As Francis Fukuyama has written, “major crises have major consequences, usually unforeseen.” Nowhere is this more apparent than in the Arctic Ocean/Sea of the 21st century. Commonly viewed as a “territory of dialogue,” the Arctic has, over the past three decades, won a reputation as a “zone of peace”.
However, few places have been the source of as much speculation, hype, and broad statements as the Arctic region at the start of the twenty-first century: “Great Game of the 21st Century.” Ever since 2006/2007, a continuous narrative has portrayed the High North as the next arena for geopolitical conflict, where Russia, the United States, NATO, and China are bound to clash.
The Arctic Ocean or Sea is the smallest, shallowest, and coldest of the World’s five oceans. The “Arctic Five – Canada, Denmark, Norway, Russia and the USA” are the primary littoral nations that possess direct coastlines bordering the Arctic Ocean. These five countries hold exclusive economic rights over the EEZ up to 200 nautical miles off their shores.
Next the Arctic Council, established 35 years after Gorbachev’s initiatives via the Ottawa Declaration in 1996, consists of the eight Arctic states: Canada, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden, Russia, and the United States.
There is no territorial dispute of significance in the region; only the minuscule Hans Island remains disputed as both Canada and Denmark (Greenland) claim it. Canada and Denmark (Greenland) have a tentative final agreement on a boundary in the Lincoln Sea. The only unresolved maritime boundary dispute concerns Canada and the United States in the Beaufort Sea. Negotiations over how to delineate the extended continental shelves around the North Pole look likely to become a diplomatic row.
Should Moscow maintain dominance over this passage for decades, it will command the future of Asia-Europe trade, energy supply, and maritime logistics worth trillions of dollars. The Arctic, not just the Donbas, is the central arena of 21st-century power dynamics.
Great Game of 21st Century – Geostrategic Significance
The Arctic Sea Route—specifically the Northern Sea Route (NSR)— runs along Russia’s Arctic coastline, connecting the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans via the Bering Strait: within Russia’s exclusive economic zone. Navigating it means relying entirely on Moscow for access, permits, and transit fees through its state agency, Rosatom. This has sparked a different kind of geopolitical tension, prompting NATO to step up its northern military presence under operations like Operation Arctic Sentry.
The NSR offers distinct advantages in travel distance, speed, and safety from regional conflicts: it drastically reduces transit times between East Asia and Western Europe by up to 40%; cuts the standard voyage from roughly 21,000 kilometres down to 12,800 km; and reduces the journey from 35 days to 18-20 days. Due to conflict, many vessels bypass West Asian lanes entirely and sail around the Cape of Good Hope (Africa), adding roughly 5,000 nautical miles and extending schedules to 45–60 days.
More importantly, the Arctic route’s “security” relates to freedom from regional warfare, piracy, and active conflict zones that plague West Asian lanes. The NSR is completely isolated from Middle Eastern conflicts. There is non-existent threat from non-state actors or pirates due to extreme isolation.
In sum, the fallout of the “Great Game of the 21st century”, that is, opening the NSR, will have far-reaching fallout. The current geostrategic significance of IOR and the Gulf region, particularly the economies of littoral nations, will dramatically reduce.
In retrospect, the Arctic route introduces entirely different security and logistical risks: harsh environmental and regulatory complexities. Unlike the year-round lanes in West Asia, the Arctic is primarily a seasonal supplement. Even with melting ice, safe passage is largely restricted to the summer months. Unpredictable, rapidly shifting ice conditions require specialized, ice-classed vessels and frequent escorts by Russian nuclear icebreakers. The region also lacks robust emergency response, search-and-rescue infrastructure, and deep-water ports.
Climate Change
The ongoing climate change will likely be seen and discussed through the prisms of national security and strategic competition, rather than as a transnational threat to ward off. The Arctic Council may struggle to survive as funding dries up for its more apolitical scientific and environmental work. Going forward, the question of Arctic governance could also become a highly contested issue, especially when it comes to overlapping continental shelf claims, the regulation of Arctic waterways and the right to passage, and particularly the increasing role of non-Arctic actors in the management of regional affairs.
However, climate change makes more accessible some of world’s largest fish stocks, undiscovered oil and gas resources and an abundance of rare minerals found in only a few places on Earth, with the increasingly ice-free waters serving as a maritime transportation shortcut connecting Europe and Asia. However, the idea of ‘resource wars’ in the North has been debunked. Arctic resources, such as hydrocarbons, minerals, and fisheries, are located in the exclusive economic zones (EEZs) or territories of the Arctic littoral states.
