[Originally published on marxist.com]
Ylva Vinberg – 16 July 2025
Trump is eyeing Greenland, Putin is strengthening Russia’s base on the archipelago of Svalbard, all the while embarking on new joint ventures with China in the Arctic region at large. The world’s top imperialist powers are vying to strengthen their positions in the Arctic, elbowing weaker nations aside. With global warming melting the North Polar ice cap, the scramble for the Arctic has begun.
The Arctic has long been a region of military-strategic importance. During the Cold War, both the US and the Soviet Union saw it as a key battleground, as the Arctic has the shortest flight path for potential missiles between US and Russian territory.
Now, with rising tensions between the imperialist powers and global warming opening up new profitable avenues of trade and plunder, the interests of the main imperialist powers in the Arctic are reaching a higher level than ever before. As Leif Terje Aunevik, the mayor of Longyearbyen on Svalbard, told the BBC in May, “I think the world has been gripped by Arctic fomo [fear of missing out].”
The Arctic has warmed nearly four times faster than the rest of the globe since 1979. Scientists have predicted that the Arctic Ocean could be ice-free by summer 2050, or even as early as 2035. As the melting periods become longer, global warming increases faster, since the darker areas of thinner ice and open sea water absorb more sunlight, trapping heat in the atmosphere.
For ordinary people, this will spell disaster: higher sea levels will flood coastal cities and eventually drown whole island nations. Catastrophic weather events will become more frequent, and whole ecosystems will be endangered.
But for the capitalists, ice-free Arctic waters, thawing permafrost and disappearing glaciers mean something else entirely. The prospect of accessible rare earth minerals, untapped oil and gas deposits, and new fishing areas means that there is money to be made. New shipping lanes in ice-free waters are a particularly attractive prospect for freight monopolies to exploit.
Hence Trump’s interest in Greenland, home to 25 of 34 critical raw materials. Hence the growing tensions over the Polar region.
In 2021, the US Army published a new Arctic strategy titled Regaining Arctic Dominance, arguing that the US must “organize to win in the Arctic,” that the region is “an arena of competition, a line of attack in conflict, a vital area holding many… natural resources, and a platform for global power projection.”
Similar statements have been made, not just by bigger players like China and Russia, but also by Arctic countries like Norway and Canada. Canada stated in 2019 that “the Arctic region is of critical importance to the national security and defence of Canada” and vowed to take steps to “increase its Arctic and Northern footprint in support of regional safety and security.” In 2025, they announced their aim to have “military presence in the region on a near permanent basis.”
In 2020, Norway’s Defence Ministry stated that “If Norway does not have a regular and predictable presence in the North, a space could open for allies or others to fill… Such a development could have negative consequences for stability and Norway might lose influence on the security development in its own neighbourhood.”
Military exercises in the Arctic have increased substantially in the last ten years. NATO doubled Arctic military activities from 2015 to 2020. At the same time, Russia has assigned at least 81 percent of its nuclear weapons to its Northern Fleet.
In the past, though there was military tension, there was still a certain amount of space for each Arctic nation to carve out their own sphere – even for weaker nations like Norway and Denmark. After the fall of the Soviet Union, the Arctic seemed almost a conflict-free zone. Academics called it “Arctic exceptionalism”, envisioning that it would always be an area where all countries could get along. There was a high level of international collaboration between scientists and politicians in the region; the Russians were accepted as long as they were not seen as a threat, as were the Chinese. In reality, this was because the US at that time was the sole dominant superpower, and no one was strong enough to challenge it.
When Russia and China started to become a threat to US hegemony, countries like Norway, Canada and Denmark hoped to still be able to secure their Arctic interests through their alliance with the USA. But now Trump has entered the scene and has made it clear that the US is not the same ally and friend as in the past.
As such, the period of “Arctic exceptionalism” is dead in the water. The lucrative possibilities opening up in the Arctic are making it one of the main arenas for the struggle between the strongest imperialist powers, with weaker nations trying – and failing – to catch up.
Russia: the main Arctic superpower
In the Arctic race, Russia is far ahead. That is partly due to geography. 20 percent of Russia’s landmass is within the Arctic Circle. Around 53 percent of the Arctic coastline is Russian, and around 50 percent of the Arctic population is part of the Russian Federation.
But Russia also has a strong military presence there, which it has had since Soviet times, and which it has greatly expanded over the past decade. Russia has one of the largest submarine fleets, including 16 nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarines. Russia is also the only country that builds and operates nuclear-driven icebreakers, and owns at least 8 of them. This offers Russia a great advantage, since they can break through thicker ice than diesel-powered icebreakers. They are also more reliable in cold weather and operate for years without refuelling.
