ARCTIC LEDGER
A Journal of Strategic Leverage

ARCTIC LEDGER

Gray-zone competition and Arctic combat, read through one question: who holds leverage, and what does it cost to use it?

Independent analysis of how great powers build leverage through critical minerals, infrastructure, and standards, apply it below the threshold of war, and test it in the High North. Our lens →

Military aircraft in formation beside the dome of the U.S. Capitol Photo: U.S. Air Force, via DVIDS. Public domain.
Volume I, No. 4 · October–November 2026 Current issue

The Alignment Atlas

An analysis of influence campaigns across the globe

Read Vol. I No. 4 Read Online
People in survival suits working on Arctic sea ice dotted with turquoise melt ponds Photo: U.S. Coast Guard, via DVIDS (VIRIN 230809-G-HT254-1004C). Public domain.
Volume I, No. 3 · September–October 2026

The Arctic

The Global Competition of the High North and Its Consequences

Read Vol. I No. 3 Read Online

About the journal →  ·  Earlier issues in the archive →

Our Lens

Leverage is the throughline

Every essay we publish asks the same question of a different place: who can change whose choices, and at what cost? Leverage is built long before it is used, applied below the threshold of war, and tested only when force is employed. We follow it through all three.

I
Build

Structural leverage

Processing bottlenecks, beneficial ownership, infrastructure finance, and technical standards: the slow work of making others depend on you.

II
Apply

Gray-zone competition

Coercion short of war: seabed and cable activity, coast guards, legal and sanctions maneuvers, and economic pressure that leaves no single act to answer.

III
Test

Arctic combat

What happens when force is used in the High North, and whether leverage built in peacetime holds under fire.

Read the full lens →  ·  Arctic Ledger is independent and accepts no state or corporate funding. Editorial standards →

Coverage Areas

Where the leverage is built

Three overlapping beats run through every issue: the High North and the problem of fighting there, the gray-zone contest on the seabed and sea lanes around it, and the minerals and supply chains that give both their strategic weight.

Nuclear icebreaker 50 Let Pobedy escorting a cargo ship through sea ice
The nuclear-powered icebreaker 50 Let Pobedy (“50 Years of Victory”) escorts a cargo ship through sea ice.Photographer not identified.

Arctic strategy & combat

Sovereignty, basing, and the operational problem of deterring, fighting, and sustaining forces in a region that is warming faster than any other.

A Norwegian submarine on the surface with three allied frigates on the horizon
The Norwegian submarine S305 on the surface, with allied frigates in the distance.Photo: Flickr (image 35607004396); photographer not identified.

Gray-zone & subsea competition

Submarines, cables, and coast guards: the coercion that stops short of war but decides who can act at sea.

A black SR-71A on a ramp at night with both engines in full afterburner
The SR-71A’s airframe was built largely of titanium, a strategic metal whose sourcing and ownership are central to this issue.Photo: Tony Landis/NASA (EC98-44817-2), 1998.

Critical minerals & supply chains

Who licenses, processes, and conceals the materials that modern industry and defence depend on: the leverage that sits upstream of both.

Current Issue

Eight essays, how the world leans

Volume I, No. 4, “The Alignment Atlas,” opens with China’s military-civil fusion in mineral extraction and a data-driven review of sixteen US Arctic strategies, then turns to the Atlas itself: South Korea’s simultaneous exposure to Washington and Beijing, China’s infrastructure leverage in Bangladesh, Türkiye’s hedging, the Maghreb, the Sahel, and South Africa’s dual alignment. Read the full issue as a PDF, or see below for what’s inside.

Download the PDF Read Online
No. 01

Military-Civil Fusion in Mineral Extraction

Mengmeng (Ivy) Wu

How China’s military-civil fusion strategy embeds strategic minerals, rare earths foremost among them, in state industrial groups, defence-related research networks, and downstream manufacturing.

