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

Introduction

Many were shocked in January when US President Donald Trump made statements about his plans to take control of Greenland, upsetting alliances and bringing Arctic security to the geopolitical forefront. It seemed like a significant divergence from previous US actions in the Arctic and its stated goals of cooperation. But are Trump’s attempts to control Greenland actually a divergence from official US Arctic strategy? Are they at odds with the stated goals of some departments of the US government? The official Arctic strategies published by each of the Arctic states and by several departments within them are important messaging tools and guidelines for Arctic policy. Seven departments of the US- The White House, the Department of Defense, the Coast Guard, the Navy, the Army, the Air Force, and Department of Homeland Security- have published sixteen Arctic strategies between 2009 and 2024, and almost every single one of them listed its goals in four key areas: security, resources, cooperation, and research. But their goals were not all the same, or consistent over time. This article examines the inconsistencies in those strategies to determine that US Arctic strategies prioritize either security and resources or cooperation and research. It also finds that the region was a low priority for the US prior to the Trump administration, at which point there was a shift in strategy in which the Arctic was elevated as a priority but cooperation and research were not only neglected but were actively discouraged, while security and resources became the sole considerations. The primary recommendation is that moving forward the US should balance all four aspects of Arctic policy while continuing to make the Arctic a higher priority.

Background- The United States in the Arctic

The United States (US) officially became an Arctic state in 1867 with the purchase of Alaska, one third of which sits above the Arctic circle at a latitude of approximately 66.5 degrees north. It is joined by fellow Arctic states Canada, Denmark (through its territory Greenland), Finland, Iceland, Norway, Russia, and Sweden. Together, these states formed the Arctic Council, an intergovernmental forum for regional cooperation, in 1996. The Council has since served as the primary venue for cooperation between the states on scientific research, search and rescue (SAR), maritime management, and conservation. Discussions and cooperation on military and security matters relating to the Arctic primarily take place in the United Nations (UN) or NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization), although Russia is not a member of the latter.

Geopolitically, the Arctic has been considered a ‘zone of peace’ in which armed conflict has not occurred since World War II, and a rare example of cooperation between Russia and the US through scientific research agreements (Heininen et al. 2025). However, since the 2010s, climate change has caused an increase in both temperature and tensions in the region. The potential economic and political value of the Arctic in terms of trade routes through the Northern Sea Route (NSR), oil and gas reserves, and critical minerals, is not a new discovery. What has changed is that it is now becoming feasible to access those resources because of higher temperatures and melting ice. It is now estimated that the Arctic Ocean could be navigable by non-icebreaking ships as soon as 2030 (Kim et al. 2023). That could mean global access to a trade route with the potential to replace the Suez and Panama Canals for many journeys (Weir 2024; Liu and Kronbak 2010), and a battle over territorial lines and resource extraction rights for the Arctic states. Already there is increasing division between and within the Arctic states over whether to prioritize mitigating climate change or reaping the benefits of a warming Arctic. Russia has spearheaded the latter position, while the Nordic countries have led the former. The US has changed its position through different administrations, with a tendency by Republicans to prioritize pursuing resource extraction and by Democrats to advocate for climate change mitigation. However, no administration completely dismissed the effort of researching the effects of global warming in the Arctic in pursuit of resources, although that changed with President Donald Trump.

Like all Arctic states since at least the 2010s, the US government has published several official strategies for the Arctic region outlining the country’s priorities in the region. These have come from various federal agencies and departments: the White House, the Department of Defense, the Department of Homeland Security, the Navy, the Coast Guard, the Air Force, and the Army. Sixteen were published between 2009 and 2024, under the administrations of George W. Bush, Barack Obama, Donald Trump, and Joe Biden. Each strategy differs slightly in its scope according to the specific responsibilities of its agency, but they have in common that they all addressed the US’s goals in four categories: security, resources, cooperation, and research. These keywords typically had their own sections or subsections and were listed in priority areas, key goals, pillars, or similar lists in the recommendations of the strategies.

Analyzing the strategies for what they considered to be the most important priorities in each of those categories reveals two important trends: first, comparing strategies published close together under the same administration but from different agencies shows a lack of coordination and communication that has led to an inconsistent position on whether to prioritize cooperation and research or security and resources; second, comparing those published under President Trump to those under other administrations shows a notable shift by both elevating the Arctic as a geopolitical priority and firmly choosing the security and resources path while ignoring the impacts of discontinuing efforts at cooperation and research.

