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Towards a Shared Arctic Vision: Japan and the Nordic States in an Interconnected World

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April 14, 2026
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Finnish President paid an official visit to Japan in 2025 and held a number of meetings with Japanese officials including the Speaker of the House of Representative Mr. Nukaga Fukushiro

Alexander Stubb, President of Finland, with Speaker of the House of Representative Nukaga Fukushiro in 2025: Photo: Japan’s House of Representatives (Shugiin)

The Arctic Institute Japan Series 2026

As Arctic ice melts and accessibility increases, two geographically distant regions – the Indo-Pacific and the Euro-Atlantic – are drawing closer. Beyond the economic advantages of shorter shipping lanes and untapped natural resources, security challenges too are becoming increasingly interconnected. The deepening Sino-Russian strategic alignment and cooperation in the Arctic, including increased joint naval operations and hybrid activities through deployment of dual-use assets, risks exacerbating existing security dilemmas for the EU and NATO alike.1) These pressures will fall heavily on the Nordic states which are central to security in the High North. At the same time, heightened strategic competition in the Arctic may also catalyse closer cooperation among like-minded actors with the region serving as a strategic conduit for deeper engagement between partners such as Japan and the Nordic states.

Against this backdrop, Japan should anticipate the possibility of a convergence between the Nordic countries’ Arctic and Indo-Pacific strategic outlooks. While these policy frameworks are currently managed in parallel, their future entanglement would create an opening for deeper strategic alignment in the Arctic. By leveraging synergies with the Nordic states, Japan can advance its interest in upholding the rules-based international order, deepen cooperation with like-minded partners, and signal a sustained commitment to trans-regional stability.2) Such engagement, in turn, would reinforce Japan’s emerging role as a proactive contributor to global security across interconnected theatres.

Evolving Geopolitical Strategies in a Changing Security Landscape

Since 2024, Canada and the Nordic countries have engaged in a new strategic dialogue format on Arctic security to strengthen their relations amid growing geopolitical challenges.3) This new engagement is driven by a combination of destabilizing factors such as uncertainties surrounding US security commitments under the Trump administration, Russia’s continued illegal war in Ukraine, and the expanded coordination between China and Russia in the Arctic especially along the Northern Sea Route (NSR) which has become central in allowing Russia to circumvent Western sanctions while offering China new opportunities to expand its global influence.4)

With Finland and Sweden now full NATO members, their Arctic strategies are being reassessed in light of a markedly altered security environment in Europe since 2022. Meanwhile, and notwithstanding the fact that NATO does not have a formal Arctic strategy, alliance membership introduces new expectations regarding interoperability, situational awareness, and regional burden-sharing in the High North. This process points to a gradual recalibration of national Arctic policies to better reflect NATO-related operational realities including closer coordination with allied command structures such as JFC Norfolk and enhanced cooperation among Nordic allies.5) To this end, Norway’s recently revised Arctic Strategy offers an illustrative reference point.6) It emphasizes Total Defense and regional security by prioritizing civil–military preparedness and deeper integration with Nordic neighbors; an approach that is broadly consistent with NATO’s emphasis on resilience, collective defence, and reinforcement across the Euro-Atlantic area, even in the absence of a dedicated NATO Arctic posture.7)

Taken together, these developments may foreshadow the general direction of future adjustments to Sweden’s Arctic strategy and the implementation phase of Finland’s newly released Arctic strategy,8) particularly in how both countries situate the Arctic within a wider Nordic–NATO security context. Meanwhile, Denmark is responding to Arctic security concerns through its naval investment program after years of neglect.9) Collectively, these developments demonstrate a heightened strategic awareness of Arctic security and its connection to Euro-Atlantic security.

Yet, Arctic developments are also closely intertwined with security in the Indo-Pacific, an aspect often overlooked from the European perspective.10) The North Pacific, as a sub-region of the Arctic, remains less developed and sparsely monitored, even as Russia and China increase their presence and activity there.11) At the same time, European policymakers have increasingly acknowledged the growing interdependence between Euro-Atlantic and Indo-Pacific security, particularly in light of China’s rising strategic influence. This recognition has been operationalised through both transatlantic and EU-level frameworks. At the alliance level, NATO’s 2022 Strategic Concept explicitly identifies the Indo-Pacific as strategically relevant, while the development of Individually Tailored Partnership Programmes with regional partners, most notably Japan, reflects a concrete effort to translate this assessment into sustained cooperation.12) In parallel, the European Union has articulated its own Indo-Pacific vision through the adoption of the EU Indo-Pacific Strategy in 2021 and by deepening its strategic partnership with Japan, which it identifies as its closest strategic partner and a key ally in the region.13)

Japan is arguably one of the most central actors in the Indo-Pacific region and a primary advocate for the strategic indivisibility of the Indo-Pacific and Euro-Atlantic theaters.14) It has positioned itself as both a champion of freedom of navigation and a counterbalance to China’s growing regional influence and assertiveness, and it has proactively participated in various international multilateral forums. Beyond the Indo-Pacific, Japan has also been an engaged non-Arctic actor for over three decades, contributing to Arctic research and dialogues.15) In 2024, Japan outlined a new Arctic initiative aimed at deepening engagement with the Nordic countries in countering Sino-Russian advances in the Arctic.16) Japan’s importance to the Nordic countries in particular is best evident by the fact that all the Nordic states have a bilateral strategic partnership with Tokyo.17) These partnerships highlight normative synergies, such as shared values and principles, underline common interests, and identify practical areas for cooperation.

