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Compared with hot spots like the Middle East and Ukraine, the Arctic may seem relatively benign, but the Pentagon is worried about cooperation between Russia and China way up north. So it's got a new strategy to counter that, as NPR's international affairs correspondent Jackie Northam reports.
JACKIE NORTHAM, BYLINE: Towards the end of July, the North American Aerospace Defense Command, or NORAD, detected two Russian and two Chinese bombers carrying out a joint aerial patrol near Alaska. U.S. and Canadian fighter aircraft were scrambled to intercept them. NORAD says the bombers didn't stray into U.S. or Canadian territory and weren't considered a military threat. But...
JIM TOWNSEND: This is one of the rare times where their bomber aircraft worked together.
NORTHAM: Jim Townsend is a former senior Pentagon official for European and NATO policy now with the Center for a New American Security.
TOWNSEND: This was a big wake-up for the United States. China and Russia are working together in a very sophisticated way, and we're coming right close to Alaska.
NORTHAM: The incident came just two days after the Pentagon released its new Arctic strategy, which addresses the alliance in the High North between Russia and China, commonly referred to as the PRC.
KATHLEEN HICKS: We've seen growing cooperation between the PRC and Russia in the Arctic commercially and, increasingly, militarily.
NORTHAM: Deputy secretary of defense Kathleen Hicks told reporters that Russia and China are not natural allies. Each presents its own concern to the Pentagon. Hicks says Russia poses an acute threat.
HICKS: Despite its losses in Ukraine, Russia has continued to build up its military infrastructure in the Arctic and assert excessive claims over Arctic waters.
NORTHAM: China, meanwhile, is focused on the mineral resources in the Arctic and new shipping routes that will open up as the ice melts with warming temperatures. Beijing has ambitions to create a polar silk road and has tried to buy mines, ports and airfields in the region. Despite being nearly 5,000 miles away, China calls itself a near-Arctic state. Rebecca Pincus is director of the Polar Institute at the Wilson Center in Washington, D.C. She says China has long-term ambitions for the Arctic.
REBECCA PINCUS: I think we see the PRC attempting to undermine regional governance and to increasingly advance this narrative that non-Arctic states should have influence in the region. So I think that is something where we do see the PRC influencing the governance conversation in a way that is contrary to U.S. interests.
NORTHAM: Pincus doesn't believe Beijing has plans to grab territory in the Arctic, but it still has military and intelligence objectives.
PINCUS: China sends its research ice breakers to the Arctic every year ostensibly to collect climate data. But, of course, they're also collecting, you know, intelligence data and mapping submarine cables and all that kind of thing because, you know, everything they do is dual use.
NORTHAM: And while China has three icebreakers and more in production, the U.S. has two, which are well past their sell-by date. More have been promised for years. None have been delivered. In June, the Pentagon announced it was entering into an agreement with Canada and Finland to build new icebreakers. Deputy assistant secretary of defense for arctic and global resilience Iris Ferguson said part of the Pentagon's new Arctic strategy will be building up alliances in the region.
IRIS FERGUSON: We really need to be leaning into our allies and partners effectively. They have high levels of proficiency and high levels of capability as Arctic nations, and we can only do better by collectively working with one another.
NORTHAM: The Pentagon's new strategy also calls for more steps to detect threats in the Arctic, more exercises with NATO allies, building up defenses and providing better equipment and training as Russia and China flex their muscles in the Arctic. Jackie Northam, NPR News.
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