The Arctic is so remote, so cut off from the rest of the world, that at times it appears to defy the normal rules of politics. Relations between the United States and Russia, for example, have been deteriorating for years. Recently, the two countries have clashed in practically every geopolitical arena around the world—except, it seemed, in the Arctic. At the Arctic Council, the region’s main diplomatic forum, Washington and Moscow have worked side by side. Together with the council’s other members, they have agreed on the need to protect the region’s fragile ecosystem and established protocols to ensure that its abundant natural resources are developed for commercial use in an ecologically responsible fashion. And in the decades following the end of the Cold War, they both scaled back their military presence.
Now, that spirit of cooperation is fraying. As the Arctic’s icecap melts away, new trade routes are emerging and with them a set of new security challenges. Over the past several years, Russia has rebuilt its military presence along the Northern Sea Route—the newly accessible shipping lane that runs from just east of Norway all the way to the Bering Strait—in order to ensure safe passage for container ships, counter smuggling and other illicit activities, and defend several thousand miles of northern border left unprotected by the retreating ice. Throughout the region, Moscow is enhancing its military capabilities. In 2014, Russia created a new military district with responsibility for the entire Arctic region, stretching from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean, and in 2017 it began to build a small fleet of icebreaking vessels equipped for antisubmarine warfare, although the ships will not enter service for several years. Russian strategic air patrols off the coast of Alaska, which resumed back in 2007, and their routine interception by U.S. military jets have also drawn more attention recently as suspicions of Russian intentions mount in Washington. NATO, meanwhile, has voiced concerns about increased Russian submarine movements near the so-called GIUK (Greenland, Iceland, United Kingdom) gap, a naval chokepoint in the North Atlantic.
