It emphasizes limited Chinese activities instead of the much more potent Russian threat.
The U.S. Defense Department’s latest Arctic strategy, issued in July, clearly states that China is not an Arctic nation, yet it identifies China as the main challenge to U.S. interests in the region. This is the first time the Pentagon officially placed China front and center of its approach to the Arctic. China was not even mentioned in its 2013 Arctic strategy and only once in the 2016 version. In the 2019 version, under the first Trump administration, China was given a more prominent position—but not as a primary emphasis. The 2024 strategy thus reflects China’s status as the pacing challenge to U.S. national security worldwide. With the second Trump administration expected to double down on the U.S.-China strategic rivalry, this reframing of Arctic policy will likely be continued or even accelerated.
In the context of the U.S.-China superpower rivalry, it is natural and understandable that China features prominently in U.S. strategic thinking and policies on various topics and regions around the world. Nonetheless, it is widely acknowledged that global and regional power balances may differ. This means that even though China is now the pacing challenge for U.S. national security at large, its power and ability to threaten U.S. interests varies from one region to another. And indeed, the Arctic power structure differs from the global one, not least due to Russia’s dominant position.
At its core, the United States’ new Arctic strategy prioritizes Alaska as a strategic flank in its rivalry with China. Alaska has played an important role in U.S. national security since the start of the Cold War. It hosts aerospace warning and control systems important to U.S. homeland defense, and, in recent years, the state has become integral to the execution of U.S. operations in the Indo-Pacific theater.
Nevertheless, the Pentagon’s strong focus on the U.S.-China rivalry in its Arctic strategy has two potential pitfalls.
First, by identifying China as the main threat to U.S. interests in the Arctic, the Pentagon’s new strategy contributes to enhancing a somewhat skewed narrative of the threat China actually poses there. While some commentators portray China as a “polar great power” attempting to push its way into the Arctic—and as Beijing runs highly visible Arctic diplomacy—the reality is that China currently has very limited political, economic, and military influence there.
Whereas the U.S. strategy observes that China “seeks to promote the Arctic region as a ‘global commons,’” the Arctic is neither unclaimed nor ungoverned. The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) constitutes not only the legal basis on which the Arctic littoral states can claim sovereign rights to most of the Arctic Ocean (this includes the United States, despite its failure to ratify the treaty), but also a core of the governance regime covering the region.
Beijing’s ability to use bilateral channels to enhance its influence is also limited because four of the five are strong democracies and NATO members—and that number increases to seven out of eight if the entire Arctic Council (made up the five littoral states plus Finland, Iceland, and Sweden) is included. It is difficult to see any Arctic nation beyond Russia being keen on enabling China to gain a strong foothold in the region. Indeed, evidence suggests that the Arctic democracies have all become increasingly aware and wary of Chinese overtures. For instance, when rumors surfaced in September that local Norwegian authorities welcomed Chinese investors in the Arctic port of Kirkenes, Norwegian Minister of Justice and Public Security Enger Mehl quickly clarified that Oslo will not allow such an investment if it runs counter to national security interests. Similarly, China has failed to entice Iceland and Greenland—both of which are often seen as particularly vulnerable to the lure of large Chinese investments.
In fact, most of China’s attempts at investing in Arctic resources outside Russia have been put on hold or have failed altogether. Even in the Russian Arctic, China’s economic footprint is relatively limited beyond its engagement in the Yamal liquefied natural gas project. Moreover, China’s ambition for a so-called Polar Silk Road through the Arctic Ocean has yet to result in any substantial shipment of goods through Arctic waters.
Regarding military activities, which is the Pentagon’s main concern, China has no military presence in the Arctic beyond brief visits. Chinese icebreaking research vessels occasionally operate in the Arctic Ocean, and some of their research activities may indeed have military value. In early October, Chinese Coast Guard vessels sailed into the Arctic Ocean for the first time on a joint patrol with two Russian Border Service ships. It will take more than a couple of icebreakers and coast guard vessels to make China a military player in the Arctic.
