Abstract
Due to changes in climate and technology, the Arctic Ocean is becoming increasingly navigable. Since potentially enormous energy holdings have been discovered there, and the Arctic constitutes Russia’s northern coast, the area’s commercial significance adds to its preexisting strategic importance for the Russian Federation. During the Cold War, the High North theater held acute strategic significance as the bastion for Russia’s nuclear Northern Fleet. That significance, though diminished, still prevails. The Pacific side of the Arctic is becoming more important as China’s power grows. The mounting importance of the area as a source of energy and trade for Russia merely adds to the Chinese factor. Bearing these points in mind, beginning in 2007 the Russian government has made a noisy and demonstrative effort to assert its claims in the Arctic but has also negotiated with other Arctic stakeholders, most prominently Norway, with whom it signed a treaty in 2010.
Given the growing strategic significance of the Arctic for Russia and other Arctic states like the United States, the Strategic Studies Institute added a panel on the Arctic to its January 2010 conference, “Contemporary issues in International Security,” held at the Finnish embassy in Washington, DC. The papers in the present volume bring together Russian, European, and American analyses of the energy and military significance of the Arctic, a significance extending to the United States and other Arctic states, as well to Russia. These papers clarify the motives, stakes, and capabilities that Russia brings to the Arctic, thus their true importance lies in their implications for international security. Therefore they should help to advance our understanding of a region whose significance for the United States in terms of both energy and strategy will rise considerably in the foreseeable future.
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