Key Insights

• There are both common and distinct threats, realities, and drivers in both the European and American Arctic, such as climate change, geopolitical competition, and a notable rise in hybrid tactics. 

• However, both sides of the Atlantic prioritize these security needs in different ways. 

• A transatlantic perspective on Arctic security could draw on shared threats as one mechanism for cooperation as well as seriously consider the role of NATO in future security arrangements in the High North. 

Summary

Questions of Arctic security are increasingly important. Whether speaking about great power competition between the United States, Russia, and China, or the implications of climate change on geopolitics, the region is undoubtedly center stage for many of today’s global security challenges. For transatlantic relations, the Arctic is also hugely significant. Not only does the region encompass shared interests, challenges, and responsibilities for both sides of the Atlantic, but many of these issues such as the role of NATO, environmental changes, and hard security interests are entangled with one another. 

However, given the importance of the Arctic, there are clear regional differences in the security drivers, realities, and threats that the European Arctic and North American Arctic face. While there are certainly shared interests such as the increasing accessibility of Arctic waters, rising interest by non-Arctic actors, and multiplying threats, there are clear differences in how countries in different sub-regions of the Arctic prioritize them. For example, rising militarization in the Russian Arctic as well as increasing Chinese ambitions in the Arctic pose challenges for Western Arctic states including Canada, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden, and the United States. However, North American Arctic states including the United States and Canada focus on the hard security threat of China and human security challenges. By contrast, European Arctic states including Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden are far more preoccupied with the proximity of Russia and its activities, both military and economic, in the Arctic. That being said, these differences should not stymie much needed cooperation on shared issues such as climate change and increasing hybrid threats including cyberattacks and sabotage attempts on critical infrastructure. In fact, there is a need now more than ever for increased coordinated transatlantic cooperation on Arctic security issues. 

The European vs. the North American Arctic: Key Realities, Drivers, and Threats

While most states refer to the Arctic as a single region, others draw important distinctions between the European and North American Arctics. These differences pose challenges for the transatlantic relationship. It can be hard to build effective cooperation if states on both sides of the Atlantic do not understand that both sub-regions have distinct security realities, drivers, and threats.

The European Arctic – characterized by the Arctic region that encompasses the European Arctic states – sees Russia as a very proximate source of insecurity. Increasing Russian military exercises, long-range bomber flights, and an overall greater focus on Arctic policy present serious threats to the European Arctic. This challenge to European security is paired with the reality that there is no world in which European Arctic states are not geographically close to Russia. Thus, these states understand the necessity of balancing with and having long-standing security interactions with Russia. For example, Norway signed a maritime boundary delimitation agreement with Russia in 2010 and there are significant annual fisheries arrangements between Norway and Russia. Further, the region has many interested state actors including: 1) non-Arctic states like the United Kingdom; 2) neighboring states like the Baltics with significant interests in the region; and 3) non-sovereign entities like Greenland, the Faroe Islands, Scotland, and the European Union. This vast network of actors is matched with a very dense web of regional governance, including, for example, the Barents Euro-Arctic Council. These threats and realities drive European Arctic states to hold increasingly large military exercises like Trident Juncture, reinvigorate their northern defense, and even join alliances to enhance their defense (i.e., Sweden and Finland’s recent application to join NATO). Moreover, the sheer number of Arctic actors in the region implies that northern politics are treated like an extension of domestic policymaking, rather than the Arctic seeming like some faraway location in the North.

By contrast, the North American Arctic – including the American and Canadian Arctic as well as Greenland – has very different threats at hand. Russia – while a threat – is not nearly as close geographically. This is not to say that the Russian Arctic is not close to the North American Arctic – but rather that the threat prioritization tends towards a focus on China as the more serious threat. This lack of proximity also means that in the North American Arctic, Russia is much more securitized as there is little need for new security cooperation between Canada and the United States outside of pre-existing arrangements such as NORAD. By contrast, China is often seen as the more serious threat although many argue the United States and Canada should not treat China as a peer competitor. The North American Arctic is instead characterized by human security challenges– particularly socio-economic and ecological threats as communities are isolated, small, and dependent on national government support. These threats are met with the reality that most actors in the North American Arctic are sub-national in nature, such as the Alaskan government, the territorial governments of Yukon, the Northwest Territories, Nunavut, the four self-governing Inuit regions of Canada, and Greenland. The combination of these threats and the realities on the ground drive a particular peripheral politics in the sub-region as the Arctic is considered far North, and issues such as land use and resource extraction are contentious. 

Shared Threats 

The above differences between the North American and European Arctic sub-regions appear to indicate that transatlantic cooperation on Arctic issues would be difficult as there are distinct realities, threats, and drivers. However, there are significant shared threats in the region that both the European and North American Arctics face. First, climate change is a serious threat to the Arctic that is having sizeable impacts across the whole region. Not only is permafrost melting at extremely high rate, but sea ice is no longer as stable and heat waves are becoming more common across the Arctic. Such an issue is leading to increasing interest from non-Arctic actors who may have economic or commercial interests including shipping, fishing, and resource extraction. Growing interest in shipping, for example, could have environmental consequences such as unexpected pollution or a rise in contention over how opening sea routes should be legally understood as either internal waters or international straits. An overall decrease in sea ice could lead to northern borders becoming increasingly accessible – which poses security challenges, such as smuggling and an increase in irregular migration. 