Each of the sixteen US Arctic policy strategies has varied in its format, length, and scope, but they all had the goal of listing the policy priorities in the Arctic for both the agency and the US in general. A trend emerges in the strategies that divide the four pillars into two sections that are often in competition: each strategy prioritizes either security and resources or cooperation and research. With the exception of the Trump administration they do include goals in all four categories, but place a higher value on one group or the other. This is the result of the aforementioned dynamic that is currently playing out in each of the Arctic states- the debate on whether to prioritize pursuing climate change mitigation to protect the region or to take advantage of its resources and increasing accessibility as soon as possible. A divide clearly exists, but given the tensions between countries prioritizing the latter, especially the Nordic countries, and the other Arctic states that are either on the former side or somewhere in between, like the US, it is risky to fully commit to one side. Table 1 lists each of the 16 strategies, the administration it was published under, and whether it prioritized cooperation/research or security/resources, demonstrating that it has not been consistent.

Table 1: Strategies and Their Side of Arctic Politics

As the table shows, during the Obama administration some strategies prioritized cooperation/research while others prioritized security/resources. The 2013 strategy published by the White House during the administration included three primary ‘lines of effort’: advance US security interests, pursue responsible Arctic region stewardship (focused on environmental protection and research), and strengthen international cooperation. Resources are not listed, and while there is a security section it is primarily about cooperation and domain awareness. Unlike security focused strategies, Russia and China are not even mentioned. Instead, it accepts that “The Arctic region is peaceful, stable, and free of conflict,” and does not perceive that to be in jeopardy. Yet, three years later in 2016 the Department of Defense under Obama published a strategy heavily focused on security and specifically on the threat posed by Russia. It went so far as to say that Russia’s actions have led the US to a “recommitment to deterrence and to build capability to defeat aggression against the United States and its allies in the Arctic,” (10). It diverged from not only the White House’s stance on the Arctic as peaceful and a low security priority but from other Obama administration strategies as well, including the 2013 Coast Guard strategy, the 2014 Navy strategy, and even its own 2013 Department of Defense strategy.

While there have been discrepancies within administrations over whether to prioritize security/resources or cooperation/research, even those strategies with a heavy bias towards one dimension addressed the other and acknowledged that it was at least an aspect of Arctic politics that the US needed to be aware of, sometimes even including minor goals or a subsection. Appendix A provides brief descriptions of each of the strategies' stances in the four pillars.

The 2022 White House strategy published under the Biden administration followed up several strategies published under the first Trump administration that completely ignored the pillars of research and cooperation in favor of security and resources, and so the White House strategy focused heavily on the former in an effort to counteract the perceived damage. Despite this, it followed the pre-Trump tradition of not entirely dismissing any of the pillars, including security and resources. In fact, it named its first pillar ‘Security: Develop Capabilities for Expanded Arctic Activity’, and included a goal of increasing military training exercises and maritime presence in the Arctic, although it focused heavily on cooperation both within that section and in its fourth pillar on international cooperation. The 2024 Department of Defense strategy published under Biden also emphasized cooperation/research but did include short sections addressing the potential threats posed by Russia and China’s increasing involvement in the Arctic, although it did not explicitly label them as threats or list out related goals, instead saying that the development “illuminates the potential for future improved readiness and combat expertise in the Arctic,” (4). This addresses security without making it a main focus. Regarding resources, it only slightly addressed them by acknowledging that the Arctic is resource rich but recommending that in the case of the US Alaska natives be consulted on managing them without overexploiting them. However, the actual actions taken by Biden regarding resources in Alaska reflect a more complicated balance involving trying to pacify advocates for both environmental protections and resource extraction, which in reality left both parties dissatisfied, a perfect example of the US government's unclear and often competing priorities in the region.

In March 2023 Biden approved the Willow Project, which allowed the ConocoPhillips Company to access more of the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska (NPR-A) in order to drill 199 new oil wells there, in Northern Alaska in the heart of the American Arctic. It alarmed environmental activists because of the importance of the region to the Arctic ecosystem, especially for caribou, polar bears, migratory birds, Arctic foxes, and other endangered animals, as well as to local indigenous communities. The project would also “exacerbate the climate crisis by emitting ∼260 million metric tons of greenhouse gases over its 30-year lifetime,” (Pai and Hall 2025). Later, in September 2024, Biden introduced new regulations that, while they would have no impact on the area designated for the Willow Project, would protect other parts of the Alaskan Arctic from oil drilling. The regulations “Completely prohibit new oil and gas leasing for 10.6 million acres of Special Area lands, which is more than 40% of the NPR-A,” (Pai and Hall 2025). It frustrated the oil and gas industry, and yet it was too little too late for environmentalists who could not understand why Biden would open part of the Arctic to drilling and protect other parts of it. In the context of the US’s history of broader Arctic policy, however, it reflects the pattern of tenuous balancing between protecting and exploiting the region, which has more accurately resulted in an inconsistent and confusing doctrine that ultimately prioritizes nothing.

