Beyond the Chokepoints: The Arctic and the Making of a Networked Heartland

For more than a century, global trade has been structured around a small number of maritime chokepoints — Hormuz, Bab el-Mandeb, Suez and Malacca. But when these routes become increasingly vulnerable to geopolitical disruption, the question is no longer simply who controls the world’s resources. It is increasingly about who can move goods, energy and information when established routes become unreliable.

The renewed insecurity around the Strait of Hormuz and the Red Sea in 2025–2026 is therefore giving new strategic significance to a geography that was once considered peripheral: the Arctic.

Russia’s Northern Sea Route is still far smaller than Suez and remains constrained by sanctions, infrastructure requirements, insurance costs, seasonal conditions and its dependence on Russian-controlled infrastructure. Yet something important is changing. Arctic shipping is moving, however unevenly, from an alternative discussed mainly in strategic projections toward a corridor being tested by commercial actors.

China’s growing interest, South Korea’s Arctic shipping initiatives and the increasing movement of Russian energy cargoes toward Asia suggest that the Arctic may be becoming more than a shorter maritime route between Asia and Europe.

This raises a broader theoretical question.

Could the Arctic evolve into a “Networked Arctic Heartland” — not in Mackinder’s original sense of a continental landmass whose territorial control determines global power, but as a strategic node where shipping, energy, ports, subsea cables, satellites and military infrastructure converge?

The concept proposed in this article is deliberately presented as a hypothesis rather than an established geopolitical reality. The Arctic does not replace Suez, Hormuz or the other great maritime chokepoints. Nor does Russia acquire uncontested control over a new global order.

Instead, the emerging picture may be one of multi-corridor geopolitics: a world in which states increasingly seek several routes through which goods, energy and data can move, rather than depending excessively on any single geographical pathway.

For Europe, this distinction is particularly important. Replacing dependence on southern maritime routes with dependence on a Russian-controlled northern corridor would not constitute strategic autonomy. European resilience requires diversification across southern maritime routes, the Cape of Good Hope, Eurasian land corridors and, where economically and strategically viable, Arctic connectivity.

The full article examines this emerging geography, the roles of Russia, China and other actors, the concept of the Networked Arctic Heartland, and what a multi-corridor order could mean for Europe.

Read the full article at the Istituto Affari Internazionali (IAI)