The Great Power Concert Is Back. What Does It Mean for the Arctic?

In this episode of What’s New?, Serafima Andreeva speaks with Iver Neumann, Professor and Director at the Fridtjof Nansen Institute, about what the return of great power politics means for the Arctic and for the international system more broadly.

Neumann challenges the idea that geopolitics is a simple contest between self-contained states. Power, he argues, rests on social and institutional foundations, not just territory or military capability. When those foundations erode, the consequences are systemic. Wars do not break out because they are inevitable, but because the political and legal restraints that once held them back begin to weaken.

The conversation focuses on the growing strain on international law and multilateral institutions. Neumann explains why international organisations matter precisely because they work quietly, absorbing friction before it escalates. When they are undermined, small disputes are more likely to harden into great power crises, and crises into conflict. The retreat from multilateralism, he warns, shifts the system toward great power concert politics, where deals are struck between the strongest actors with little anchoring in law, legitimacy, or social reality.

Against this backdrop, the Arctic becomes less exceptional than often assumed. The same forces reshaping global politics are at work in the High North, from shifting US behaviour and China’s systemic rise to Russia’s selective restraint and escalation. The result is a more volatile international environment in which small and middle powers face shrinking room for manoeuvre.

Neumann’s message is sober rather than alarmist. International law and institutions remain fragile but vital. The task for Arctic states is not to dramatise the moment, but to reinforce the structures that still prevent rivalry from turning into open conflict. His advice is simple and deliberate: stay prepared, trust institutions, and keep calm.

Transcript

Serafima: Welcome to What's New, a podcast by the Fritjof Nansen Institute and Arctic Institute. Today we will cover the Arctic in this great power landscape.Serafima: And we have an expert on great power politics and international relations at large with us today, Iver Neumann, professor and director at the Fritjof Nansen Institutes. Welcome.Iver: Thank you. This is my place of work, but I hope I'm welcome.Serafima: You're very welcome.Serafima: Thank you. So my first question to you is that you've been writing about how the tectonic plates of the world order are shifting. Are there any shifts that are happening but that are not talked about but should be?Iver: Well, one of the problems with geopolitics is that certain people think about it as a game of billiards. That states in question are like billiard balls, that they are self-contained, and that the entire logic happens on the border, as it were. Anything that is social is not like that.Iver: The basis for any great power would be social. It's how the social situation in that country is, what that makes it possible for any one state to do, and also how they do it. So there will be a social setting to this. Sometimes geopolitical conversations are veering away from the social and then they are not particularly fruitful, I'd say. So always an open eye to the social background of what's going on. Demographics, for example. The billiard ball isn't given. Certain billiard balls are smaller than others and then it's not a game of billiards.Serafima: Do you think that's the case in the Arctic, that we think a lot about these great power dynamics in the small states, but then we don't take into account the, for example, geographic of the geopolitics?Iver: I think the entire reason why this has become an issue is because of this. It's because of the expansion of Chinese interest in the world. Here we have a key thing. I mean if you think like an area researcher as a sinologist, as a specialist on China, then you can list all these possible reasons why China would like to be active in the Arctic.Iver: And you can say vice versa in the US for example they're talking about China is coming China has this great strategic interest maybe so but if you look at it from not from inside China but from a systemic perspectiveIver: The starting point would be something else, is that by definition any great power needs to be present in any regional theatre in the world, which means that the very urge to be a great power and to appear as a great power means that China will need a presence in the Arctic. So you don't necessarily need any specific motives for China to do all that. They exist, certainly, but in a systemic perspective it's enoughIver: that they want to be great power. And this I think is one of the reasons why we need non-specialists on the Arctic like myself to also weigh in on the kind of discussions that we are having now.Serafima: And there are many things that are happening in the world that are directly affecting the Arctic. One of them is the current Trump administration. is a bit more unreliable, so to say. So my question to you is that when you look at the current Trump administration right now,Serafima: How do you see it affecting or do you even see it affecting Arctic politics in the same way that it's affecting, for example, what's happening in Ukraine or on the southern border of the US?Iver: As seen from Europe, the US is definitely a less reliable ally, if it is an ally at all. the US is not unreliable when it comes to massing its national interests. And there is nothing new about this interest in Greenland.Iver: For example, Alaska was born by the US in 1867 and the first time an American president started talking about buying Greenland was in 1869. So this is an interest of long standing. mean, someone like Roosevelt or Roosevelt as an American would say, also talked about buying Greenland. So this is not specific to Trump. This is a geopolitical interest. What's specific to Trump is again the rather hairy form that isIver: interest takes. There are two very good reasons geostrategically to think that Greenland should be the USS when you look at it from the USS side. One is that it's a forward area where you can keep tabs on everything from submarines in shallow waters to missiles.Iver: The other thing is deniability, that you can deny Greenland to other parties. And sure enough, these two are specifically mentioned in most discussions about this issue.Serafima: Do you think when it comes to Alaska, for example, his own Arctic backyard, because now we've been talking about the potential to acquire one Arctic space, but the U.