The Northern Fleet, based on the Kola peninsula to the east of northern Scandinavia in the Murmansk Oblast, is Russia’s biggest and most powerful. Though the US Navy is the most powerful in the world in regards to tonnage, technological sophistication and global reach, they are not based in the Polar region. In February, Popular Mechanics published an article titled “Russia Is Absolutely Crushing the U.S. Navy in the Arctic. That’s a Real Threat to America”.
The article points out that while Russia operates around 40 icebreakers, the US has only one, which is 49 years old. And whilst Trump has announced plans to build “Forty Coast Guard big icebreakers. Big ones,” this is easier said than done. The US is in fact struggling to finish the first three icebreakers, and it has had a long-running deficit in icebreakers and in its shipbuilding industry in general.
Clearly, the threats of annexing Canada and Greenland have been made with the intention of projecting America’s Arctic ambitions. But at the end of the day, this has to be backed up by a real capacity to secure American interests.
But things are even more dire when it comes to Europe. Here, the navies of the second-rate imperialist powers are not even in the same ball park as those of the US, China and Russia – the same goes for their military capabilities in general.
Colin Wall, research associate at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, admitted that “at the moment, the military balance in the Arctic is heavily weighted towards Russia.” Military experts in the West have estimated that it would take at least ten years of military investments for NATO Arctic states to catch up with Russian capabilities in the region.
But even that is an incredibly optimistic prognosis. Already in 2022, Russia’s military bases inside the Arctic Circle outnumbered all of NATO’s by about a third. This is no surprise given that they have been investing in their military capabilities in the region and elsewhere for a long time. Since 2005, Russia has reopened tens of Arctic Soviet-era military bases, modernised its navy, and developed new hypersonic missiles designed to evade US sensors and defences.
And it’s not just military capabilities. Russia is developing their Arctic LNG project, building new sites on the Gydan peninsula on the Siberian coast of the Kara Sea, which could contribute 9 percent to the global production of liquified natural gas when completed. They have invested in ports, infrastructure and vessels to develop and protect the Northern Sea Route. All of this has caused great alarm among the other Arctic countries.
When the Ukraine war broke out, the West used it as an opportunity to break all relations with Russia to try to isolate them and weaken them. In March 2022, seven of the eight members of the Arctic Council – Sweden, Canada, Norway, Finland, Iceland, Denmark and the USA – decided to boycott future council meetings, effectively shutting the council down for months. This was during the period of Russia’s chairmanship. Later on, they tried to restart it under Norway’s Chairmanship, without Russian participation. This was followed by the entry of Finland and Sweden into NATO, which meant that all countries in the council besides Russia were now a part of the NATO bloc.
But this has not halted Russia, which has continued to build up its forces in the region. In fact, the last years have only pushed Russia toward concentrating more and more of its forces in the Arctic. After the war in Ukraine broke out, the use of the Black Sea became too risky for the Russian fleet, and, since 2022, Turkey has barred Russian warships from entering the Black Sea, limiting Russia’s use of its Black Sea fleet further. After Sweden and Finland joined NATO, the Baltic Sea has also become a much more unreliable economic and military waterway for Russia. It was therefore a natural move for Russia to concentrate its forces in the icy Barents Sea.
Rather than isolate Russia and diminish its drive for control of the region, NATO countries have pushed Russia not only to strengthen its forces in the Arctic but also toward a closer relationship with China, which in turn has opened up the Arctic for Chinese penetration to a much greater degree than before.
The alliance between Russia and China
China has gradually increased its presence in the Polar region over the last decade. In 2013, they secured observer status in the Arctic Council, and they have established research facilities on Svalbard, Iceland and in the Northern Swedish town of Kiruna. In 2018, they upped the ante, publishing a white paper outlining their strategy regarding the Arctic, where they defined themselves as a “near-Arctic state” and proclaimed their aim to build a “Polar Silk Road” for Arctic shipping routes.
In 2024, they sent their first three icebreakers into Arctic waters and announced plans to send a manned submersible to the Arctic seabed, which would make it the second country to achieve this after Russia.
The closer relationship with Russia has enabled China to move forward with its ambitions in the region at a much greater pace and establish a regular presence there. Since 2022, China and Russia have conducted several joint military exercises and border patrols in the Polar region.
