The Foreign Service Journal, May 2021

THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | MAY 2021 27 Breakdown in 2019 In May 2019, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo traveled to Finland to participate in the Arctic Council ministerial meeting in Rovaniemi that would conclude Finland’s chairmanship and launch the incoming Icelandic chairmanship. Before reaching Rovaniemi, he stopped in Helsinki to deliver a well-publicized speech about the region. There, Secretary Pompeo declared that the Arctic “has become an arena for power and competition … complete with new threats to the Arctic and its real estate, and to all of our interests in that region.” He raised particular concerns about Chinese “aggressive behavior” in the Arctic. He also sharply criticized Moscow, citing a pattern of aggressive Russian behavior in the region: “Russia is already leaving snow prints in the form of army boots.” And for good measure, he noted the “long-contested feud” between the United States and Canada concerning the rights of vessels to transit the North- west Passage. The following day, at the ministerial meeting itself, the Arctic Council failed—for the first time in its history—to reach agreement on a declaration, the biennial document that summarizes the accomplishments of the outgoing chairman- ship and provides a mandate for the new chairmanship. Most accounts of the event correctly lay the blame for this failure at the feet of the United States, for rejecting language in the draft declaration concerning climate change in the Arctic that all other Arctic Council members believed to be essential. Afterward, the council struggled to move forward. Tensions over climate change continued to plague the body through the end of the Trump administration. The coronavirus pandemic has also required the council to meet only virtually, which poses hardships for a circumpolar group whose participants Tensions over climate change continued to plague the body through the end of the Trump administration.