Shared Security Challenges: The Arctic as a Euro-Atlantic and Indo-Pacific Crossroads

Russia’s growing militarization of the Arctic,18) along with China’s expanding strategic presence in the region,19) have the potential to collectively redefine, and ultimately alter, regional security dynamics in the Arctic. Their shared vision of a global order defined by spheres of influence and great-power dominance is increasingly operationalized through a consistent pattern of coercive diplomacy, rhetorical assertiveness, and provocative military incursions.20) Furthermore, explicit references in Chinese state doctrine to “Strategic New Frontiers” – the Arctic, space, cyberspace, and the deep sea – underscore China’s interest in advancing its strategic objectives through dual-use asymmetric advantages in order to obtain dominance across these domains.21) As a result, their joint activities constitute a shared security challenge that bridges regions, directly affecting both the Euro-Atlantic and the Indo-Pacific.

Japan is unique in this regard, having experience in managing this combined challenge.22) Greater Japanese participation in Arctic security would therefore be highly valuable, enabling Europe, and particularly the Nordic countries, to benefit from Japan’s ample experience in mitigating the multidimensional challenges posed by Moscow and Beijing while also providing Western Arctic states with a partner capable of boosting their situational awareness in and around the North Pacific.

Since Arctic affairs are increasingly intertwined with global geopolitics, more broadly, it is ever more important for actors committed to multilateral governance and a rules-based international order, such as the Nordics, to broaden the scope of their Arctic strategies and include non-Arctic states like Japan which have the political will and the scientific and commercial resources to meaningfully contribute to efforts aimed at maintaining a stable and predictable regional order.23) Expanding multilateral cooperation in areas such as climate research, critical infrastructure development and protection as well as overall capacity building through enhanced navigation, operability, and situational awareness can help address emerging security challenges in the region. As multilateralism slides and retreat,24) an inclusive approach could help mitigate and ultimately prevent a breakdown in Arctic governance that would otherwise facilitate Sino-Russian efforts to leverage growing military cooperation and strategic signaling to advance both material interests and symbolic influence over the future governance of the Arctic.25)

Strategic Convergence: Prospects for Merging Strategies

Despite the absence of explicit signals from policymakers, the broader strategic context nonetheless presents favourable conditions for a potential future alignment between the Nordic countries’ Arctic and Indo-Pacific strategies. With NATO and EU strategies, as well as strategic partnerships, providing the framework for bilateral and multilateral cooperation, efforts to deepen relations between Japan and the Nordics—particularly in the security domain—have intensified.26) Both the Baltic Sea region and East Asia are especially vulnerable to hybrid warfare having faced similar gray-zone operations such as sabotage of subsea fiber-optic cables and frequent military provocations.27) Similarly, the Arctic has witnessed a noticeable increase in gray-zone activities with recent events in Svalbard offering comparable experiences.28) This is particularly concerning given that Arctic capabilities and infrastructure are almost inherently dual-use in nature, and thus their development is inherently vulnerable to the conduct of gray-zone operations. If anchored in a shared threat perception that has already laid the foundation for greater defense dialogue and security cooperation, therefore, the Arctic holds considerable potential to become a logical extension of the ongoing attempts at deepening strategic ties between Japan and the Nordic states.

The development of the physical backbone of digital infrastructure in the Arctic represents a tangible extension of this strategic convergence. As global internet traffic surges amid heightening geopolitical uncertainty, the need for enhanced digital resilience has become paramount for both Japan Europe. Currently, the majority of fiber-optic traffic between Europe and Asia transits the Red Sea; a congested corridor increasingly vulnerable to regional instability.29) Future Arctic routes, by contrast, provide superior operational resilience. The region’s harsh environmental conditions serve as a deterrent against deliberate sabotage, while lower volumes of vessel traffic significantly mitigates the risk of accidental anchor strikes. Additionally, favourable geological factors offer greater protection against seismic events, complementing the route’s inherent advantages as a shorter path to East Asia. Financed through the EU’s Connecting Europe Facility (CEF) and Japanese investment, projects such as Far North Fiber and Polar Connect represent a strategic collaboration between Nordic infrastructure leads and Japan to provide critical strategic redundancy.30) By laying fiber-optic cables across the Arctic seabed, these initiatives will not only reduce latency for financial and economic systems but also, amongst other things, secure the backbone of trans-regional connectivity.

