173
Arctic Yearbook 2013
Arctic Regionalism in Theory & Practice
The Evolution of Arctic Regionalism
The following paragraphs focus on one critical juncture in the political history of the circumpolar
North: Gorbachev's Murmansk speech in 1987, which paved the way for the establishment of the
AC in 1996, which in turn has been considerably strengthened in recent years.
As will be shown
further below, preference for unilateral action or, at most, bilateral compromise in Arctic affairs up
to the mid-1980s thwarted deepened cooperation. The Russian policy shift towards a comprehensive
multilateralist strategy as articulated in Gorbachev‘s speech in Murmansk in 1987, in turn, set the
stage for region-wide arrangements.
(Post) Cold War Arctic Affairs: From Co-Existence to Cooperation
Until the end of bipolar confrontation of Cold War times, the Arctic was used first and foremost
strategically, regulated under a ‗piecemeal approach‘ (VanderZwaag et al., 1988: 33) and presented as
a potential war zone on both sides of the ocean. Historically, circumpolar cooperation was ill-
omened. Not only is the Arctic Ocean the frontier where NATO members and the former Soviet
Union come geographically closest, but Cold War rivals also used and abused this vast area for
deterrence. The Far North was through the 1980s separated into two self-contained territorial
sectors with little to no societal or intergovernmental exchange. The respective sectors were
defended from external infringement by the deployment of nuclear-powered submarines and area-
wide first- and second-strike
capabilities (Roucek, 1983). Because
the littoral states saw the Arctic as
hardly more than the sum of their national subunits the region remained proverbially the ‗last
frontier‘ marked by competition and contested stability.
Despite ideological fault lines, collaborative arrangements were not entirely absent in the Cold War
Arctic, especially with respect to environmental governance. Many bilateral agreements existed
among Western partners, but also between then-Soviet Russia and its direct Arctic neighbours.
These included, for instance, the U.S.-USSR Marine Mammal Project (1973), the U.S.-Canadian
Joint Marine Pollution Contingency Plan for the Beaufort Sea (1974), the Agreement on the
Conservation of the Porcupine Caribou Herd (1987), and the Danish-Canadian Marine
Environment Cooperation Agreement (1983). Additionally, the
Arctic Five
had in 1973 adopted the
Agreement on the Conservation of Polar Bears. The Treaty was at that time the only cooperative
initiative that all littoral states were signatories to (VanderZwaag et al., 1988: 16).
In NRA terminology, the Arctic of the 1980s/early 1990s is best described as a
regional complex
. While
cooperation was not entirely lacking, the states were overall inward-oriented and regarded Arctic
affairs primarily as a subject of national foreign policy. Because of their strong focus on national
territorial integrity and little regional consciousness due the East-West divide in international politics,
the level of regionness remained low. It was not before the often-quoted 1987 speech held by
Mikhail Gorbachev, then Secretary-General of the Soviet Communist Party, that induced, in
accordance with the processes of
Perestroika
, a substantial change in Arctic relations from ―icy co-
existence‖ (ibid: 2) towards deepened mutual trust and more region-wide coordinated action.
Gorbachev‘s vision of a ‗genuine zone of peace and fruitful cooperation‘ (1987) embraced six policy
initiatives in the field of scientific, environmental and energy cooperation, consideration of