# Opening the Arctic **Melting ice is bringing geopolitical and environmental challenges to the Arctic. Two scholars address recent events in the region and the impacts on scientific collaboration.** April 18, 2025 [ Michelle Nicholasen ](/people/michelle-nicholasen) ![An icebreaker ship leaving an Arctic tunnel.](/sites/g/files/omnuum8931/files/2025-04/AdobeStock_405096312.jpeg) *Credit:* [*Adobe Stock*](https://stock.adobe.com/images/icebreaker/405096312)Imagine a giant ring around the North Pole that encompasses territory from eight sovereign nations and the Arctic Ocean. This is the Arctic Circle, and today it sits at the convergence of profound climate changes and global power dynamics. The eight states—Canada, Finland, Denmark, Iceland, Norway, Sweden, the Russian Federation, and the United States—all have territory within the circle and for a long time have shared a productive multilateral collaboration in conjunction with Indigenous groups to protect and study the region. But as the ice melts rapidly, new waterways through the Arctic are opening up, spurring commercial and security interests among nations inside and outside the circle—not least of which is President Trump’s overtures to buy Greenland, a territory of Denmark. Global power competition, manifested in the invasion of Ukraine, has strained relationships within the multilateral organization called the Arctic Council, the leading intergovernmental forum promoting cooperation and interaction among the eight Arctic states and six Arctic Indigenous Peoples Organizations. As interest in the region increases, governance of the fragile environment is a concern of many stakeholders. We spoke to two scholars deeply involved in Arctic issues and asked them to break down the geopolitical and environmental impacts taking place in this fascinating and shifting landscape. Rinna Kullaa (Visiting Scholar, SCANCOR at the Weatherhead Center, fall 2024) is a professor of global history at Tampere University, Finland. Jennifer Spence is the director of the Arctic Initiative at Harvard Kennedy School. This interview has been edited for length and clarity. ![Map of the Arctic Region.](/sites/g/files/omnuum8931/files/2025-04/ArcticRegion-state-gov.jpg) Map of the Arctic was created by State Department geographers as part of the US Chairmanship of the Arctic Council. *Credit:* [*US State Department, Public Domain*](https://2009-2017.state.gov/e/oes/ocns/opa/arc/uschair/258202.htm)**Q: Let’s start with you, Rinna. Can you remind us of the geopolitical importance of the Arctic Circle in World War II and the Cold War?** **RINNA KULLAA (RK)**: Before the Second World War, most of the Arctic states didn't have concentrated or state activities in the area. There was gold and coal mining, some scientific research and discovery. Unfortunately, the Second World War was a turning point for the militarization of the Arctic. In the war, Greenland and Svalbard became military outposts. And the US built air bases and other bases for patrolling the Atlantic and the Arctic from those points. Then the Soviet Union built a well-functioning base that’s still functioning in Murmansk, which is very close to Finland. After the Second World War the Soviet Union looked at the Arctic area as a strategic importance. The Soviet Union had 52 percent of the coastline, so that is a very significant area today. During the Cold War, the Arctic became a kind of an essential question from a geographical, but also geopolitical perspective. The development of the nuclear arsenal was a big game changer. We get nuclear submarines and nuclear testing in the area from the Soviet Union. Most of us are aware from general historiography of the Cold War of nuclear tests by the US and France. But the scale of the Soviet Union's nuclear testing that was done in the Arctic was just massively bigger. They tested the Tsar Bomb there in 1961, and it's one of the most powerful nuclear bombs. Those are some of the things that are very specific about this region in the Cold War. They are unfortunate, but they are what I pay attention to. **Q: Jennifer, one of the positive outcomes after the Cold War was the establishment of many cooperative institutions among the Arctic states that provided a kind of stewardship of the region. One of them was the Arctic Council. Can you explain its purpose?** **JENNIFER SPENCE (JS)**: Rinna's set the stage really nicely. As the Cold War was coming to an end, there was a global desire for peace and cooperation, along with a focus on environmental protection and sustainable development because of concerns about environmental issues around potential nuclear disasters, oil spills, and risks attached with contaminants. So the Arctic Council was set up to address those concerns and others. The Arctic Council focused on sustainable development and what that meant. It looked at monitoring and assessment for contaminants, and that evolved very quickly into climate change-related issues. Emergency management and response is another really important area. Biodiversity and conservation, and then marine protection. So you get a sense of where there is a recognized value to cooperation. And in particular, the founders of the Council made a deliberate decision to not include military security in the work, in order to allow for more science diplomacy work to happen. Another important aspect of the Arctic Council is a strong presence by the Indigenous peoples of the Arctic, who were successful in creating a place for themselves in the region’s governance. This is quite unique internationally, and has given the Arctic its own flavor in terms of multilateral cooperation, in terms of the norms of what is expected in it, and the role that people of the Arctic play in policymaking. **Q: Before the invasion of Ukraine, is it fair to say the countries in the Arctic Council were harmonious? That is, seven countries and the Russian Federation.