The Trans-Arctic Transport Corridor

Troy J. Bouffard and Lester W. Grau

What is the Trans-Arctic Transport Corridor and why does it matter to the United States? What does it mean for global trade? Troy J. Bouffard and Les Grau explain.

Keywords: : Trans-Arctic Transport Corridor, Russia, China, Northern Sea Route, global economy

Listen here.

Stephanie Crider (Host)
Welcome to Decisive Point. The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the guests and are not necessarily those of the Department of the Army, the US Army War College, or any other agency of the US government.
I’m talking remotely with Troy J. Bouffard and Lester W. Grau, coauthors with Charles K. Bartles and Mathieu Boulègue of “Russian Arctic Land Forces and Defense Trends Redefined by NATO and Ukraine,” which was published in the Autumn 2025 issue of Parameters.
Bouffard (US Army, retired) has a master’s degree in Arctic policy and a PhD in arctic defense and security from the University of Alaska Fairbanks, where he’s an assistant professor of Arctic Security. He is the director of the University of Alaska Fairbanks Center for Arctic Security and Resilience and a research fellow with the United States Military Academy’s Modern War Institute.
Grau (lieutenant colonel, US Army, retired) specializes in Russian military studies and is a senior analyst for the Foreign Military Studies Office at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. He has a PhD from the University of Kansas in Russian and Central Asian history. He has written numerous books and articles on tactical, operational, and geopolitical subjects.
The last time we were here, we were talking about your Parameters article.
For listeners, if you’re interested, the podcast about the article is episode 6-3.
For decades, Russia treated the Northern Sea Route as its national transport artery. Now, it’s talking about the Trans-Arctic Transport Corridor. What exactly is this corridor, and why does it matter to the United States and countries like Russia, Europe, and China?

Troy J. Bouffard
Yeah, the Trans-Arctic Transport Corridor is quite significant. This is a major shift in Russian policy from the Kremlin. Since last century on, and formally, more recent decades, the Northern Sea Route was mentioned by [then–Soviet Union President
Mikhail] Gorbachev on October 1, 1987, as part of what he called the “zone of peace” for the Arctic region. But, [he] planted that seed that the Northern Sea Route was gonna be the epicenter of how that worked.
And then, with time, it became part of federal law exactly what the Northern Sea Route was, according to Russia. And then, it built its international case legally, and otherwise, on how it would manage the Northern Sea Route and—just as important—access to it. And, this has frustrated the West because it deviated from the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea and freedom of navigation rules. But Russia had a very strong case because they were consistent.
Changes to that definition, though, were a bit of a challenge. Several years ago, Putin had mandated that 80 million tonnes [of cargo] needed to be shipped through the Northern Sea Route by a certain date. And, up to that point, the record had been only about 10 million tonnes. And, that caused a lot of problems for Russian officials who scrambled, knowing that there’s no way, by the due date, that 80 million tonnes could possibly be shipped through the Northern Sea Route, which was largely symbolic, but a strategic move by Putin to show how important the Northern Sea Route was.
They got busy and got clever on trying to change the definition of the Northern Sea Route to extend it because it only goes from the Kara Gate[s] to the Bering Strait and doesn’t include, formally, the part of the Barents Sea—where most maritime activity actually happens.
So, they tried to extend the definition, and Putin would have none of it because he knows, in accordance with international law, if you change the definition of something like that, you reset everything that was part of building up that case. And, now we see this new position from the Kremlin—not changing the definition of the Northern Sea Route but elevating it to this level that connects Vladivostok all the way to St. Petersburg.

Lester W. Grau
Basically, these are the two major ports of Russia, and they
have been very important to Russia for centuries. So, by incorporating these ports as part of a greater route, they’re also kicking other things into being—and it’s called the “transportation corridor.” It’s not just about ships. It’s also very much about railroads. And, to a certain degree, it’s about roads.
And, if this is carried through, this could be an extremely major program in Russia, depending how much effort they put into this. If you look at our own history in 1956, we had the National Highways Act [Federal Aid Highway Act], where we built the interstate highway system in the United States. It was expensive, but the results were that it moved a lot of industry to the West Coast and moved a lot of the populace westward.
It also moved a lot of people from these city cores out into the suburbs and, basically, has had a fantastic impact on the growth of the United States, as well as giving us the ability to move goods in a hurry in any direction. So, I expect that the railroads are going to be the main beneficiaries. There’s already a good rail system that goes to St. Petersburg from the North Sea, but I expect to see that expanded and extended. Rivers and canals have always been a major part of Russian transport. We’re going to see some more of that as well. One of the things I think the corridor will do is to tie Russia together better.  The connection and ties between the eastern part and the western part of Russia is rather tenuous, but this corridor can do major things toward strengthening the unification of the country.

