POLAR WAR

A new cold war in the frozen arctic.

Rosen, an experienced and thorough journalist whose work has focused on Syria and Iraq, trains his sights on a region often neglected and shows it to be of critical importance not only to Indigenous peoples and U.S. security but to polar nations of the West wary of the encroachments of Russia and China. From Alaska to Iceland to Greenland and Scandinavia, he embeds himself with researchers, scientists, fishermen, the U.S. Coast Guard, and varied military operations to reveal an arctic that is “always in a state of geopolitical and ecological recalibration,” with growing tensions leading to what Rosen predicts is an inevitable conflict. Formerly a locus of partnership and cooperation, of science diplomacy and wildlife preservation, joint search-and-rescue operations, and mutually beneficial natural-resource extraction is now viewed covetously: an opportunity for expansion and military dominance, enabled by melting sea ice and the prospect of new trade routes. It is a competition that Russia and China are winning, says Rosen, who adds that matters are not helped by arrant gamesmanship, the Trump administration’s “egregious campaign to ‘get’ and secure” Greenland, and Russian flag-planting. Rosen details the relationship between a warming planet and the region’s militarization and demonstrates how Russia’s greater competency in cold-weather operations and its pivotal fleet of icebreakers now dwarf America’s capabilities. With decaying infrastructure, inadequate funding, and ill-prepared personnel, the U.S., once the dominant power of the arctic, has suffered a steep decline in the region, only recently waking up to the precarious position it faces—and, by extension, faced by all of NATO’s arctic nations. Not one to simply explain the problems, Rosen also provides a roadmap toward effective solutions. What might have been a stilted recitation of issues is instead an engrossing, soberly rendered cautionary tale.

First-class reportage on an urgent dilemma.