Organized by Rasmus Gjedssø Bertelsen (rasmus@cgs.aau.dk) and Lassi Heininen (lassi.heininen@ulapland.fi) on behalf of Tromsø University, Lapland University and The Arctic’s and Northern Research Forum’s Thematic Network on Geopolitics and Security. Please submit proposals to the organizers.
This workshop continues the research initiated by the GlobalArctic Project and the research dialogue started at the workshop ”The Arctic Nexus in Asian-Nordic+ Relations” at Aalborg University, 5-7 November 2014, which addressed how the Arctic is a possible new geopolitical, economic, scientific and transnational nexus between especially the Nordic small states and new rising powers in Asia, and that the globalized Arctic has potential worldwide implications. The Arctic is receiving greatly increasing international, especially Asian, scientific and political attention for two reasons: climate change and political-economic globalization. Much scholarly attention has been devoted to analyze the Asian, especially Chinese, interests, actions and policies in the Arctic. This workshop turns around the perspective and instead looks at the responses from the Nordic and other three Arctic states to the globalization of the Arctic.
The world is witnessing the “Rise of the Rest”, where especially China but also other Asian powers are growing in economic and political influence. Therefore, these countries see themselves as natural participants and stakeholders in regions around the world, including the Arctic. Followed from this the Arctic states have to relate to the rising Asian powers, the future of the globalized Arctic is not any more in the hands of Arctic actors alone. The Asian interest is much driven by concern on climate change, as well as research on climate, as the rapid Arctic climate change affects weather patterns in Asia, and therefore agriculture and food security there. Likewise, the rising Asian powers depend on global supply of energy, other resources and global shipping, as well as innovations in legal and political arrangements and governance, which make them interested in the Arctic and new opportunities for economic activities there, such as new shipping lanes. The 'global' Arctic with new economic interests has made it to play bigger role in world politics and the global economy, and therefore it might become a new dimension to the relationship between the Arctic states and Asia, and may give especially the Nordic states privileged scientific, political and economic access to rising Asian states, whose attention the world is competing for.
PROGRAMME:
09:15
Is the Arctic Age Ahead? Russian Views on the Future of the Global Arctic
Alexander Sergunin, Sct. Petersburg University
09:30
US Arctic Strategy in the Post-Obama Era?
Rebecca Pincus, United States Coast Guard Academy
09:45
Arctic Excess: The interests of Asian states have been exaggerated, along with their potential roles in regional governance
Michael Byers, University of British Columbia
10:00
America and the Arctic: Responding to Evolving Realities
Steven Miller, Harvard
Coffee break
10:45
The Lone Canadian in the Arctic
Stéphane Roussel, École nationale d'administration publique
11:00
Strengthening Cooperation Between the United States and the Russian Federation in the Bering Strait and Sea
Anita Parlow, Advisor
Woodrow Wilson Center for International Scholars - Polar Programme, Washington DC
11:15
Responding to the presentations and introducing discussion
Lassi Heininen, University of Lapland
11:25-12:00
Plenary debate
CHAIR:
Rasmus Gjedssø Bertelsen, Tromsø University
ABSTRACTS:
Ice Breaking: China’s Arctic Identity-Building Deconstructed
Marc Lanteigne, NUPI (presenter) Marc.Lanteigne@nupi.no and Su Ping (Tongji Universitet, Shanghai)
As a result of climate change and the opening of the Arctic Ocean to resource development and trading routes, Asian states led by China, have become increasingly visible in Northern development and diplomacy. These initiatives can be seen on three fronts. The first involves the potential for expanded resource development as a result of the retreat of ice in the region. More of the Arctic is now being opened for potential expansion of fossil fuel and raw material extraction, and despite the fall in energy and commodity prices Beijing is still seeking to develop resource diplomacy with Arctic partners. Second, the development of potential trade routes, including the Northeast Passage, is increasingly attractive to China and other large Asian economies seeking to reduce transit time and costs for exports to Europe and beyond. Third, the Arctic Council has assumed much greater visibility in the wake of discussion about a potential economic boom in the region.
With Beijing and other Asian states achieving permanent observer status in the Arctic in 2013, debate has grown over how 'international' Arctic interests have become as the region opens up, and China’s developing far north diplomacy is forcing the question of how non-Arctic states can optimally and successfully define themselves as Arctic stakeholders.
Is the Arctic Age Ahead? Russian Views on the Future of the Global Arctic
Alexander Sergunin
St. Petersburg State University
This paper will focus on how different Russian schools perceive the drivers of change in a globalizing Arctic – climate change, technological revolutions, increasing competition for the region’s natural resources and transport lanes, territorial disputes, environmental degradation, the need to solve problems pertaining to the indigenous peoples of the North, migration of labor force, etc.
One – optimistic – extreme school believes that the Arctic is a sort of Russia’s El Dorado which will become a main/strategic resource base for the country in the foreseeable future. According to this school, Moscow should be maximally open for international cooperation with regard to the Arctic to attract foreign investment and technologies to the region. This grouping is also conducive to developing various forms of global and regional governance in the Arctic.
Another – pessimistic - extreme school believes that the exploration and development of the Arctic natural resources and the Northern Sea Route is too expensive and unaffordable for the country not only for the time-being but also in the near and mid-term future. This school suggests holding the military-strategic control over the region until Russia’s technological and financial capabilities permit a real exploration and development of the Russian Arctic sector. This grouping is reluctant to develop far-reaching forms of multilateral cooperation, institutions and regimes in the region.
