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The author is Director of the Climate Change and Risks Program at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute
President Donald Trump’s push for the annexation of Greenland earlier this year sparked concern in European capitals. Yet while leaders focused on Washington’s dubious territorial claims in the Arctic, they ignored the rising waters around their knees.
Political debates recognize that national security and climate change are separate areas. This is a strategic fantasy. Climate change is actively altering the physics on which strategic stability in the region depends.
Consider the changing acoustics of the North Atlantic. Anti-submarine warfare depends on certain assumptions about the way sound propagates underwater. Arctic warming is disrupting these assumptions.
As fresh water from the melting ice mixes with salt water, it creates new thermal layers and density gradients. This creates what NATO scientists describe as a degraded acoustic environment. Acoustic detection can be more unpredictable in critical operational areas. When oceanographic conditions change faster than detection systems can detect, neither side can confidently predict whether their assumptions about underwater warfare still hold.
The infrastructure challenge on the ground is equally serious. The thawing of permafrost is destabilizing the runways and radar stations that provide early warning in the High North. Russia’s own environment ministry acknowledged in 2021 that more than 40 percent of its Arctic infrastructure had suffered climate-related damage. These impacts pose an increased threat to military installations with significant naval assets on the Kola Peninsula.
Some would argue that armies have adapted to ever-changing environments. But the nuclear domain is different. It depends on predictability. Nuclear stability between the US and Russia requires that both sides maintain confidence in their systems.
The conflict between environmental physics and nuclear stability creates an investment paradox. Global military spending is set to reach $2.7 trillion in 2024, the fastest increase since the Cold War. Yet countries are systematically underinvesting in protection against environmental forces that degrade the capabilities of their defense assets. When a fighter plane is grounded because melting permafrost has bent the runway, it is not an environmental issue; This is a loss of defense capability. The solution cannot come from procurement alone.
Some exceptions exist: Spain has earmarked approximately €1.75bn of its military budget for climate-responsive capabilities. But such approaches are rare. Most European defense ministries still consider climate adaptation an inconvenience.
The time is dangerous. The New START treaty, which limits the number of operational nuclear missiles and warheads for the US and Russia, expired this month. As haze is spreading over the environment, the diplomatic window is also closing. If Russian or American early-warning radars fail because their foundations have melted, the risk of a false alarm – or at worst, an accidental launch – increases.
To adapt, we need to incorporate environmental realities into arms control agreements and introduce a mechanism to share global data on environmental disruptions.
Currently, we are making 21st century security decisions with 20th century climate assumptions. Nuclear deterrence is inherently fragile and climate change is an additional destabilizing factor.
Focusing diplomatic energy on territorial disputes in Greenland while creating the material conditions to support deterrence is strategically shortsighted. The physics of the Arctic is changing. Our security architecture must accept this reality.
