A 19th century philosophy for a 21st century world: Commentary

In October 1987, Mikhail Gorbachev told an audience in Murmansk about his vision for an Arctic zone of peace. In his speech, made less than three years before he became president of the Soviet Union, Gorbachev outlined his ambitious hopes, stressing a need for regional demilitarization, nuclear disarmament, environmental protection measures, and cooperation in scientific research.

The speech was followed by a set of international agreements that culminated in the establishment of the Arctic Council in 1996. Twenty-five years later, Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov echoed Gorbachev’s optimism – you could call it naivety – when he declared that “a quarter of a century of persistent, meticulous work on building a system of interaction really pays off.”

Fast forward to March 2025 and Russian President Vladimir Putin is in Murmansk imparting a baffling history lesson to his audience at the Arctic Policy Forum. Here, Putin crafted a historical argument for U.S. territorial designs over Greenland, which he claimed involved “longstanding historical roots” dating back to 1910. Putin went on to say that a U.S. acquisition of Greenland “concerns two specific states and has nothing to do with us.”

When Putin starts giving a history lesson, it’s a signal for what is to come. One only needs to look at a 2021 essay entitled “On the Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians,” where he outlined a historical claim for Russian sovereignty over Ukraine.

JD Vance’s visit to Greenland

One day after Putin made his comments, U.S. Vice President JD Vance travelled to Pituffik Space Base in Greenland, where he argued that U.S. control over the country was needed ‘”to keep the people of Greenland safe from a lot of aggressive incursions from Russia, China and other nations.”

If a U.S. purchase of Greenland is against Russian and Chinese interests, then why is Putin concocting a U.S. casus belli to take it? The answer is simple: Putin wants to normalize territorial acquisitions in violation of international law, along with the right for self-declared “great powers” to carve out their own spheres of influence. This is an objective shared by China, which explains President Xi’s conspicuous silence on this issue.

19th century origins for the Trump administration’s Greenland obsession

The Trump administration’s territorial ambitions in Canada, Greenland and the Panama Canal are a curious revival of the Monroe Doctrine of 1823, in which U.S. President James Monroe asserted unrestrained U.S. hegemony over the Western Hemisphere. Monroe outlined two spheres of influence: The Americas and Europe. The independent states of the Western Hemisphere would be solely in the U.S. domain and, in exchange, the U.S. pledged to avoid involvement in Europe’s political affairs.

During Trump’s first term, National Security Adviser John Bolton openly declared that “the Monroe Doctrine is alive and well.” This 19th century theory of hemispheric control and rejection of the concept of a European country – such as Denmark – owning territory in continental North America is part of this revisionist lens.

Moscow’s Motivation

To Putin, the U.S. dusting off the concept of the Monroe Doctrine, and by extension ideas of Manifest Destiny, allows Russia to justify territorial ambitions in its own backyard. After all, Russia claims 70% of the seabed in the central parts of the Arctic Ocean outside of its exclusive economic zone (EEZ). If the U.S. can press their claim on Greenland, then they could press their claims in the Arctic Ocean and by extension the untapped oil and gas reserves under its seabed.

A month ago, the Kremlin accused Norway of militarizing Svalbard, a Norwegian archipelago that as part of the 1920 Svalbard Treaty, has had a unilateral pledge of demilitarization. The Soviets signed the Treaty in 1935, the archipelago hosted the Soviet built town of Pyramiden, and its soft underbelly lays open to Russian military forces waiting in Franz Josef Land. If the acquisition of hemispheric territory within a perceived sphere of influence was to be normalized in the name of national security and historical claims, Putin would position himself to seize the territory.

Murmansk to Murmansk, the new direction of the Arctic

Thirty-seven years after the hope that arose from Gorbachev’s speech in Murmansk, we are witnessing the death of that dream in the very place of its inception. The ideals of international cooperation, demilitarization and the mutual respect for the sovereignty of Arctic states are all being replaced. A revisionism that seems reminiscent of a 19th century concept of empire has taken its place.

Putin is now riding the headwinds of the Trump administration’s pursuit to redraw the map in the Arctic to justify its very Russian form of Manifest Destiny.

Olli McIntyre holds an MSc in History of International Relations from the London School of Economics and is Head of Daily Operations at The Plakhov Group.