Host
Rosatom is Russia’s state nuclear energy giant, and it now oversees this entire corridor.  What will change? And if so, how?

Bouffard
[I don’t] think anything’s gonna change. Rosatom is one of two state corporations for Russia, the other being Roscosmos. And, this civilian agency was put in charge of the Northern Sea Route administration in operational conduct for many years now. And, it was a surprise to many, but it’s been fairly efficient. The scope and importance of the Northern Sea Route took a while for others to understand how important it was—Russia’s position, Putin maneuvering for international purposes, and all the things involved. Rosatom, [it] turns out, they were actually in a good position to administer. And, they understand how to expand the importance of the Russian Arctic in ways probably no other agency could actually manage.
I’m not sure there would be another agency that can handle it like Rosatom. They get it. They understand that the importance of connecting Vladivostok to St. Petersburg formally with a corridor like this is just part of connecting Asia to Europe, and that’s the big picture that Russia sees. This is ultimately what they want, which is [for] China and Southeast Asia to use the Northern Sea Route as much as possible and justify all of the investments, all of the positions that Russia has—the safety, the maritime coordination, the infrastructure development, everything. This has been their ultimate goal for quite a while.
And, this particular move, you know, establishing this idea of the Trans-Arctic Transport Corridor is really notable. There’s been nothing like this for over a century, where Russia now has a definitive goal of going beyond the Northern Sea Route, which tells me they feel that that position is firmly established well enough to defend internationally, legally, and militarily—if needed. And now, they feel like they’re in a position now to expand. And, the connection is obvious. It’s China and Southeast Asia. They want everyone using the Northern Sea Route as much as possible. And, this is how it’s gonna happen.

Grau
The expansion of the Northern Sea route has already started with Chinese transit. Russia moves a lot of fuel, liquid natural gas (LNG), and oil on the Northern Sea Route to China. This last year China had 17 container ships use the Northern Sea Route to get their goods to Europe. The route saves China about two weeks of transit time. This is quite considerable. South Korea is going to make a test run on the Northern Sea Route this summer or fall. Of course, South Korea has long been an ally of ours. But this is trade, this is commerce. And, for South Korea, this makes a lot more sense and saves a lot more money by being able to move, particularly container ships, on the route. It’s a major step.

Bouffard
That’s a bit of a challenge, too. Container ships that are used throughout global maritime shipping enterprise have become so huge. And that’s in an effort to reduce shipping costs. They’re now named things like Chinamax and Suezmax and Panamamax. And, what that means is these are ships that are just small enough, or just big enough, to get through those canals in those areas. Those will not fit in the Arctic. They may fit, someday, through the Trans-Arctic Corridor when sea ice, perhaps, allows, but through the Northern Sea Route, the max-size container ship, [will not], right? This is the kind of ship that really moves the goods and [carries out] commerce that Les mentioned, [and it] is limited to what’s called an Arcticmax ship, which is about half the size of a Panamamax.
For many years now, as we debated the viability of the North being part of shipping, a lot of myths popped up. A lot of studies happened, and it’s pretty clear. Obviously, for keel and depth, Arcticmax is about your limit, fully loaded, which was tested a couple of years ago through Panamamax, but only half loaded, [which is] interesting on journeys east and west and west and east. [It] got our attention.
China. [It was a] very clever move for them. What helped everyone to understand is this gonna work or not was the fact that China and Southeast Asia, Singapore up—Vietnam, South Korea, all of them—started significantly studying and investing. And then, [they are] gonna do tests like Les mentioned. We now know that this is very serious to China and Southeast Asia. It’s gonna happen. This is all great news for Russia, and we can take that information and figure out what it means to us in all the different ways, including the Bering Sea.

Host
How is the corridor going to serve as a way to bypass Western sanctions on traditional Baltic and Black Sea routes? Or is it really more about competing with the Suez Canal?

