November 13, 2024
How America Lost the Arctic
The Arctic’s era of “high north, low tension” is over, and Washington may be underprepared for the region's shifting dynamics. Following Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, Arctic cooperation ceased, allowing Moscow to pivot toward China and India, expanding supply routes and regional influence.
Geostrategic competition in the Arctic endures despite platitudes of “high north, low tension” in the Arctic-rim state lexicon. However, the window for ensuring collaborative, sustainable development in a strategically benign Arctic arena has closed. Washington just hasn’t realized it yet.
Russia is the Arctic’s largest legitimate stakeholder by way of geography (over 50 percent of the Arctic coastline is Russian territory). Decades of managed competition and collaborative policies protected the Arctic region from broader global politics. Despite the prickly heights of the Cold War and this sharpened period of enhanced militarization throughout the region, communication between Moscow and Washington endured.
In 2022, following the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the Arctic status quo was irreversibly ruptured. Those of us who cautioned against the cessation of Arctic engagement with Russia were branded Putin apologists at best and “useful idiots” at worst. Nonetheless, the Arctic Council (the region’s sole governance forum) suspended work programs with Russia. While select engagement has resumed, Moscow strategically capitalized on the West’s shunning of Russia in the Arctic forum and worked to diversify its Arctic partnerships elsewhere.
https://nationalinterest.org/feature/how-america-lost-arctic-213682
