In Sea Change: America’s New Great Game in the Arctic Circle, Rana Foroohar argues that as melting ice turns the Arctic into the frontline of great power competition, America’s shortage of icebreakers and ships exposes a deeper problem: it has lost the industrial capacity that its national security depends on.
Foroohar is global business columnist and associate editor at the Financial Times and global economic analyst for CNN. She is the author of Makers and Takers, Don’t Be Evil, and Homecoming. In her new book, she takes readers aboard America’s only Arctic icebreaker and inside the capitals of Washington, Beijing, and Moscow, showing how control of shipping lanes, shipbuilding capacity, undersea data cables, and untapped resources will shape economic and military supremacy.
In her conversation with Nikolaus Lang, global leader of the BCG Institute, she discusses why the Arctic has suddenly become so contested, how America fell behind in shipbuilding, who holds the advantage in the region today, how the Arctic could change as the climate warms, how alliances are being redrawn, and how to sustain a multi-administration effort to rebuild industrial capacity.
Key topics discussed:
01:41 | Why the Arctic has become the most contested territory on earth
04:16 | How the world’s dominant naval power fell behind on icebreakers
07:36 | The 1993 “Last Supper” at the Pentagon
09:20 | Russia, China, and the US: who holds the advantage in the Arctic
13:35 | “National security lives downstream from industrial capacity”
16:28 | Maritime choke points and the future of the Arctic
21:11 | Beyond ICE Pact: allies, middle powers, and a new world order
24:54 | Rebuilding industrial capacity across multiple administrations
Additional inspirations from Rana Foroohar: