At the start of this year, India published a draft national strategy for the Arctic. Even for a country that is closer to the equator than to the North Pole, the Arctic matters. However, in an icy region that once served as a model for post-cold war co-operation, the rivalry heating up among China, Russia and the US is cause for concern.
At times, it can seem as if almost everyone is getting in on the Arctic act. Apart from India, new or updated strategies for the region have appeared in the past three years from Canada, China, the EU, France, Germany, Norway, Poland, Russia, Sweden and the UK. In Washington, the US Air Force, Army, Coast Guard, Department of Defense, Department for Homeland Security, Marine Corps and Navy have added to the pile of strategy documents.
The striking feature of these publications is that almost all make reference to national security dimensions of Arctic policy. For example, the US Air Force said last year that it is a zone of “immense geostrategic consequence”. Jens Stoltenberg, Nato’s secretary-general, spoke in March of “the increased military presence of Russia” and an “increased Chinese presence” that were “changing the security landscape”.