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Tensions over the Arctic imperialists race to grab the loot

Marxist Theory · 2026-05-13

Core Argument

The article argues that the Arctic has become a central arena of interimperialist rivalry, driven by the convergence of climate change—which is opening new shipping lanes and resource frontiers—and the intensifying competition between the US, Russia, and China for global hegemony. The central thesis is that the period of "Arctic exceptionalism," during which the region was treated as a zone of scientific cooperation and relative stability, is definitively over. This was never a genuine exception but a product of US dominance in the unipolar moment following the Soviet collapse. Now, with the rise of China and Russia's military resurgence, the Arctic is being forcibly redivided, and weaker states—Norway, Canada, Denmark, Sweden—are being elbowed aside. The article insists that all powers, including the European states that posture as benign stewards of the region, are motivated by the same imperative: profit for their national bourgeoisies. The only genuine alternative to imperialist plunder is the abolition of capitalism through working-class revolution.

Theoretical Grounding

The analysis is firmly rooted in Lenin's theory of imperialism, particularly the concept that the world is already completely divided up and that only redivision is possible under monopoly capitalism. The article applies this framework to a new geographical frontier, showing how the melting ice cap is not creating new space for cooperation but intensifying the drive for territorial and economic control. The argument draws on the Marxist understanding of the state as an instrument of the ruling class: military posturing, diplomatic manoeuvres, and investment strategies are all analysed as expressions of the interests of national bourgeoisies, not of national security or environmental stewardship.

The piece also deploys a Leninist analysis of uneven and combined development. The relative weakness of European imperialist states is not a temporary or accidental feature but a structural outcome of the concentration and centralisation of capital on a world scale. The article shows how smaller powers are caught between the need for investment—which China can provide—and their subordination to US-led NATO, a contradiction that leaves them without a viable strategy. The analysis of the Russia-China alliance in the Arctic is particularly sharp: it is not a marriage of ideological convenience but a material necessity driven by the logic of competition with the US.

The article sits within the tradition of Marxist analysis that rejects "geopolitical" explanations that treat states as autonomous actors. Instead, it insists on the primacy of economic competition and the drive for profit as the motor of state policy. It also explicitly rejects the liberal framing of the Arctic as a site of environmental concern or indigenous rights, exposing these as ideological covers for the same predatory logic.

Conjunctural Relevance

The article is written in July 2025 and is acutely sensitive to the immediate conjuncture. It identifies Trump's return to power as a qualitative shift: his threats to annex Greenland and Canada, and his attempts to negotiate a settlement with Russia over Ukraine, are analysed not as erratic behaviour but as a strategic attempt to reverse the Biden-era policy that pushed Russia into China's arms. The article argues that this has largely failed: the Russia-China partnership in the Arctic is too deeply embedded in joint infrastructure projects, LNG development, and shipping routes to be easily untangled.

The piece provides specific data to ground its claims. Russia operates around 40 icebreakers to the US's one; Russia's Arctic military bases outnumber NATO's by a third; 80 voyages reached Chinese ports via the Arctic waterway in 2023; the Northern Sea Route cuts shipping time by 50 percent compared to the Suez Canal. It notes that China's global market share of new shipbuilding orders in 2024 was 55.7 percent, while Europe's had fallen to around 7 percent. These figures are used to demonstrate the real balance of forces, not as abstract indicators but as concrete measures of competitive advantage.

The article also connects the Arctic scramble to domestic political crises in Europe. It argues that the commitment to raise defence spending to five percent of GDP, extracted at the latest NATO summit, is unsustainable given massive government and household debts and growing working-class opposition to austerity. The rise of the AfD and Reform UK is cited as evidence that the costs of imperialist competition are generating political instability within the imperialist heartlands.

Where the Argument Continues

The article is a relatively self-contained analysis, but it opens several threads that are developed elsewhere in the IDOM corpus and broader Marxist literature. The argument about the impossibility of "green capitalism" in the Arctic—where Norway closes unprofitable coal mines while pumping two million barrels of oil a day—connects to the wider Marxist critique of climate policy under capitalism. The analysis of European weakness and the hollowing out of industrial capacity echoes IDOM's coverage of deindustrialisation in Europe and the crisis of European imperialism.

The article's treatment of the Russia-China relationship in the Arctic could be deepened by reference to IDOM's broader analysis of the Sino-Russian alliance as a temporary and contradictory formation, not a stable bloc. The piece hints at this—noting that Trump's attempt to split them is rational from the US perspective—but does not explore the internal tensions that could eventually drive Russia and China apart.

The argument about the Arctic as a site of redivision connects directly to Lenin's Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism, which is the foundational text for this kind of analysis. The article's closing reference to Lenin is not rhetorical but methodological: it signals that the Arctic is not a special case but a new theatre of the same old logic.

Connections

  • Lenin, Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism: The theoretical foundation for the analysis of interimperialist rivalry and the redivision of the world.
  • IDOM articles on the Ukraine War and the Russia-China alliance: The article's analysis of Trump's attempt to split Russia from China is part of a broader IDOM argument about the contradictions of US strategy.
  • IDOM analysis of European imperialism and deindustrialisation: The piece's focus on European weakness connects to ongoing IDOM coverage of the decline of European capital and the political crises this generates.
  • Marxist analysis of climate change under capitalism: The article's insistence that the climate crisis is being treated as a profit opportunity, not a threat, aligns with the broader Marxist critique of "green capitalism."
  • Against the Stream episodes on interimperialist rivalry: The podcast has covered the Arctic, the Ukraine War, and the rise of China in ways that complement and extend this article's analysis.

Key Quotes

  1. "The period of 'Arctic exceptionalism' is dead in the water. The lucrative possibilities opening up in the Arctic are making it one of the main arenas for the struggle between the strongest imperialist powers, with weaker nations trying – and failing – to catch up."

  2. "As time goes on, the weakness of countries like Norway, Sweden and Denmark will be felt in the Arctic."

  3. "The truth is that all nations operating or seeking to operate in the Arctic are in it for the same reason – the profits that can be made for their national bourgeoisies from the riches that the climate crisis will make available."

  4. "Lenin remarked over 100 years ago that the epoch of imperialism meant that 'the world is completely divided up, so that in the future only redivision is possible'. The Arctic is now being redivided."

  5. "The only way to save the Arctic from imperialist plunder is to abolish capitalism altogether by the working class coming to power, in the Arctic and beyond."

  6. "Rather than isolate Russia and diminish its drive for control of the region, NATO countries have pushed Russia not only to strengthen its forces in the Arctic but also toward a closer relationship with China, which in turn has opened up the Arctic for Chinese penetration to a much greater degree than before."