Arctic shipping routes are expanding as polar ice recedes, turning the High North into a new arena of strategic rivalry. Writer Rana Foroohar, who traveled aboard the U.S. Coast Guard icebreaker USS Healy, says that sailing across the North Pole, once a remote prospect, is edging toward feasibility for a brief window each year.
Foroohar notes that vessels using Arctic passages can cut transit time between the Atlantic and Pacific by as much as 40 percent, a savings that grows with higher fuel prices. She says China and Russia are moving to assert influence at the top of the world as traffic increases.
In her book, Sea Change: America’s New Great Game in the Arctic Circle, Foroohar argues the region could become as pivotal for global commerce as the Suez or Panama canals. She points to sizable reserves of oil, natural gas and rare earth minerals beneath the seabed, as well as vital undersea cables that carry a significant share of international data.
Undersea infrastructure has become an emerging flashpoint, Foroohar says. Nations and firms are racing to install new cables, while weighing how to commercialize and potentially militarize the waters where they lie.
She describes the Arctic as one of the last places where governments and corporations can still pursue new territory and contest rivals, predicting rising tensions as warming continues.
In her view, more trade and greater military interest are all but certain in an area she describes as being in America’s backyard. She expects the High North to command higher priority for U.S. policymakers in the years ahead.
Interview highlights
On increased international interest in the Arctic
Foroohar says China and Russia are aligning their interests in the region, a trend that intersects with a U.S. focus on protecting areas close to home. That dynamic, she says, brings Washington and Beijing into closer geographic competition, even if direct conflict is not desired.
On the debate over rights to resources in international waters
Maritime activities in the Arctic fall under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, which sets rules for mining and resource claims. The United States has never ratified the treaty, despite support from several presidents, due to opposition from key Republican senators who objected to ceding authority to an international body. Foroohar says the lack of U.S. participation, combined with uneven adherence to U.N. rules by Russia and China, leaves a more uncertain contest over who gets what.
On how Arctic power struggles reflect a wider shift
Foroohar situates the contest in a broader move away from globalized norms toward regional blocs and spheres of influence. She says disputes over territory, minerals and ports seen in the Arctic echo similar frictions in Latin America, West Africa and the South China Sea.
She also highlights the prospect of a transpolar route. While currently navigable for only a short period, she says that window could expand to several months within a decade or two if warming persists, raising questions over who will control the passage.
On being aboard an Arctic icebreaker
Foroohar recalls the tactile experience of the Healy plowing through pack ice, describing the escalating sounds and vibrations below deck that underline the hazards of operating in such extreme conditions.
On the region’s changing climate
She says scientists aboard the mission later reviewed data indicating the Arctic is warming and transforming, with implications for marine ecosystems, wind and wave patterns, and even events far to the south. She connects those shifts to broader impacts such as severe Canadian boreal forest fires affecting air quality as far away as New York City.
The interview was produced for broadcast and adapted for the web by the cited team.
Arctic shipping routes and strategic stakes
As Arctic waters open, the interplay of faster trade lanes, seabed resources and critical communications infrastructure is intensifying geopolitical competition. Foroohar argues that how states manage these changes will shape security and commerce in the decades ahead.