Security Trajectory – Great Power Politics
The Arctic has risen on the world’s strategic agenda because the U.S. and Russia are already in the region, and because China has been progressively expanding its presence there. Both the USA and NATO have been lambasting both Russian and Chinese actions in the region, which represent a clear break with notions of the Arctic as a “zone of peace.”
The Arctic is critical to U.S. national security interests and the defense of the homeland. The USA must work with allies to preserve defense treaty commitments.
Also, Russia has long harbored grand designs of developing its vast Arctic coastline and extracting more of the resources found off them. As a result, many believed it would have an interest in maintaining peace and stability in the Arctic, so that it could attract foreign investment to these projects and increase cargo traffic in the Northern Sea Route. Russia has substantially increased its military assets in the region and Vladimir Putin is openly threatening war if other states cross his red lines.
Furthermore, greater Chinese presence in the Arctic is inevitable. The USA lawmakers pointed out that China’s “access to the Arctic for satellite communication ground stations and scientific research greatly expands the operational effectiveness of the PLA and furthers the PRC’s global ambitions.”
Should relations between these three superpowers continue on their current path of increasingly bellicose statements, confrontational military posturing, technological decoupling and ever more targeted sanction regimes, the prospect of greater tensions in the Arctic cannot be discounted.
Ukraine War Impact
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine signals that, as the era of multipolarity kicks in, nations with a historical sense of either grievance or entitlement—or both—may give in to the temptation of disregarding international law and using force to assert strategic red lines.
In the initial chapter of the Eastern European war, the geopolitical narrative was simple and binary: Vladimir Putin was framed as the ultimate villain, Volodymyr Zelenskyy as the lone hero, and the battle lines of global democracy clearly drawn. Yet, as the conflict drags on—with Donald Trump signalling a shift in American posture, European nations preparing their publics for long-term militarization, and leaders like Xi Jinping and Narendra Modi navigating complex neutralities—the moral framing begins to fray. The question of who is the real villain or hero misses the larger truth: morality plays are often distractions designed to keep the world focused on today’s battlefield, while the real architects shape tomorrow’s map.
Seen through this lens, the framing of Putin as a single, existential threat serves a specific structural purpose. By reducing a multi-decade resource competition down to one dictator’s moral failings, the public conversation remains fixed on regime survival rather than geographic control. The ultimate long-term strategic objective of Western policy is not merely to defend Ukraine, but to exhaust Moscow, fragment its sphere of influence, and weaken its ability to monopolize the far north.
Meanwhile, the broader machinery of global influence works quietly. Ukraine bleeds Russia’s conventional strength; NATO expands its perimeter; Europe rearms; and sanctions exert pressure on Moscow while simultaneously attempting to constrain China’s access and alter India’s strategic autonomy. America funds the Western flank, keeping Russia’s eyes locked on Europe, even as the real wealth shifts toward the polar north and the Indo-Pacific.
India-Russia Strategic Partnership – Multipolarity
This structural reality explains why India refuses to abandon its strategic partnership with Russia despite intense Western pressure. For New Delhi, this is not about endorsing a war, but about preserving balance on the Eurasian supercontinent. If Russia is completely isolated or balkanized, China becomes the sole dominant partner in Eurasia and the primary beneficiary of Arctic development—an outcome directly counter to India’s national interest. By maintaining ties, energy imports, and strategic coordination with Moscow, India ensures that Russia remains a multipolar actor rather than a client state of Beijing.
Ultimately, geopolitical power rarely aligns with simple moral labels. Leaders like Putin, Zelenskyy, Trump, Xi, and Modi operate within the cold calculus of geography, trade routes, and resource security. Ukraine may be where the war is fought today, and Putin may be the villain the narrative requires, but the Arctic is the high-stakes board hiding in plain sight. India moves quietly because it understands this underlying logic: when national interest and long-term strategic posture are at stake, the true players look past the noise and position themselves for the next hundred years.
To sum up, the stability and security of the “Arctic” is dependent on the outcomes of divergent and convergent interests of not only the Arctic Circle nations but also China, NATO, SE Asian and Asian nations.
Photo caption: Author at World’s Most Northern Station – Camp Alert in 1971