S. has one Arctic space already bordering Russia, but maybe not focusing that much on from the Trump side. Do you think that we will see any changes or even towards Canada? know, there has been also an increased changing rhetoric towards Canada from the current administration as well.

Serafima: this kind of is something of a pattern.Iver: Very much so. And the problem is not that one is thinking in geopolitical terms, one always has been, in other terms as well, but always also in geopolitical terms. The problem is with something more deep.Iver: cited for the specific system that we are in, which is that state sovereignty is supposed to be the principle of how states relate. And state sovereignty means that one acknowledges other states' existence and legitimate existence. And that's exactly what Trump does not do when he starts talking about taking over Greenland with any means necessary.Iver: about it as a great idea that sovereign Canada should become part of the US etc. He's really challenging the basic principle in international relations. So that's a pretty deep-seated thing.Iver: And again, it's the way he does it. What I don't understand when I analyze this is why Trump does this. Because if, I think I know why he does it, he does it because it plays well with the Marga movement behind him. But it's an unnecessary way of destroying, I would say, the relationship to Denmark and Europe. Because if he had only asked, he would have gotten his presence in Greenland beefed up.Iver: After all, we go back to when the Tule base, it's not called Tule anymore, can't remember. Thank you. When that was founded, we now know from the archives that HC Hansen, Denmark's prime minister,Serafima: I think.Iver: reckoned that if he did not hand over that that base right to the US the US would probably take it anyway which means that he felt that he was under pressure so again this is not anything new but one wondersIver: Trump may please some of his audience at home by acting like a bully, but the repercussions, the costs in terms of relations to Denmark and Europe are enormous.Iver: Macron, the French president, did not hesitate. He went with Mathieu Frederiksen, the Danish PM, up there immediately to demonstrate that Europe was involved. And this raises a larger geopolitical question. Since 2008, and Burama's so-called pivot to Asia, the US has rightly singled out China as the key challenge in the international system. Now,Iver: When you're up against a challenge, it's a good idea to have friends and allies. And the US does have friends and allies. China does not. What is the logic in shedding friends and allies without any reason? I mean, this breaks with the basic diplomatic principle that you don't antagonize your opponent unnecessarily. So this is simply bad strategy. It's bad politics. It's bad manners. It's bad everything.Serafima: And I mean following up on that, if we right now are seeing even from the United States this scrambling, this taking as much space as possible, pushing your allies away, this hyper individualism essentially at the state level, what is going to be of the middle powers? mean, I'm of course thinking about the Arctic, but this is globally as well. We are having a Russia which is...Serafima: really disregarding all its, all most of its neighbors. We have a China that has its own interests and its own way of acquiring them. And then the United States, are we seeing a world where middle powers are losing essentially their credibility, losing their room for maneuver?Iver: this is one of the key aspects of the change in international system as we speak. That we've had a world since the Second World War and the US instituted it, not single-handedly, but they were the most important power built on democracy,Iver: free trade and multilateral diplomacy. A key part of multilateral diplomacy is international organizations where states are members and where you do things in concert. It's wonderful for small and middle powers because it means they have a place at the table, they know what's going on and crucially they can convert resources like money or knowledge to power over outcomes.Iver: So this is a way of not bracketing but playing down the importance of military power and playing up the importance of everything else. Now we see that Trump is explicitly targeting international organizations and multilateral diplomacy as a part of the world order. One of his first presidential decrees was about cutting our funding to the UN.Iver: pulling the US out of certain UN bodies, leaving the Paris Agreement, etc. and having a full review of the US's presence in national organizations. And he added three reasons for this. One, it costs money.Iver: Two, it binds American sovereignty and three, it means that the leeway for the US to do stuff shrinks. All three are quite correct, but that's what cooperation is about. When you cooperate, it means that you put a bind and a limit on what you can do. That's the entire point. So with the...Iver: relativizing