Wider research activity by China in the Arctic, which members of the U.S. Congress drew attention to recently, clearly may have a dual-use or purely military purpose. Yet this should also be kept in perspective. While the Chinese Polar Research Institute has a presence in Ny Alesund on Svalbard, a Norwegian archipelago, and on Iceland, this is a minor engagement compared to its five independent research stations in Antarctica. Moreover, China’s lack of military presence and activity in the Arctic obviously reduces the military value of any dual-use research. This is clearly the case for the land and sea domains, but perhaps less clear-cut with regard to aerospace activities.
China is increasing its military activity off the coast of Alaska, though. In July, four Chinese naval vessels sailed in the Bering Sea. During the same month, China and Russia conducted their first joint bomber patrol over the North Pacific and Bering Strait, near the coast of Alaska. While these planes might have briefly crossed the Arctic Circle, such activities should be interpreted not as Arctic maneuvers but as Chinese flank operations in the U.S.-China East Asian maritime theater.
The second potential pitfall of overemphasizing China in the U.S. Arctic strategy is the risk of underemphasizing the core challenge to Arctic stability: Russia. Geography allows Russia to claim nearly half of the Arctic under UNCLOS, making it the biggest Arctic state, and China’s ability to enhance its position in the region fully depends on Moscow’s willingness to open its door. From this, it follows that the best way to understand China’s influence in the Arctic is to examine Russia’s position, policies, and interests in the region.
The European Arctic is clearly the most important part of the region in terms of population, as well as economic and military activity. The Kola Peninsula is home to Russia’s Northern Fleet, which operates most of Russia’s nuclear-armed strategic submarines. The missiles on these submarines constitute the only substantial threat against the United States that originates in the Arctic, making the Northern Fleet a prime intelligence interest. Moreover, while it is only a faint shadow of its Soviet predecessor, the Northern Fleet does pose a potential threat to the Atlantic sea lines of communications. Its In the past, the latter concern was mainly related to transatlantic fiber-optic cables, but the destruction of the Nord Stream pipeline in September 2022 made it a broader issue. While there is limited undersea infrastructure in the Arctic, it is a concern there, too.
Furthermore, the strategy understates the fact that short of a nuclear exchange with Russia or any other country, the European Arctic is the part of the region where U.S. forces are most likely to be engaged in a conflict and where U.S. forces are already the most active. The U.S. Air Force, Army, Navy and Marines have all been actively engaged in exercises and other activities in the European Arctic in recent years as part of a wider European engagement to deter Russia and support allies. Relatedly, it is hard to envision that the recently reestablished 11th Airborne Division, based in Alaska, has any role in defending Arctic territory in the Indo-Pacific; the division’s exercises suggest that any Arctic role for it will likely be in Northern Europe. This pattern is reflected at the political and strategic military levels, where the United States regularly discusses Arctic issues with Canada and European allies, all of whom are primarily concerned about Russia.
In July, Lt. Gen. Thomas Carden, deputy commander of the U.S. Northern Command, said of the Pentagon’s new Arctic strategy: “If this is not the best, clearly written strategy that I’ve ever seen, then it’s got to be in the top two or three.” Indeed, we concur that the document is a fine strategy in many ways, notably in clearly stating a desired end state and then outlining the ways and (more implicitly) means by which Washington aims to achieve this. In its admirable clarity, the strategy highlights that China is the pacing threat to U.S. security and interests worldwide, and that the United States seeks to counter Chinese activity and influence in the Arctic, too.
It is evident, therefore, that the strategy is not really about the Arctic, but about China in the Arctic—and about Alaska’s role as a flank in the U.S.-China rivalry in the Indo-Pacific strategic theater. With the newest iteration of its Arctic strategy, the United States runs the risk of overemphasizing China and the Pacific-adjacent part of the Arctic to the detriment of much more pressing security issues relating to Russia and the European Arctic.
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