Russian aggression gives US excuse to focus military, and more, on Arctic

With Russian aggression inducing a rethink of Arctic policy and strategy among its circumpolar neighbors, and climate change continuing to thaw the polar world at an intensifying pace, the United States has been intensively refocusing more of its strategic and diplomatic attention on the Arctic region, culminating in a series of recent Arctic organizational, policy and strategy updates.

These include the White House’s August 2022 announcement of its plan to establish a new ambassador for the Arctic region, followed in September with the formation of the new Arctic Strategy and Global Resilience Office at the Pentagon.

Then in October, the White House unveiled its new National Strategy for the Arctic Region, updating strategy from 2013 for today’s complex and fast-evolving strategic landscape. As noted in its executive summary, the new Arctic strategy “addresses the climate crisis with greater urgency and directs new investments in sustainable development to improve livelihoods for Arctic residents, while conserving the environment. It also acknowledges increasing strategic competition in the Arctic since 2013, exacerbated by Russia’s unprovoked war in Ukraine, and seeks to position the United States to both effectively compete and manage tensions.”

The updated strategy includes four pillars — Security, Climate Change and Environmental Protection, Sustainable Economic Development, and International Cooperation and Governance. On this fourth pillar, the strategy asserts, “Despite the challenges to Arctic cooperation resulting from Russia’s aggression in Ukraine, the United States will work to sustain institutions for Arctic cooperation, including the Arctic Council, and position these institutions to manage the impacts of increasing activity in the region.” The United States will “also seek to uphold international law, rules, norms, and standards in the Arctic.”

As a headline in the October 10 edition of High North News aptly summarizes, “New US Arctic Strategy Foreshadows Increasing Hurdles for Cooperation in a More Complex Region.”

As described in its introduction, “Despite current tensions stemming from Russia’s unprovoked, full-scale invasion of Ukraine,” the new U.S. strategy “seeks an Arctic region that is peaceful, stable, prosperous, and cooperative” with “guardrails to manage competition and resolve disputes without force or coercion … working primarily with our allies and partners to solve shared challenges.” Russia will continue to be isolated to the sidelines, as its “war of aggression against Ukraine has rendered government-to-government cooperation with Russia in the Arctic virtually impossible. Over the coming decade, it may be possible to resume cooperation under certain conditions. Russia’s continued aggression makes most cooperation unlikely for the foreseeable future.”

Despite newly re-awakened concerns with the challenge presented by Russia to Arctic security, there is still much in the updated U.S. Arctic strategy that is familiar, with an echo of the collaborative dynamic embraced in past American Arctic strategies and policies. Indeed, the new strategy is not the first to note new challenges to the cooperative Arctic, with such concerns finding more prominence in policy statements after Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014 and China’s self-declaration as a “Near-Arctic” state in 2018.

Importantly, the U.S. strategy update offers much reassurance on the role of indigenous peoples and perspectives. Two of its four pillars directly address indigenous peoples and their wellbeing. From the Climate Change and Environmental Protection pillar, Washington “will partner with Alaskan communities and the State of Alaska to build resilience to the impacts of climate change, while working to reduce emissions from the Arctic as part of broader global mitigation efforts, to improve scientific understanding, and to conserve Arctic ecosystems.”

As part of the Sustainable Economic Development pillar, Washington has pledged to “pursue sustainable development and improve livelihoods in Alaska, including for Alaska Native communities.” Moreover, the United States “will be guided by five principles that will be applied across all four pillars,” with the very first of these five being “Consult, Coordinate, and Co-Manage with Alaska Native Tribes and Communities,” elevating co-management to a prominent guiding principle for Arctic strategy.

The United States thus remains “committed to regular, meaningful, and robust consultation, coordination, and co-management with Alaska Native Tribes, communities, corporations, and other organizations and to ensuring equitable inclusion of Indigenous Peoples and their knowledge.”

The updated Arctic strategy, with its echoes of more cooperative times, offers a reaffirmation of hope that the Arctic will continue to be a region defined more by cooperation than conflict — even if in the near-term such cooperation is confined to the expanded footprint of NATO’s Arctic members, with Russia excluded. Importantly, Arctic indigenous peoples feature more prominently as partners in America’s Arctic strategy as the 7 democratic Arctic states become more closely aligned within NATO in their collective effort to deter Russian aggression from extending beyond the storm engulfing the Black Sea to the still calm and ever hopeful waters of the Arctic.