Trump’s Divergence

Donald Trump took the opposite approach of every past administration with a designated Arctic policy. He completely disregarded research and cooperation in the Arctic, including climate change mitigation efforts or conservation. He chose security and resources and threw everything else out the window, not bothering to try and pacify advocates of the other pillars or include minor goals for them. He committed the US to the side of taking advantage of the Arctic’s resources as soon as possible, and continued his broader foreign and US policy agenda of seeking out resources, disregarding any implications for alliances, and shutting down research efforts in various areas. The Arctic therefore became a high priority for him, but only in terms of resource extraction and potential military utility.

As an example, in his second term, he made every effort to undo the protections that Biden had placed on parts of the NPR-A in the Alaskan Arctic against drilling. This included cancelling the protection of Teshekpuk Lake, which is the largest lake in the Alaskan Arctic, a vital habitat for caribou, and an important resource for the traditional subsistence purposes of the Inupiat community in the nearby town of Nuiqsut, which has sued the Trump administration over the rollback of protections (Rosen 2026). In November 2025 Trump also removed the protections that Biden had placed on 10.6 million acres, or 40%, of the NPR-A, opening them up to oil drilling (Groom 2025) despite concerns from environmentalists and local indigenous communities.

These actions are, however problematic, consistent with Trump’s official Arctic strategies. Unlike previous administrations, he barely mentions environmental protections and does not mention native rights. Instead, he focuses entirely on security and resource extraction. The rollbacks of Arctic environmental protections and opening of the NPR-A for oil drilling comes after the Army Arctic strategy, ‘Regaining Arctic Dominance’, published under Trump in 2021, which summarized the environmental changes to the region with a distinct focus on resources: “The region north of the Arctic Circle is warming twice as fast as the rest of the world, opening up new opportunities for natural resource extraction, shipping routes, and commercial fishing,” (3). Every strategy published under Trump also included a section describing just how vast the resources in the region are. The 2021 Army document went into great detail:

According to most estimates, the Arctic is home to 13% of the world’s oil, or 90 billion barrels, as well as 30% of the world’s natural gas, an estimated 47 trillion cubic meters. Additionally, the Arctic has vast deposits of base metals (aluminum, copper, iron, nickel and tin), precious metals (gold, platinum, and silver), precious stones (diamonds), other minerals (apatite, graphite, and gypsum) as well as uranium. Perhaps most importantly to digital societies around the world, the Arctic is also a source of rare earth metals (dysprosium, neodymium, and praseodymium). These metals allow the miniaturization of components for aircraft engines and advanced weapons as well as televisions, smart phones, laptops, cars, and cancer treatment drugs. (16)

Conversely, the strategy only mentioned research done by the US in the context of simulating the Arctic operating environment for training. This was despite acknowledging that the environment is changing and affecting the infrastructure of US military buildings in the region, after which the strategy focused instead on the advantages to resource extraction, trade routes, and a warmer operating environment. It placed Trump firmly on the side of taking advantage of the impacts of climate change in the Arctic rather than trying to mitigate it, a stance shared by Russia. In fact, the strategy goes into great detail of how well Russia has been able to capitalize on increasing access to oil and gas reserves. In what is seemingly an effort to catch up to Russia in resource extraction, in his second term Trump has not only opened up the region for more oil drilling in the NPR-A but has also gutted US scientific research in the Arctic and any research on climate change. This has also harmed security because it led to an increasing lack of domain awareness as many scientific tools were dual use, and also served the military by allowing them to monitor operating conditions.

In May 2025, as a result of funding cuts under the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) announced that it would no longer update the majority of its Arctic sea ice monitoring programs (National Snow and Ice Data Center 2025), which are vital for climate change research and how the Arctic is being affected by rising temperatures. It is also an important tool for monitoring the accessibility of the Northern Sea Route (NSR), despite the fact that all of Trump’s strategies discuss it as a high priority. Later, in September 2025, the Arctic Research Consortium of the United States (ARCUS) shut down as a result of losing almost all of its funding (Hansen 2025). It was the main forum for communication and collaboration between scientists and policy makers focused on the Arctic.

