The Arctic Circle is no longer a frozen tundra home to just the polar bear and Aurora Borealis. Climate change has rendered new shipping lanes navigable and resources accessible.Prolonged pauses in Arctic Council cooperation that followed Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022 has changed the way U.S.-Arctic diplomacy operates.¹ While the consensus-based cooperation of the eight Arctic states provided a forum to discuss research-related topics, the changing security environment requires developing diplomatic relationships based on common strategic interests. 

Denmark has emerged as the most strategically vital American ally in the region. Unlike the Arctic Council, which deliberately excluded security discussions and lacked a belligerent clause to manage internal stalemates, continued bilateral U.S.-Denmark partnership addresses the spectrum of challenges in the region, from lack of domain awareness to deterrence, while incorporating indigenous knowledge systems that are essential to containing Sino-Russian influence in the region.

Sino–Russian Activities in the Arctic

Russia’s Arctic strategy centers on control of the Northern Sea Route (NSR), offering reduced shipping distances between Asia and Europe compared to traditional routes through the Malacca Strait or Suez Canal.² The U.S. Geological Survey estimates that 30% of the world’s undiscovered gas and 13% of oil remain beneath Arctic waters, with China emerging as a major investor in Russia’s liquified natural gas (LNG) projects in the Kara Sea region.³ China views the NSR as critical infrastructure for its economic ambitions, financing Russian development and deepening coast guard ties. Over the past three years, military pacts have bolstered Sino-Russian presence ambitiously close to American waters. In 2023, China and Russia signed a Coast Guard cooperation agreement. A year later both Chinese and Russian bombers were detected flying together within the Alaskan Air Defense Identification Zone.⁴

China has declared the Arctic a new strategic frontier with undetermined sovereignty – language that should alarm anyone familiar with Beijing’s posturing in the South China Sea.⁵ Since gaining Arctic Council observer status in 2013, the PRC has systematically deployed its economic power to gain influence across the region. While Russia aims to increase its military footprint, China is looking to reshape regional norms to its economic advantage, promoting a “Polar Silk Road” while advancing dual-use research stations with the capacity to intercept regional signals.⁶ Chinese firms now own 30% percent of Russia’s Yamal LNG project, providing over $12 billion in financing.⁷ While Arctic energy is one of many sources needed for China’s long-term needs, Beijing has made disproportionate investments in the region to secure political influence alongside energy diversity.

American – Danish Cooperation

The U.S.-Denmark alliance is a cornerstone of Arctic defense and domain awareness. Greenland, formerly resourced by the Kingdom of Denmark, provides the U.S. with unmatched geostrategic access. Greenland’s position astride the shortest routes between North America and Europe. Its proximity to critical Arctic shipping lanes and the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) from Pituffik Space Base makes it essential for homeland defense.⁸

The alliance uniquely integrates indigenous expertise into Arctic security operations, creating capabilities that cannot be replicated through military investment alone. Indigenous “place-based knowledge systems” are epistemologies grounded in understanding natural cycles, animal behaviors, and historical patterns of geography that guide communities in demanding climatic conditions.⁹ Too far from the equator to orbit properly, geostationary satellites provide incomplete mapping of changing ice gaps and glacial conditions including deep, fragile snow coverage limits where vehicles can operate and sub-zero temperatures create constant cold weather injury risks. Co-managed conservation initiatives led by indigenous communities have allowed NORAD to explore Arctic terrain beyond traditional military capabilities.¹⁰

In Greenland, Danish Special Operations command work with indigenous tribes to coordinate Dog Sled Patrols in mountainous terrain while subsistence hunters serve as experts on the coasts. In both Greenland and Canada, local tribes have perfected manual strategies to traverse roadless lands and enable movement without infrastructure.¹¹ These evolving knowledge systems cannot be replicated through technology or acquired quickly by outside powers, offering advantages in domain awareness and operational capability.

Alliance over Annexation

Recent discussions by the Trump administration about purchasing or otherwise acquiring Greenland by force fundamentally misunderstand the nature of Arctic security challenges and would undermine America’s most important strategic advantages in the region.¹² Forcibly pursuing Greenland would eliminate Denmark as an effective NATO partner when allied cooperation has become most critical. The collapse of the Arctic Council’s decision-making power following the termination of Russian membership has made the construction of bilateral and multilateral partnerships among Arctic allies more important than ever. Rather than pursuing territorial expansion, U.S. strategy should focus on burden-sharing, allowing America to demilitarize commitments in Europe while relying on allies to fill critical knowledge and capability gaps.¹³

A move to annex Greenland would hand Russia and China an enormous propaganda victory while undermining the rules-based international order that the U.S. claims to defend. Criticisms of Russia’s expansive interpretations of UNCLOS Article 234 for its ongoing operations rest on principles of territorial sovereignty and international law.¹⁴ Pursuing Greenland’s annexation validates the kind of territorial aggression that enabled Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea.¹⁵ The U.S. would become an imperial power no different from the authoritarian regimes it opposes.