** **JS**: I would say starting in 1996, for the first 8–10 years that the Arctic Council existed, it was a working-level collaboration. It didn't have the political profile. You see a lot of really good scientific work done. You have good working relationships, scientific relationships built, partnerships built. It's the period after 2014 that the Arctic Council was nominated several times for a Nobel Peace Prize because it was able to sustain relationships and created this special bubble where \[multiple states could cooperate\]. **Q: What happened after Russia’s invasion?** **JS**: What we saw in 2022 was just a complete break of the system, where I would say, global politics overrode interest in regional cooperation. COVID was also a huge factor in breaking the ability to cooperate because everything went virtual. And so when we hit 2022, we actually already had a disintegration of relationships because people weren't able to meet in person. So you see, there's these disruptions or shocks to the system of how cooperation is happening. And now we've had another shock, right? Like we had 2022, we're seeing a further shock in terms of the position being taken by the Trump administration. **RK**: I think that things don't change necessarily only in 2022. The change became extremely visible in 2019, when Finland had the Arctic Council meeting in Rovaniemi, and the Trump administration's secretary of state Mike Pompeo, attended. He made a [big speech](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Bk8PeRBYcg) that was very different from any other speech we had heard. He said that although the Trump administration has a deep commitment to environmentalism and many other good things, countries should essentially come first. In Pompeo’s words, multilateralism—even when well intentioned—was not the answer anymore if it did not serve US national prerogatives. The meeting was followed by President Trump’s attempt to buy Greenland from Denmark the following summer, in his words, to counter Chinese offers to build infrastructure on the island that was not for sale. Many people were left stunned. I will always remember that moment, not only for Pompeo’s speech, because I had been educated in the United States, I had an idea who Mike Pompeo was. But the Finnish politicians had no clue. They were very proud of the Arctic Council. They were proud of having the meeting in Rovaniemi. In 2019, the Arctic was an area that was very trendy to invoke, but did the political leadership really invest in it? Probably not. And my point is, you know that that was true because the Finnish state secretary who was there went to take selfies with Mike Pompeo afterward. Pompeo had just made a speech entirely contradictory to everything we're doing. I think that that was a clear sign that something had shifted in the US, vis-à-vis the area. **Q: Back to the invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Is it true that Arctic Council members refused to work with Russia after the invasion?** **JS**: The language is important here. The Arctic Council did not stop. What happened was the seven other Arctic states chose not to engage with the Arctic Council. The institution itself could not be stopped because it's a consensus-based organization that, for any kind of decision, requires all eight states. The seven countries paused their participation in the Arctic Council. Then what you saw was a period where the seven were meeting almost constantly trying to find a consensus among themselves about how they wanted to proceed, amid all this public conversation about throwing Russia out. Well, that's actually not possible, given the procedures. They needed to find a way to work with Russia, because otherwise, you were giving up on the institution. For many months it was unclear what would happen. Then at this time, Norway assumed the chairship from Russia, and that was a critical factor. Norway would talk to Russia as the chair, and then it would go and talk to the others. As a result of these negotiations, all eight Arctic states agreed that some form of working-level cooperation could resume. There would be no meeting at the political level or between the ministries of foreign affairs. So that mechanism is now in place, and, to some extent, is functioning at the working level. **Q: Let’s switch to security questions, because as the sea routes and passages through the Arctic have been opening, the region is of increased interest to rising powers. What are the contentious issues right now in terms of security and international competition?** **RK**: The excitement about these questions, I think, is understandable. For me, sea areas are like continents. I envision the world through sea areas. So imagine the melting—or the possible melting—of the Arctic by 2035 or 2040. It's like somebody discovering a new continent somewhere. And to prepare for some of these changes, bodies like the Arctic Council invited countries, including China, to be observer states, rather than council members. There has been an anticipation of hegemonic or global powers having an interest and a new stake in routes across the Arctic Ocean. But I think it's also a debate because there is a constant back and forth. There's the excitement of a discovery of a new area. But then there’s a drawing back of some of the interests. For example, realist political or geopolitical thinkers will say, well, we expected China to come in there, but maybe it will not now, if its relationship changes with Russia. Or they think about which is going to be an easier transportation route for goods: the railways that are very well functioning from Korea to Saint Petersburg, because Russia has a railway network that's fairly well functioning. Or will it be the sea area? **JS**: And just as a vague aside, there's been a lot of rhetoric recently around China's growing interest and its possible takeover of the Arctic. But if you break it down to where they're actually investing, they're investing in Russia right now. There is some investment in the Arctic, but there's not a lot. And there's definitely not major infrastructural investments in the Arctic or in other Arctic states. And so you have to challenge some of these standing narratives and ask what's really happening, nuance our arguments a bit. **Q: Turning back to politics, we have an administration that seems to be pulling back from all kinds of multilateral organizations. How do you think that's going to affect both scientific pursuits and regional security?