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Table of Contents
About the Book
INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER
A gripping blend of travelogue and frontline reporting that reveals how climate change, military ambition, and economic opportunity are transforming the Arctic into the epicenter of a new cold war, where a struggle for dominance between the planet’s great powers heralds the next global conflict.
Russian spies. Nuclear submarines. Sabotaged pipelines. Undersea communications severed in the dark of night. The fastest-warming place on earth—where apartment buildings, hospitals, and homes crumble daily as permafrost melts and villages get washed away by rising seas—the Arctic stands at the crossroads of geopolitical ambition and environmental catastrophe. As climate change thaws the northern latitudes, opening once ice-bound shipping lanes and access to natural resources, the world’s military powers are rushing to stake their claims in this increasingly strategic region. We’ve entered a new cold war—and every day it grows hotter.
In Polar War, Kenneth R. Rosen takes readers on an extraordinary journey across the changing face of the far north. Through intimate portraits of scientists, soldiers, and Indigenous community leaders representing the interests of twenty-one countries across four continents, he witnesses firsthand how rising temperatures and growing tensions are reshaping life above and below the Arctic Circle. He finds himself on the trail of Navy SEALs training for arctic warfare, embarks on Coast Guard patrols monitoring Russian incursions, participates in close-quarter-combat training aboard foreign icebreakers in the Arctic sea ice, and visits remote research stations where international cooperation is giving way to espionage and the search for long-frozen biological weapons.
Drawing on hundreds of interviews and three years of reporting from the frontlines of climate change and great power competition, Rosen blends incisive analysis with the vivid immediacy of a travelogue. His deeply researched and personal accounts capture the diverse landscapes, people, and conflicted interests that define this complex northern region. The result is both an elegy for a vanishing landscape and an urgent warning about how the race for Arctic dominance could spark the next global conflict.
A gripping blend of travelogue and frontline reporting that reveals how climate change, military ambition, and economic opportunity are transforming the Arctic into the epicenter of a new cold war, where a struggle for dominance between the planet’s great powers heralds the next global conflict.
Russian spies. Nuclear submarines. Sabotaged pipelines. Undersea communications severed in the dark of night. The fastest-warming place on earth—where apartment buildings, hospitals, and homes crumble daily as permafrost melts and villages get washed away by rising seas—the Arctic stands at the crossroads of geopolitical ambition and environmental catastrophe. As climate change thaws the northern latitudes, opening once ice-bound shipping lanes and access to natural resources, the world’s military powers are rushing to stake their claims in this increasingly strategic region. We’ve entered a new cold war—and every day it grows hotter.
In Polar War, Kenneth R. Rosen takes readers on an extraordinary journey across the changing face of the far north. Through intimate portraits of scientists, soldiers, and Indigenous community leaders representing the interests of twenty-one countries across four continents, he witnesses firsthand how rising temperatures and growing tensions are reshaping life above and below the Arctic Circle. He finds himself on the trail of Navy SEALs training for arctic warfare, embarks on Coast Guard patrols monitoring Russian incursions, participates in close-quarter-combat training aboard foreign icebreakers in the Arctic sea ice, and visits remote research stations where international cooperation is giving way to espionage and the search for long-frozen biological weapons.
Drawing on hundreds of interviews and three years of reporting from the frontlines of climate change and great power competition, Rosen blends incisive analysis with the vivid immediacy of a travelogue. His deeply researched and personal accounts capture the diverse landscapes, people, and conflicted interests that define this complex northern region. The result is both an elegy for a vanishing landscape and an urgent warning about how the race for Arctic dominance could spark the next global conflict.
About the Author
Fondation Jan Michalski, Tonatiuh Ambrosetti
Kenneth R. Rosen is the recipient of a Kurt Schork Award, a Bayeux-Calvados Award for War Correspondents, and was a two-time finalist for the Livingston Award for his work in Syria and Iraq. His writing has appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Times, The Atlantic, and WIRED. He divides his time between Western Massachusetts and Northern Italy with his wife and their three children.
Product Details
- Publisher: Simon & Schuster (January 6, 2026)
- Length: 320 pages
- ISBN13: 9781668052358
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Raves and Reviews
"First-class reportage, with a refreshingly high signal-to-noise ratio."—Los Angeles Review of Books
"Immersive and richly reported...the book speaks to the moment."—The Economist
"A worthy read...Rosen is fearless in his travels and perspicacious in his assessments."—The Cipher Brief
"Terrifying, in a good way."—New Scientist
“As Rosen persuasively argues, President Trump’s threats and entreaties to take Greenland outright can also be seen another way. The pursuit of conquest as the only way to avoid conflict is a self-fulfilling prophecy.” —The New York Times
“A series of merciless vignettes … anyone in the White House wanting to understand the context of the US president’s Greenland landgrab should buy Kenneth Rosen’s book Polar War.” —The Times of London
“Troubling and revealing.” — The Independent
“Rosen’s field work was thorough.” —Australian Strategic Policy Institute
“A timely warning of climate change and melting ice paving the way to military-led land-grabs for resources…Such reporting is indispensable in helping readers understand the region.” —Financial Times
"Engaging and accessible...Rosen brings urgency and vivid storytelling to a region undergoing rapid environmental and geopolitical change."—Science
"At once both immensely fascinating and alarming, Rosen’s words culminate in a robust depiction of the Arctic climate, physically and politically. Control of the Arctic has roots in the climate crisis, making this extensively researched and accessible exposé ideal for readers interested in science and politics alike."—Booklist (Starred review)
"Lyrical and deeply reported...Two years of travel to the Arctic regions and hundreds of interviews bolster Rosen’s hypnotic descriptions of the frigid crossroads where nations vie for domination and control."—Publisher's Weekly
"Timely, provocative...Rosen is a talented writer. He deftly distils his research into vignette-like chapters filled with show-stopping adventures and small, intimate moments."—The Spectator
"First-class reportage on an urgent dilemma...Not one to simply explain the problems, Rosen also provides a roadmap toward effective solutions. What might have been a stilted recitation of issues is instead an engrossing, soberly rendered cautionary tale."—Kirkus (Starred Review)
"Engrossing...draws us toward a new strategic frontier, and we can almost feel the bitter cold."—Times Literary Supplement (UK)
"A wake-up call for the West."—Jonathan Beale, BBC Defence Correspondent
“By anchoring the geopolitics in the realities of the region and its human stories, Kenneth R. Rosen makes an essential contribution to understanding what is really at stake at the top of the world.” —Keir Giles, author of Who Will Defend Europe?
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