Space cooperation represents another highly viable avenue for deepening Nordic–Japanese engagement in the Arctic thereby enabling them to synchronise Arctic (North Pacific) and Indo-Pacific strategic frameworks. The Arctic and space domains are intrinsically linked: both are contested, infrastructure-dependent environments where situational awareness, resilience, and technological superiority are decisive.31)

The Nordic region occupies a unique position within Europe’s emerging space architecture. Norway’s Andøya Spaceport and Sweden’s Esrange Space Center – both located within the Arctic Circle – form the core of continental Europe’s polar launch infrastructure.32) While neither facility yet offers fully operational orbital launch services, both are of growing strategic interest to NATO and the EU which in turn position the Nordic Arctic as a critical node for space-enabled security and surveillance.

Satellites in particular are indispensable for operating in the Arctic’s inaccessible and rapidly changing environment. Continuous Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (ISR) capabilities underpin not only climate and environmental monitoring, but also civilian and military navigation, maritime domain awareness, aviation safety, and secure communications.33) As Arctic activity intensifies, these space-based functions become essential to both regional stability and broader strategic competition. Japan brings complementary strengths to this emerging Nordic space cluster. Its advanced space ecosystem, anchored by JAXA and supported by major industrial actors and a dynamic commercial sector, provides substantial technical depth. Of particular relevance is Japan’s Michibiki (QZSS) satellite constellation, which enhances Positioning, Navigation, and Timing (PNT) resilience and is highly interoperable with European systems.34)

Crucially, Japan also contributes a capability Europe currently lacks: reliable heavy-lift launch capacity.35) The H3 launch vehicle provides the means to deploy larger, strategically significant payloads, complementing the Nordic region’s specialised polar launch geography. Integrating Japanese launch and satellite capabilities with Nordic Arctic infrastructure could therefore enable a more redundant, resilient, and region-spanning orbital architecture capable of monitoring security, environmental, and logistical challenges across both the Arctic/North Pacific and Indo-Pacific theatres.

Institutional developments already point in this direction. The European Space Agency’s decision to establish a permanent presence in Tokyo,36) alongside ICEYE’s expanding manufacturing partnership with Japan’s IHI,37) signals a maturing framework for sustained Nordic–Japanese space cooperation. Within this context, space emerges not merely as a technical domain, but as a strategic connector: linking Arctic and Indo-Pacific priorities, aligning regional security architectures, and reinforcing shared interests in resilience, transparency, and rules-based order across interconnected theatres.

Challenges and Constraints in Arctic Cooperation

Notwithstanding the potentials outlined above, the prospect for closer Nordic Japan cooperation in the Arctic is far from certain. With multilateral governance in retreat and the Arctic Council stagnant,38) there is a growing risk of diminished space for multilateral cooperation between regional and extra regional states which, in turn, could stifle the prospect of close cooperation between Japan and the Nordic states in the Arctic.

This challenge is further compounded by the emergence of Sino-Russian parallel structures aimed at reshaping regional and global governance in line with their respective strategic objectives.39) Also at play is the management of their perspective relationships with the United States. As the United States opt for a more transactional approach in its foreign policy and moves away from science to resource diplomacy in the Arctic, both the Nordics and Japan need to ensures that deeper Arctic cooperation does not come at the expense of their respective relations with Washington. For Japan in particular striking such balance will require a clear strategic vision for the Arctic; one that balances between addressing pressing security concerns in its immediate neighborhood while also acknowledging, and preparing for, the implications of Arctic security for broader Indo-Pacific stability.

For the Nordic states, on the other hand, multilateralism remains their best bet in order be able to maintain normative power and credibility as Arctic actors and avoid being sidelined by the two larger Arctic states – Russia and the United States – in regional affairs. Leveraging synergies in areas of common interests and seeking cooperation with Japan can fulfill such an impetus.

Conclusion: Towards a Shared Arctic Vision

As the Arctic becomes increasingly accessible, its role as a bridge between the Euro-Atlantic and Indo-Pacific is no longer theoretical but a pressing strategic reality. For the Nordic countries, limited resources necessitate pooling efforts with capable partners; for Japan, the Arctic represents a new frontier for both strategic engagement and strategic containment vis a vis Russia and China. Deeper cooperation between Japan and the Nordic states, therefore, could have the potential to strengthen deterrence and resilience in the Arctic while simultaneously advancing the two sides’ respective, and in most part common, interests across two of the world’s most strategically vital regions.

Converging Nordic and Japanese strategic interests in the Arctic presents significant opportunities of enhancing cross-regional security through the improvement of physical digital infrastructure, environmental research and space capabilities. Such cooperation will not only bolster their collective strategic presence but also harden the region’s foundational infrastructure against emerging threats. In this sense, Arctic cooperation offers more than just another platform for dialogue; it provides a unique opportunity to align Nordic and Japanese strategies, reinforce regional governance through multilateral cooperation, and upholding a rules-based order under the mounting pressure of great power-politics. By jointly shaping the future of the Arctic, Japan and the Nordic states can demonstrate how geographically distant partners, united by common values and shared threat perceptions, can chart a course toward greater security, stability, and strategic balance in an interconnected world.

Magnus Aander is an Intern at Yokosuka Council on Asia-Pacific Studies (YCAPS) and a Master Degree student at the Graduate School of Political Science (GSPS) at Waseda University, Japan.

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