The Arctic Council in the Shadow of Geopolitics

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This is the gavel used by the Chair of Senior Arctic Officials at Arctic Council meetings. In 2025, Norway will pass the Arctic Council gavel on to the Kingdom of Denmark and two years later Sweden will be next in line. Photo: Arctic Council

On 12 May, Denmark, Greenland and the Faroe Islands took over the Arctic Council chairship. This happened at a session in Tromsø, where the outgoing Norwegian chairship symbolically handed over a gavel to the new chairship. With the gavel comes an extraordinary responsibility to ensure the council’s survival in a historically difficult time, when geopolitical tensions cast long shadows over regional cooperation.

Geopolitical shadows from East and West

Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 had a seismic effect on Arctic Council cooperation: The seven other member states decided to put their work in the Arctic Council on pause, and in the aftermath, Russia chose to withdraw from the Barents Euro-Arctic Council while threatening to do the same in the Arctic Council.

Since the pause in March 2022, cooperation has gradually been restarted: first in June 2022, when the working group projects without Russian participation – approximately 70 out of 140 – were resumed, and subsequently under the Norwegian chairship, when there has been a steady increase – though still limited – of interactions at the official level as well as the resumption of more substantial cooperation in the six working groups.

The new regional realities have also changed Russia’s approach to China’s Arctic ambitions. Whereas Moscow was previously skeptical about welcoming Beijing into Arctic governance, it is now more open and approachable. We have seen this concretely in increased economic cooperation, remarkable coast guard cooperation and joint statements from Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin about wanting to strengthen cooperation in the Arctic.

If we look to the west, there are also dark clouds on the horizon, which portend another challenge for the Arctic Council: Donald Trump’s USA. During President Trump’s first term, we saw how then-Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, spoke harshly against China and Russia, and did not share the other member states’ view that human activities are the main driver behind climate change and pose an existential threat. This resulted in the Finnish chairship failing to conclude a joint declaration in 2019, which was the first time in the history of the Arctic Council.

Donald Trump’s persistent interest in Greenland may also prove to be a serious challenge for the chairship during the next two years. While the threat, on the one hand, may bring Denmark, Greenland and the Faroe Islands closer together, there is also an increased risk of American attempts to create discord in the realm. Thus, Denmark, Greenland and the Faroe Islands are under a historically high cross-pressure, which transforms the chairship from being a big task to an enormous one.

The need for increased council activity

Norway’s chairship in 2023-2025 has managed to balance the situation and keep the council alive by gradually ramping up its activities. For the Danish, Greenlandic and Faroese chairship to be a success, it would be wise to continue on the same path with steadily increasing activity to ensure that the council’s pulse continues to beat. However, the fact that the threat now both comes from the east and the west makes the balancing act historically difficult.

One opportunity for increasing activity is to further enhance the focus on the rights of Indigenous peoples in the Arctic – which the new chairship program, indeed, prioritizes – in order to strengthen regional cooperation without necessarily having to compromise on condemning Russia. If the situation allows, something as ambitious as a binding agreement on increased protection of Indigenous peoples’ rights in the Arctic would be worth striving for, similar to the council’s three existing agreements on aeronautical and maritime search and rescue (2011), marine oil pollution preparedness and response (2013), and enhancing international Arctic scientific cooperation (2017).

It may not sound like something Trump would want a stake in, but there is a chance that the Arctic Council does not have his attention whatsoever due to its limited activity – and because there are plenty of other things that keep him occupied. If that is the case, it may actually prove to be an advantage for the Arctic Council, which under normal circumstances would otherwise strengthen its relevance if meetings were prioritized by the highest political level. However, its current fragile existence and the crucial challenges make increased activity and regional consensus the overriding success criteria. In this light, it may be beneficial if State Secretary Marco Rubio is not at the table.

The chairship’s level of ambition is therefore closely linked to how relations with Russia in the east and the US in the west unfold in the coming period, and here it is extra important that the other member states stand together. Only in this way can we ensure that the Arctic Council continues to exist so that regional environmental problems and sustainable development are not overshadowed by military rumble and great power competition.

Have Nuuk, Copenhagen and Tórshavn buried the hatchet?