Finally, there are numerous schools and sub-schools that are in-between these two extremes trying to find a balance between the globalist/cosmopolitan and national/statist approaches.
US Arctic Strategy in the Post-Obama Era?
Rebecca Pincus
President Obamas's two terms have seen a wide revival of US Arctic strategy, including the formal issuing of Arctic strategy by the US Coast Guard and Department of Defense along with the National Strategy for the Arctic Region. In addition, Obama make an unprecedented and historic trip to US Arctic territory in Alaska, and called for greater spending on Arctic priorities, including a deep water Arctic port and polar icebreakers. Will this wave of enthusiasm continue in the post-Obama era?
Arctic Excess: The interests of Asian states have been exaggerated, along with their potential roles in regional governance
Michael Byers
University of British Columbia
From the perspective of the three largest Arctic Ocean coastal states, the interest of Asian states in the Arctic is a welcome development -- even if the potential role of those states in the region is often overblown. The UN Convention on the Law of the Sea privileges coastal states, giving them 12 nautical mile territorial seas, 200 nautical mile exclusive economic zones, and the possibility of extended continental shelves beyond that. It also givens them considerable control over shipping along their coastlines, including within so-called "international straits". All these rules are accepted by all the major non-Arctic states, including China, India, and the EU. For this reason, Canada, Russia and the United States see Asian states largely as a source of foreign investment and not as competitors. As for regional governance, by applying for observer status at the Arctic Council, Asian states have accepted the predominant role of Arctic states over decision-making in the region.
America and the Arctic: Responding to Evolving Realities
Steven Miller
Harvard University
Over the past decade, United States joined other Arctic nations in rethinking its Arctic policies in response to new conclusions about energy resources, sea routes, and the impact of climate change. Where do things now stand in light of the changing market for fossil fuel and the limited exploitation so far of Arctic sea routes? How is the United States responding to the Arctic policies and activities of other states? Here I will try to provide an update on US perceptions of the Arctic as it adapts to recent experience.
The Lone Canadian in the Arctic
Stéphane Roussel (presenting author) and Joël PLOUFFE (non-presenting author)
École nationale d’administration publique (ENAP), Montréal, Canada
stephane.roussel@enap.ca and joel.plouffe@enap.ca
What are the impacts of a possible decline of US hegemony for Canada? What are the options available for Ottawa’s foreign policy? Our paper turns to the contemporary Arctic as a case study to find answers to those questions. Since the end of the Cold War, and with the decline of the geostrategic value/importance of the Arctic, the US has been virtually absent from this region, at least in terms of high level political attention and physical military capabilities (i.e. excluding classified submarines activities), while other Arctic powers, such as Russia and emerging non-Arctic powers like China, appear to have filled the vacuum. In this type of situation, which could be reflective of an international system where the US is a declining hegemon, how do middle powers like Canada adapt to this type of systemic change? Bandwagoning with another power (a classical realist hypothesis)? Reinforcing the regional multilateral institutional equation as a way to maintain the status quo (a neoliberal hypotheses)? Or acting in an unilateral way as a strategy to reinforce a regional position and present Canada as an ”Arctic power” (a constructivist or neoclassical realist hypotheses)? This paper seeks to demonstrate that the third theoretical explanation is the one that corresponds the most closely to Canada’s current foreign policy approach in the Arctic.
This paper argues that the main drivers behind the Harper government’s Canadian Arctic foreign policy are domestic and shaped by identity imperatives. Indeed, it is argued that by having adopted a ‘hard line’ posture towards international relations in the Arctic, as well as a unilateral stance (i.e. rhetoric) regarding the defense of Canadian sovereignty, the Conservative government has, in the process and deliberatively, enacted a “neoconservative agenda” to Canada’s foreign policymaking. Such an agenda seeks to gain, in the short term, some support amongst the electorate for electoral purposes, thus with an objective of maintaining governing power. On the long run, Harper’s objective is to reshape and redefine Canada’s international identity, from a “liberal institutionalist” one to an ideologically driven “neoconservative” Canada. This paper is part of a research program entitled “Neoconservatism in Canadian Foreign Policy” supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) of Canada.
Strengthening Cooperation Between the United States and the Russian Federation in the Bering Strait and Sea
Anita Parlow, Advisor
Woodrow Wilson Center for International Scholars - Polar Programme, Washington DC
This presentation will discuss how Russia and the United States, bordering the Bering, might increase collaborative practices along with high level initiatives that could serve as a foundation for policy: to ensure that the Bering Strait remains a well-managed, environmentally secure, effective infrastructure, sufficient deep water ports, icebreakers and well mapped. This presentation will also chronicle recent developments in the American and Russian sovereignty actions to enhance Native self–determination as the sea ice melts, altering traditional hunting, fishing and environmental conditions. The twin pulls of assimilation and the bonds of subsistence traditions has raised a series of key legal and political questions regarding subsistence and claims regarding natural resources in the offshore. What’s at stake can’t be understated. Effective Russian–American cooperation in the Bering Straits and Seas might produce a more fully developed Arctic standard and practice. The all critical US–Russian cooperation in the Bering, just might offer a way forward for open, secure and environmental sustainability in the strategically vital Bering Straits and Sea. With “cooler heads” a cooperative and mutually beneficial policy and management framework can help us all shape a transforming region in 21st century terms.
