ARCTIC: How Greenland became a flashpoint in polar politics

Greenland has been thrown into the global spotlight, with a recent election occurring against the backdrop of Trump’s goal to acquire the territory ‘one way or another’ – Image: Evgeniy Maloletka/AP Photo/picture alliance

Donald Trump has renewed global focus on Greenland and the Arctic. Who controls this polar region, and why are power, security and resources at stake?

The Arctic Circle — and the sovereignty of its biggest island, Greenland — is back in the international geopolitical spotlight.

“We need Greenland for national security and even international security. And we’re working with everybody involved to try and get it,” US President Donald Trump said in a speech to the US Congress on March 4.

“One way or the other, we’re going to get it.”

Even on the campaign trail, Trump repeatedly called into question the sovereignty of two Arctic nations, Denmark and Canada. Not only does he want the US to acquire Greenland, a Danish territory — a prospect vocally opposed by Copenhagen and the territory’s semiautonomous government — but he has also floated the idea of Canada becoming a  US state.

And with tensions rising between other Arctic nations, particularly Russia, what used to be a cooperative relationship between countries in the region has fragmented.

Amid a scramble to shore up valuable resource reserves, are the Arctic’s relatively peaceful days soon to be a thing of the past?

Frosty diplomatic relations

Eight nations lie in the Arctic Circle: the Arctic Five — Canada, Denmark (through Greenland and the Faroe Islands), Norway, Russia and the US — are the region’s coastal states.

Finland, Sweden and Iceland have territory, but no significant shoreline.

None of these nations “owns” the Arctic. They exercise their territorial and economic rights in line with international law, as all countries do. The Arctic Five can exploit living and non-living natural resources in their Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZs): this includes fishing rights,oil and gas exploration and the ability to establish offshore renewable energy infrastructure.

These states also form the Arctic Council, an intergovernmental forum established in 1996 to foster cooperation between governments, Indigenous peoples and others living in the region. Other nations such as Germany, China and India have observer status.

The council has no regulatory powers, but is meant to serve as a platform for dialogue. Recent conflicts further south, however, particularly Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014 and full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, have seen once-cooperative scientific and diplomatic relationships in the Arctic affected by the frayed relationships between Moscow and EU, as well as NATO members in the region.

‘Great power competition’

Will Greaves, a political scientist at the University of Victoria, Canada, said these strained relations are the result of an “increase in great power competition.”

“And something of a return to the bad old days of abandoning what was a very successful project of pan-Arctic cooperation that was established after the end of the Cold War,” Greaves told DW.

Combined with its attacks on Ukraine, Greaves said Russia’s increased military activity in the Arctic resulted in “the end, effectively, of military and defense cooperation between Russia and the other Arctic [states].”

In the summer of 2024, the Russian navy conducted naval exercises in the Arctic region – Image: SNA/IMAGO

Trump’s stance on Greenland, Canada and a previous refusal to sign a 2019 council meeting communique mentioning climate change have also upset the balance between the Western bloc of Arctic nations.

Greaves argues there are now three geopolitical poles in the region: a Russia-dominated “Eurasian Arctic,” a Nordic and Scandinavian “European Arctic” and the North American Arctic with an increasingly strained Canada, US and nearby Greenland.

The expert added that, although the Arctic’s NATO states were effectively in lockstep opposition to Russia under the Biden administration, “the reality is that the Trump administration’s own foreign policy behavior, combined with its climate denialism, makes it virtually impossible for there to be a kind of consensus [between the Trump administration and Western allies].”

A region worth exploring?

In 2008, the US Geological Survey estimated that 22% of the world’s undiscovered oil and gas reserves could be found north of the Arctic Circle.

There are also major deposits of critical minerals and metals located within each Arctic nation’s territory, which they can extract. Greenland also has significant deposits, which will become easier to access due to climate-induced ice melt.

While Norway and Russia have been able to develop their Arctic offshore oil and gas, it may be harder — and therefore less lucrative — to drill into the ocean floor of the whole region.

“It’s all very traditional industrialization off the Arctic, but geographically limited. It’s not like an all-out boom everywhere, it’s more targeted,” said Malte Humpert, founder of the nonprofit think tank The Arctic Institute.

It’s also more expensive. “We know there are some resources, but we also know that resource extraction in the Arctic is comparatively expensive,” said Elana Wilson Rowe, an expert on Arctic governance at the Norwegian University of the Life Sciences.

China considers itself a near-Arctic state, if only to enhance its stake in the region. But despite some low-key investments in mining infrastructure in the region, a 2022 RAND report found the country had only limited success in extracting materials.

But China’s Arctic ambitions could benefit in another way: trade. If climate change turns the Arctic summer ice-free, new shipping routes might open up directly through the North Pole. Russia and China would benefit most from such an environmental transformation, with a more direct path to send freight between their major ports that doesn’t require hugging the Russian shoreline.

“No slowdown, no icebreaker, nothing,” said Humpert. “Climate change is altering the map and creating winners and losers. There will be economic opportunity, but there will also be challenges for Indigenous people, for local populations that already live there.”

Permafrost thaw could expose Arctic nations to severe economic, environmental and health risks – Image: MAXIM SHEMETOV/REUTERS

The climate is changing — environmentally and politically

Climate change is rapidly transforming the Arctic. Winter sea ice extent is at record lowest levels and some expect an ice-free summer could occur by 2050, given the continued rise of carbon dioxide emissions from human activity.

“There’s certainly an awareness in all of the capitals of Arctic states about how climate change is transforming the Arctic region,” said Wilson Rowe. “The retreat of sea ice is especially important and presents for coastal states some opportunities and threats.”

Annual winter maximum sea ice in 2025 was around 1.4 million square kilometers (540 million square miles) less than the 30-year median value. That’s an area of ice about the size of Mongolia that has failed to form.

While absent sea ice could open new trade routes, there are also major risks to human safety from ice loss and thawing permafrost on land. A recent study found climate-induced permafrost thaw across Russia, Europe and North America could lead to infrastructure failure, land-based transport and freight disruption, lower water quality, food security and greater exposure to disease and contaminants.

“All of these issues […] are happening against the backdrop of climate change in the Arctic that is decades and decades into this accelerated pace of warming at three to four times the global average,” said Greaves. “It’s causing a magnitude of ecological, social and economic impacts that are not well understood outside of the Arctic.”

“Geopolitics is highly relevant,” he said, “but it’s also distracting from the longer term and, in many ways, far more grave implications of climate change.”

DW.com/NAN 18-1-26

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