Tag: Arctic

Why America Is Losing The Secret War For The Arctic | View From Above

Posted on by Lone Candle

Russia and China are building out their military reach and facilities in the Arctic. They are close to Alaska, and the US is behind.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hFCS2HwInU8

The Greenland Crisis – The Arctic, Alliances & A U.S. Strategic Folly

Posted on by Lone Candle

What the US needs in Greenland is access. The US already had that and any additional access could have been negotiated for without threatening war.

Countries like Denmark and the US have already agreed to not solve differences between them with force. The US breaking that by threatening war to take territory from Denmark is a huge violation that damages American soft power.

Trump claimed that Denmark has a weak claim to Greenland because all they did is send some boats there and the US did this too. This is false or misleading because the Danes colonized Greenland before the US existed. It also further violates norms and damages relations with many countries because the US is breaking agreements it has made in the past where it acknowledged Danish control over Greenland.

Other countries know that if the US uses force, or the threat of force, to steal territory from Denmark, the US may do it to them.

The US has claimed that because Greenland can’t defend itself, the US has the right to take it. Under that logic, any stronger country can conquer many weaker countries because a lot of weak countries cannot defend themselves against stronger countries, and having that territory would give the stronger country a more forward defense against other strong countries.

For a long time, the US has dealt with this problem by having weaker countries band together in some sort of treaty organization so that they can help each other defend against a strong country and not need to invade each other for the sake of defending themselves against the bigger country.

Russia and China are not a short term threat to Greenland. Getting to Greenland with a large force would be very hard and require supply chains by US, and European territory. The US didn’t seem to see Greenland as a short term concern because the US voluntarily pulled out most of its troops and equipment and kept most of them gone.

The US also already had commercial access to Greenland, and could negotiate for mining without threatening war.

Using hard power is expensive, unreliable, and often only working while you are still willing and able to use it. Soft power can create more long run influence.

The Trump administration and Republican Congressmen have been dismissive of American allies to the point of being offensively insulting and lying about these countries and their people.

Trump is just as aggressive toward good allies as bad allies. Targeting good allies who have been good and loyal, makes those countries less likely to support you in the future.

The European allies are democracies, and the European peoples do not like Trump threatening to use military force to steal territory from a European country. This will not help get pro-American leaders elected in European countries.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mx0W0FuKg18

Trump’s Greenland Gambit Has Broken Brains Across Washington

Posted on by Lone Candle

“Washington already has tremendous access to Greenland under past agreements with Denmark; U.S. troops already operate in Greenland and Washington can send more. Trump’s demand that Denmark grant the territory to the U.S. is a body blow to U.S. relations with its European allies. It also hurts NATO, a military alliance that includes the U.S. and Denmark — and which would defend Greenland should an adversarial power threaten it.”

https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2026/01/21/mag-toosi-greenland-00740006

Trump hammers NATO allies while Greenland crisis deepens

Posted on by Lone Candle

“”I DOUBT NATO WOULD BE THERE FOR US IF WE REALLY NEEDED THEM,” Trump blasted on Truth Social, while insisting the U.S. would still defend alliance members. “We will always be there for NATO, even if they won’t be there for us.”

Under Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty, NATO’s collective defense clause, an attack on one member of the alliance is considered an attack on all. The provision has been formally invoked only once — in response to al-Qaida’s 9/11 terror attack against the U.S.”

https://www.politico.eu/article/us-donald-trump-nato-allies-greenland-crisis-deepens/

A Battle for the Arctic Is Underway. And the U.S. Is Already Behind.

Posted on by Lone Candle

“In January, when an undersea telecommunications cable connecting this far-flung Arctic archipelago to mainland Norway and the rest of Europe was damaged, Norwegian officials called to port the only fishing vessel for miles, a Russian trawler. Police in the northern city of Tromsø interviewed the crew and carried out an investigation into the incident, which was seen as a major threat to the security of Norway and other nations, including the United States. Had there not been a back-up cable, the damage would have severed internet to the world’s largest satellite relay, one that connects the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), NASA and other government agencies from around the world to real-time space surveillance.
The investigation’s findings were inconclusive, if worrisome. Something “man-made” had damaged the cable, but Norwegian police could not prove the Russian fishing vessel was responsible, authorities told me. The police allowed the fishing boat crew to return to their ship and set back out to sea.”

