“Fighting it out over the Arctic, with the vast resources of the Arctic, is going to be the new great game of the twenty-first century,” Steve Bannon, who served as chief strategist early in President Donald Trump’s first term, declared in an interview in February. The power struggle unfolding in the far north does indeed have much in common with the original Great Game, the nineteenth-century competition between the era’s two great powers, the British and Russian Empires, over access to strategically and economically valuable territory in Central Asia. In today’s contest, China, Russia, and the United States are similarly pursuing territorial expansion and influence. The modern powers are again eager to access economic riches and build protective buffer zones. And should the competition intensify, the players’ military adventures could even end the same way their predecessors did: thwarted by cold weather. 

With nineteenth-century power dynamics resurgent, the former U.S. diplomat Mary Thompson-Jones’s recent book, America in the Arctic, offers a timely and informative narrative of how the United States acquired and maintained its status as an Arctic power. After a largely successful history of building a U.S. presence in the Arctic, Thompson-Jones warns, Washington is now paying insufficient attention to a region that has become a focus of the world’s great powers.

Even in the short time since America in the Arctic was written, new developments have raised the stakes. After taking office, Trump trained his sights on potential Arctic acquisitions, making frequent, controversial references to Canada as “the 51st state” and vowing that the United States would “get” Greenland, an autonomous territory of Denmark, “one way or another.” Cooperation between Russia and China, meanwhile, has been growing since their 2022 announcement of an “unlimited partnership,” which in the Arctic has translated to joint scientific, space, and military operations, including coast guard and naval patrols. And Washington’s recent outreach to Moscow has introduced a wildcard: should talks yield some kind of grand bargain, the resulting geopolitical realignment could change the game entirely.

Whatever happens, a contest over critical minerals, maritime routes, fisheries, natural resources, seabed mining, and satellite communications is coming, and the United States is not ready for it. For years, Russia and China have been preparing to take advantage of new Arctic shipping routes, improving their undersea military and scientific capabilities, and honing their hybrid warfare tactics while U.S. attention has been elsewhere. To compete, the United States will need to dramatically increase its military, economic, scientific, and diplomatic presence in the Arctic, in close cooperation with U.S. allies. If Washington does not resolve the deficiencies and contradictions of its Arctic strategy soon, it may find that it has already lost the new great game.

Thompson-Jones provides a rich history of the United States’ experience in the Arctic, including its active role in shaping the Arctic policies of Canada, Denmark (via Greenland), Finland, Iceland, Norway, Russia, and Sweden, incorporating memorable vignettes from each Arctic country. A former U.S. diplomat who served in Canada, Thompson-Jones conveys her deep admiration for the people who live in the Arctic and her appreciation of the unrelenting effects of climate change, the desire for security, and the value of friends and allies “when the ice breaks,” as the Inuit proverb goes. The book closes with a stark—and accurate—lament of Washington’s distinct lack of ambition in its recent Arctic policies. Thompson-Jones, writing before the U.S. presidential election last year, recommends that future leaders increase their focus on climate change and multilateral diplomacy in an expansive Arctic strategy. That advice, unfortunately, quickly became outdated with the return of Trump.

More likely to suit the sensibilities of the U.S. president is Thompson-­Jones’s suggestion that the United States have what she calls a “Longyear moment”—a reference to a Midwestern industrialist named John Longyear, who in 1901 sailed to the Svalbard archipelago in the sea north of mainland Norway and “saw iron ore and big possibilities.” In 1906, Longyear founded the Arctic Coal Company and sought to build and sustain an industrial presence in the Arctic, with the eventual support of the U.S. government. Thompson-Jones writes that this venture represented a “profound conceptual shift” in U.S. approaches to the Arctic, ushering in an era of heightened ambition. 

Over a century later, the United States needs to pursue “big possibilities” in the Arctic once again if it is to compete with its rivals, Russia and China. All three players........

© Foreign Affairs