Grau
China’s getting goods to market faster. I think with South Korea following, maybe softening the whole sanctions business on this. Right now, for Russia, this is good news.

Bouffard
[I] don’t know how much sanctions factor into this. Sanctions as a form of hard power have been effective, you know, over the decades in different ways, but we are clearly seeing how our adversaries now are sanction-proofing themselves. They understand how this works, right? And, it doesn’t mean it’s working perfectly. Obviously, Russia is still suffering, but China gets it. Both Russia and China have made significant moves to sanction-proof themselves from the West. When it comes to this new corridor and the Northern Sea Route, I’m not sure to what extent international law or sanctions applies because this is about connecting China and Southeast Asia to Europe, not Russia. And, they may bypass a lot of what the sanctions have to do with at this point. And, that’s the ultimate goal anyhoo [anyhow], but this may feed into more knowledge about how to sanction-proof themselves as nations. So, that one is yet to be figured (out). Also, stand by on that one. That’s another podcast.

Host
All right, that’s fair.

Grau
The other point is that initially, the Northern Sea Route is not a year-round operation for most ships. Its main transit times are going to be during the summer and fall. If the Arctic Ocean warming and melting continues, then route traffic will expand, but ships will get iced in despite icebreakers in the area during the bad months. These ships that have been moving goods during the winter and spring are primarily moving oil and liquid natural gas.
So, the transarctic corridor is not going to be a year-round operation at this point. IStill, its a major opportunity for commerce and naval movement.

Host
You have already talked a little bit about how this corridor is going to invite cooperation with China and Southeast Asia. Does it set the stage, though, for a territorial tug-of-war over who controls the infrastructure?

Bouffard
This will only, I think, strengthen the need and the understanding to develop more infrastructure. If this shipping enterprise starts to gravitate more and more and more to the north, a lot of things are gonna have to change. In order to support shipping, emergencies, and operations, and otherwise, it’ll be necessary to set up even more infrastructure that’s there. Russia’s done a lot of the work already and they demonstrated they’re capable of handling situations, but as maritime traffic increases, there’s gonna be a need for more infrastructure.

Grau
Russia’s showing a lot of innovation in the Arctic and developing the Arctic. About nine years ago, I was looking at it, and Russia announced that they were putting a floating nuclear reactor up on the Northern Sea Route in the Chukotka area. If you're going to work in the Arctic, you’re going to need energy, like anywhere else. Stringing wire around thousands of kilometers really puts your rubles-per-kilometer rate up, but the floating reactor program has worked.
They’ve gone through their first fuel-rod changes on that first reactor, and they have more floating reactors on the Northern Sea Route where they are anchored and functioning. They support military bases,  mining and arctic research . I think this is a technology that no other country I’m aware of has looked at, but it, so far, is successful. They put a lot of effort into it, and a lot of this is going to come together under the Trans-Arctic Corridor.

Bouffard
That kind of infrastructure starts to, sort of, demonstrate how much has to go into provide for shipping enterprise. At the top there of Russia’s concerns is not only attracting investment and interest in using the shipping route but also that doing so will be very safe, very economic, which means you’ve gotta have a lot of infrastructure from the beginning to the end of the route to be able to handle any situation because if something goes sideways and something becomes unsafe or starts to chip away at the economic benefits, then your shipping clients will go elsewhere.
So, this is part of that huge picture that Russia’s looking at. And, how do we take advantage of connecting Southeast Asia and China to Europe? A lot of infrastructure. And, this will bring in the Bering Sea here on the North Pacific side of the United States, right into that picture, where Russia’s done a lot of the work in the Northern Sea Route itself, there’ll be more. And, there’s plenty to the west of that to get to St. Petersburg. From the Bering Strait down, there’s a lot of room for improvement.

Host
Do you think another country like maybe China would ever assist in that in the way that they have infrastructure in Djibouti or how they influence the port system in Panama? And do you think Russia would be open to that?

