Should the Arctic Council introduce a security component?

The question of a security component being established within the Arctic Council brings about pros and cons. One the one hand, it would formalize structures and understandings that are being undertaken on a primarily bilateral level between Arctic states. It would also serve as a useful way in which to engage Russia (and observer China, to a lesser extent) with the aim of producing potentially concrete results on matters of Arctic security. In short, why not?

Well, I'll be a good social scientist and address both sides of the equation: we should not be asking "why not" but instead "why." First of all, there is little reason to believe that such a component would actually produce these concrete results that multinational organizations actually exist to create. This would also arguably draw public attention away from the areas where the Arctic Council has already created positive discussion (such as issues facing indigenous peoples and the environmental impacts of increased human activity in the region). Additionally, increasingly irreconcilable strategic differences between Russia and the other Arctic states would likely prevent solid agreements governing the area of greatest concern: that being dangerous levels of militarization in the region. Results such as the 2011 search and rescue agreement are about the best we can hope for in this regard.

With that said, it is also worth wondering if such a component is really even necessary given what we've seen thus far. As much as I'm not terribly worried about Russia constantly reminding everyone of its recent military investments in the Arctic, one does have to wonder if things will suddenly take a turn for the worse given recent Russian behavior. There is certainly good reason to remain optimistic about Russia's general cooperation on Arctic issues, so perhaps it's worth considering if it's necessary to fix what is not broken. This is besides the fact that many security issues are better defined hemispherically rather than in the whole Arctic space. As such, it may be better not to create hassle where it does not need to exist.

5 questions for the United States on its Arctic goals in 2015

As the United States prepares to assume the Arctic Council chairmanship in 2015, Arcticphiles have already begun thinking of the different issues facing the organization from the US perspective in the next couple of years. As has been pointed out elsewhere, we also kind of already forgot that Canada still hasn't handed things over just yet. Coming from the American perspective, there is certainly reason to believe that this is a huge moment for the United States on Arctic matters. The United States certainly lags behind some other Arctic states on giving proper attention to the region, and its various Arctic strategies thus far provide some (but not enough) insight into how we will respond to the challenges facing the region. At the very least, here are a few questions that the United States will want to consider as it prepares to take on leadership of the global Arctic forum:

1) Will there be a security component to the Arctic Council?
2) Will the U.S. federal government take a more assertive role in Arctic affairs or continue to let the state of Alaska run its own affairs in certain areas?
3) Can the Arctic Council serve as an effective vehicle to strengthen relations with Russia?
4) Will the permanent Arctic Council secretariat established in 2013 be given greater resources to enact more concrete programs in the Arctic under the US chairmanship?
5) Can the United States effectively respond to the challenges facing the Arctic despite domestic opposition to taking strong measures against climate change?

In the next few days I will go into more detail on each of these questions, but this may be enough to ponder for now.