of international organizations and their importance. The question must be what comes instead and I think you gave a perfect description of that. It's great power concert. Great powers talk between themselves about how to do stuff and this is a return to how it has been world historically. Nothing new here but we also know that great power concert means that things are not anchored with the relevantIver: parties, which means that deals are much harder to implement.Iver: So Ukraine is a perfect example. If you make a deal, the US pushes through a deal with Russia and Ukraine suffers what it must. Is that a deal that will hold? Will it sort of actually sort of shore up the situation? No, it's a very bad deal. It's the same in Gaza. The so-called peace deal that Trump offers has no social tying in with the situation at all. So this is a worst world.Iver: Trump it looks like a better world because he can do what he wants but it's a dog-eat-dog jungle world and I think it's simply a break with civilization to do this. A fat lot of good that does us that I mean that but as an analyst I would like to point that out that there are costs here also to the US.Iver: But this is the direction that international relations are now taking and of course that also goes for the situation in the Arctic.Serafima: And what about the role of the international organizations in this? They've been the pillar of so much of carrying these dynamics, carrying the balance in these dynamics that you mentioned for many, years. And for example, in the Arctic, there is the Arctic Council, is, of course, it does not have any policy mandate, it's scientific, but still it's part of this.Serafima: reinforcing a form of a world order in the Arctic. And my question to you is that when you view all of these gigantic shifts happening very rapidly, what role do the organizations have? And maybe for the Arctic a reflection on that, but...Iver: Let's start with international law. It's often said that most states follow most international laws most of the time. So the everyday politics will be regulated in very interesting ways. The same goes for international organizations. They nip a lot of crises in the bud simply by being there. There's a whole apparatus standing clear to take care of stuff that may get out of hand. So if you build down international organizations, it means thatIver: small tiffs and local crises can then eat more easily.Iver: evolve and become great power crises and great power crises can easily become great power conflicts. So there you go, it's a slippery slope. So the whole idea of taking away international organizations is basically pulling the plug on the social foundations of international relations, which is a stupid idea.Serafima: But when it comes to law, international law, do you think that we will see a worldSerafima: the regime of international law you could say would be under threat as well?Iver: Again, from a liberal point of view, laws are wonderful for all involved because they make for a fairly more even playing field and they make it possible not to predict but to foresee certain things in the future. It makes stuff more transparent.Iver: in the short term doing away with that has its advantages because the stronger will do what they can and the weaker again will suffer what they must. certain strong players will have a short term interest in law but they won't have a long term interest in law because law also guaranteesIver: to a certain extent at least guarantees the status quo. throwing law out the window is a dangerous thing to do. We see that the US is now moving in that way in domestic terms. would then be expected that sooner or later they would do so internationally. I haven't seen that they've actually done that specifically yet, but one can await that.Iver: But the other most important part, power in the system, China has a vested interest in and actually plays up international law.Iver: They do not always follow it. There was a ruling in favor of Philippines when it came to maritime cases and international legal setting in Asia and China refused to abide. But they have a general interest in this and they have a general interest in international organizations. Their gripe is that they don't have a central enough place.Iver: in international organizations but the idea of international relations they're on board with that so they want to substitute certain international organizations for other international organizations for example the US is central to the world bank so what do they do they make an Asian investment bank where they are central so a general interest in international law yesIver: But of course, as a dictatorial state, there's a limit to how strong this interest is, just like there is a limit to how important law is in domestic Chinese society.Serafima: Yeah, I mean, and this reminds me, for example, of the same mentality that Russia has towards climate politics. As long as it benefits them, they will, you know, perform climate