The United States Defense Department’s new Arctic strategy acknowledges the security challenges brought to the region by climate change and shifting global alliances and aims to counter threats with new technologies and collaboration with Allies and Partners.
“The Arctic region of the United States is critical to the defense of our homeland, the protection of U.S. national sovereignty and the preservation of our defense treaty commitments,” Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen Hicks said during a briefing at the Pentagon in July 2024. “Our Arctic strategy will guide the department’s efforts to ensure that the Arctic remains a secure and stable region.”
Eight nations have a presence in the Arctic: Canada, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Russia, Sweden and the United States. Climate change and the shifts in the operating environment, Hicks said, mean the U.S. must rethink how to protect national interests and prevent conflict.
“Climate change is fundamentally altering the Arctic, and with it, geopolitics and U.S. defense missions,” Hicks said. “The readiness of our forces for those missions is always foremost on our minds, and that’s why for decades, across Republican and Democratic administrations, the department has been seeking to ensure our military capabilities can meet the mark, even in the face of a changing climate.”
The strategy adopts a “monitor and respond” approach in the region, Hicks said. “It is underpinned by robust domain awareness and intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance capabilities, cooperation with our Allies and Partners and deterrent power enabled by the agility of the joint force.”
Iris Ferguson, deputy assistant secretary of defense for arctic and global resilience, said mission enhancement includes a focus on domain awareness in the Arctic.
“We must improve our domain awareness and enhance our ability to detect and respond with our Canadian Allies to threats to the homeland,” Ferguson said. “We want to make sure that we have the right sensing architecture and the right communications architecture for command and control.”
The Arctic strategy is aligned with U.S. Defense Department’s 2022 National Security Strategy and 2022 National Strategy for the Arctic Region, and addresses security concerns along three lines of effort that Hicks called the “three E’s.”
- Enhance the Joint Force’s Arctic capabilities by investing in sensors, intelligence and information-sharing capabilities to manage risk.
- Engage with U.S. Allies and Partners, including federal, state and local authorities and Alaska Native tribes and communities to strengthen integrated deterrence and increase shared security.
- Exercise presence in the Arctic by training both independently and alongside Allies and Partners to demonstrate interoperability and credible joint capabilities while supporting homeland defense and global power projection operations.
Russia has continued to build up its military infrastructure in the Arctic and assert excessive claims over Arctic waters and is increasing collaboration with the People’s Republic of China (PRC), Hicks said. She noted that the Chinese Communist Party is operating icebreakers, maintaining a military presence and conducting funding energy extraction in the Arctic. The country has also conducted military operations with the Russian navy off the Alaskan coast.
“While not an Arctic state, the PRC seeks greater influence in the region, greater access to the region, and a greater say in its governance,” Hicks said. “That’s concerning given that it’s the only strategic competitor with the will and increasingly the wherewithal to remake the international order.”