This week’s Nato summit in Madrid represents the biggest upgrade of the west’s military co-ordination since the end of the cold war. Although this has come too late to help Ukraine, it should constrain further Russian aggression. But there are crucial areas — such as climate change and preservation of the Arctic — where we need to work with Moscow, rather than against it.
As polar regions grow ever warmer, there are no winners from a failure of co-ordination on Arctic policy. Disappearing sea ice and warming temperatures are likely to lead to competition for resources, territorial disputes and increased maritime activity. The Arctic, which has warmed three times more quickly than the planet as a whole, has long been described as the planet’s “canary in the coal mine”. While thinning ice floes are making travel and hunting more hazardous for indigenous populations in the region, there are also alarming global ramifications, such as melting permafrost releasing “trapped” bacteria, viruses and radiation.
The defence implications are also significant. Russia has expanded its military presence in the high north in response to thawing sea routes. The invasion of Ukraine has led two previously neutral Arctic states — Finland and Sweden — to clear the last hurdles for Nato membership. If they can no longer act as brokers between Russia and the US on Arctic matters, rival military posturing will certainly worsen. China, which has its own Arctic ambitions, is seeking to establish a “Polar Silk Road” — thus multiplying longstanding tensions on the northern Norwegian island of Svalbard.