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“today, this Arctic desert is rapidly becoming the center of a new conflict. The vast sea ice that covers the Arctic Ocean is melting rapidly due to climate change, losing 13 percent per decade — a rate that experts say could make the Arctic ice-free in the summer as soon as 2035. Already, the thaw has created new shipping lanes, opened existing seasonal lanes for more of the year and provided more opportunities for natural resource extraction. Nations are now vying for military and commercial control over this newly accessible territory — competition that has only gotten more intense since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.”

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“For the past two decades, Russia has been dominating this fight for the Arctic, building up its fleet of nuclear-capable icebreakers, ships and submarines, developing more mining and oil well operations along its 15,000 miles of Arctic coastline, racing to capture control of the new “Northern Sea Route” or “Transpolar Sea Route” which could begin to open up by 2035, and courting non-Arctic nations to help fund those endeavors.

At the same time, America is playing catch-up in a climate where it has little experience and capabilities. The U.S. government and military seems to be awakening to the threats of climate change and Russian dominance of the Arctic — recently issuing a National Strategy for the Arctic Region and a report on how climate change impacts American military bases, opening a consulate in Nuuk, Greenland, and appointing this year an ambassador-at-large for the Arctic region within the State Department and a deputy assistant secretary of defense for Arctic and Global Resilience. America’s European allies, too, have been rethinking homeland security, increasing national defense budgets and security around critical energy infrastructure in the Arctic as they aim to boost their defense capabilities and rely less on American assistance.

But 17 Arctic watchers — including Norwegian diplomats, State Department analysts and national security experts focusing on the Arctic — said they fear that the U.S. and Europe won’t be able to maintain a grip on the region’s energy resources and diplomacy as Russia places more civilian and military infrastructure across the Arctic, threatening the economic development and national security of the seven other nations whose sovereign land sits within the Arctic Circle.”

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“In Norway’s High North, a term used to describe the Norwegian Arctic territories, no fewer than seven Russian citizens have been detained over the last few months for flying drones, prohibited under the same bans for Russian airlines in European airspace. The drones were discovered flying near areas of critical infrastructure. One of those arrested in October was Andrey Yakunin, 47, the son of Vladimir Yakunin, the former president of Russian Railways and an ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin who was sanctioned by the State Department after Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014.”

The Arctic Is Becoming Wetter and Stormier, Scientists Warn

Posted on by Lone Candle

“Even though 2022 was only the Arctic’s sixth warmest year on record, researchers saw plenty of new signs this year of how the region is changing.
A September heat wave in Greenland, for instance, caused the most severe melting of the island’s ice sheet for that time of the year in over four decades of continuous satellite monitoring. In 2021, an August heat wave had caused it to rain at the ice sheet’s summit for the first time.”

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“Warming at the top of the Earth raises sea levels worldwide, changes the way heat and water circulate in the oceans, and might even influence extreme weather events like heat waves and rainstorms, scientists say. But Arctic communities feel the impacts first.”

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“Between October 2021 and September, air temperatures above Arctic lands were the sixth warmest since 1900, the report card said, noting that the seven warmest years have been the last seven. Rising temperatures have helped plants, shrubs and grasses grow in parts of the Arctic tundra, and 2022 saw levels of green vegetation that were the fourth highest since 2000”

Why the record low Arctic sea ice this October is so alarming

Posted on by Lone Candle

“Changes in the ice are part of a larger “cascade effect,” as Webster describes it, in which delayed winter ice growth leads to thinner ice, which melts more easily in the summer months compared to older, thicker sea ice. This creates more open ocean.

This transformation contributes to both regional and global warming. Where a white sea ice surface would have reflected sunlight, the dark water absorbs heat, which further reduces ice growth. This change in albedo (or reflectivity) on sea and land in the Arctic is one of the main reasons the region is heating at twice the global average rate, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s 2019 Arctic Report Card. According to the recent Nature Communications study, it will also be a significant contributor to global warming.

Near Greenland — which holds a massive ice sheet — the warming loop set off by sea ice loss has a minor effect on its warming, but not a substantial effect on the ice sheet itself, researchers found in a 2019 study in Geophysical Research Letters.

The sea ice shift could also impact seasonal weather, potentially intensifying extreme weather. However, Labe says the issue requires further research. “Scientists are actively studying the connections between Arctic sea ice loss and wintertime weather patterns in North America, Europe, and Asia,” he said. “However, these relationships remain highly uncertain in the scientific literature and for seasonal weather forecasts.”

For now, the plummeting sea ice volumes are a startling reminder of just how rapidly the planet is changing, and how dire the consequences of delaying radical cuts in greenhouse gas emissions will be.”