Polar Geopolitics - Arctic and Antarctic analysis

Perceptions of massive economic opportunity have propelled Arctic geopolitics for almost two decades, and the late Scott Minerd estimated the region required over $1 trillion in infrastrucutre investments to realize its full potential. On this episode, Mads Qvist Frederiksen, executive director of the Arctic Economic Council, discusses the Arctic’s business environment, the array of opportunities and challenges faced by would-be st...

Greenland has for good reason gotten most of the attention, but what other emerging trends can be seen in US interest and activities towards the Arctic and Antarctic during the current Trump administration? On this episode, Evan Bloom, a former senior diplomat who for over two decades helped shape American polar policies at the State Department, discusses concerns over funding cuts for polar science, proposed US investments in iceb...

The United States, due in large part to Donald Trump’s renewed ambition to acquire Greenland, has this year dominated discussions on Arctic geopolitics. A timely new book, America in the Arctic: Foreign Policy and Competition in the Melting North (Columbia University Press 2025), analyses the long-term evolution of U.S. Arctic engagement across an array of issue areas. The book’s author Mary Thompson-Jones, a retired diplomat with ...

In the wake of the recent 47th Antarctic Treaty Consultative Meeting in Milan, Alan Hemmings, Adjunct Professor at Gateway Antarctica at the University of Canterbury in Christchurch and veteran of many a ATCM, joins the podcast to provide a comprehensive, somewhat sobering, analysis of the current state of Antarctic governance, and the changing geopolitical dynamics within the Antarctic Treaty System. Among the range of topics disc...

Two major international crises of recent years, Covid-19 and the Russian invasion of Ukraine, have had profound effects on Arctic governance. American interest in acquiring Greenland has meanwhile complicated relations between key Arctic countries. With Greenland now leading the newly-launched Kingdom of Denmark chairship of the Arctic Council at a time of great geopolitical uncertainty, this episode explores the evolution of Green...

Jeppe Kofod, Denmark’s foreign minister during Trump’s first Greenland gambit, joins the podcast to analyze the current situation and share insights from his central role in resolving the previous U.S.-Denmark-Greenland crisis in 2019.

Polar Geopolitics has now started a Substack where we will provide edited episode transcripts, original articles and analyses, and other content on geopolitics, the Arctic and Antarctica:  https://po...

In this third part of the “Future of the Arctic Council” session recorded live at Arctic Frontiers, Dr. Volker Rachold and Dr. Elana Wilson Rowe discuss the continued importance, despite recent shocks to the international system, of Arctic cooperation in the context of global governance. Topics include the imperative of managing environmental problems in the Arctic and elsewhere, the Council’s strong connections to wider internatio...

In May, the Kingdom of Denmark takes over from Norway chairship of an Arctic Council that continues to face an array of significant challenges in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and other geopolitical developments. At the same time, there has also been uncertainty on whether the center of gravity of the Kingdom’s chairship will be in Copenhagen or in the Greenlandic capital of Nuuk. Here in part 2 of the “Future of the Arc...

Two Arctic Council insiders discuss the unique qualities and key role the Council continues to play even after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine cast it into crisis three years ago. Jennifer Spence, Director of the Arctic Initiative at Harvard’s Belfer Center, and Rolf Rødven, Executive Secretary of the Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Program, sat down with Polar Geopolitics at the Arctic Frontiers conference for a live podcast recordi...

In the midst of intense international interest in Greenland, general elections have been called for March 11th, with potential geopolitical implications across a range of issues, including independence from the Kingdom of Denmark. To explain the stakes and dynamics of the upcoming election, and analyze regional security in the context of U.S. interest in acquiring Greenland, joining the podcast is Dr. Rasmus Leander Nielsen, head o...

Independence or an American acquisition of Greenland would fracture the Kingdom of Denmark as currently constituted. On this episode, associate professor Jon Rahbek-Clemmensen, research director at the Center for Arctic Security Studies at the Royal Danish Defence College, explains how and why Copenhagen intends to keep the Kingdom intact, while also accommodating the interests of Greenlanders and avoiding alienating its closest al...

An in-depth discussion with Klaus Dodds, professor of Geopolitics at Royal Holloway University of London, on Donald Trump’s latest Greenland gambit and how the incoming US president’s geographical imagination might shape Arctic geopolitics and the liberal international order in an era of great power competition.

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Arctic security, critical undersea infrastructure and Russian strategic calculations are in focus as Mathieu Boulègue joins the podcast to analyze the wider geopolitical consequences of recent events and upheavals in Ukraine, Syria, the Baltic Sea and beyond. Consulting Fellow with the Russia and Eurasia Programme at Chatham House, Boulègue discusses the effects of Russia’s war against Ukraine on its military posture in the Arctic,...

Many observers considered the 43rd annual CCAMLR meeting in Hobart a major disappointment due to the failure to renew important protections on krill fisheries and the continued lack of progress on marine protected areas in the Southern Ocean around Antarctica. Some are even concerned that the breakdown in consensus, centered on China and Russia refusing to extend existing or institute new protection mea...

How does China exert influence in the Arctic, and has it already peaked? A new in-depth report published by the Wilson Center analyzes Chinese information and influence operations in each of the eight Arctic Council member states. The report’s co-author Adam Lajeunesse, associate professor at St. Francis Xavier University, joins the podcast to explain China’s multifaceted influence strategy in the Arcti...

From geopolitical posturing surrounding the status of Belarus and Canada inside the Antarctic Treaty, to diverging views on science, environmental protection and the regulation of tourism, the 46thAntarctic Treaty Consultative Meeting in Kochi, India provided, in an era of great power competition and new constellations within the international system, a snapshot on the current state of affairs in the go...

The eight member states of the Arctic Council each draw upon geography, history and other factors to promote their identity as an Arctic nation, while non-Arctic states seeking influence in the region use different—although sometimes similar—arguments to foster an image of being an Arctic stakeholder or, as in one prominent example, a “near-Arctic state”. The author of the forthcoming book Arctic State ...

Although a unique set of circumstances characterize Svalbard, belonging to Norway under a 1920 treaty, the situation there reflects many of the major trends—and faultlines—in Arctic geopolitics. From science diplomacy and security to geoeconomics and great power competition, the High Arctic archipelago, where both Norway and Russia maintain permanent settlements and an array of non-Arctic states are act...

Science and expert knowledge are pivotal for meeting many of the environmental challenges, economic opportunities and geopolitical imperatives of the contemporary Arctic. The Arctic Frontiers conference reflects this fact through its selection of seven scientific themes that serve as pillars for the annual event held every January in Tromsø, Norway. Not only natural science, the needed expertise ranges ...