Arctic Yearbook 2025 - War and Peace in the Arctic
Call for Abstracts (deadline): 10 March 2025 (250-400 words)
Draft papers (deadline): 16 June 2025 (4500-6500 words)
The Arctic Yearbook is calling for abstracts for its 2025 volume.
The Arctic Yearbook is an international and peer-reviewed volume which focuses on issues of regional governance, development, environmental politics, circumpolar relations, geopolitics and security, all broadly defined. It is an open access, online publication.
This year's theme is "War and Peace in the Arctic". For the first time since World War II, "hot" or kinetic conflict has reached the Arctic, in the form of Ukrainian drones hitting targets in the Kola Peninsula. Long considered an exceptional region compartmentalized from the geopolitical tensions in other regions where major advancements have been made regarding cooperative science diplomacy among states and Indigenous Peoples, the Arctic is back to being seen by states as a military theatre.
The Arctic is an esoteric region, and popular impressions and policy conclusions are often based on superficial understanding. The desire to "buy" Greenland is one in a long list of examples.
As the international geopolitical situation worsens and the Arctic becomes subject to more intense interest, it is important to have a more nuanced understanding of what is at stake: the threats, the risks and the most appropriate responses. While our strategies now lean into preparing for war in the Arctic, or for military threats that could pass through the Arctic, state strategies must also help preserve the Arctic as a "zone of peace". As the United States' National Strategy for the Arctic Region articulated, we still seek "an Arctic region that is peaceful, stable, prosperous and cooperative."
This volume seeks to provide a collection of timely and thoughtful analyses of Arctic military, security, and diplomacy. Of particular interest for this volume are the following:
- Arctic capabilities, strategies and assets of any relevant militaries of USA, Russia, China, Nordic states or others.
- Assessments of NATO in the Arctic and the impacts of an expanded alliance (with Finland and Sweden as members) on Arctic security, strategy and governance.
- Strategic objectives of Russia, China, USA and others in the Arctic region, as articulated formally and through their actions.
- Foreign and security policy in the Arctic, in a post-exceptionalism.
- Role of arms control and disarmament in foreign and security policies of Arctic states.
- Discussion on how climate change is affecting security dynamics (discourse, premise, paradigm) in practice, including better or worse shipping routes, better or worse access to raw materials, and better or worse food safety.
- Confidence building measures - how they've worked in the past and what they might look like going forward.
- The relevance of Arctic cooperation, in particular the Arctic Council, post-Ukraine war.
Other topics of contemporary significance to Arctic development, governance, geopolitics, security, and community well-being will also be welcome.
Abstracts should be 250-400 words and include author name(s), institutional affiliation and article, to be submitted to and . The deadline for abstracts is March 10, 2025. Notice of acceptance will be provided by March 21, 2025. Articles must be submitted by June 16, 2025. Publication is planned for Fall 2025.
We also welcome proposals for commentaries (1-3 page opinion pieces) and briefing notes (4-7 page analyzes) from experts and policymakers on current issues and events.
EDITOR
MANAGING EDITOR
Communication Manager
EDITORIAL BOARD
- Dr. Lawson W. Brigham (Global Fellow, Wilson Center Polar Institute; Research Faculty, University of Alaska Fairbanks)
- Dr. Daria Burnasheva (Senior Lecturer at Arctic State Institute of Culture and Arts, Sakha Republic)
- Dr. Miya Christensen (Professor at University of Stockholm, Sweden)
- Halldór Johannsson (Executive Director, Arctic Portal, Iceland)
- Dr. Ólafur Ragnar Grímsson (Former President of the Republic of Iceland, Chair of the Arctic Circle)
- James Ross, (Gwich’in leader, Northwest Territories, Canada)
- Dr. Alexander Pelyasov (Russian Academy of Sciences; Director of the Center of Northern and Arctic Economics; Ministry of Economic Development & Trade, Russian Federation)
