Arctic Council

The 10-day Northern Strike 23 military exercises at Camp Grayling in Michigan come as President Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine has raised the possibility that high tensions between Moscow and the West will spill over into the Arctic region.

The Biden administration waived sanctions on the company behind Russia's Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline to Germany and its chief executive, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on May 19, a move decried by critics of the project in Congress.

With a warming climate melting more Arctic ice cover and global industries eager to exploit the region for shipping, fishing, drilling and mining, the United States and Russia sounded a rare, cooperative note going into an Arctic meeting this week.

New START is complicated by China's rise as a nuclear power. The US and Russia both want to prevent China's modernisation of its strategic nuclear forces, which represents a possible area for cooperation between Moscow and Washington.

Foreign ministers from the eight Arctic council countries, including Russia and the United States, ended today's meeting in northern Finland without accepting a joint declaration, BTA reported.
"This is an organization where all decisions are based on consensus, decisions must be unanimous," Finnish Foreign Minister Timo Soini, who chaired the meeting, told reporters.

Russian President Vladimir Putin is confident that an effective acquiring of resources from Arctic can be achieved with an open, equitable and effective approach to resolving the issue.

Even in today’s world of drone strikes and cyberwarfare, our ability to control the seas remains a key to global security, Fletcher School Dean James Stavridis argues in his new book, Sea Power: The History and Geopolitics of the World’s Oceans. A retired U.S.