Beyond the Post-Cold War Geopolitics and Security of the Arctic

Abstract

In the early twenty-first century there are two main discourses on geopolitics and security of the Arctic region, which offer contrasting accounts of the High North as it has emerged in the post-Cold War period. The mainstream discourse emphasizes its stability and peacefulness, and the absence of armed conflicts after the region was transformed from confrontation to international cooperation between states, and people(s) and civil societies. The other argues that the region, framed narrowly as the Arctic Ocean, has the potential to become a ‘race’ for natural resources, and consequently, to escalate in the direction of violent conflict. There are geopolitical and economic realities corresponding to real changes in the Arctic: The region is under global pressure for physical impacts of climate change and an increasing utilization of its energy resources. Its northern seas are the subject of maritime border disputes. There is a concern on sovereignty of northern waters due to growing international attention. Further, the land claims of Arctic indigenous peoples are linked to debates over use of land, water and sea ice. These are much the parameters around which the discourses of northern geopolitics and security are discussed: those of conflict and cooperation. The predicted conflicts have not (yet) materialized: the Arctic is peaceful based on institutionalized circumpolar cooperation, renewed region-building and new kind of relationship between the region and the outside world. That much is clear. However there is another perspective that can enable us to approach Arctic geopolitics that go beyond the familiar terms of conflict and cooperation: there is a new, significant multi-dimensional change in geopolitics, geo-economics and security that has occurred in the High North. This perspective raises a key question which is the focus of the panel: is the post-Cold War over in the Arctic, and if so, what does it mean?

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