Russian Activity in the High North: NATO's Arctic Quandary

The Arctic is a historically cooperative region that is undergoing a geopolitical shift, due largely in part to the impact of anthropocentric climate change. The five Arctic rim states - Norway, Canada, Russia, Denmark (Greenland), and the United States - all face new security challenges as the region begins to open up to trade and further energy extraction activity. One of those states, Russia, has taken a security initiative, establishing bases and rebuilding Soviet-era military sites. The other four states, members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), are facing an increasingly securitized region where they have substantiated interests, but lack a cohesive strategy. As tensions rise between NATO and Russia in other parts of the world, the potential for Arctic relations to freeze becomes increasingly conceivable. Understanding Russia's recent Arctic activity, current regional governance, and the role of state-interdependence allowed for an issues analysis on the High North. This analysis concluded that scholars do not agree on vocabulary regarding Russian activity, there is disagreement among NATO countries of how to approach Russian efforts in the Arctic, and both sides have different cultural understandings of the region, leading to a divergence in dialogue between policy-makers