Chinese companies are also helping Russia develop its Arctic LNG projects on the Yamal Peninsula in northwest Siberia – which had a record year of cargo loadings last year – and the LNG 2 project under construction on the Gydan Peninsula. Though sanctions delayed construction on the new site, it has been able to continue with Chinese investments. Chinese company Wison New Energies delivered power plant modules to LNG 2 last year, despite officially having withdrawn from the project.
Now they are developing the Northern Sea Route, along the Russian coast. In July 2023, a regular Sino-Russian shipping corridor along the Arctic sea lanes was officially launched. In that year, 80 voyages, with cargo ships, cruise ships and oil tankers, reached Chinese ports via the Arctic waterway. This is expected to become the most used shipping route between Asia and Europe by 2050, as it cuts transportation time by about 50 percent in comparison to shipping through the Suez Canal. To expand this, Russia is looking at building a deep-water port in Arkhangelsk and a railway connected to it, with Chinese investors.
Most of the Northern Sea Route lies within Russia’s exclusive economic zone, and although it is open to shipping from all countries, they would have to comply with Russian regulations, obtain permits from them and be escorted by their icebreakers.
The US is trying to dispute this, arguing that it should be considered international waters. But to wrestle control of the route from Russia will be difficult, as it’s Russia and China that are actually developing it. They are the ones building up ports along the Russian coast, and they are the ones who have begun to use the route. Commercial shipping companies from both Russia and China have already gained substantial experience on how to operate in the region. This means they have a massive head start.
In August 2023, the U.S. Naval Institute published an essay on how the US could challenge Russia over the Northern Sea Route. It consisted of a long wishlist for investments from the government. The authors stated the real balance of forces quite frankly.
“Having failed with a Russian-U.S. icebreaker ratio at 3.6:1, the Coast Guard is now forced to contemplate a transit with icebreaker ratios nearing 20:1. More capacity and better icebreakers are needed”
The damning report stated that “an enlarged U.S. icebreaker fleet alone will be necessary but not sufficient to answer the call in this new security paradigm.”
Since Trump returned to power, he has tried a different approach from previous administrations. In the negotiations over the Ukraine War, he has tried to come to an agreement with Putin to get out of the Ukraine War, and to try to reverse the effects of Biden and the Europeans’ hard-line policy, which has pushed Russia closer to China. Trump’s hope was that if he could wrest Russia away from China, it would be easier to take on Chinese competition. But like many of Trump’s plans, it has so far been rather unsuccessful.
Even if Trump lifted many of the sanctions against Russia, that would not guarantee that he could drive a wedge between Russia and China. In the Arctic, they are closely collaborating on so many different projects that it would be incredibly difficult to untangle them from one another. And, from both Russia’s and China’s perspective, this would make no sense, as their collaboration is mutually beneficial.
As long as the US is not willing to step in and make the same amount of investments, it makes no sense for Russia to distance itself from China to any large extent. It is precisely through large Chinese investments that Russia is able to expand its oil and gas industries and develop trade routes.
This was precisely the problem the Biden administration faced in relation to Latin America. After Trump’s first term, where he had tried to strong-arm Latin American countries into submission, Biden came in and attempted a different approach. He offered investments to lure them away from China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), with his B3W initiative. But the investments offered were simply too little to provide a real alternative.
And for China, collaboration with Russia means it is able to expand its influence in the Arctic much faster and on a much more stable ground, whereas, with most of the Europeans, they are facing resistance at almost every step of the way.
Chinese investments: an offer that is hard to refuse
However, China does not operate in the Arctic solely through Russia. Chinese investments have increased more or less everywhere across the region in the past 15 years. Iceland is one of the main countries with which China has formed ties.
Last year, former Pentagon official Michael Rubin urged Donald Trump to act against China in the Arctic, especially in regards to Iceland.
“For strategists in Beijing, however, Iceland represents the perfect Trojan horse, allowing China access to the Arctic, Atlantic, Europe, and NATO. Perhaps Trump can be excused for Iceland evading his radar during his first term, but there can no longer be any question about China’s ambitions on the island nor Iceland’s permissiveness to Chinese money and strategic inroads. It is time to play hardball with Iceland until it recognises that Chinese cash will not offset the cost of its endangering North Atlantic and Arctic security.”
Despite being a NATO member, Iceland has balanced more and more between the US and China, which can be seen in its attitude toward China’s BRI. On an official visit to Iceland in 2019, then American Vice President Mike Pence thanked the country for not joining the BRI. But this was quickly rebuffed by the Icelandic government, which said they had not yet made a decision. Six years later, they have still not come to a decision.
During the Cold War, Iceland was an important military base for American imperialism. But since 2006, there have been no permanent American military bases or soldiers stationed there. And whilst they have participated in NATO military exercises and carried out sanctions against Russia, they have also moved closer to China.