Research was not the only pillar to be demonized by Trump. Cooperation has likewise been not only neglected, but actively discouraged. That is the key difference between past administrations focusing on one side of Arctic policy while sidelineing but not completely eliminating the others, and Trump, who has taken significant and dangerous actions to work against the research/cooperation side.

In Trump’s 2021 Navy Arctic strategy there was a small section on cooperation, but it focused entirely on how the US’s allies need to start burden sharing. This was an ironic assertion considering that it is the Nordic countries that make up the bulk of NATO’s Arctic capabilities, while the US has long neglected and remained uncertain over the region. The US relies entirely on Finland for its icebreakers, of which the US only has three to Finland’s ten, Russia’s 40, and China’s five (Murray 2026). The Nordic countries are also significantly more adapted to cold weather operations, with a long history of Arctic military operations. The US has struggled with adapting its equipment, particularly clothing, radios, and vehicles, to the extreme cold, while the other Arctic nations have naturally developed in those conditions (Rosen 2026). This was extremely apparent during the NATO military exercise Joint Viking held in March 2025 in the Norwegian Arctic. Following the exercise, a widely spread story based off of a UK newspaper article reported that during the wargame the US soldiers performed so poorly due to the conditions that the Finnish troops, playing the role of the opposition, were asked to go easy on them, although Finland has since denied this (Altman 2026). Regardless of the specifics, however, the US Marine Corps confirmed that for the majority of the US troops it was their first time operating in extreme cold weather conditions and that prior to the official exercise they received training from Norway on operating in the Arctic, including “extensive cold-weather survival training”, “an ice breakthrough drill”, and a “week-long snowmobile course,” (Mazzamuto 2025). U.S. Marine Corps Second Lieutenant Grace Toll, who participated in the exercise, said that “Being able to work with allied nations like we are here in Norway gives us the opportunity to improve skills we wouldn’t normally get to practice back in the U.S… At the same time, it strengthens our ties and interoperability for whatever comes in the future,” (Mazzamuto 2025). International cooperation is clearly an important part of Arctic policy, especially for the US as it adapts to the increasingly relevant but unfamiliar operating environment. But Trump is putting that in jeopardy.

Less than a year after Joint Viking 2025, in January 2026, President Trump demanded that the US take control of Greenland, claiming that NATO could not defend the Arctic without the US’s power there. He posted to X on January 14th;

The United States needs Greenland for the purpose of National Security. It is vital for the Golden Dome that we are building. NATO should be leading the way for us to get it. IF WE DON’T, RUSSIA OR CHINA WILL, AND THAT IS NOT GOING TO HAPPEN! Militarily, without the vast power of the United States, much of which I built during my first term, and am now bringing to a new and even higher level, NATO would not be an effective force or deterrent - Not even close! They know that, and so do I. NATO becomes far more formidable and effective with Greenland in the hands of the UNITED STATES. (The White House [@WhiteHouse] 2026)

His claims that Russia and China are urgent threats to the US in the Arctic but that cooperation with the other Arctic states is a burden to the US falls in line with the strategies published under his administration, as described in the Navy 2021 strategy above. While earlier administrations struggled with neglecting Arctic policy and being unable to determine a succinct strategy for it due to its low priority, Trump has essentially the opposite problem. He has elevated its priority and committed to a strategy, but has done so without considering the impacts of neglecting research and cooperation. And not only for those areas- security is particularly at risk when cooperation is ignored, as demonstrated by the fact that the US relies heavily on its Arctic allies for cold weather training, icebreakers, and troops already capable of operating in the Arctic and in the European theater near Russia. Trump has argued that those allies are not doing their part, and that the US needs control of Greenland because it is geopolitically important and the US is best able to defend it. Aside from the clear demonstration that the US is not actually best equipped to defend the Arctic, there are several reasons why the US is actually the party not equally contributing to the burden sharing of Arctic security that it claims to want.

The US has had the right to build and operate military bases on Greenland since 1951 under the Defense of Greenland Agreement between the US and Denmark, of which Greenland is a territory. At one point, the US operated over 20 military installations there, including Camp Century, which housed underground tunnels and a nuclear reactor, Thule Air Base, and Bluie West Seven, which protected the world’s only cryolite mine, among others. Now, with the exception of Thule Air Base, now called Pituffik Space Base, all of the former US military installations have been abandoned. And even Pituffik is in disrepair due to melting permafrost and is sparsely manned with only 150 personnel. The creation of these bases by the US started during World War II when Denmark originally granted it permission, without consulting the indigenous community in Greenland. In some cases, including for Thule Air Base, local indigenous communities were forcibly relocated in order to build them (Holle 2019). And they have not been able to return to their homes because even the abandoned bases remained after they were shut down and the US refused to pay for their removal, although in 2018 Denmark finally agreed to fund a partial cleanup (Ellekrog 2024). This was partially due to the environmental hazards caused by materials left behind at the bases.

