America in the Arctic: the evolution of U.S Arctic engagement in an era of strategic competition and climate change

The United States, due in large part to Donald Trump’s renewed ambition to acquire Greenland, has this year dominated discussions on Arctic geopolitics. A timely new book, America in the Arctic: Foreign Policy and Competition in the Melting North (Columbia University Press 2025), analyses the long-term evolution of U.S. Arctic engagement across an array of issue areas. The book’s author Mary Thompson-Jones, a retired diplomat with the U.S. State Department and currently Professor of National Security Affairs at the U.S. Naval War College, joins the podcast to share her wide-ranging insights into the formation and future directions of U.S. policy in the Arctic, including topics such as climate change and science diplomacy, the Arctic as a theater for strategic competition, the procurement of icebreakers, and the increasingly important role of the U.S. Arctic gateway states of Alaska and Maine.

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