After the 2008 crisis, which led to the default of Iceland’s three biggest banks, China stepped in to take advantage of a country in dire economic crisis. In 2010, they signed a currency swap deal, worth $480 million, which allowed Iceland to pay for Chinese imports with the Icelandic Króna, renewed in 2013 and 2016. In 2013, they signed a Free Trade Agreement. In 2018, China opened a research facility in Northern Iceland, and in 2020 they opened a four-storey embassy in Reykjavik, with capacity for 500 staff, making it by far the largest embassy in the country.
In other places, China has so far been rebuffed. When they tried to invest in building airports in Greenland, the US stepped in to block them. Much to the annoyance of the master in Washington, the Danish Government almost let building rights pass into the hands of the Chinese, who had initiated talks directly with the Greenlandic government. In what was a minor diplomatic crisis between Denmark and the first Donald Trump administration, the then Danish prime minister jumped on the first plane to Greenland with a suitcase full of money to prevent China from gaining a foothold.
In Norway as well, the Chinese shipping company Cosco has been trying to close a deal with the port in Kirkenes, but has so far been stalled by the Norwegian government, which is wary of growing Chinese influence. Norway recently passed new laws prohibiting the transfer of property or businesses that could harm “Norwegian security interests”.
But local leaders in Kirkenes, in particular the town’s port director, Terje Jørgensen, are putting up a fight against the government to secure Chinese investments. Board manager Terje Hansen told Norwegian media last year that “when a Chinese company wants to trade with us, we will take it all the way” and that they will continue to woo Cosco “unless the central authorities stop us”. The local leaders of Kirkenes are desperate for job opportunities, as the closures of the mines have led to a decline in population, with young people leaving the town.
This is one of the many dilemmas for northern Europe. On the one hand, they are feeling the competition from the stronger imperialist countries and are being pushed to choose sides. On the other hand, they need investments. As time goes on, the weakness of countries like Norway, Sweden and Denmark will be felt in the Arctic.
The case of Svalbard
Norwegian politicians are not only raising concerns over China’s growing influence. The strengthening of Russia has led to even more of a hue and cry, in particular over their activities on Svalbard – the archipelago that lies at the convergence of the Arctic Ocean and the Atlantic Ocean, 600 kilometres from mainland Norway and 1,000 kilometres from the North Pole.
Svalbard has been under Norwegian rule since 1920, when the Svalbard Treaty was signed. This was backed by the victors of the First World War, especially Britain, to whom Norway had very close ties.
The Svalbard Treaty, however, also guaranteed equal rights for citizens and companies from all signatory states to engage in commercial activities on the islands, such as mining, fishing, hunting, and maritime operations. Svalbard became a visa-free zone for all signatory states, so that citizens of these countries have the right to reside and work there without a visa. This means that today, more than a third of Svalbard’s residents are not Norwegian, and that other countries – particularly Russia – can more easily build a base here.
In practice, though under Norwegian jurisdiction, Svalbard was shared territory between the Soviet Union and Norway for most of the 20th century. Mining companies from the Netherlands, the US and Sweden sold most of their mines to either the Soviet Union or Norway in the 1920s and 1930s.
But whereas Russia still operates its coal mine in Barentsburg and has invested in turning its former mining town, Pyramiden, into a tourist attraction, Norway is now closing its last mine in Longyearbyen. Rather than being filled with Norwegian coal miners, Longyearbyen has become a city for scientists from all over the world.
Russia has, on the other hand, increased its military presence and is planning to build a research centre in Pyramiden, seeking investments from China and other BRICS countries.
Norwegian governments have seen the closure of the coal mines as a cost-saving measure, as they were never really profitable. At the same time, it allows the government to pose as green and progressive in regards to the climate crisis… while at the same time producing two million barrels of oil a day. But that also means that there will be fewer Norwegians living on the island, which weakens Norway’s territorial claim. This was pointed out by Brede Edvardsen, vice chairman of the Norwegian Union of General Workers.
“I think they [the Norwegian government] are not aware of the role that the mining company, Store Norske, and therefore the Norwegian state, plays in a geopolitical context. The coal price has always been up and down for the last 100 years, and in the long run, we have never made money on it. That’s not the reason why they extracted the coal. It was to uphold our sovereignty… Norway has been able to hold our position in Svalbard because of the mining, because we are actually doing something there.”
Norway is trying to assert their hold by other means. Last year, the Norwegian government adopted a new Svalbard white paper in which it proclaimed its aim to tighten Norwegian control over scientific research on Svalbard.
