farther north.

For a long time, that wasn't the case in northern Norway. The US benefited a lot, primarily because all the Americans have is Alaska and northern Greenland. Defense strategies have changed radically in the last four to five years. To say that the US is carrying any weight, I don't really know; the proficiencies there are lacking.

The Swedish, Norwegian, and Finnish armed forces and border guards can offer the US great abundance, but whether Americans are willing to take it and use it to their advantage remains to be seen.

LV: Now we're in this very strange moment where President Trump has taken an antagonistic relationship towards Canada. We've heard about the importance of Canada and the Arctic, where relations between the US and Europe are rocky. And again, the competition and the insecurity between the transatlantic community and Russia, and also China, are accelerating and very intense. Give us your sense, Anna, of how Europe is able to meet this moment.

AW: There was an easy part and a more difficult part. The easy part is actually how NATO should respond to Russia in the High North. Because it's quite clear, Russia is the most significant and direct threat; that's what's stated in the strategic concept from 2022. The task for NATO, to plan for up in the High North, is basically to deter or defend its allies together. 

The basic idea is to, of course, safeguard any action from the Kola base of Russia's strategic assets. The idea that they would like to have some kind of land grab or extend their defensive bubble, their anti-access area denial bubble, to secure security from their point of view and offense from our point of view.

We are looking into that. It's about being present up there. To have the capabilities to be able to work in the dark and the cold. To have not only the equipment, but the logistics, infrastructure, and communications up north. It's also about communicating better interoperability. America is important, but the UK is also important. It helps to train American forces up there to endure harsh conditions.

LV: The UK is training the American forces? This is an extraordinary story, and I'm very glad that you're telling it. It's fair to say that Americans are very well aware of the demand by President Trump and other presidents for Europe to do more, but much less aware of what Europe actually does do for the US across a number of dimensions.

They're certainly not very aware that the Brits are training the American troops to deal with the Arctic. I don't think many people would be very aware of that, nor of the story that you're telling us about Europe's role.

AW: America, as we see it, led in Afghanistan for 20 years. It was by far not up north, not trained, not equipped, not present. The US, in that sense, has difficulties. It has one functioning icebreaker, which it has been patrolling with up north. Sweden has an icebreaker, too.

So the capability level of the superpower up north is not hugely impressive. Not as impressive as we see in many other aspects of NATO defense, where the US is indispensable. There are assets that are on the communication side that are extremely important.

The submarines and all of that, in the North Atlantic, it's a different dynamic up in the Arctic when it comes to US engagement. I agree that we did not see much of the US until 2018 or 2019. We had the 2019 incident, during the first Trump administration, when he was to do a state visit to Denmark, and suddenly said he wanted to buy Greenland. That was the first time, and the state visit was canceled because this was, of course, a big thing. That was a wake-up call, in a way. This is the first time we heard that the US is looking into the Arctic.

LV: A fear of, on the one hand, abandonment or not significant investment, and then a fear of perhaps encroachment and acceleration.

Ken, I'm curious whether you see the US really credibly moving into the space? And for both of you: where is China? You said a little bit about China's focus and ambitions, but how much of a threat do you see China being in the Arctic? Is the cooperation between China and Russia very robust in this area? 

KR: The US moving into Arctic strategy and prevalence, and Arctic dominance is certainly moving a lot quicker under President Trump than it was under President Biden. Is it the right approach? I couldn't say. Being antagonistic towards our allies in the Kingdom of Denmark is not a great way to kick off a presidency, especially when the Arctic has become such a touchstone of importance over the last several years.

They are making efforts; shipbuilding efforts are underway. There's the new ICE Pact agreement with Finland. Then, further building agreements with Finland to support us with polar security cutters and additional icebreakers. Anna was super generous in saying that we have one icebreaker. Even that icebreaker breaks down three times a year and it hardly makes it up into the north. 

LV: Ken, give me a sense of the timeline. So the US is now recognizing that it doesn't have the ships? 

KR: We've known we haven't had the ships. The former admiral to the Coast Guard, whom President Trump let go at the beginning of the year, said that it was going to take another 10 to 15 years to get the polar security cutter program out. That was 10 years ago, five years ago.

LV: These partnerships we're forming to try and get more ice breakers and ice cutters, for most Americans, have really not been top of mind. What is the trajectory for the US to get the capabilities that it feels it needs, if it's working with European partners, in the Arctic?

