Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
Thanks for listening to The Rest Is Politics. To support the podcast, listen without the adverts, and get early access to episodes and live show tickets, go to therestispolitics.com. That's therestispolitics.com. Hi there, it's Alistair here.
I've just finished recording with a guy called Kenneth R. Rosen, an American author and expert on the Arctic, a mini-series about this, because it's one of the most important political issues of our time, the battle for the Arctic, and that's what it is. Russia, China, United States, some of the big European powers, all vying for dominance and control here.
And of course, climate change speeding up that process. So to give you a taste of it, here's an extract from this week's episode. To hear the full thing, get all the benefits of a TripPlus membership, sign up at therestispolitics.com. Let's just start off. I really did love your book.
When I got to the very, very end, I love the fact right at the back of the book, across both pages, you've got this map looking down at the top of the world, looking down onto the North Pole. And I think that's a good place to start.
Chapter 2: What geopolitical issues are at stake in the Arctic?
Can you just give our listeners a kind of geographical tour d'horizon of what we mean by the Arctic?
You know, going into the reporting and research, I was much like everyone else thinking that the Arctic was a thin sliver of our planet existing at the polar north and that it was just ice and polar bears. And I also believe that it was delineated by this Arctic Circle, which is at 66 degrees and 33 minutes north. And that was like the hard stop of where this region began and ended.
But the Arctic really is this conglomerate, if you will, of eight nations who possess either physical territory or littoral coastlines along the Arctic Ocean. And to define the Arctic is a real challenge. And I try to set out to understand what the different definitions were. I mean, you could say it's where permafrost
ends you could say it's where the last tree reaches into the tundra the u.s government in fact says that the aleutian islands which are very far south of the arctic circle are part of the arctic so i took a loose definition and said the arctic is really where people believe the arctic is so if they think that they live in the arctic then that's the arctic for example iceland
is south of the Arctic Circle, and it only abuts the Arctic Ocean. But they're completely an Arctic nation. They believe they live in the Arctic. Same goes for the folks in Fairbanks, Alaska. It is just in the Arctic proper, but the climate's a little different.
And so if you're associating with the Arctic and feel as though you have a stake in this region that is generally populated by 4 million and then in the sub-Arctic, which is 13 million, and again, loosely defined as just this northern stretch of the world, then I feel as though that's appropriate to call you in the Arctic. I mean, Juneau, Alaska, the capital of Alaska, is...
basically the Pacific Northwest. It's rainy all year round. There's not a lot of snow. But those folks believe themselves to be Arctic stakeholders, and they are by virtue of living in Alaska.
So when you look at the world from the top, looking down, you get a sense that it can creep beyond the Arctic Circle, that this region has much more of a stake than perhaps you would get if you looked at the Mercator projection, which makes Iceland look like a thumbnail.
And just to go around your Arctic, starting at the top of the page, you've got a bit of Canada.
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Chapter 3: How does climate change influence Arctic accessibility?
You then go into Alaska, United States. Three miles later, you're into Russia. And you go right around, then you're into Finland, you're into Sweden, Norway. And then, of course, up at the top, and we're going to talk a lot about this later, we've got Greenland. So it really does give you a sense of just how vast it is when you see just how much of Russia is sort of attached to the Arctic.
Well, not only how vast it is, but if you take that perspective, looking from the top, you realize that the geographic lines of where a country ends and starts all meet at the top, right? So there are almost these little slivers of shared ocean that exist in the North Pole. So there's really a proximity there that isn't quite explained in the general populace.
Yeah. Now let's get on to why it matters. so much, why it maybe feels like it matters a lot more than it did. And am I right in thinking that there's an extraordinary irony right at the heart of this debate, which is that one of the reasons it seems to matter a lot more than it did is because of climate change, is one of the reasons that Trump claims he has to get a hold of Greenland.
But actually, of course, climate change, as we famously know, is what he calls the great green scam. And it doesn't really exist. But is that what's happening, that climate change is leading to the Arctic becoming more open, the sea lanes being more open, the minerals being more accessible? Is that basically what's going on?
That's exactly what's going on. And I think there is this subtle admission by the Trump administration and governments the world over who are climate deniers to say that this is a region that is becoming more accessible because of climate change. I mean, this is coming from a president who refuses to support sustainable energy projects.
As the climate in the north changes, it's warming four to five times faster than the rest of the planet. And that's opening up waterways that had previously been icebound year round to say nothing of like an increased access to areas of land masses that were previously covered in ice or snow year round or just plain inaccessible by planes or boats.
But I think the real fascinating thing is this sort of feedback loop that is occurring. Right. So as the as the north heats more than the rest of the planet, it's thawing permafrost, which contains carbon and methane, and is then inciting and even quicker heating of the planet, which some climate scientists believe that by 2030, there won't be summer sea ice in the Arctic Ocean.
This is like layer of gyrating ice that persists year round now at the top of our world. So soon that'll be pretty navigable and easy for boats that generally wouldn't visit the north to go through.
And when we talk about the resources, we're talking about oil, we're talking about iron ore, we're talking about precious metals, we're talking about graphite, lithium, cobalt, a lot of the things that we need for the kind of technological battle going on and EVs and so forth. You've got gold, zinc, diamonds. So you can see why the kind of interest is there from a Trump or a...
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Chapter 4: What defines the geographical boundaries of the Arctic?
as Xi Jinping or Putin. And just on the strategic point, again, look at your map on the back of the book. You kind of immediately get the sense of why it's potentially strategically so important.
It's hard to see even then, though. I mean, to appreciate the connection I remember a military official from the US explaining to me that it's a great place to just locate troops because you can fly anywhere to all these other adversarial nations or theaters of war in like seven hours. You cross the North Pole and you're there really quickly.
You don't have to circumnavigate the globe to get there. You just launch out of Alaska and you reach Russia in four hours. You can get to Norway in six. You can reach the UK in seven. And we're talking about major military equipment, so not just coming from New York and flying across the Atlantic.
So it's a great place to position troops, but the US just hasn't utilized it that way since the Cold War.
And of course, when you look at that part of the map of Russia, not far from there is where an awful lot of their nuclear arsenal are located as well.
Not just an awful lot. The lot. Their entire nuclear force.
Pointing at you, pointing towards you, Ken. They're coming to get you. So what's fed this kind of, we'll come on to Trump's obsession, about which I'm very, very interested, but I'm also interested in having read the book and seeing just how much work you put into it and how much time you've spent in the Arctic. What has fed your obsession with this?
Um, it's a good question. You know, uh, I was a young near college graduate, um, trying to break into journalism writing and, um, saw an ad online for a job posting in Juneau, Alaska for a beat reporter out there. And I said, well, you know, sounds good. Uh,
i like the wilderness it sounds crazy as well and i'm all for that they were going to pay for my flight and get me out there and i said sure thing and as uh as i got the plane from seattle to juneau it came in sideways so my window seat was looking out at the runway and i thought oh man this is horrifying i made a terrible mistake but we landed safely of course and um
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