302
Arctic Yearbook 2013
Finger
Iceland, Norway, Sweden, and Finland, all countries which have territories North of the polar circle.
However, until well into the Cold War, the Arctic remains peripheral for the different nation-states.
This is even more so because the Arctic portions of these countries (except for Iceland) are
populated by indigenous peoples, who are neglected, if not oppressed. The centers of these Arctic
States lie in the South and natural resources are not yet that actively sought after, as industrial
development is still based on relatively easily accessible resources.
However, with the
Cold War
, the Arctic became a military focus where the West, especially the
United States but also the NATO countries (Canada, Norway, Iceland), and the East (i.e. the Soviet
Union) stationed nuclear weapons, nuclear submarines, as well as other military technologies
(Swords and Ploughshares, 2009). Some of the military bases have become well known during this
time, such as Murmansk (Russia), Thule (Greenland) and Keflavik (Iceland). As the Cold War put
the Arctic on the global map, it also contributed to population growth (thanks to more or less
coerced migration), along with the pollution of the Arctic (nuclear pollution, so-called Arctic haze,
PCBs, etc.).
The
end of the Cold War
appears as a period, albeit a very short one, of all possibilities. Gorbachev‘s
Murmansk speech can serve as a case in point, where peace and sustainable development were called
for. Similarly new governance mechanisms (e.g., the Arctic Council) and various non-state actors,
including indigenous peoples‘ organizations, emerged and sought to play an active role in shaping
the Arctic‘s own future. Similarly, Greenland‘s aspirations for independence were voiced. This was
also the time when some corporations started to actively explore Arctic resources but also Arctic
shipping routes (Finger-Stich & Finger, 2012).
But it is in the fourth era – the era of diminishing returns – that the Arctic has really caught global
attention. On the one hand, this is because the first signs of global warming are affecting the Arctic,
leading to the melting of the Arctic sea ice. On the other hand, this is also because, thanks to global
warming, Arctic States – notably Russia, the United States, Canada, Greenland and Norway – are
opening up the Arctic for resources exploration and exploitation, mindful of the fact that the Arctic
holds a substantial portion of the world‘s gas, oil, coal, and other minerals reserves. They all have, in
recent years, developed their own so-called ―Arctic Strategies‖ (Heininen, 2011). Indeed, resources
in the Arctic can only be exploited by permission, and even more so only thanks to the active
support of the different nation-states. The fact that the military has never left the Arctic and that
many firms exploiting Arctic resources are actually state-owned (especially in Russia and Norway)
significantly contributes to such accelerated resources exploitation.
2
Another sign of the ―rush to the
Arctic‘s resources‖ is the fact that non-Arctic States, notably China, Korea, Japan, France and the
United Kingdom are not only seeking membership in the Arctic Council, but are themselves actively
exploring resources by way of their scientific teams. In other words, the Arctic, in the era of
diminishing returns, has definitely become a new theater for nation-states, at least for the big and
resource-hungry ones.