Taking a diplomacy-first approach requires necessary steps towards a framework for U.S. Arctic security that limits increased military presence. Maintaining these alliances, especially with European nations like Denmark, requires diplomacy that recognizes shared interests amidst diverging values. American Arctic strategy should not be centered on primacy but instead on access, knowledge, and partnership. The U.S. has appropriately identified the Arctic as a region of strategic importance; however, enduring engagement requires cooperating with European allies on the basis of strategic interest over nationalistic whims with ill-defined ends.¹⁶

In the near term, the U.S. ought to increase diplomatic relations directly in Greenland and Denmark by furthering trilateral ministerial dialogues outside of the consensus-based Arctic Council. Coordinating further with the indigenous communities of Greenland through a renewed Defense Cooperation Agreement will also offer better understanding of changing regional domains. Technical assistance programs that integrate indigenous knowledge systems with Western scientific research – particularly on permafrost monitoring, maritime domain awareness, and sustainable development – should be bolstered to build trust while addressing common challenges. In an era of great power competition, America’s greatest asset remains its ability to build coalitions – a capability that a forced acquisition or annexation of Greenland would irreparably damage. The ultimate tradeoff is not between strength and diplomacy, but between strategic advantage or a self-defeating overreach.

Work Cited

1. Serafima Andreeva and Svein Vigeland Rottem, “How and Why the Arctic Council Survived Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine,” Jordan Russia Center, January 30, 2025, https://jordanrussiacenter.org/blog/how-and-why-the-arctic-council-survived-russias-invasion-of-ukraine.

2. Elena Rovenskaya et al., “Future Scenarios of Commercial Freight Shipping in the Euro-Asian Arctic,” Futures 163 (October 2024): 103446, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.futures.2024.103446.

3. Donald L. Gautier et al., “Assessment of Undiscovered Oil and Gas in the Arctic,” Science 324, no. 5931 (May 29, 2009): 1175–79, https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1169467.

4. Stephanie Pezard and Abbie Tingstad, “Is the Polar Silk Road a Highway or Is It at an Impasse? China’s Arctic Policy Seven Years On,” RAND Corporation, February 6, 2025, https://www.rand.org/pubs/commentary/2025/02/is-the-polar-silk-road-a-highway-or-is-it-at-an-impasse.html.

5. Matti Puranen and Sanna Kopra, “China’s Arctic Strategy – A Comprehensive Approach in Times of Great Power Rivalry,” Scandinavian Journal of Military Studies 6, no. 1 (2023): 239–53, https://doi.org/10.31374/sjms.196.

6. Puranen and Kopra, “China’s Arctic Strategy,” 239–53.

7. “China Lenders Provide $12 BLN Loan for Russia’s Yamal LNG Project-Sources,” Reuters, April 28, 2016, https://www.reuters.com/article/markets/commodities/china-lenders-provide-12-bln-loan-for-russias-yamal-lng-project-sources-idUSL2N17V2MI/.

8. US Department of Defense, 2024 Department of Defense Arctic Strategy (Washington, DC: Department of Defense, June 21, 2024), https://media.defense.gov/2024/Jul/22/2003507411/-1/-1/0/DOD-ARCTIC-STRATEGY-2024.PDF.

9. Stanford Zent, Indigenous Knowledge, Local Knowledge, and Climate Change: Interconnections for Policy and Practice (Washington, DC: World Bank, July 23, 2025), https://doi.org/10.1596/43486.

10. White House, National Strategy for the Arctic Region (Washington, DC: White House, October 2022), https://bidenwhitehouse.archives.gov/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/National-Strategy-for-the-Arctic-Region.pdf.

11. James Morton and Ryan Burke, “Special Operations Forces and Arctic Indigenous People: Partnering to Defend the North America,” Journal of Indo-Pacific Affairs, Air University, October 3, 2022, https://www.airuniversity.af.edu/JIPA/Display/Article/3171534/special-operations-forces-and-arctic-indigenous-people-partnering-to-defend-the/.

12. Philipp Jenne, “Denmark Leads an Exercise in Greenland, with Russia in Mind at a Time of Tensions with the US,” Associated Press, September 16, 2025, https://apnews.com/article/greenland-nato-denmark-military-exercise-arctic-light-0381ce273ab52224c0ccf660bcb16082.

13. Pavel Devyatkin, “Did the Alaska Summit Usher in a New Ice Age?,” Responsible Statecraft, August 22, 2025, https://responsiblestatecraft.org/trump-putin-arctic/.

14. Congressional Research Service, “Changes in the Arctic: Background and Issues for Congress,” Congress.gov, July 14, 2025, https://www.congress.gov/crs-product/R41153.

15. Congressional Research Service, “Changes in the Arctic.”

16. Office of the Director of National Intelligence, 2025 Annual Threat Assessment of the U.S. Intelligence Community (Washington, DC: ODNI, March 25, 2025), https://www.dni.gov/files/ODNI/documents/assessments/ATA-2025-Unclassified-Report.pdf.