Donald Trump’s recent flirtations with acquiring Greenland, Canada and the Panama Canal are not new ideas. They all relate to a single strategic objective: controlling shipping lanes between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.
The US has long been a champion of “freedom of navigation”, using military force to police the world’s seaways, from the South China Sea to the Straits of Hormuz. Although the US has never ratified the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), it consistently enforces its principles worldwide.
As Arctic seas ice continues to recede, opening the Northwest Passage (NWP) and the Northern Sea Route(NSR) for longer periods each year, international access to these shipping routes is becoming an ever more pressing issue, as these Arctic routes offer significantly shorter transit between Europe and East Asia than routes through the Panama or Suez canals.
Moreover, the economic and geopolitical implications of Arctic trade are staggering. Shorter and more cost-effective shipping routes will reshape the balance of global trade, and control over these routes will dictate economic flow, energy transportation, and even military positioning, given the critical role of seaborne logistics in global defense strategies. The viability of the Arctic as a major shipping region also brings with it economic opportunities in tourism, fisheries, and natural resource extraction, including oil and rare earth minerals.
Hellbound and Down 