Unfrozen: The end of Arctic exceptionalism, cooperation and institutional rule

“I think what’s happened over the last three years, is what we used to call Arctic exceptionalism has been absolutely blown out of the water,” says Klaus Dodds, a senior research fellow at RAND Europe and the co-author of the newly published book Unfrozen: The Fight for the Future of the Arctic. “It’s no longer possible to pretend that Gorbachev’s vision of the Arctic as a zone of peace, a Pole of Peace, is achievable.”

The title of his book, written with political geographer Mia Bennett, refers both to a physical Arctic transformed by climate change and to a region whose political orthodoxy is being upended. For decades, the common view held that the Arctic sat above global conflicts and tensions—co-managed by the eight Arctic nations through institutions such as the Arctic Council. New political realities, including Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the barring of the Arctic’s largest state from the Council, have forced a reevaluation.

“My candid fear is that the Arctic Council at a political, diplomatic level is now finished,” Dodds says. “From Russia’s point of view, they get little use out of the Arctic Council and what does America get out of it? Well, the answer is very little. America doesn’t need the Arctic Council.”

Climate scientists often use the Arctic as a canary in the coal mine: the region is warming roughly four times faster than the global average. Dodds argues that, geopolitically, the Arctic is also a window into a changing world.

“The era of circumpolar governance as epitomized by the Arctic Council is over,” he says. “I think we are returning to what we’ve seen before in terms of human history. A return to raw power where great powers seek to maximize their areas of influence and consolidate resources.”

Don’t rely on the U.S.

It is not just Putin’s attempted empire-building in Ukraine and hybrid war against NATO that worries Dodds; it is also a marked shift in Washington. When 2025 began, few anticipated how rapidly President Trump would alter the U.S. approach to international relations. From threatening to annex Greenland to courting closer ties with Moscow, there has been a sharp departure from the post-WWII order.

“I think, from December 2024 onwards, smaller Arctic states and allies, including the United Kingdom, should act on the presumption that the United States is not a reliable security actor,” says Dodds. “Fundamentally, Trump and this America-first ideology is absolutely serious about consolidating, first and foremost, American power and that sphere of influence. America has its interests and from America’s point of view, it can bully, intimidate, coerce smaller allies to do what America wants.”

Take him seriously

Trump first floated purchasing Greenland during his first term, but his interest in the Danish realm’s autonomous island has ramped up during his second. He has not ruled out taking it by force; his vice president’s controversial visit and reports of U.S. misinformation and covert influence operations aimed at Greenland have unnerved Copenhagen and Nuuk. Dodds argues that their alarm is justified.

“If I was the Kingdom of Denmark or Copenhagen, I would absolutely work on the assumption that Trump wants Greenland and don’t treat it as a flippancy,” he says. “I would take Trump at his word, even if the way he articulates things will look and feel at times chaotic, shambolic. I think fundamentally, Trump and this America-first ideology is absolutely serious about consolidating, first and foremost, American power and that sphere of influence.”

Dodds says Trump’s Greenland push fits a broader worldview that prizes land, resources, and spheres of influence. The U.S. president may see a northern landmass roughly three times the size of Texas and feel a sense of manifest destiny that overrides institutional stability. He says that same land-and-resources logic is why Trump has talked about annexing Canada, he views it as space and minerals the U.S. could one day need as climate pressures grow. Danish and Greenlandic authorities, he argues, should adjust to this reality.

“Why did the United States say to Denmark recently, ‘calm down,’ when Denmark alleged that the United States was conducting disinformation campaigns?” he asks. “For me, that’s your evidence that you should take his interest seriously. Because if I’m Trump and I want it, and this is a man who does not like being told no, because it sort of shatters the ego, I absolutely use disinformation and start to create schisms within Greenland because you know the majority of Greenlanders are sympathetic to the idea of independence.”

The forgotten climate

It is not just in geopolitics that Trump has upended the orthodoxy, his approach to climate science has marked a rapid change to the way the global super power talks and acts. To the detriment of global climate science, the focus isn’t on understanding and preserving the climate, but on profiting from a changing environment. Because according to Dodds, Trump is far from ignorant when it comes to climate change.

“Everyone gets distracted about whether Donald Trump thinks climate change is a hoax or not. That’s completely irrelevant. Donald Trump understands climate change exceptionally well. He just doesn’t understand it in the way that climate change scientists understand it,” Dodds says. “He understands it as planetary shrinkage. In other words, in order to retain great power, we need to shore up our territory and our sphere of influence and make sure we have the resources and land to adapt to any change that might come our way later.”

This lens, Dodds argues, recasts Alaska and the wider Arctic.

“Alaska is not the last frontier vis-à-vis climate change anymore. Alaska is the last energy frontier. And I think that’s the bit that’s going to happen to the Arctic. It’s going to be energized, militarized, securitized, and climate change is going to be squeezed out.”

Flashpoints on the horizon

Change is moving fast. Dodds says he and co-author Mia Bennett were adding new material until the last minute, and Unfrozen offers a stark view of the near future.

“I am concerned that we might end up seeing flashpoints, such as a direct confrontation in places like Svalbard or the central Arctic Ocean, and we will end up in a world where we will do our best to hold on to international agreements where we can,” he says. “The book was really trying to pick this up when we identified flashpoints—that these flashpoints may end up revealing the hollowness of NATO, the defunct character of the Arctic Council and the absolute disintegration of the post-war liberal order as we used to know it.”

What Dodds hopes general readers take away is that the Arctic is not remote or disconnected but “ground zero” for global geopolitics—and the best place to understand the world we are entering.

His message to policymakers, however, is starker, ominous and more serious.

“You need to get over yourselves. The era of circumpolar governance as epitomized by the Arctic Council is over and you need to deal with an Arctic that is fundamentally fractured with multiple stakeholders. And it is not going to return to the Arctic that was once envisaged in the mid to late 1990s. So be comfortable with something profoundly uncomfortable, which is Arctic disorder and a fractured Arctic. That would be my message.”