The Northwest Passage Will Be Decided by Capability, Not Law

The Northwest Passage Will Be Decided by Capability, Not Law
An aerial view of an ice floe near the CCGS Amundsen, a Canadian reasearch ice-breaker navigating near an ice floe along Devon Island, in the Canadian High Arctic, in a file photo. Clement Sabourin/AFP via Getty Images
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Commentary
Recent attention has focused on Greenland as a focal point of Arctic strategy, a reminder that geography once treated as peripheral now sits squarely within the logic of continental defense. A similar shift is unfolding elsewhere in the Arctic, though with far less public notice. The Northwest Passage—the network of sea routes threading Canada’s Arctic Archipelago between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans—has moved from a seasonal curiosity to a corridor of growing strategic consequence. As activity increases, questions long treated as theoretical, including the legal status of those waters, are being pushed toward practical resolution.
Andrew Latham
Andrew Latham
Author
Andrew Latham, Ph.D., is a tenured professor at Macalester College in Saint Paul, Minnesota. He is also a Senior Washington Fellow with the Institute for Peace and Diplomacy in Ottawa and a non-resident fellow with Defense Priorities, a think tank in Washington, D.C.