I owe readers an explanation for the quiet stretch over the past couple of months. My consulting work on the US elections has taken up nearly all my hours, so The Northern Brief fell behind its Tuesday schedule. The region kept moving, of course. This post gathers the developments from late September through this week that I expect to shape the months ahead. Regular posts will resume on November 10.
1. The Greenland agreement is signed and now goes to two parliaments
On September 18, Washington, Copenhagen and Nuuk announced a new defense agreement, and President Trump, Prime Minister Frederiksen and Premier Nielsen signed it on September 22 on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York. The text amends and supplements the 1951 Defense of Greenland Agreement. It does not transfer sovereignty.
The main provisions, as described by the signatories and in the published text:
The US gets permanent access, basing, and overflight rights, and a State Department official said these continue to apply if Greenland becomes independent.
Non-NATO states may not build bases in Greenland.
Any investment by a non-EU or non-NATO state, or by investors from one, requires the agreement of all three parties.
Denmark and Greenland will review US requests for unmanned military installations outside the existing defense areas under accelerated approval procedures.
Greenland assumes Denmark’s obligations under the 1951 agreement and its amendments.
On the American side, the deal needs no congressional approval. On the Danish side, both legislatures must approve it. Inatsisartut held its first reading on October 10 and sent the agreement to a second reading without committee review. The opposition party Naleraq proposed a referendum, and Siumut, while broadly supportive, called for a full renegotiation of the 1951 framework, cleanup of former US military sites and payment for American use of Greenlandic land. Closing the debate, Foreign Minister Múte B. Egede told lawmakers, “Our country has been under threat.”
In Copenhagen, Foreign Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen presented the agreement to the Folketing on October 22. The first reading is set for November 12 and the final vote for November 19. The agreement enters into force only after both parliaments approve it.
The clause I keep returning to binds a future independent Greenland. A state that does not yet exist would inherit American basing rights and a shared investment veto with Washington. That is a large commitment to make on behalf of future voters, and it explains why Naleraq wants a referendum. My next post takes up the ratification votes directly, with forecasts.
2. Brussels rewrites its Arctic strategy around security
On October 20, the European Commission and High Representative Kaja Kallas presented a new EU Arctic strategy. Security and resilience now come first among four priorities, ahead of climate, prosperity and Arctic communities. The 2021 policy it replaces centered on environmental questions.
The new document introduces a “Northern Neighbourhood” framework for structured cooperation with like-minded partners, which in practice means the European Arctic: Denmark, Finland and Sweden inside the Union, plus Norway, Iceland, Greenland and the Faroes. Concrete commitments include a Maritime Security Hub for information sharing, which would later expand to tracking shadow fleet vessels, and a push to expand European icebreaker capacity. Several measures read as an effort to reduce European dependence on the United States in the High North.
The strategy followed the September 14 European Arctic Summit in Rovaniemi, where twelve countries asked the EU to take a more strategic role in the region.
3. The Barents Euro-Arctic Council is gone
The Barents Euro-Arctic Council, founded in Kirkenes in 1993 as a bridge between the Nordic states and Russia, was dissolved in September. Russia left in 2023, and Finland’s withdrawal after 2025 removed most of what remained. Norway has since proposed more funding for Arctic preparedness and new investment in Nordic cooperation.
I read this as one more step in a pattern that began in 2022. Regional cooperation in the European Arctic is consolidating into Nordic and EU formats, and forums built to include Moscow are closing one by one.
4. Russia’s Northern Sea Route had a record oil season, and enforcement struggled to keep up
Russian oil shipments through the Northern Sea Route reached about 20 million barrels by mid-October, nearly 50 percent above last year’s total, with another 5 to 10 million barrels possible before the season closes. High freight rates and crude prices tied to the Iran and Ukraine conflicts made Arctic barrels more competitive, and Asian buyers took most of them. Ice conditions and a shortage of ice-capable tankers still limit the route. South Korea reported its first container ship transit on October 22.
Two episodes showed the enforcement problem. On October 14, the Norwegian Coast Guard boarded two Chinese heavy-lift ships sheltering from a storm off Vesterålen. One, the Ya Qing Hai Yang, is under US and EU sanctions for delivering equipment to Arctic LNG 2. Norway has not disclosed the cargo. The same week, Russia closed large areas of the Barents and White Seas to civilian traffic without explanation, and NATO put at least four surveillance aircraft around the Kola Peninsula in a single day.
Also worth noting: Rosatom plans to begin building a €700 million shipyard in Murmansk in 2027 to service its floating nuclear power plants.
5. North America buys hardware
Canada’s Department of National Defence plans 47 unstaffed sensor stations across the North under Project Crossbow, running from the Yukon along the Arctic coast to Alert, to strengthen NORAD early warning. Installation could begin next summer, with initial operating capability in 2029. In Vancouver, Seaspan laid the keel for the CCGS Imnaryuaq, a 158-meter Polar Class 2 vessel that will be Canada’s largest icebreaker, due in the early 2030s.
On the US side, Rauma Marine Constructions in Finland reports that nearly half the blocks for the first US Coast Guard Arctic Security Cutter are launched, with delivery of both Finnish-built hulls planned for 2028 under the ICE Pact. The cutter Munro returned to California after a 112-day Bering Sea and Arctic patrol during which it tracked three Chinese research vessels in US Arctic waters.
6. Tanbreez clears a permitting step
On September 29, Greenland’s government approved the mining and closure plans for the Tanbreez rare earth project in the south of the island, valid through 2050. Developer Critical Metals Corp still needs operating permits covering environmental management, marine transport and mineral export before construction starts. The site sits near Narsaq, where opposition to the Kuannersuit uranium project brought down a government in 2021.
Tanbreez is also an early test case for the new agreement. If its financing ever involves investors from outside the EU and NATO, the trilateral consent provision would apply.
7. London takes stock
On October 21, the House of Commons Defence Committee warned of gaps in the UK’s ability to defend its Arctic interests, citing shortages of Royal Navy warships and submarines and the exposure of subsea infrastructure. Readers of my earlier piece on Andy Burnham and UK Arctic policy will recognize the problem. The report gives any future government a ready-made list of capability shortfalls to answer.
8. Ice and climate
Arctic sea ice reached its 2026 minimum on September 12 at about 4.60 million square kilometers, tied for the tenth lowest in the satellite record, according to NASA and NSIDC. The March maximum tied 2025 for the lowest on record, and the past twenty years now hold the twenty lowest minimums. Autumn refreeze has been fast: by mid-October, extent ranked fourteenth lowest, the highest October 15 value since 2015.
On Svalbard, the Norwegian Polar Institute measured record glacier retreat for a second consecutive year. A new study in Nature Geoscience finds that climate models underestimate winter sea ice loss by roughly a million square kilometers.
Two items on the policy side of climate. At the Arctic Circle Assembly in Reykjavik (October 8 to 10), two US officials sidestepped a session discussion on the causes of Arctic warming. And readers who look for NOAA’s Arctic Report Card each December should know the administration reportedly ended it in August.
What I’m watching in November
November 3: US elections, including Alaska’s federal races, which will set the tone of the delegation’s Arctic agenda.
November 12 and 19: Greenland’s legislature, the Folketing, will hold a first reading and final vote on the Greenland agreement, plus Inatsisartut’s second reading.
Northern Sea Route season close: final 2026 oil volumes.
EU follow-through: the first concrete steps on the Maritime Security Hub.
Thanks for sticking with me through the gap. The next full analysis lands November 10.