Whereas Russia’s role has been a ubiquitous topic in the Arctic political discourse, the internal dynamics between Denmark, Greenland and the Faroe Islands have also played a major role in the debate about their common chairship.

Two topics have especially influenced this debate: First, there has been disagreement between Tórshavn and Nuuk about whether the Faroe Islands’ self-characterization as ‘an Arctic people’ is an indirect attack on Greenland’s national identity and privileged negotiating position in the Arctic. Second, Greenland has actively used the fact that Denmark’s status as an Arctic state depends on Greenland’s geographical location and membership of the Realm to expand its foreign policy room for manoeuvre. With this in mind, Greenland’s leading diplomats have long worked for Greenland to be the lead dog in the joint delegation to the Arctic Council.

Their work eventually resulted in a new agreement ensuring that the Kingdom of Denmark’s Arctic Ambassador is now the Greenlandic career diplomat, Kenneth Høegh, who comes directly from a position as Head of Greenland’s representation in Washington D.C. During the two-year chairship, Høegh will have offices in both Nuuk and Copenhagen, while he will be chair of the eight national Senior Arctic Officials (SAO). The Faroe Islands’ Gunvør Balle is vice chair, while Denmark’s Torsten Kjølby Nielsen is the Kingdom of Denmark’s national Senior Arctic Official.

After many years of tug-of-war, it now seems that Denmark, Greenland and the Faroe Islands have buried the hatchet regarding the division of roles during the chairship, with Greenland now occupying a very prominent role. This is important both in the short term – where they must ensure a successful chairship – and in the long term, where it is about the overarching mission of making sure that the Arctic Council survives.

Three reasons why the Arctic Council must survive

There are many good reasons why the Arctic Council should survive. Here we will highlight three:

First, the involvement of Indigenous peoples as permanent participants in the council is unique in an international context. They do not have direct decision-making authority, but they are at the table and provide input – and are heard – when decisions are made. If the Arctic Council does not survive, this unique construct will fall apart, which will create a major challenge for Arctic Indigenous peoples, who are unlikely to gain the same kind of influence in another regional forum.

Second, the Arctic Council’s working groups are a unique construct: Over three decades, scientists and officials have accumulated knowledge that has been incorporated into national administration and international convention work. This work has thus helped to make the rest of the world aware of the enormous climatic and environmental challenges that are extraordinarily noticeable in the Arctic, well exemplified by the average regional temperature increase which is about three times higher than the global average. Thus, the scientific work under the auspices of the Arctic Council is not only important for the region, but for the globe at large. If the Arctic Council does not survive the current crisis, these essential networks will likely collapse, and they cannot be rebuilt overnight.

The third, and related, reason is that the Arctic states and the other actors of the Council face major transboundary challenges that are best solved jointly. Be it biodiversity issues, the spread of diseases and environmental problems; the risk of the latter is only increasing in step with the heightened activities in the region.

Our inevitable shared fate in the North

At the moment, it is of course politically and morally difficult to cooperate with Russia, while the Trump administration’s approach to Greenland – and the Arctic experiences from his first presidential term – ​​provide negative evidence of ​​what further consequences this could have for regional cooperation.

The Arctic Council is in a historically difficult situation, marked by geopolitical shadows from both the East and the West. An extraordinary responsibility therefore rests on the other Arctic states – led by the new chairship – to ensure that they together address our inevitable shared fate in the North. If successful, the Arctic Council could emerge stronger on the other side.

This is a condensed, rewritten and translated version of an article in Danish, published as an introduction to a special issue about the Arctic Council. The special issue is open access via the webpage of the journal Internasjonal Politikk.

Marc Jacobsen is an Associate Professor at the Royal Danish Defence College’s Centre for Arctic Security Studies where he researches security politics and diplomacy in the Arctic. Marc was also a Member – in various positions – of The Arctic Institute between 2013 and 2020. He recently co-edited the book ‘Greenland in Arctic Security’ which is available via open access here. Svein Vigeland Rottem is a Senior Researcher at Fridtjof Nansen Institute where he researches Arctic politics and the Arctic Council. He has published a number of peer reviewed articles and books on these issues. He has also organized several events at conferences like Arctic Circle and Arctic Frontiers.