Biden Administration Releases National Arctic Strategy to Counter China and Russia

The Biden administration unveiled its national strategy for the Arctic on Oct. 7, underscoring a growing competition with China and Russia in the region.

It is the first national strategy for the Arctic to be published since 2013, though several departments across the government including Homeland Security and the U.S. Army have published their own strategies more recently.

The Arctic is home to more than 50,000 Americans and the new strategy subsequently frames strategic competition in the region as an issue of protecting the U.S. homeland and maintaining regional stability with international partners.

“Because we share the region with seven other nations, the Arctic is crucial to America’s foreign policy and national security,” said Secretary of State Antony Blinken in an associated statement.

“We have no higher priority than defending our country and our people, and security in the Arctic is key to that.”

The Arctic has increasingly been the focus of strategic attention in recent years due to its vast reserves of natural resources. Oil, natural gas, rare earth metals, diamonds, and pristine fishing grounds are all found in abundance in the region. And, importantly, the melting of the polar ice caps has resulted in trade routes remaining open for weeks or even months longer during the year before freezing shut again.

As such, the formerly uncontested region will play an important role in global geopolitics in the coming years.

Bruce Jones, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, said that China and the United States were entering a protracted period of naval competition for which the Arctic would be a focal point.

“It’s become one of the hottest zones of competition there is,” Jones previously said in an interview with NTD, a sister media outlet of The Epoch Times. “The biggest issue is that climate change is rapidly changing

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