Between disinterest and a new Great Game

Over the past few decades, America has paid little attention to the Arctic. However, the increased involvement of Russia and China is also driving the USA northwards again.

The United States has been the world's strongest superpower for around a century, but is it also an Arctic power? When Paul Kennedy caused a furore in the 1980s with his bestseller "The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers" and predicted the creeping decline of the USA, his diagnosis was clearly premature. Just a few years later, the implosion and subsequent territorial collapse of the Soviet Union meant that the only serious rival for power was out of the race. The USA had become the sole superpower and stood unchallenged at the top of the world of nations for almost three decades. Now, however, there are signs of a fundamental revision of the distribution of power in the world, which is aptly described by the pivot to Asia. And with the People's Republic of China, a competitor has emerged that certainly seems to have what it takes to successfully challenge American hegemony. At the same time, Russia, which has been weakening for over a quarter of a century, has regained strength, and even if the Russian Federation with its 140 million or so inhabitants cannot be equated with the 270 million-strong Soviet Union of the past, it is without doubt a significant power factor in Eurasia and above all in the north of the "world island" - Mackinder's heartland. In the far north, Moscow, and not Washington, largely calls the shots.