The Arctic area is in a state of rapid change. New fairways open up as the ice melts, which – in turn – presents both opportunities and threats to the neighboring states. As the Arctic is of both economical and strategic interest, these states include both great powers like the U.S. and Russia but also small powers like Norway and Denmark. The purpose of this thesis is to investigate how these states use their armed forces in claim of the Arctic and – more specifically – how Maritime Diplomacy is used in this situation. The thesis furthers attempts to address the question whether there are differences between the large states on the one hand, and the smaller ones on the other when using Maritime Diplomacy. The theoretical framework used in the thesis comes from several well known scholars and military theorists including Cable and Corbett which focus on maritime strategy. The analyses suggest that there are indeed significant differences between the studied states in terms of their use of Maritime Diplomacy. The thesis concludes that the four nations uses it’s maritime diplomacy tools in a coherent way. But there is a difference between great powers and smaller states since the smaller tend to use influence as a tool in greater extent. The thesis also shows that Russia as the only state that uses a coercive tool.

Russia and the US are two great powers who have strategic interest in the Arctic. Research indicates increased military activities in the Arctic and a security dilemma is up to topic in the region. To understand whether military or territorial disputes can become future threats in the Arctic, states' strategic interest in the Arctic needs to be investigated from a war science perspective. To gain an understanding of the states' strategic use of military means in a marine environment, naval diplomacy will be used in the investigation to offer an understanding on how naval forces can utilize different Defence, Coercive, Symbolic or Supportive strategic value. By examining current Russian and US Arctic policy documents, and how the strategic values of naval diplomacy are described, can give an indication of how Russia’s and the US increased military in the Arctic can be understood. The conclusions of the examination involve Russia's marine strategy as for infrastructure for readiness, possibility for all year around presence of naval forces regardless of season and delimiting of other powers ability of interaction in specific areas. The US marine strategy can be understood from aspects of a periodic presence and surveillance purposes, both with collaborative partners and to coerce other powers.