“The position of the United States upon the two oceans would be either a source of great weakness or a cause of enormous expense.” When Alfred Thayer Mahan penned these words, Alaska was not yet a state and the Arctic was still a vast icescape. But now Mahan’s predictions must undergo a twenty-first-century update to account for the arrival of the third frontier: a blue Arctic. As ice melts, new trade routes will emerge, resources long hidden beneath the ice will become accessible, and a new strategic battleground will emerge at the top of the world. While politicians and pundits debate the validity of climate change and its causes, the Arctic continues to melt, with blue waterways capable of supporting deep-draft commercial and military vessels predicted by 2050. Although continued focus on the Indo-Pacific, Atlantic, Mediterranean, and Red Sea regions holds merit, accepting risk in the Arctic may result in failure to prepare for and adapt to the significant diplomatic, economic, cultural, and military transformations already in the making.
As the Arctic’s melting ice opens new shipping routes, thaws previously ice-protected shores, and unlocks access to untapped resources, the far north takes on new strategic importance. Indeed, the Bering Strait—expected to become the Arctic’s Gibraltar—is already a chokepoint for global shipping and military operations. Furthermore, Russia’s militarization of Arctic territories and China’s growing Arctic ambitions demand our urgent attention. In order to safeguard our national interests and promote global stability, the United States must ignore the red herring of climate debates and instead accept the reality of ice melt by honing a comprehensive and aggressive Arctic strategy. We have not a moment to waste: already lagging years behind our competitors in this arena, such a combined effort among US military, federal, and private entities will require decades of planning.
Climate Change and Warfare: An Environmental History
While Earth’s climate is changing at a faster pace than ever before, climatic episodes over the past two thousand years—like the Roman Climate Optimum (200 BCE–150 CE), the Little Antique Ice Age (300 CE–700 CE), the Medieval warming period (950 CE–1250), and the Little Ice Age (1350–1850)—offer important perspective. In this era of human-influenced climate change, these periods tell us that climate change does not always spell disaster. Indeed, studies of these periods tell us that climate influences the conduct or outcome of war rather than determining it. Our modern era of climate change can certainly exacerbate vulnerabilities for those militaries who ignore it; but for those who most capture the winds of history into the sails of their respective war machines, it can provide strategic opportunities.
Climate can influence who you fight, what you fight over, when you fight and where, and perhaps most importantly, why you fight. Changing Arctic conditions demand strategists consider those five W’s in a twenty-first-century context. Before 2050, the United States, Canada, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, and Finland must assess how the diminishing North Pole ice wall will transform into blue borders accessible not only to trade, but also to other strategic competitors, like Russia and China. The importance of such considerations could hardly be overstated: Arctic flashpoints include vast mineral resources, largely untapped oil and gas reserves, and disputes over sovereignty within exclusive economic zones and resultant trade wars. In the past, such considerations have only been necessary in the summer months (except for submarine and long-range air assets), when climate conditions were most hospitable to both land and sea forces. Yet melting ice is projected to allow for year-round naval and commercial shipping competition as early as 2050—with sea trade via the region expected to double by 2035. Compared to the Panama and Suez Canals, the Northern Sea Route offers significantly reduced transit times—and with it, fuel costs—thus rendering it perhaps the most lucrative alternative to traditional shipping lanes.
But why reallocate resources from our present strategic footprint? Simply put, the Arctic is quickly evolving into the new dance floor for geopolitical competition (including, in its most extreme manifestation, warfare), replete with all the classic Thucydidean trappings of fear, honor, and interest. This is not an exaggeration: Russia and China have already signaled their desire for Arctic dominance. With the world’s largest icebreaker fleet, Russia poses the most dominant and formidable force in the region. Russia has seized the strategic and operational advantage, maintaining near-continuous operations in the Arctic, sharpening firsthand experience in the seascape, and challenging any foreign militaries who dare transit these frigid waters. Not far behind Russia, China—the self-proclaimed “near-Arctic state”—has similarly declared itself a regional force. China has invested heavily in its Polar Silk Road, thus expanding its maritime and global spheres of influence and all but guaranteeing strategic and economic returns in the region.