Grau
Chin’s role is always a bit of a question. Russia certainly welcomes Chinese shipping. Russia and China have worked together on transport going on the Northern Sea route. China has three icebreakers, and they’re building an atomic icebreaker. Plus, they have a lot of “research ships,” they call them—which are mini-icebreakers—not designed to go out and move large cargo. But for a non-Arctic nation, China is certainly a leading Arctic research and exploitation nation.
And, I should note that the United States is lagging way behind on icebreakers, though we’re finally going to start building some, but that’s about a 10-year program. Russia still considers the Northern Sea Route as her waters and is very protective of her rights in the area. China is welcome to cooperate and to move transport there, but I don’t look for a large Chinese presence in [the] Russian Arctic. I think there’s still a “this is Russia, this is historic Russia, we’re going to keep it Russian attitude. And yeah, China, you’re certainly not a full partner.”

Host
What needs to happen for Russia to make this year-round transit between St. Petersburg and Vladivostok?

Bouffard
I see Russia further developing what they’ve already done really well. They wrote the book on how to get natural gas out of the Arctic and into the market, the global market. And, they did that by utilizing ice-capable LNG tankers, and those are extremely expensive. And, South Korea leads in manufacturing these things, so they got more interest in the Arctic in other ways. But, these are extremely expensive and slow. When you think about a commodity such as natural gas in the form of LNG, a certain flow and volume has to get out to the market to really kinda capture that commercial interest. And, going through the North, as slow as it was, one tanker at a time, wasn’t really cutting it. Economically, it was completely viable and, really, the only way to make natural gas in the Arctic economically feasible.
They came up with a system where they can take two ice-capable LNG tankers from the peninsula there in Zapata where the main operations are. Yamal is this peninsula in the North [where] when you just poke a hole in the ground and natural gas is coming out. There’s so much up there. They load the tankers, and they both go east and west and [the transportation] used to be constricted to seasonal movement, but now they can go east and west. And, they go to a point near Murmansk and to the east of Russia, and they transfer that LNG from the ice-capable vessel to non-ice capable. Then, those can go out to the market, and then those ships can stay busy in the ice parts.
So, it went from seasonal, either going east or west, to now full time. They can go year-round. And, Russia wrote the book on that. And, it works. And, it’s only expanding. And, I expect that, you know, with what Les said, there’s so much shipping that happens in Russia just to supply the hundreds of villages in Siberia. The only real way to get there is shipping. [It is likely] that they’re gonna find other clever ways to keep the year-round operations going. This isn’t about just plowing a path from Vladivostok to St. Petersburg in Europe through the ice. You know, this is as much, if not more, domestic need for Russia. If it’s gonna grow its workforce, take advantage of the North and Siberia and these places larger than our entire nations where shipping is 90+ percent of everything they get, using canals, like Les said, they’re gonna take all of this into account and figure out a way to go from purely seasonal to more.
For Russia, it’s not just connecting Vladivostok to St. Petersburg. They see the huge picture. This could do so many things internationally and domestically.

Grau
Russia has also experimented with moving grain in barges up the Lena River, into the Arctic, around and down to China, and they can do this cheaper than they can by rail. So, barge traffic on the north-flowing Arctic rivers is a possibility. Now, not year-round, of course, because these rivers freeze over during the cold times.
However, another option is rail, and there’s been a lot of rail building going on in China. China is busy building, and they’re busy providing finances to Central-Asian countries that are building as well. So, a lot of this is going to link into this whole Trans-Arctic Transportation Corridor. It’s not just about the North Sea, and it’s a commercial world. It’s about getting goods to market quicker.
Right now, we’ve got a bottleneck in the Suez and Hormuz (Straits), which only demonstrates the necessity to develop other ways to get goods to market. Russia, right now, is in a good position to make this happen. Whether they do this effectively is, of course, a question. And, there’s always politics and things that raise their head in times like this. It certainly has a lot of potential for changing the way that we do business and for getting goods to market. Asia is very anxious to get to that European market quicker and faster and cheaper. I think Russia is looking at this and saying, “Okay, we can work with this and work it to both our advantages.”

Bouffard
Also, this will be an interesting long-term development for Russia, where the world kind of has to work together for maritime shipping enterprise. And, you can’t force or authoritarian your way through how things are gonna work. They’re gonna have to become partners in the international shipping world to make all this work, or commercial interests will go elsewhere. They do not deal with conflict or crises in areas, right?
So, Russia understands this. They’re already doing it, and we have to adapt to the fact that Russia might actually be a decent partner in managing the Bering Sea—just to demonstrate that you should use the shipping route. We’re there. We can all make sure that it’s safe and economic. And, Russia’s gonna have to demonstrate that, be willing to do that, [and] be a good international partner in order to keep the attraction there for using all of the waters involved with Russia’s north. And that’s going to be fairly new.