Norway also aims to be in control of future deep-sea mining outside the archipelago. In 2020, Norwegian scientists registered minerals on the seabed near Svalbard of an estimated value of nearly US$100 billion. But this is being contested by Russia, Iceland, the Netherlands, Spain and the UK, who argue that the Svalbard Treaty’s equal access rights should include the continental shelf.
This points to one of the main problems for the weaker Arctic countries. After Trump came to power, European politicians made a lot of noise about how they were going to stand united. But in reality, they are not. Other European countries are also interested in weakening Norway’s claim over Svalbard. There have been continuous disputes between the EU and Norway (which is not an EU member) over fishing rights for years. Norway has also met resistance from the EU when it comes to drilling further north for oil.
At the same time, the so-called “Arctic Five” – USA, Canada, Norway, Russia and Denmark (through Greenland), who all directly border the Arctic Ocean – have often met and decided things without the other countries on the Arctic Council. So while Norway is sometimes keen to have back-up from Sweden and Finland in regards to Russia, they are also happy to exclude them if that gives them a bigger influence among the main players in the region.
None of the weaker countries in the Arctic can face the competition from Russia, China or the US alone. Even when united – as they were when they shut out Russia from Arctic cooperation – they cannot stop the main powers on the world stage from advancing at their expense.
The real balance of forces
The weaker Arctic countries are now doing their utmost to try to prove that they can defend the interests of their ruling classes in the region. There is one NATO military exercise after another. Mark Rutte visited northern Norway in May and talked about how “we are doing more and more together,” and how “NATO is also becoming increasingly involved in looking at how we can best coordinate all these efforts.”
But without US back-up, they will not be able to offer much resistance to China and Russia. That’s why, after all the shouting and phrase-mongering from European and Canadian politicians toward Trump over tariffs, Greenland and the Ukraine War, they had, in the end, to bend the knee and surrender to Trump’s demands at the latest NATO summit. They could not get the US to agree to a condemnation of Russia and they agreed to commit to raising defence spending to five percent.
But it is one thing to commit to things in words, it is another to actually carry them out. Most of these countries have massive government debts. Those that do not, like Denmark and Sweden, have massive household debts that make it very risky to heavily increase government debt.
And it’s not just a question of funding. They need governments that can carry it out. European governments have carried out cuts for decades, claiming that there simply is no money to pay for schools, hospitals, nursing homes, etc. Now, all of a sudden, they are promising enormous amounts of money for military spending. Politicians are already finding it more and more difficult to carry out austerity and get reelected. The growing opposition toward the money spent on the Ukraine War, whilst living standards for workers decreased under austerity and inflation, was a key factor in bringing Trump to power and to the rise of parties like the AfD and Reform UK.
And those European countries that seek to get a slice of the Arctic, or defend the slice they already have, do not just need to massively increase defence spending. They need an industry to back it up. It’s not just US shipbuilding that is in crisis. Whilst over 70 percent of new shipbuilding orders in 2024 were made to Chinese companies, securing a 55.7 percent global market share, Europe’s market share has declined to approximately 7 percent measured in so-called ‘compensated gross tonnage’ (CGT) and about 16 percent by value.
The reality is that the weaker Arctic countries simply aren’t powerful or competitive enough to defend the position that they had in the past. Lenin remarked over 100 years ago that the epoch of imperialism meant that “the world is completely divided up, so that in the future only redivision is possible”. The Arctic is now being redivided.
Swedish, Norwegian or Canadian politicians may complain all they like about how Chinese research in the Arctic is “just a front for gathering intelligence”, whereas their research is done to “save the Polar bears”. They can claim all they like that Xi Jinping, Putin or Trump are evil imperialists who want to plunder the Arctic for its natural resources, whereas they are only in the Arctic to protect glaciers or the interests of the Sami and Inuits. Never mind the long history of brutal oppression by Canada against Indigenous people, or against the Inuits of Greenland by Denmark, or the Sami by Sweden, Norway and Finland.
The truth is that all nations operating or seeking to operate in the Arctic are in it for the same reason – the profits that can be made for their national bourgeoisies from the riches that the climate crisis will make available. The Europeans and the Canadians are only whining because they are not strong enough to counter the competition from the stronger imperialist powers.
None of them have any interest whatsoever in the real interests of the people or animals living in the Arctic, nor do they care about how the increased commercial activity in the Arctic will speed up the climate crisis. The only way to save the Arctic from imperialist plunder is to abolish capitalism altogether by the working class coming to power, in the Arctic and beyond.