US Arctic Strategy
In recent years, DoD’s Arctic Strategy has undergone considerable review and revision. Indeed, current policy is drastically different from the policies of a decade ago. These new strategic visions no doubt have heightened our awareness of the Arctic’s growing geopolitical importance, and these policies are not without their strengths. But our most recent strides leave one wondering: Are we doing enough? The United States is an Arctic nation, but does our strategic policy fully reflect this? Current US strategy acknowledges, for example, the Arctic is not just warming—it’s becoming a new arena for strategic competition. In this light, the strategy’s “monitor-and-respond” approach reads as both too passive and too reactive for the competitive contest likely to develop in the far north. While we recognize the innate importance of robust monitoring and other intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance capabilities in the region, we also acknowledge that China and Russia are already conducting combined exercises off the coast of Alaska. Considered in this light, our monitor-and-respond strategy resembles the military equivalent of relying on a giant Ring camera: it’s great for observation, but insufficient for deterring adversaries and projecting power.
More alarming still, the United States lags woefully behind her fellow great powers in Arctic preparations. By the time the United States published its first radical transformation of Arctic strategic policy, it was decades, even centuries, behind Russia’s interest in the region—an interest that transformed into action by the 2000s. Likewise, China has been honing its Arctic intentions since 2013, when it gained “observer” status in the Arctic Council. The following year, Russia created its Arctic Joint Strategic Command, and just three years after that, declared its plans to “phase NATO out of the Arctic.” By 2018, China published its first Arctic policy white paper, and shortly after launched its first domestically built icebreaker. In 2023, Russia declared the Arctic its second priority—a priority Moscow is well positioned to promote with its already robust Arctic presence and operating bases. Two of the world’s most powerful militaries have signaled their intent to establish strategic, diplomatic, and economic dominance of the world’s smallest ocean. Can the United States really afford to simply monitor and respond?
We recognize this call to action is not without significant obstacles. As our most current Arctic Strategy rightly points out, we must “balance against other DoD global commitments”—and we have to determine how to do this in an environment replete with fiscal, structural, environmental, and manpower challenges. We are not suggesting that DoD abandon our global commitments in favor of Arctic operations. We are arguing, however, that the department cannot abandon Arctic power projection in favor of keeping global commitments. It will be hard. It will stretch our forces and our capabilities. But it is worth remembering that Russia is doing both. China is doing both. And increasingly, they are doing both together—including in back-to-back naval exercises in 2022 and 2023 off the coast of Alaska. Accordingly, we must do both, and we must start now. US Arctic strategy and policy must shift from a future-oriented mindset of what we will do when time and resources allow to an ethos of what we are doing now, lest we look back in 2030 or 2050 at what we should’ve, could’ve, or would’ve done differently to prepare for a blue Arctic. In this light, aiming principally to “manage risk in the region” is not an acceptable substitute for establishing presence. The United States must take action now to ensure we are prepared to successfully maintain peace and prosperity in the blue Arctic.
Policy Recommendations
We do not diminish the immense difficulties the United States faces in implementing such active—but vital—strategic and operational postures. Establishing a presence in the Arctic and also maintaining presence and capability in other global regions with US interests at stake will stretch our manpower and our assets. But we argue our stated objectives can be achieved in the following ways:
1. Increase year-round air, land, surface, and subsurface operations in the Arctic now. We can ill afford, as the 2024 DoD Arctic Strategy puts it, to “explore options to improve mobility in all seasons and variable conditions across the Arctic’s diverse geography and weather” when our adversaries are already past the exploratory and into the operational phase. The Arctic is a highly dynamic operational environment that forces even the most seasoned DoD operators to perform familiar tasks in new ways. We must practice these tasks in adverse conditions now.
2. Assess manpower and other resource alignment against the full range of US global interests and ensure the Arctic is appropriately resourced. Based on the findings, DoD should be prepared to consider an increase in the size of the US military while simultaneously ramping up sustained year-round Arctic operations.
3. Build or obtain more polar-capable icebreakers now. Russia’s icebreaker fleet far exceeds ours. Indeed, even our “near-Arctic” peer competitor, China, has more. Expanding the icebreaker fleet will ensure year-round access to and presence in Arctic waters.
4. Establish an Arctic combatant command—USARCTCOM. The Arctic region, although small, is currently divided between at least three combatant commands. Establishing a separate, Arctic-specific command not only signals its strategic importance, but also prevents geographic task saturation as national defense, economic prosperity, and safe navigation of the high seas becomes top priorities in the blue Arctic.