Read the essay →
No. 02

How Trump Has Drastically Diverged From US Arctic Policy and Where to Go From Here

Emma Loeber

Sixteen US Arctic strategies prioritized either security and resources or cooperation and research. Under the current administration, the author finds, the Arctic rose in priority while the second pair was neglected.

Read the essay →
No. 03
Alignment Atlas · Region I: South Korea

Simultaneity: How South Korea’s Chips and AI Face Washington and Beijing at Once

Taeyoung Lee

Samsung and SK hynix run their China fabs under American licenses that now expire every year. Korea’s exposure, the author argues, is not a chokepoint but simultaneity.

Read the essay →
No. 04
Alignment Atlas

Infrastructure as Alignment: China’s Bay of Bengal Strategy and the Structural Constraints on Bangladesh’s Multi-Alignment Policy

Jack Lindstrom

Chinese port, transport, and energy infrastructure builds durable incentives that progressively narrow Dhaka’s room to hedge, with no explicit coercion required.

Read the essay →
No. 05
Alignment Atlas

Türkiye’s Middle Ground

Fariya Chohan

The S-400 purchase, the F-35 fallout, and what Ankara’s hedging does—and does not—show about its alignment with the West.

Read the essay →
No. 06
Alignment Atlas

In the Maghreb, the Great Powers Are the Instruments

Souheil Mouhajir

Morocco hedges between an American security guarantee and a European market while Chinese capital arbitrages the gap; Algeria is quietly swapping Beijing in for Moscow.

Read the essay →
No. 07
Alignment Atlas

An Analysis of the Sahel

Dr. Sohail Mahmood

Russian-backed security actors have largely replaced Western ones in Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso, yet the security situation deteriorated sharply in 2026.

Read the essay →
No. 08
Alignment Atlas

South Africa – Dual Alignment

Catherine Boudreaux

AGOA imports from South Africa have fallen sharply even as total US imports rose, while BRICS-linked financing keeps Pretoria anchored on both tracks.

Read the essay →

Looking for earlier issues — No. 3 “The Arctic,” No. 2 “Ore, Ownership, and Opacity,” or No. 1? See the archive →

Contributing Institutions UC San Diego School of Global Policy and Strategy · UC San Diego Rady School of Management · Arizona State University (EPICS Program) · American University · Centre for East Asian Studies, University of Turku · Quaid-i-Azam University, Islamabad · University of Moratuwa, Sri Lanka · The Australian National University · The Mackinder Forum · The Eurasia Center · Universidad CEU San Pablo · Universidad Camilo José Cela · Robert Morris University · Universitas Bakrie · Liberty University · Indira Gandhi National Open University · Guru Gobind Singh Indraprastha University · The George Washington University (Elliott School of International Affairs) · EPIS Thinktank · Onero Institute · Morocco's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, African Cooperation and Moroccan Expatriates · Pehchaan The Street School (Trust) · Georgetown University · Dansk Institut for Internationale Studier (DIIS) · Institute for the Study of Diplomacy · University of Vienna · Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) · Lahore College for Women University · San Diego World Affairs Council · United States Coast Guard Auxiliary · Bilkent University · Columbia University School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA) · Futurale College · Middle East Technical University · Rise to Peace · University of Melbourne · University of Denver (Josef Korbel School) · Northern Arizona University
Our Contributors

A wide base of expertise

Arctic Ledger draws its contributors from across the globe — researchers and writers based on nearly every continent, spanning doctoral and master's candidates, working professionals, and on-the-ground field researchers. That range gives the journal a genuinely wide base of expertise: technology policy, mineral economics, regional security studies, infrastructure engineering, and area-specific language and fieldwork experience all feed into what we publish.

Get in Touch

Contact

editor@arcticledger.org

For submissions, institutional partnerships, and editorial inquiries. Arctic Ledger welcomes manuscript submissions from researchers, graduate students, and practitioners working on critical minerals, Arctic governance, supply chain security, and great power competition. Co-authorship and cross-institutional collaboration are welcomed.

Submissions are reviewed on a rolling basis.