This map shows the exclusive economic zones (EEZs) within the Arctic: Canada (purple), Greenland (orange), Iceland (green), Norway (turquoise), Russia (light blue), and USA (dark blue).
Credit: DeRepentigny et al., 2020

The Indo-Pacific Defense Forum has a post which somewhat surprisingly talks about NATO concerns about the Arctic. I presume this is as a result of the recently concluded Shangri-La Dialog at which both the UK and Germany discussed future naval deployments to the Pacific. Canada pledged to increase its naval presence in the Pacific. Japan and S. Korea said they would put aside their differences and work more closely together. China also told “others” they should mind their own business and stay out of China’s backyard, defending their harassment of Western miliary units in the South China Sea.

We live in an interconnected world, and it appears the Arctic Ocean will become an important new connection between Europe and Asia. China, Russia, and Europe are particularly concerned about shaping the connection to their advantage and what that will mean in the long run is not yet clear.

An Arctic route could provide the US with an alternative to the Panama Canal for movement between the Atlantic and Pacific, but the US probably will not benefit as much from the opening of the Arctic Ocean as the Asians and Europeans. On the other hand, any traffic using the Arctic to pass between the Atlantic and Pacific will have to pass within about 32 nautical miles of the US at the Bering Strait and within less than 300 nautical miles of a US Aleutian Island. This puts the US in a good position to regulate any traffic using the Arctic for passage between the Atlantic and Pacific should we choose to do so.

The Indo-Pacific Forum post does not say much we have not heard before, but it did mention that the Chinese have, “…plans to build the world’s biggest icebreaker vessel.” Given the size of existing Russian nuclear powered icebreakers, that is going to be a very large ship.

There is a good possibility that Russian and Chinese aims in the Arctic may be in conflict. The Chinese are likely to want to transit the Arctic free of charge. The Russians will want them to pay for the privilege. The Chinese will want access to the resources of the Arctic while the Russians consider most of the Arctic to be Russian EEZ or continental shelf.

We have gotten along with the Russians pretty well in the Arctic, but we may be seeing an end to the Arctic as a zone of peace. Still, I don’t think the conflict will be between the US and Russia.

We should not forget that we may see that very large Chinese icebreaker in Antarctica.