** **JS**: I think it's incredibly concerning. My general take is that we're in a period of extreme uncertainty. There’s been a true cry for help from scientists sounding the alarm that there is a real—or immediate—impact that's happening to research and science. And so much of the research that happens in the Arctic depends on cooperation and collaboration. These are expensive spaces to work in. And it's not a data-rich area, and we struggle to get the data we have. It really depends on collaboration and cooperation through multilateral agreements to get the kind of data that we need, and to bring it together in a way that provides us with information that can be useful \[especially regarding climate change\]. ![Quotation by Jennifer Spence.](/sites/g/files/omnuum8931/files/2025-04/Arctic-Quote-Horizontal-cool.png) **Q: How prepared is the US for navigating through the Arctic?** **RK**: I think the US is very unprepared, both in terms of the technology but also I think the rhetoric is not helpful. When Trump says OK, if we can't have Greenland, we’re going to take it. If you've ever been to Greenland, you’ll see the irony. I think the battalion strength in Greenland now is like forty-six battalions from the US and nineteen from Denmark. So essentially, he would be invading his own forces on that island. So I think there's an unpreparedness in \[dealing with the seriousness of this\] rhetoric. And there's also a technological unpreparedness. The US has, I think, only two functioning icebreaker ships. **JS**: Barely functioning. **RK**: They are very old, considering that Russia has over forty-two quite high-level functioning ones. And then twenty or so more on top of that. So the imbalance is striking. If you match the capabilities of Russia to navigate in the Arctic against the US, it's not good. But it's also not good for the fact that you need icebreakers for accessing ports, for rescuing people, for research activities. They are multifunctional. And what makes this worse is that now, because of the excitement of the discovery of the new sea there, there's a backlog of countries that want to buy icebreakers. There's a lot of orders. But also icebreakers are made from steel, and steel has just become much more expensive now President Trump wants to put more tariffs on it. So why I'm mentioning all of this is that it's not only a disadvantage, but it's an *exponential* disadvantage. And I would add one more issue, in this era of fuzziness and unpredictability: some of the other Arctic states like Russia, and the Arctic-interested China, are able to lower their standards in manufacturing icebreakers. You have to have a very fortified ship that can take a certain level of ice \[and we have seen a decline in quality standards\]. ![Chart shows the home ports of major polar icebreakers.](/sites/g/files/omnuum8931/files/2025-04/USCG_Icebreaker_Homeports_5_April_2022_red-small.png) Graphic of “Homeports of Major Polar Icebreakers.” Based on multiple sources, updated April 2022. *Credit:* [*US Coast Guard*](https://www.dco.uscg.mil/Portals/9/DCO%20Documents/5pw/Arctic%20Policy/USCG_Icebreaker_Homeports_5_April_2022_red.pdf?ver=Qo3rEVv6XBN_ZIJEa-JBrw==) *via Harvard Kennedy School***Q: So that could mean lower-quality ships and more accidents?** **JS**: Maritime accidents can be devastating, and we’ve seen some recent incidents that should catch our attention. Just as a tidbit, at the [Arctic Frontiers](https://arcticfrontiers.com/) conference, a Norwegian brigadier, Steinar Dahl, was asked by the moderator: What keeps you up at night? And his answer was: an environmental accident. He said from a military tensions perspective, he felt that the deterrence factors were well in place. What kept him up at night was the risk of an environmental accident. And if this is a primary concern, you need cooperation. You need collaboration. You need common investment and infrastructure and frameworks for decision making. This should be driving at least some of the policy decision making and the approach that you use. **Q: The accidents are, I assume, collisions with icebergs, or other ships?** **JS**: Yes. I mean, these are extremely harsh conditions. We have this vision of an ice-free Arctic that is like the Mediterranean, where everybody will be out in their bikinis on the deck of the ship. These are still going to be incredibly harsh, incredibly difficult conditions. Ice-free does not mean there isn't ice, it just means that there's not solid ice. Another question is what does less sea ice mean for wave action with high winds and in the dark? Even in an ice-free Arctic, risk and uncertainty are two things that will always be factors. Shipping is all about knowing you can get from point A to point B in a certain period of time. That will never be the case in the Arctic. There are much higher risks associated with the environmental conditions in the Arctic than there would ever be anywhere else. **Q: Rinna, let’s go back to Greenland. Is it realistic to think that the US could acquire Greenland as a sovereignty purchase?