Due to climate change, the Arctic region is now a crucial geopolitical area. Its ice sheets are melting, opening new strategic shipping lanes and potentially exposing a wealth of energy and rare earth mineral resources. Countries such as Russia, China, the US, and Denmark are increasing their military spending to secure the region, as the Arctic is quickly becoming a contested territory.

With Putin in office, Russia’s expansion of military power has been focused on seizing control of the Northern Sea Route, the world’s shortest shipping strait between Europe and the Asia-Pacific. Positioning icebreakers, military bases, and monitoring systems in the area, and thus the resources, has become a priority for Russian strategic geopolitical power. While Putin has been extending the hand of potential partnership to the West and other countries on Arctic development partnership treaties, the Russian geopolitical attention of the last years has been on the consolidation of Arctic power.

Russia views China as a close partner in the Arctic, collaborating on major infrastructure efforts, while China sails and maps resource routes on its own through the Arctic, which it refers to as its “Polar Silk Road.” China and Russia’s cooperation in the Arctic has drawn the concern of the US Department of Defense, which views this conjunction as a probable alteration in the Arctic balance of power.

The US has made considerable efforts to secure the Arctic. This is indicated by the Pitik Space Base in northern Greenland, which provides the US with strategic oversight of the region and serves as a critical early warning site for ballistic missiles. The US has, rather famously, sought to purchase Greenland, a Danish territory, which reflects the issues at stake in........

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