Examining the execution of Russian military-security policies and programs in the Arctic

Book chapter

Baev, Pavel K. (2018) Examining the execution of Russian military-security policies and programs in the Arctic, in Russia's Far North: The Contested Energy Frontier. London: Routledge (113–126).

Publisher's webpage

The pivotal geopolitical, strategic, and economic importance of the Arctic for Russia has been proclaimed so many times that questioning this proposition may appear senseless if not outright absurd. There is a strong international consensus on the matter of the fast-rising geopolitical/geo-economic profile of the Arctic region, and since Russia owns more than 40 percent of the littoral of the Arctic ocean and hosts more than a half of the population residing north of the Arctic Circle, its major contribution to this profile can be pretty much taken for granted. Yet, it is noticeable that the key reference point in the above-mentioned consensus is climate change, which opens the previously neglected Far North to international exploration, commerce, and competition (Emmerson 2010). In Russia, however, most policy-makers remain ambivalent if not downright skeptical about the impact of climate change (Poberezhskaya 2016), and the doctrinal guidelines about setting high priority to Arctic security matters are based on a different – and in the view of this analysis, rather questionable – set of assumptions (Carlsson and Granholm 2013).

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