** **RK**: I don't think that it would be reasonable to expect that. It could have been reasonable if the approach would have been different. If it had not been a question about annexation, if it would have been a question about business relations and building of infrastructure, and even extracting resources, although that's very negative—and brings to the historian's mind colonialism. If the US administration would have simply—in a normal, diplomatic, commercial way that has been the mainstream before—approached Greenland and Denmark and suggested joint ventures with US capital, it would have been very likely that the Danes and the Greenlanders would have accepted them and even embraced them. But Greenland and Denmark have had a long-term relationship with a [colonial and hurtful, negative past](https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/11/podcasts/the-daily/trumps-greenland-denmark.html). After 1992, the relationship between Greenland and Denmark was carefully rethought in terms of legal relationships, in terms of the [Maastricht Treaty](https://www.europarl.europa.eu/about-parliament/en/in-the-past/the-parliament-and-the-treaties/maastricht-treaty), and the Danish membership in the European Union, and many of the old wounds had been healed. Now the US approach to annexation or acquisition of Greenland has opened up some of the wounds. Nonetheless, Denmark and Greenland are very unlikely to abandon their shared past. ![JD Vance stands in shadow behind a rows of soldiers.](/sites/g/files/omnuum8931/files/styles/hwp_1_1__720x720_scale/public/2025-04/AP25087663746686.jpg?itok=wvZ_6tSI) Vice President JD Vance arrives to speak at the US military's Pituffik Space Base in Greenland, Friday, March 28, 2025. *Credit:* [*Jim Watson/Pool via AP*](https://newsroom.ap.org/editorial-photos-videos/detail?itemid=c90526846fa94ddcafe2bc34e3c51330)**Q: Imagining governance of the Arctic as a vast and harsh region, it obviously cannot be unilateral. As you’ve both pointed out, it calls for multiple countries, sovereign countries, working together somehow, even with the rising competition in powers. Now that everything is shaken up globally, what's the best way forward for trying to preserve and encourage cooperation?** **JS**: The Arctic Council has had this ability to be high profile and big and showy when that made sense. And now what we need is for it to go below the radar—to depoliticize as much as possible—and allow for working-level relationships: scientist to scientist, researcher to researcher, community to community. You have to think of the Arctic Council as a rich network of institutions and research organizations and NGOs. It’s like a node in a complex system. Right now we need polycentric governance, where there is no one major head that can be cut off. We must help the resilience and health of the whole network. And that means that Arctic states who care about Arctic issues should be investing in their own researchers and infrastructure, and then giving those researchers the flexibility to build their relationships across boundaries so they aren’t depending on ministries of foreign affairs to build those diplomatic relationships. And that's really what science diplomacy is about. And that's where I see the best possibilities for productive and pragmatic kinds of cooperation moving forward. **RK**: I was just wondering, how on Earth am I going to find anything optimistic to say now? But when Jen started talking, I remembered how heartened I felt in the fall 2024 semester at Harvard. When I would take part in Jennifer's Arctic science or diplomacy meetings, it made me feel more empowered than I had been before—which is a strange thing, that I have to travel all the way from Finland to Boston to feel empowered about the Arctic collaboration. But it was true. The kind of meetings that she held on Arctic and science diplomacy…made me feel more positive. She’s shown actual examples of researcher relationships that are still possible today, actual collaborative projects with researchers from diverse Arctic states that increase understanding and carry meaning. ![Aerial view of the US research station in a vast swath of snow in Greenland.](/sites/g/files/omnuum8931/files/2025-04/Summit_Camp_Greenland%2C_overview%2C_aerial_photography.jpg) Summit Camp, or Summit Station, is a research station funded by the US National Science Foundation and located atop the Greenland Ice Sheet. It’s a year-round hub for scientific research in the fields of meteorology, glaciology, atmospheric chemistry, astrophysics, and others. *Credit:* [*Lino Schmid & Moira Prati, and Neige Calonne, Wikipedia*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Summit_Camp#/media/File:Summit_Camp_Greenland,_overview,_aerial_photography.jpg) [*(CC BY-SA 4.0)* ](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/)--- ## Contributor Bios [Rinna Kullaa](https://www.wcfia.harvard.edu/people/rinna-kullaa) was a Fall 2024 Visiting Scholar with SCANCOR at the Weatherhead Center. She is a professor of global history at Tampere University, Finland. Her research interests include global history; Baltic and Black Sea studies; Arctic Ocean; and contemporary history and international relations between Europe, Russia, and Africa. [Jennifer Spence](https://www.belfercenter.org/person/jennifer-spence) is the director of the Arctic Initiative at Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs. She has expertise in sustainable development, international governance, institutional effectiveness, and public policy. See also:- [ Articles ](/media-type/articles) - [ North America ](/region/north-america) - [ Europe ](/region/europe) - [ East & Southeast Asia ](/region/east-asia) - [ Antarctic ](/region/antarctic) Share on:- [ Facebook ](#) - [ Twitter ](#) - [ Linkedin ](#)