THE ARCTIC RACE

The world's next strategic contest is unfolding in a place most Americans were taught to think of as empty, frozen, and far away. It is none of those things.

Russia has spent decades building military and commercial infrastructure across its Arctic coast. China is pushing north through shipping, energy, science, minerals, and its vision of a Polar Silk Road. NATO now reaches farther into the High North after the accession of Finland and Sweden. Greenland has become a focus of American security debates, while Alaska sits on the front line of missile warning, air defense, maritime access, and the narrow waters separating the United States from Russia.

In The Arctic Race, Claire Whitman explains how melting sea ice, nuclear submarines, icebreakers, critical minerals, satellites, ports, undersea cables, and emerging shipping routes are redrawing the map of global power.

But this is not a story about an empty frontier waiting to be claimed.

It is also a story about sovereignty, Indigenous political agency, infrastructure, climate risk, deterrence, and the limits of what even great powers can control. From Greenland and Alaska to the Kola Peninsula and the Northern Sea Route, Whitman shows that the decisive contest is not simply over who owns the Arctic, but over who can operate there reliably, build what is needed, maintain access, shape the rules, and remain present when conditions become difficult.

Clear, vivid, balanced, and grounded in the strategic realities of 2026, The Arctic Race reveals why the top of the world is becoming one of the places where America's future security-and the balance of power among the United States, Russia, and China-will be tested.