Host
On the surface, this sounds wonderful. Is there a downside, particularly for the United States?

Bouffard
The downside is if we don’t keep up with developments that are needed to support such activities. We’re probably on pace [with] the expected sort of shipping activity growth and our own investments and thinking about safety in the Bering Sea, you know—at least for our areas of responsibility. It’s not optimal, but I think it’s nominal. It’s really hard to, sort of, quantify and qualify that.
The global market in shipping can move very quickly in different ways, and we don’t have a hard date on [ideas like] okay, we need to have all this on this date. But, it seems to be tracking, and we seem to be appropriately reactive to what we’re seeing as investment movement studies, tests, and whatnot. As Les said, it seems like we got a hold of our icebreaker, polar security, [and] cutter goals. They seem to be on target. Right now, I think there’s a lot of discussion on what Les mentioned.
There’s a lot, maybe in the future, coming through the Bering Sea. Everyone is discussing what exactly that might be. We’re taking our cues off of China, Southeast Asia, and trying to do all the math and come up with a strategy and then drive that policy and say, “Hey, we’re gonna need some infrastructure with more certainty.”
We wanna be able to say that because right now, this has never happened before. This is all very new, very large-scale stuff, and we kinda wanna make sure we get it right. So [there are] very healthy discussions there.

Grau
And, a lot of this is going to get dumped in Alaska’s lap. Alaska is going to need more than lip service to this. The United States is going to have to make some solid investments in Alaska. There are not as many people in Alaska as there are in other parts of the United States. Certainly, there is a lot that needs to be done in that area.
I think the United States is going to have to prepare for the passage of more traffic on their shore—militarily, economically, politically. Alaska is going to become more important to the United States as a result of what’s going on in Russia.

Bouffard
For the military audience out there, what does this mean to them? It’s all about having that presence and capability and infrastructure to be able to support whatever’s needed—in this case, shipping activity. For the military, this is about lines of communication or sea lines of communication and having, sort of, that total network of capabilities for civil and military security purposes. This is where the maritime domain for the military is always far more complicated because of the 24/7 shipping. And, it’s the only domain that’s fully active at all times compared to others, on military terms, because things can go sideways really quick. So, for the military, and all the maritime authorities, they always gotta think about how do we manage both civil and military security and defense issues across the board?
And, lines of communication and sea lines of communication are kind of one of those starting points. How do we make sure we have presence? How do we extend our reach and our timely presence? And, that’s where you need ports, and that’s where you need, you know, coordination and so many more things. So, for the military audience out there, what does this mean to them? Well, this is an area to study. And from there, you can probably figure out a whole lot of other things that need to be developed, too.

Grau
In the past, when we’ve had difficulties in the area with Russia, it’s been mostly about fishing. Fishing is an important industry. It’s going to continue, but it’s now going to expand to other areas that I don’t know if we’re thinking enough about right now. I know Troy is, but more people have got to listen to Troy. So, there we go.

Bouffard
The big takeaway here is the announcement. The establishment of this development called the Trans-Arctic Transport Corridor is extremely notable. For Russia strategically, this is a decisive shift from just a Northern Sea Route to focus [on]. They’ve built up a strong enough position, I think, to defend legally [and] militarily, and now [they] have the ability to think about the larger, biggest picture that they’ve always had as part of their vision of connecting Southeast Asia [and] China to Europe. And the implications, as Les mentioned—domestically and internationally—are not easy.
We’re gonna be studying this for quite a while, but Russia has signaled it’s happening. Get ready.

Host
Last word to you Les.

Grau
One of the things is we’ve had periods of good relations with Russia in our history, and we’ve had times of very poor relations with Russia in our history. I would hope that the trans-Arctic route is one of the factors that is going to lead to an improvement in US-Russia relations, US-China relations, [and] US relations with the other Southern Asian countries because their ships are going to be moving along our shores. We’re going to become involved—peripherally, at least, if not more so—and it would be nice if we could do this in a period of goodwill, rather than confrontation and name calling.

Host
What a great note to end on.
Thank you both for making time to speak with me today. For more Army War College podcasts, check out Conversations on Strategy, SSI Live, CLSC Dialogues, and A Better Peace.