The White House has just published the November 2025 edition of the “National Security Strategy of the United States of America“. The Biden-Harris Administration’s edition of the document included a section on “Maintain[ing] a Peaceful Arctic”:

The United States seeks an Arctic region that is peaceful, stable, prosperous, and cooperative. Climate change is making the Arctic more accessible than ever, threatening Arctic communities and vital ecosystems, creating new potential economic opportunities. and intensifying competition to shape the region’s future. Russia has invested significantly in its presence in the Arctic over the last decade, modernizing its military infrastructure and increasing the pace of exercises and training operations. Its aggressive behavior has raised geopolitical tensions in the Arctic, creating new risks of unintended conflict and hindering cooperation. The PRC has also sought to increase its influence in the Arctic by rapidly increased its Arctic investments, pursuing new scientific activities, and using these scientific engagements to conduct dual-use research with intelligence or military applications.

We will uphold U.S. security in the region by improving our maritime domain awareness, communications, disaster response capabilities, and icebreaking capacity to prepare for increased international activity in the region. We will exercise U.S. Government presence in the region as required, while reducing risk and preventing unnecessary escalation. Arctic nations have the primary responsibility for addressing regional challenges, and we will deepen our cooperation with our Arctic allies and partners and work with them to sustain the Arctic Council and other Arctic institutions despite the challenges to Arctic cooperation posed by Russia’s war in Ukraine. We will continue to protect freedom of navigation and determine the U.S. extended continental shelf in accordance with international rules. We must build resilience to and mitigate climate change in the region, including through agreements to reduce emissions and more cross-Arctic research collaboration. As economic activity in the Arctic increases, we will invest in infrastructure, improve livelihoods, and encourage responsible private sector investment by the United States, our allies, and our partners, including in critical minerals, and improve investment screening for national security purposes. Across these efforts, we will uphold our commitment to honor Tribal sovereignty and self-governance through regular, meaningful, and robust consultation and collaboration with Alaska Native communities.

By way of contrast the Trump Administration’s document makes no mention of the Arctic or Alaska or even Greenland. It does, however state that:

After years of neglect, the United States will reassert and enforce the Monroe Doctrine to restore American preeminence in the Western Hemisphere, and to protect our homeland and our access to key geographies throughout the region. We will deny non-Hemispheric competitors the ability to position forces or other threatening capabilities, or to own or control strategically vital assets, in our Hemisphere. This “Trump Corollary” to the Monroe Doctrine is a common-sense and potent restoration of American power and priorities, consistent with American security interests.

Specifically regarding Europe the 2025 Security Strategy has this to say:

Continental Europe has been losing share of global GDP—down from 25 percent in 1990 to 14 percent today—partly owing to national and transnational regulations that undermine creativity and industriousness.

But this economic decline is eclipsed by the real and more stark prospect of civilizational erasure. The larger issues facing Europe include activities of the European Union and other transnational bodies that undermine political liberty and sovereignty, migration policies that are transforming the continent and creating strife, censorship of free speech and suppression of political opposition, cratering birthrates, and loss of national identities and self-confidence. Should present trends continue, the continent will be unrecognizable in 20 years or less. As such, it is far from obvious whether certain European countries will have economies and militaries strong enough to remain reliable allies. Many of these nations are currently doubling down on their present path. We want Europe to remain European, to regain its civilizational self-confidence, and to abandon its failed focus on regulatory suffocation.

At this juncture Russia does at last receive a mention:

This lack of self-confidence is most evident in Europe’s relationship with Russia. European allies enjoy a significant hard power advantage over Russia by almost every measure, save nuclear weapons. As a result of Russia’s war in Ukraine, European relations with Russia are now deeply attenuated, and many Europeans regard Russia as an existential threat. Managing European relations with Russia will require significant U.S. diplomatic engagement, both to reestablish conditions of strategic stability across the Eurasian landmass, and to mitigate the risk of conflict between Russia and European states.

There is no mention of any risk of conflict between Russia and the United States, in the Arctic or anywhere else on Planet Earth.

It has just come to my attention that The Council on Strategic Risks recently published an interesting document entitled “Putin, Permafrost and Propaganda – Russian information manipulation in a changing climate”

The whole document is worth a long look, but here is a brief extract:

Russia has a larger Arctic military presence and ice-breaking capability than other Arctic states, and has embarked on a substantial rebuilding of Soviet-era military infrastructure in the region. Nevertheless, Russian influence efforts seek to depict US and NATO activity in the Arctic as provocative and destabilizing, in contrast with casting Russia’s military presence as routine and defensive. For example, since 2024, state media has covered NATO “flexing its muscles” with exercises in Finland on “Russia’s Arctic doorstep” and featured Kremlin officials’ promises to protect Russia’s Arctic interests from “NATO’s expansionist ambitions,” while a known proxy site warned of “steps towards the Arctic war.” These narratives have found renewed salience since 2025 amid public calls from US President Trump for Greenland to join the United States.