The Arctic is one of the world’s coldest regions climatologically, but it is becoming one of the hottest regions geopolitically. Last week, Russia test-fired a Bulava intercontinental missile over 3,100 miles (or ten time-zones) from the White Sea, in the west of the country, to Kamchatka, in the far east. Meanwhile, Norway announced that it had tracked 10 submarines from Russia’s Northern Fleet heading through the Arctic toward the Atlantic Ocean in the biggest such operation since the Cold War.

Both incidents are powerful illustrations of the military threat Russia poses to the West. They also highlight a broader issue — in the coming decades, the level of great power competition in the Arctic looks set to increase.

Russia has been militarising the Arctic since at least the mid-2000s. In 2007, the year that Russia’s flag was planted on the central Arctic seabed, the Kremlin resumed the Soviet-era practice of long-range combat patrols over the high north. The following year, the US Geological Survey estimated the region holds 13 per cent of the world’s remaining oil and 30 per cent of its natural gas reserves. Shortly after, Russia adopted an Arctic Strategy which stated the region would become its “strategic resource base” for the foreseeable future.