US-Canada discussion heralds change, but also continuity, in US Arctic Strategy

In the most notable shift yet from the Trump administrations “America First” approach to the High North, the Biden Presidency has successfully concluded the first of several bi-lateral talks with Canada to establish a blueprint for their future partnership on key issues. On the agenda most notably were two long-term issues identified for a reinvigorated bilateral partnership; The need to tackle climate change, and Arctic security and cooperation. A nod to both areas’ increasing and overlapping geopolitical importance.  

For climate change, President Biden and Canadian Prime Minister Trudeau have agreed to align their policies and achieve “net-zero emissions by 2050”. A key commitment of Biden’s election campaign, this is a complete U-turn from the Trump administration’s overarching policy of scrapping climate-based regulation. It also specifically shifts US Arctic policy from perceiving it as an opportunity area to facilitate a fossil-fuel based US energy independence strategy, and back to perceiving the region through its traditional lens of climate change.

For Arctic security and cooperation, the US and Canada have agreed to two key actions. Firstly, to modernize their shared North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD). The details of this are unknown, but it is likely to include a more holistic approach to continental defence that aims to identify traditional and non-traditional threats “from the seafloor to orbit” emerging particularly from the Arctic Circle. This ties in with recent US military criticism that currently the US needs greater surveillance and data capacity in the Arctic lest it be “operating blind”. NORAD’s modernization is a clear signal from the US and Canada that they remain increasingly worried about the scope and aims of Russian and Chinese Arctic activity amid the two parties strained relations.

The second point is the joint commitment to developing an “expanded US-Canadian Arctic dialogue” covering security, economic development and Arctic governance. While it is unlikely that the US and Canada will be able to resolve their 50 year dispute over the legal ownership of the Arctic’s North-West Passage, despite the issue becoming ever more salient with a melting Arctic whose shipping routes are beginning to open up for all-year round transit. They have both reconfirmed they see the Arctic as a space whose competition and militarization will only increase in the near future. Implicitly, given US and Canadian concerns, and their bilateral commitment to one another here, this means their partnership is aimed at confronting Russian and Chinese interests in the region, and at building a rival Arctic block potentially, rather than promoting multilateral cooperation across all actors. 

While there is a difference from Trump’s approach by the US now seeking to build, or rebuild, a common cooperative strategy with close partners, there is also much continuity here with the previous administration who also perceived China and Russia as strategic rivals within the region, holding them responsible for its increasing militarization. There will be then no easing of tensions insight for the Arctic Circle for now under Biden as sides begin to be drawn out in what will remain a multi-polar competition within the Arctic.