Clearly, the US does not have a history of treating Greenland well. Donald Trump has criticized the territory and Denmark’s handling of its defense, telling reporters that “Basically, their defense is two dog sleds,” (Wehner 2026), while at the same time the US has hailed Greenland as critical to its defense strategy while letting its bases decay. If Trump had prioritized cooperation as a part of his Arctic policy it would have been more likely that, rather than antagonizing Greenland and jeopardizing the current cooperation with them in pursuit of access to resources, a mutually beneficial deal could have been made that bolstered US-Greenland military cooperation to improve security, worked to repair a complicated bilateral history, and potentially even included critical minerals access. Instead, Trump paid no heed to efforts at cooperation and instead actively discouraged it by demanding that he alone control Greenland and using security as an excuse.

For their part, Greenland’s leaders have responded to Trump’s demands to control their island by stating “We don’t want to be Americans, we don’t want to be Danes, we want to be Greenlanders,” (Wehner 2026). Greenland has long aspired for independence, and now has the right to declare it by vote, although it hasn’t due to a long and complicated history of economic dependence on Denmark. Prior to Trump’s 2026 remarks, in 2024 Greenland published its own Arctic strategy with the slogan ‘Nothing about us without us’. In it, a section is devoted specifically to cooperation with the US and several goals include deepening that cooperation, including in security. One important goal is to “work to ensure that the Defense Agreement of 1951 is expanded to include us as a party and for the greater benefit of our country,” (17). Greenland was clearly open to more military involvement by the US, but wanted it to be directed at them rather than Denmark. Instead of pursuing that cooperation, Trump demanded control of the territory from Denmark, mocked Greenlanders defense efforts, and ignored their desires for independence.

As a result, he also jeopardized NATO, a key part of Arctic security. Following Trump’s January remarks, Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen told reporters that “If the US chooses to attack another NATO country militarily, then everything stops,” (Wehner 2026). Without NATO, the Arctic would be considerably more vulnerable, especially the American Arctic, which as mentioned relies heavily on its Nordic allies in the region. After causing heated international debate over his attempts to acquire Greenland, Trump claimed he had reached an incredible beneficial agreement with Denmark to have military access to Greenland- which appears to be nothing substantial that was not already in the 1951 Defense of Greenland Agreement (Blake 2026). While this amending of the 1951 agreement does mark a clear development in, if nothing else, the orientation of the US policy in the Arctic, as does NATO’s Arctic Sentry, what is ultimately absent is the actions conducted. Trump has implied that the amending of the 1951 agreement might now include access to some of Greenland’s coveted rare earth minerals, although this is so far unconfirmed. But considering the lack of any security related benefits to the US from threatening its existing and important Arctic allies in an effort to get military access it already has, it seems like the resources might have been what Trump was after all along. And in the process, he jeopardized critical cooperation, research, and even security efforts. Had all four of the pillars of US Arctic policy been considered rather than simply resources, a mutually beneficial new agreement might have been reached with Greenland.

What Now?

It will be imperative that the next administration in the US, regardless of political party, show that Trump’s Arctic policy was an exception and not the norm for the US. At the same time, it must improve upon previous strategies by not neglecting any of the four pillars of Arctic policy and recognizing that they are all interconnected and must be adequately addressed. While Trump’s overemphasis on security and resources while completely abandoning efforts at cooperation and research was incredibly harmful, the unclear split between the 4 pillars and the low prioritization of the region under Bush, Obama, and Biden was also harmful. In addition to balancing the pillars, future strategies must make it clear that although the US has historically neglected the region, the Arctic is now a priority.

