Is it possible for ideas to freeze, to chip, to settle in a snowbank, to blow away in a winter storm? Can ideas be ice? Today, the Arctic is a battleground of competing philosophies; ways to live, to govern, and to relate to others, all struggling to find their footing amongst the shifting tundra. As great power competition grips the region, it’s tempting to see a set of competing ideologies between Russia’s investment in strategic military positioning, the Chinese enthusiasm over rare earth minerals and shipping routes, or the American mixture of both. Yet, at the heart of these interests lie more similarities than differences. In reality, the Arctic should not be characterized as Russia and China vs. the U.S. or economic grasp vs. military expansion; it is simultaneously more subtle and simple than that. What we find at the root of Arctic change is the values of competition vs. cooperation.
The Arctic Circle has not always been a space dictated by global power politics; on the contrary, it has historically been an area of unprecedented cooperation and multilateralism. While many like to think of the International Space Station or the Olympics as the last vestiges of global solidarity, the Arctic has always been an outpost of diplomacy and community. Once a treacherous region to explore, the Arctic was mapped as terra incognita, or unknown land, and it took decades of joint effort between Indigenous peoples and scientists from all corners of the globe to begin documenting the environment. During this time, nations bonded through treaties and multilateral organizations, prioritizing the ability to communicate with each other.
Decades ago, Arctic expansion was unprofitable, making national self-interests secondary to the harsh environment, and the only feasible Arctic exploration required communication with Indigenous peoples. These conditions allowed multilateral cooperation to naturally unfold. Yet, as Arctic sea ice began to melt, the region’s accessibility exponentially increased, and so did its price tag. All of the natural resources, shipping routes, and military outposts of interest today have only become graspable in recent years. So, as the Arctic’s foundation as an unknown territory, not worth more than general scientific inquiry, faded into the past, nations have increasingly moved away from diplomacy and towards domination.
Here we find the ground for the divergent philosophies of competition and cooperation. At the most basic level of our human nature, we have a binary choice to prioritize self-actualization through these two systems. So, even if ideology was not the nascent fuel driving Arctic governance, it is at least an outgrowth of how states are motivated to survive.
The competitive spirit of the most powerful countries in the Arctic is constantly on display. Trump has been aggressively eyeing territorial expansion as he volleys threats toward Greenland. Additionally, we have already increased our economic zone of influence by claiming territory, the size of two Californias, in international waters. Under UN law, every country is entitled to a “Special Economic Zone” off its coasts, defined by continental shelves along the sea floor. By using geological surveys, the Trump administration successfully mobilized scientific work in the Arctic to support expansion. Russia’s actions are more grounded as each year they extend their Arctic infrastructure, mainly in the form of military bases. While China has published its own policy plans for the Arctic titled the “Polar Silk Road,” looking to capitalize on the trade routes opening up as ice recedes.
Most importantly, this competitive spirit undermines the Arctic’s multilateral institutions, which are the final hope for solidarity. For example, the Arctic Council, the predominant multigovernmental organization in the region, has been pushed to irrelevance as its eight member states allow geopolitics to creep north. After Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, they were demoted in Arctic Council leadership, a move that shut down many lines of communication. Nations have gradually turned inwards and now make decisions based on transactional relationships rather than collective ones.
While it is clear that the international community has largely left cooperation behind, there is still one consistent advocate left in the region: Indigenous peoples. If most nation-states have an ideological trend towards survival based on competition, Arctic cooperation representing an important outlier case, then we can view Indigenous survival ideology as the opposite. While equally nuanced, as Native communities sometimes seek expansion and competition, their normal trend is towards cooperation. If we now turn to the Indigenous philosophy, it will be clear why their approach has no room within the normative framework of geopolitics.
Native peoples view the land as constantly in flux, as a living space, not one to be defined as a set territory. For centuries, Indigenous maps have made this possible in countless ways, like focusing on the ambiguity of a coastline or the non-separation between land and water. While soft boundaries have no place in Cartesian-based maps, if we imagine what the Arctic must feel like, we find sea ice pushed by currents, polar storms shifting snowbanks, and the seasonal melting and refreezing of glaciers. All of this moving, growing, destroying, pulsing land is never fixed, and it becomes clear why a flexible definition of coastline is not only reasonable but realistic. Yet, as Western Arctic cartography moved away from the terra incognita view and towards the rigidly defined borders required for resource extraction and military posturing, the Indigenous philosophy was rendered incompatible.
Beyond an abstract conception of land, Indigenous peoples hardly fit within the modern map context. The Saami and Chuchik are divided between Russia, Norway, and the U.S., with constant movement between the nations. After all, seals and reindeer don’t regularly obey national borders, and if your survival depends on them, you move with them. While the Arctic was in a time of cooperation, this semi-nomadic system was a great asset to scientists and white explorers; today, it is just a nuisance to nations that measure power through territorial sovereignty and control.
Critically, the Indigenous land philosophy connects to cooperation further through economics. Indigenous peoples all across North America, including the Inuit of the Arctic, have operated mainly on gift economies. These systems are built on resource sharing, centered on the view that humans do not own the environment. Rather, ecosystems are interconnected, a relationship that is non-transactional and requires respect. For example, if any part of an animal is wasted after a hunt, then the land will cease to provide you with benefits. This is a philosophy of motion, a recognition that the Earth is not something that can be controlled, and therefore it is not something you can sell or buy. It is something you can only accept when offered and can only be distributed through further gift giving. If a Special Economic Zone defined by a border on the seafloor is not consistent with Indigenous philosophy, nor is the sale of natural resources plundered from the Earth.
Crucially, the Indigenous beliefs are passed down through families, with parents teaching their children the tradition. This means that their land philosophy is not taught through a book; it is learned on the hunt, in the land, and around the ice; it is a living, breathing understanding. This means that a final vanguard of cooperative politics within the international community is not abstract; it is literally anchored in the Arctic snow. As competition physically chips away at ice through increased emissions, we are watching an idea slip into the sea. As Russian nuclear-powered icebreakers plow through the land to make a straight line on a map that we call a trade route, an ideology is rupturing.As a citizen of the world, if you are at all concerned with any direction you see humanity moving in, be it climate change, war, A.I. development, poverty, etc., and you can feasibly connect that issue to the philosophy of competition, this trend in the Arctic should be incredibly concerning. Not because cooperation is always the answer, or that saying “cooperation” explains an entire policy plan outfitted with logistics and practical concerns. But, just in case cooperation is the foundation for solving a major issue, we must retain the ability to conceptualize it. Today, as the Arctic Circle heats four times faster than the rest of the world, and as Indigenous sovereignty is at risk, we are in the process of melting an idea away.
Featured Image Source: Peter Prokosch