Rising temperatures and political tensions are putting pressure on the Far North like never before, with the major powers vying for global dominance as the melting ice opens the vast wilderness to commercial exploitation.
Russia, controlling the largest Arctic territory and coastline, and the United States, the world’s richest and most robust economy, are the principal players. Though geographically removed, China calls itself a “near-Arctic state” and is expanding its regional influence through investment, diplomacy and scientific research.
China gained official observer status with the Arctic Council in 2013. Observer status lets countries listen at meetings, offer policies, and help pay for them. Beijing’s “Polar Silk Road” strategy envisions once ice-bound polar shipping routes as lucrative shortcuts between Asia and Europe.
Expansionist saber-rattling by U.S. President Donald Trump, who threatens to take over Canada, Greenland and the Panama Canal while abandoning Ukraine to cozy up to Russia, only adds to the global confusion.
“The United States launched a trade war against Canada, its closest partner and ally, their closest friend. At the same time they’re talking about working positively with Russia, appeasing Vladimir Putin, a lying, murderous dictator. Make that make sense,” Justin Trudeau, Canada’s soon-to-depart prime minister, said of having a U.S. president who believes might makes right and global cooperation is for chumps and losers.
With human-caused climate change pushing the Earth to new temperature extremes and Arctic warming occurring nearly four times faster than the global average, polar ice is disappearing faster than ever. Copernicus, the European Union’s climate service, reports Arctic sea ice reached its lowest monthly extent for February at 8% below average. That marks the third straight month in which sea ice extent set a record monthly low.
The economic stakes are profound. The Arctic holds 13% of the world’s undiscovered oil reserves, 30% of natural gas, plus lithium, cobalt, and nickel. Northern Canada, Greenland and parts of Russia are rich in rare earth elements used in smartphones, batteries and defense technology.
Canada: 'strategic and vulnerable'
Russia controls the Northern Sea Route, while Canada claims sovereignty over the Northwest Passage.
A report prepared by Canada’s spy agency, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, or CSIS, warns the Arctic is an “attractive, strategic and vulnerable destination” for foreign adversaries seeking to establish a foothold in northern Canada.
Melting sea ice, opening sea lanes and the hunt for mineral deposits will bring more people to the region, CSIS says in the report obtained by Canadian Press. “Threat actors could leverage resource exploitation to gain persistent access to remote and strategically valuable territory,” the spy agency brief cautions.
Since its formation in 1966, the Arctic Council has been the key international organization promoting cooperation, coordination, and interaction among Arctic nations and the region’s Indigenous communities and other inhabitants.
The council focuses on sustainable development and environmental protection, and is made up of eight member nations, all with territory in the Arctic: Canada, Denmark (including Greenland and the Faroe Islands), Finland, Iceland, Norway, Russia, Sweden and the United States. It is currently chaired by Norway.
The Arctic Council was founded to advance environmental cooperation. Now, with members pursuing oil, gas and mining projects, the organization finds itself at a crossroads and grappling with how to remain relevant. The projects all risk accelerating climate change and causing environmental disasters such as oil spills.
'America First'
Complicating the council's uncertain future is Trump’s 'America First' dogma and his hostility towards global cooperation and foreign aid. “These are dire times for the Arctic Council,” says Rob Huebert, a Canadian political scientist, university professor and expert on the council.
Writing in Arctic Today, an online journal that reports on the Arctic region, Huebert says while the Trump administration has yet to turn its attention to the council, it should be apparent to anyone paying attention that it’s “just a matter of time.”
Even if Trump, who calls climate change a "hoax,” doesn’t pull the U.S. out of the council, he would “actively gut some of the most important achievements in line with his own goals," Huebert says.
Given Washington’s new animosity toward programs associated in any way with diversity, equality and inclusion, known as DEI, it’s unlikely the United States would continue to support any council initiatives for northern Indigenous peoples.
Huebert warns that Trump’s tariffs and trade war are designed to weaken its northern neighbor and make it amendable to “joining” the United States.
Even if Trump doesn’t move to directly destroy the Arctic Council, Huebert asks, “how could Canada and Denmark work with the U.S., knowing that the Americans are actively moving to weaken or even cripple them as a state?”
'Hope is not a strategy'
A new study by Nicholas Olczak, a postdoctoral researcher at the Stockholm Center on Global Governance, shows how the U.S. and China shifted between supporting and undermining the council for more than a decade, depending on their political priorities.
Both countries used the "practices of legitimation and delegitimation" with the aim "to increase or decrease people's belief in the legitimacy of the Arctic Council," he told the center last month about his study published in December by Cambridge University Press.
"While people usually expect the U.S. to largely bolster the legitimacy of the Arctic Council, and China to challenge its legitimacy, the study found that this was not really the case," Olczak said. "Increasing security tensions between countries made both of them produce more statements which challenged the organization’s legitimacy."
With Trump calling Ukraine the aggressor in its war with Russia and maneuvering to improve relations with Moscow, many observers caution that Putin will be encouraged to continue to act against Arctic Council members Sweden and Finland, which both recently joined NATO.
Huebert says it’s difficult to see how the council can maintain its successes in understanding the effects of climate change on the Arctic and supporting a “greater awareness of the northern Indigenous peoples in the region.”
Years of work and progress are now all at risk.
“Perhaps,” says Huebert, “Trump won’t think that the Arctic Council is worth his attention, and it can somehow remain under the American radar until the next presidential election. But as many have said in the past, hope is not a strategy.”
This story has been updated with additional details.
