But in practice, \u201cthe threat hasn’t changed since the Cold War,\u201d said Friis, the professor.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The U.S. can easily upgrade its early-warning missile radar system in Greenland, he argued, while melting ice will only boost the very marginal commercial shipping route in the Northern Sea Route near Russia \u2014 nowhere near Greenland. Icebreakers have few military uses and and are easy to track, Friis added.<\/p>\n
Chinese and Russian collaboration in the Arctic, meanwhile, will remain \u201clargely symbolic,\u201d said Marc Lanteigne, a political science professor and China expert at the Arctic University of Norway, as Moscow is \u201cnervous\u201d of Beijing’s long-term designs on the region and is unlikely to grant it extended access. <\/p>\n
If there is a threat, it\u2019s in the European Arctic. There, Russia\u2019s Northern Fleet based in the Kola Peninsula includes six operational nuclear-armed submarines, according to St\u00e5le Ulriksen, a university lecturer at the Royal Norwegian Naval Academy.<\/p>\n
Even so, Russia is \u201csignificantly outmatched\u201d by NATO, said Sidharth Kaushal, a senior research fellow at the Royal United Services Institute think tank.<\/p>\n