Second, the rising specter of great power competition has led to an increase in hybrid tactics across the Arctic that target democratic electoral systems, healthcare organizations, and seek to conduct influence operations. While there are differences in how both Russian, Chinese, and unidentified actors conduct these operations in the North American and European Arctic, they all share the overall increasing trend. For example, threats to subsea infrastructure have been growing across the Arctic, including the cutting of a cable from mainland Norway to Svalbard, the circling of Russian ships above a key transatlantic cable next to Ireland, the sabotage of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, and, most recently, the sabotage of the Finnish telecoms cable. 

Different Priorities 

These shared threats are, however, often prioritized differently by states across the transatlantic relationship. For example, while European Arctic states tend to focus on Russia as the primary security threat, they also tend to call for cooperation by necessity – recognizing the reality of Russian-European cooperation. Therefore, when North American states securitize Russian behavior in the Arctic, there may be very different priorities at hand. For example, they are much less likely to call for cooperation with Russia. By contrast, for North American states, China is becoming the primary threat globally; this threat is then extrapolated in Arctic policy. Fears of Chinese influence in Greenland, for example, led to an American push for Denmark to step in when China bid to construct airports in Greenland in 2019. Thus, the North American Arctic sees these threats by China as far more real than those posed by Russia. 

Given the way that northern politics in the European Arctic are articulated as extensions of European politics, security issues also tend to not fall under a transatlantic perspective. This emphasis on Arctic issues as European, rather than transatlantic, mirrors how the US focuses on Chinese threats as a global issue, rather than as a potential shared transatlantic concern. However, the placing of Arctic issues as European leads to intra-European cooperation and recently Nordic cooperation, but both lead to the same lack of cooperation across the Atlantic. This is unfortunate as North American and European Arctic states share similar security challenges in the High North. By contrast, the emphasis on human insecurity in the North American Arctic and the extrapolating of global tensions to the Arctic means that this lens of great power competition is more often than not applied to the Arctic. Thus, rather than treating the region as a space with distinct threats, realities, and drivers that are different across the region – the great power competition lens treats the Arctic as just another theatre on a global landscape. 

The Need for Coordinated Transatlantic Action on Arctic Security

Although there are naturally different priorities for both sides of the Atlantic, transatlantic cooperation could be immensely helpful for solving security challenges connected to the Arctic. First, the threats that all states in the transatlantic partnership share should be priorities. In some cases, this is already happening. For example, the European Centre of Excellence for Countering Hybrid Threats works closely with the EU and NATO, which now comprise thirty-four states, to counter threats such as those to critical infrastructure, information, cybersecurity, and societal resilience. While the Centre is not explicitly Arctic-based, much of its work involves threats in the Arctic and could in the future emphasize the transatlantic nature of these threats even further. A transatlantic perspective here could be invaluable given that there is clear evidence that both the European and North American Arctic face similar threats such as increasing cyberattacks and vulnerabilities in critical infrastructure. Sharing lessons learned and best practices could strengthen ties. Given the vulnerability of Arctic communities, transatlantic cooperation on building resilience on a community-level, as well as better understanding of hybrid threats across the region writ large, could be an operational step that builds transatlantic ties. 

Second, NATO could create an Arctic command that aims to foster discussion and integrated naval deterrence in the Arctic. Already the addition of Finland and the soon-to-be accession of Sweden will mean that seven of the eight Arctic states will be NATO members. Not only would this strengthen NATO’s capability to act in the Arctic, but challenges in the Arctic require a specific expertise that Finland and Sweden would be able to provide. An Arctic command would both increase domain awareness on separate sides of the Atlantic and a shared understanding of threats throughout, as well as build needed political consensus within the alliance on shared Arctic objectives. While NATO’s growing presence in the Arctic may provoke increasing Russian aggression, building transatlantic knowledge of how to operate in the region safely may be worth the cost. Moreover, a NATO-led effort to engage in Arctic security would engender shared messaging on threats, which could act as a stronger deterrent to both Russian and Chinese behavior in the region.  

Third, beyond a NATO command and operationally working together on shared threats, transatlantic cooperation is key for strengthening norms on shared concerns that go beyond traditional security. For example, while the seven western Arctic states do agree on climate change mitigation and adaptation alongside creating strong and durable shipping norms in the Arctic, more work could be done to explore how key pillars of the transatlantic relationship could be applied in the Arctic. Norms and principles such as strengthening democracy and human rights, upholding international law, establishing a greener agenda, and promoting further cooperation on responding to both traditional and non-traditional threats, such as health crises, should be applied not only on a global level, but should also be thought through at a regional one. 

Looking forward, first, future research should explore how organizations already created in the European or North American Arctic can accommodate a more transatlantic approach. Can these pre-existing and useful institutions include a transatlantic perspective, or should a broader transatlantic body be created that acts as an advisory body that specifically addresses this perspective? Second, the establishment of an Arctic NATO command should be explored more thoroughly. What are the trade-offs of creating a command? How would it complicate existing military schemes or how would it overcome blind spots? Third and last, what are key norms of the transatlantic relationship and should they be adapted for Arctic usage or are they globally applicable? 

Policy Recommendations 

• Identify shared threats and build consensus. Some work has already been done on this regarding hybrid threats but increased operational cooperation would strongly benefit these initiatives
• Create a NATO Arctic command to strengthen all domain awareness
• Build norms in the Arctic that draw upon key pillars of the transatlantic alliance