agreements and say that we care so much about this. But once it doesn't benefit, it's out the window.Iver: we all start, isn't it? And the basic idea in human life that others also have legitimate interests is a super important thing on an individual level and on the state level to repeat a point about sovereignty the idea of actually respecting the other states existence and legitimate existence is key.Iver: And since the Great Power Concert is coming back, think we should dwell on the example of what happened to Poland in the late 1700s. Poland was a middle power.Iver: surrounded by three great powers and the three great powers decided to divvy it up. So we had the first partition and then they rather liked what they got so there was a second partition and in the third partition in 1795 Poland disappeared off the map and didn't return before in 1919. So for small and middle powers to come back to your previous question, great power concert can be very dangerous indeed.Serafima: So you've been researching Russia for many, many years. In addition to international relations at large, you are Russia expert. So my question to you is that what's interesting with Russia is that it behaves differently first than the Arctic and the rest of the world, but also in different parts of the Arctic. So in the European Arctic or the Barents region, I think Norwegians don't like to call it European Arctic, it's the Norwegian Arctic, but in the Barents region,Serafima: There has been a reduction in these provocative activities from both NATO and Russian side since 2022. Up until that, there was a lot of brinkmanship or pushing each other to see where the limit goes. This is completely different from the border to the US in the Bering region, where, for example, Russia has been bit more showing muscles together with China. So.Serafima: My question to you is about this double game, essentially. Is that, do you think that they show these patterns because, only because they don't want to provoke? Because this has been the narrative. They don't want to provoke the West, et cetera. Or what do you think?Serafima: constitutes this kind of double game or these kinds of patterns coming from Russia because this is not the first time or the first place where they do this.Iver: Well, you gave one of the reasons yourself how close is China. Another obvious thing would be what kind of capacity is at hand. With Russia spending a lot of its resources on the war in Ukraine, aggression costs money.Iver: So that means that there is less left to play brinkmanship games in the North. But these can't be the whole story. There must be something more. I think it's interesting to note that the brinkmanship stuff isn't over Russian harassment of Norwegian research and fishing vessels, for example. That's still going on. But I think we must...Iver: think here about first about resources and secondly about Russia's vested interest in the fisheries situation. If you compare the fisheries situation around the Bering Strait with what we have in the Barents area, are two very different games. again Russia, like any state, has a vested interest in predictability.Iver: and actually having a deal with Norway since 75-76 on actually how you talk about resources in bilateral expert panels every year. That's of course a boom.Iver: And Russia knows full well that they have a vested economic interest in keeping tabs on where stocks are, how they move and when they should and where they should be fished. So those things obviously add up. Social stuff again that informs geopolitics.Serafima: And one of the and summarizing up now, I will ask you about a policy recommendation. But before that, I have one last question. And that is, do you think that we have gotten too comfortable in international relations? I mean, we've had this long period of peace. And do you think that essentially, maybe only the West, I don't know, has become too comfortable, too optimistic and forgotten thatSerafima: like the expansionist ambitions of state, the wars they've been part of the status quo.Iver: Wars happen because there's nothing to stop them from happening. war is always a possibility.Iver: There we are.Iver: Europe has been complacent in actually paying for its own defense. That's for sure. That's happening now.Iver: If you look at other parts of the world, I wouldn't agree with you that war has been absent. It's certainly been there. So this is a European problem and we're realistic in coming back to the stuff.Serafima: Thank you so much. one sentence, one policy recommendation if you could have it to the middle powers. To Norway, Iceland, if you could have one thing that...Iver: Well, keep calm and carry on. The last thing we should do is to raise the alarm. We should be ready domestically, but raising the alarm and starting yelling at the top of our voices, nothing to begin from that. Let's keep calm.Serafima: Let's keep calm. Thank you so much for taking the time. It's been amazing to have you. And thank you for listening.