Arctic politics are getting warmer

The Arctic is coming in from the cold. President-elect Donald Trump has reopened the question of the US acquiring Greenland. This is the third US attempt. The Trump comment has focussed attention on the growing importance generally of the Arctic region for global politics. 

In 1867 President Andrew Johnson tried to buy Greenland from Denmark around the time he bought Alaska from Russia. In the Cold War era of the 1940s, we now know that President Truman also tried unsuccessfully to buy it.

Therefore, there is some history behind Trump’s idea. At present it seems that Trump will be no more successful than his predecessors. 

A value of Trump’s suggestion is the attention it has given to the rising importance of that region for global politics.

A by-product of the speculation over climate change has been the suggestion that global warming will enable greater access to the Arctic’s considerable resources. This could trigger a new scramble for territory, similar to that of the 19th century’s scramble for Africa. 

The Arctic used to be of interest mainly to science. Now increasingly it is a matter of political, economic and legal interest.

Part of the Arctic’s political complexity comes from the fact that the Arctic is not one single landmass (unlike, say, Antarctica). The Arctic region is 14.5 million square km (5.5 million square miles). The region contains both the mainly ice-covered Arctic Ocean and some of the surrounding land, including all of Greenland and Spitsbergen (administered by Norway), and the northern parts of Alaska, Canada, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Russia and Sweden. The Arctic Ocean is the planet’s smallest and least explored ocean.

Indigenous peoples have lived within the region for thousands of years. As can be expected with such a harsh environment, they tended to live a quiet, fairly nomadic, isolated, independent-minded subsistence existence. They had minimal contact with the outside world.

The neighbouring countries gradually expanded northwards. The Russians, for example, reached Siberia in the 16th century. They now control the largest single amount of Arctic territory (ahead of Canada). They were particularly interested in the fur of the local animals. The Russians were rarely welcomed by the Indigenous peoples. The British had similar problems with subduing Indigenous peoples in northern Canada. 

British maritime exploration was mainly motivated by a desire to find a way through Canada to China and the Far East (and so avoid the Spanish and Portuguese fleets that patrolled their colonies in the rest of the Americas). 

The Arctic remained on the periphery of world politics. Ironically its bleakness was a source of security: neighbouring countries knew that they were at least safe from land invasion from the north. This isolation began to change in World War II with the opening up of aerial routes across the top of the Atlantic as a way for US and Canadian personnel and supplies to reach the Allies in the UK. 

Then the Arctic became a frontline in the Cold War. With the USSR’s acquisition of both long-range aircraft (later missiles) and nuclear weapons, and the US co-operated with its allies to create an elaborate “early warning system” across the region. A World War III would have been fought with bombers and missiles flying over the Arctic. 

The Arctic could become a new Mediterranean. For the first time in its history, the Arctic looks set to play a larger role in world politics. The Arctic could provide the shortest route between the world’s most industrialized countries. As with the original Mediterranean, the new one could provide trading opportunities for the neighbouring countries.  

Half a century ago, for example, the polar ice cap was twice as big as it is today. Warmer Arctic weather creates new opportunities for maritime transport and wealth. 

The world is moving into an era of increasing scarcity of resources. China and India are now proceeding with very ambitious programmes for industrialization and there is concern about where all the resources will be found to satisfy their demand. 

The increased global demand has meant that there have been considerable improvements in the technology of exploration and mining, and so it is possible to operate at depths and in locations which would have seemed impossible half a century ago, such as drilling in the North Sea.

The Arctic is assumed to have vast untapped resources. For example, the Arctic may hold nearly as much as a quarter of the world’s unexplored oil and natural gas. 

There may also be other forms of wealth, such as diamonds, gold, manganese, nickel lead and platinum (much the same as is already found in the surrounding countries). 

There has been an increased presence by the neighbouring countries in the Arctic, if only to reinforce their territorial claims. For example, Russia is establishing military bases along its northern coastline. Russia now has more military vessels in the region since the end of the Cold War in 1991. The US by contrast is a long way behind in reinforcing its (much more) limited presence.

Finally, there are the knock-on effects in the rest of the world if the Arctic is developed. The vision that inspired European mariners for centuries – a quick route to Asia – is now becoming available. 

The North-West Passage is now open to shipping for some of the ice-free summer months: through the top of Canada, along the northern coast of Alaska and down through the Bering Strait. As the planet warms and the ice declines, so that window of navigation will get wider. 

This will have implications for the other long-range routes (such as around Africa) and through the Panama and Suez Canals. It would also have favourable implications for climate change: less fuel will be used to transport goods. The North-West Passage would also avoid the growing risk of piracy/ terrorism off the Somali coast, Gulf of Yemen/ Red Sea, and across the Indian Ocean.

Another wider political implication will be the eventual increase in power of both Russia and Canada. Assuming that the mineral development can flourish, then both will get a benefit to their national wealth, and this will give both increased economic and political leverage. 

Russia controls the world’s largest reserves of natural gas and (prior to the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine) there was concern that West was becoming too reliant on Russia as an energy supplier. The West (particularly Germany) was vulnerable to Russian pressure because of this reliance.

Russia’s potential Arctic-based revival will also have implications for the rise of a multi-polar world. This is a move away from the current era of dominant US supremacy to a multi-polar world in which the US will have to share power with China, European Union and Russia and other important emerging economies (such as India). 

For the US domestically, Alaska could assume greater economic and political prominence and may lead to an increased migration into the state (and so greater representation in the US House of Representatives). 

The former Governor of Alaska and 2008 former Vice-Presidential hopeful Sarah Palin was ridiculed by her impersonator comedian Tina Fey, who claimed “I can see Russia from my window”, as an illustration of Palin’s geographical ignorance. But Palin may yet have the last laugh.