This was an important factor of Trump’s divergence from past US Arctic policy- his elevation of the region to a higher priority. Although in his case it was only in security and resources, making the region a high priority for US policy in all four areas is an important step for the future. In past US Arctic strategies, the region was classified as a low priority especially in security and cooperation because it was considered unproblematic and peaceful. In the strategies published under the Obama administration it was frequently described as a budget issue in which other areas of the world had to be prioritized for funding over the stable Arctic. In its 2016 strategy the Department of Defense said that “In this constrained fiscal environment, DoD must balance increasing defense investments in the Arctic with the need to make investments in other regions,” (12-13). Although it was framed as a temporary measure because of the ‘constrained fiscal environment’, it continued the same policy from the 2013 DoD strategy, which stated

The Department’s strategic approach to the Arctic reflects the relatively low level of military threat in a region bounded by nation States that have not only publicly committed to working within a common framework of international law and diplomatic engagement, but have also demonstrated the ability and commitment to do so… The challenge is to balance the risk of having inadequate capabilities or insufficient capacity when required to operate in the region with the opportunity cost of making premature and/or unnecessary investments. (4; 12)

President Biden’s strategies follow a similar pattern of classifying the Arctic as a low strategic priority with justifications of budget constraints, peaceful relations, and relying on allies. The strategies published under Trump, although overly security focused, divert from this pattern by considering the Arctic a high priority whose stability should not be taken for granted. The 2021 Army strategy published under his administration recognizes that Russia and China’s actions in the Arctic are “a central problem the Department must prioritize” (15). The 2021 Department of Homeland Security strategy says that the “DHS will prioritize and invest in icebreaking capabilities,” and “will seek the funding and resources needed to prioritize the procurement, training, and increased usage of unmanned systems technology to conduct its vital mission in the Arctic region,” (16). The recognition that the region is becoming increasingly relevant is important. However, Trump failed to include invaluable research on how the region is being impacted by climate change and to account for the US’s history of neglecting the region which has left it at a disadvantage.

Future administrations and strategies need to include all four pillars of Arctic strategy and admit to the US’s inadequacies in the region while striving to repair them. Trump’s engagement with Greenland in which he worked against cooperation in an effort to gain access to resources, in this case oil and critical minerals, was an extreme case that showed just how harmful abandoning any of the four pillars can be. By neglecting to consider cooperation with Greenland he risked ending the existing security deals the US has in place there as well as the entire NATO alliance, which is critical to US security in general and especially in the Arctic. Such a precarious situation cannot happen again, especially as the Arctic becomes more accessible and more contentious. To avoid a repeat, all four pillars must be considered in Arctic policy. In addition to a change in the broader approach to the policy, several concrete actions should be taken by future administrations. These include:

• Restoring funding to Arctic ice monitoring programs under the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) and providing additional funding to make data captured after operations were limited publicly available
• Returning protections against oil drilling to the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska (NPR-A)
• Investing in the refurbishment of American military bases in the Arctic, with priority given to Pituffik Space Base, Fort Greely, and Eareckson Air Station
• Returning to the practice of appointing an Arctic ambassador
• Holding high level bilateral meetings with Greenland with several areas of focus:
• Increasing US military presence at Pituffik Space Base
• Providing funding for the cleanup of former US military bases
• Issuing a formal apology for the forced relocation of Inuit communities by the US
• Increasing the frequency of military exercises in the Arctic
• Working with Norway to improve Arctic-specific US military equipment, supplies, and uniforms

As the Arctic becomes increasingly accessible and geopolitically relevant it also becomes increasingly important that the US, as an Arctic nation, has a cohesive strategy for its policy and goals in the region. Departments that disagree on priorities and administrations that drastically change them undermine the US’s credibility there, as does neglecting the region as an unimportant part of the country. It is too late to undo the US’s past actions there, but improvements for the future can and must be made. Waiting until the Northern Sea Route is fully accessible or until Russia or China make an offensive move will be too late.

The Arctic is a unique and challenging place to operate in, and last minute adaptations would be inadequate. Long term preparation in all four pillars of US Arctic policy is essential. Cooperation with the US’s Nordic allies is urgently important, especially following the fallout from Trump’s offensive and inflammatory remarks about a country that is critical to its Arctic security and capabilities. Scientific research programs monitoring the operating environment, sea ice levels, permafrost melt, and other impacts of climate change are the only way to know what is happening in the Arctic and how to operate around it. Managing the plentiful resources in the Arctic is complicated, and local indigenous communities have to be a central part of that conversation. Russia and China are increasingly present in the region, and using all four of the pillars is necessary to make the Arctic a cohesive part of US policy, and to prepare against potential threats. The era of the Arctic being considered a stagnant, peaceful place, which was never really true to begin with, is officially over. The US needs to catch up with that fact while not neglecting any of the critical pillars that make up the Arctic policy landscape.

Appendix A: Analysis of Priorities in US Arctic Strategy Documents

Notes & References

References