KR: If everything went well, it could be five to 10 years. But things don't go well in part because the Coast Guard continues to change its designs. Funding issues are weighing down on the projects themselves, and then there's a recruiting issue. The Coast Guard can't recruit enough people in order to staff the vessels themselves.

So there is a three-prong issue with even getting those off the ground. Then you talk about partnerships with those nations. I don't know how well those partnerships can be facilitated when we're also saying we don't want to be part of NATO. We don't want to work with them on other security issues.

We want them to invest more of their GDP toward national defense. If they don't do that, threatening language doesn't facilitate good cooperation. Whether or not it's on paper might be irrelevant. We certainly don't have the shipbuilding capabilities. We certainly don't have the staffing capabilities, and we certainly don't have the personnel capabilities to withstand the cold and withstand operating so frequently for so long in those atmospheres. 

Anna noted that the UK trains American troops. Well, so does Norway. But we rotate in a brigade of Marines for three months every year in northern Norway. They learn how to live in the cold. Then they leave, and they never come back. So there's this longevity issue too, where the knowledge sharing doesn't exist among partner forces in both America and NATO.

When the American people think, why do we need more icebreakers when all the ice is melting? It's a really hard sell in Congress. Why are we spending that money on something that won't be necessary in 10, 20, or 15 years if scientists are saying that summers will be ice-free in the Arctic by 2030? You need that projection, as Anna noted, you need that presence. You need to be able to say that you can operate in all sorts of atmospheres, not just the Middle East and the Pacific.

LV: Anna, China and Russia in the High North, in the Arctic: How strong is that partnership and how aligned are their interests?

AW: I see their global alignment partnership play off in the Arctic as well. It has done that for quite some years. China is able to offer not only research facilities and resources, but also tries to create economic advantages and look for opportunities. Their gas facility is sponsored by China, for instance. They own part of that.

We suspect that China has been able to help them out with some of that technology. They also do military and Coast Guard patrolling together, but it has been going on for quite some years now. China has this "Polar Silk Road" project that they wanted to kick off in 2018 or 2019. There were a lot of offers made to the Nordics on airfields, ports, railroads, tunnels, and all kinds of things that China wanted to invest in as a preparation for this trade route that they were envisioning.

But most of that did not materialize. The Nordics did not think that it was a very good idea to have China invest. A sound skepticism on the agenda of China, in this regard, has been there all the time.

Some of the proposals have been very close to military facilities in our countries, too close. An airfield in Finland, for instance, was a no. China is interested in the Arctic because of its natural resources, such as fishing. It needs to provide its population with resources and, like any empire, has functioned throughout centuries. It needs to secure those resources and bring them back to its mainland to provide them to its people.

That's also part of what China is looking at in the Arctic. It's not only military, gas, or energy, but also fishing resources. natural resources, and critical minerals. There are several dimensions of Chinese interest in the Arctic.

LV: As we come to a close, I'll come to you first, Ken, and then to you, Anna. What would you say the greatest challenge in the Arctic is now? Perhaps one that is frequently omitted.

KR: I would say cooling tensions. I would say get Russia back into the Arctic Council more actively, have more scientific cooperation as we had in the past, and make the Arctic less of a zone of war and more of a zone of peace. As Mikhail Gorbachev once said, it's a benefit to not only the nations that call themselves Arctic electoral states to cool the tensions, but it's incumbent upon the world to cool those tensions so that we can learn more about climate change and we can focus our efforts collectively on benefiting humanity and not just one or two nations."

LV: There is that Arctic Council, that basic framework. It could be revived and enforced. It's sort of a nice hypothesis of President Biden's call for competing and cooperating at the same time. Can you cooperate in the Arctic while competing in many other places, Anna?

AW: It has not been helpful with President Trump's claims that he wants to have, or the US needs to have, Greenland. That has caused a lot of concern in the Nordic states, the way it was framed. Everyone can understand if the US needs to be more present and even welcome more presence on Greenland, for instance, when it comes to surveillance and missile defense. But we hope that this will not be something that escalates within the alliance because that would be a major concern to the Nordics from a High North perspective.

LV: Anna Wieslander and Kenneth Rosen, thank you so much for joining us.

AW: Thanks for having me.

KR: Thank you both.

LV: Thank you for listening to this episode of Deep Dish on Global Affairs. I'm your host, Leslie Vinjamuri. Talk to you next week.

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