5. After establishing USARCTCOM, stand up Eighth Fleet to cover the Arctic Ocean and its accompanying borders. With the new fleet, the Navy should establish an Alaskan joint fleet concentration area, to include a new naval operating base on the Alaskan coast for air, surface, and subsurface assets—much like our current bases in Norfolk and San Diego. This fleet concentration area would not replace operating forces in the Pacific Northwest, which should continue to focus on Third Fleet operations.
6. Reconcentrate existing military cold-weather assets to the new Alaskan fleet concentration area. For the Marine Corps, an additional mountain weather training center should be established, which would focus on sustained Arctic peace- and wartime operations. In the Army, the reactivation of the 11th Airborne Division in 2022 was an important step, but the service should add an additional division to complement it. This fleet concentration area should also be the home port for all icebreaker and cold-weather surface assets.
7. Invest in Arctic-specific infrastructure. The Arctic is a highly dynamic operating area. DoD planners should therefore feel empowered not only to think outside the box, but also to dream big as they determine how best to operate in such challenging conditions. Ports, communications networks, and radar systems will be needed, of course, but how do we build a fleet capable of continuous US Arctic power projection, freedom of navigation, and protection of our people, our borders, and our assets? Rather than a separate icebreaker fleet, should we instead consider merging platforms—finding ways to blend the new with the old? Could something as lethal and impressive as a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier and icebreaker ever become a reality? Perhaps it’s not feasible at the moment, and the mere suggestion might seem ludicrous to some. But in a new frontier, we must push the boundaries, expand the realm of the possible, and offer creative solutions to our modern challenges.
8. Make Arctic studies and training a mandatory and highlighted aspect of officer training. Operations in the Arctic are not business as usual. Like other operating areas, forces operating in the far north are still required to successfully accomplish tasks and achieve objectives, but in weather conditions that shift on a dime. Therefore, increasing Arctic training at the officer candidate–level is a low-budget, but highly effective way to develop warfighters who are prepared to think outside the box in these extreme, unique, and adverse conditions. Mandatory curriculum on cold-weather operations that incorporate field and fleet lessons learned from the Arctic should be developed and taught. The curriculum should explain the challenges of operating in extreme weather, climate change, space weather, communications blackouts, and the midnight sun. The services should also consider sending some officer candidates, cadets, and midshipmen to summer training, immersion trips, and internships in the region—with follow-on debriefing periods at corresponding DoD offices.
The Arctic is Changing—So Must Our Strategy
The far north is a rapidly transforming geopolitical arena where the United States must act with urgency if we are to maintain strategic dominance, power projection, and peaceful operations in the blue Arctic. Climate change has done more than alter the landscape—it has rewritten the strategic calculus of the region, exposing new vulnerabilities and opportunities that the United States cannot overlook. Russia and China are aggressively positioning themselves for Arctic dominance, while the US response has remained cautious, reactive, and dangerously slow. Although “monitor-and-respond” can be a valuable strategy in some instances, it will likely prove wholly insufficient to respond to the unfolding realities of this emerging seascape.
History warns us that those who fail to adapt to emerging battlefields cede the advantage to those who do. The Arctic, once an afterthought in military and geopolitical planning, is fast becoming the new frontier in global strategic competition. As new trade routes emerge, resource claims solidify, and military posturing escalates, the United States must transition from passive observation to active presence. We must invest in icebreakers, bolster Arctic forces, expand infrastructure, and make Arctic training a core element of military education. We cannot wait until the Arctic is fully blue to recognize its strategic value; we must act now.
Sylvia Jordan is an active duty US Navy officer and PhD student in the Department of History at Georgetown University. After four sea tours, she is now serving as a permanent military instructor at the US Naval Academy, and from there, remains interested in the development and execution of Arctic operations and strategy.
Antonio Salinas is an active duty US Army officer and PhD student in the Department of History at Georgetown University. Following his coursework, he will teach at the National Intelligence University. Salinas has twenty-six years of military service in the Marine Corps and the Army and has led soldiers in Afghanistan and Iraq. He is the author of Siren’s Song: The Allure of War and Boot Camp: The Making of a United States Marine.
The views expressed are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the United States Military Academy, United States Naval Academy, Department of the Navy, Department of the Army, or Department of Defense.
Image credit: Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Ryan U. Kledzik, US Navy