Polar Geopolitics

Arctic megaconferences like the annual Arctic Frontiers in Tromsø and the Arctic Circle Assembly in Reykjavik have become critical meeting places that literally provide a world stage for the performance of Arctic governance and geopolitics. They have further served a particularly important purpose in the absence of official gatherings during the Arctic Council pause of the past year. Yet how much of what takes place, in public and private, actually influences developments and decision making in the Arctic? Do elaborate PR and public diplomacy activities that characterize conferences affect perceptions of Arctic stakeholders, and are certain voices privileged over others in such contexts? Beate Steinveg, associate professor at Nord University in Norway, has for many years conducted in-depth research on Arctic conferences. She joins the podcast to share her insights into the multifaceted importance of such events in shaping the governance of the region.  Please consider supporting the Polar Geopolitics podcast

Despite the Covid crisis and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources took certain steps forward on the management of key Southern Ocean fisheries during the recent Swedish CCAMLR chairmanship, which concluded in November at the organization’s annual meeting in Hobart. The creation of new Marine Protected Areas and other environmental protection measures have, however, continued to be blocked by some member states. Dr. Jakob Granit, Director General Swedish Agency for Marine and Water Management, joins the podcast to share his experiences and insights from two years as CCAMLR chair on managing the Antarctic marine environment, engaging with Russia inside the Antarctic Treaty System, and navigating the increasingly complex geopolitical dynamics of Antarctic governance.  Please consider supporting the Polar Geopolitics podcast through PayPal  or Patreon   

Although the Arctic Council has remained on pause since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, multilateral interactions and diplomatic activity among senior Arctic officials (excluding representatives of Russia) has by no means come to a complete stop. Meanwhile, some stakeholders, particularly the Permanent Participant indigenous peoples’ organizations in the Arctic Council, see the current pause, even if well justified, as a relative loss of influence over Arctic governance. Finland’s SAO and Ambassador for Arctic Affairs Petteri Vuorimäki joins the podcast to provide insight into the current situation surrounding the Arctic Council, and to discuss Finland’s Arctic agenda as well as Arctic-Baltic security following Finland and Sweden’s NATO applications.

With energy and strategic raw materials increasingly at the center of geopolitics, the European Union’s first Arctic ambassador argues that Europe should look to certain areas of the Arctic in implementing its Green New Deal and transition towards renewables. Ambassador Marie-Anne Coninsx, senior associate fellow at the Egmont Institute in Brussels, joins the podcast to discuss a new Egmont report she co-authored with Karen van Loon, “Europe’s Energy and Resource Challenge: The Arctic is Part of the Solution”. She also makes the case for Belgium’s Arctic stakeholder status, while elaborating the country’s long-term engagement in the region.

In this moment of crisis, Prof. Oran Young shares insights accumulated across four decades, a time during which he laid the foundation for analyzing Arctic politics, and actively promoted governance initiatives in the circumpolar North. He also reflects on the legacy of Mikael Gorbachev, who was instrumental in establishing the idea of the Arctic as a “Zone of Peace”. This episode of the Polar Geopolitics podcast commemorates the 30th anniversary of Prof. Young’s seminal 1992 work, Arctic Politics: Conflict and Cooperation in the Circumpolar North, which largely launched the social scientific study of the Arctic region.  

Facing the most serious crisis since its founding in 1996, the future of the Arctic Council—currently on pause due to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine—has become fraught with uncertainty. What role, if any, can Russia possibly play in polar governance institutions if and when the conflict it started eventually subsides? Evan T. Bloom, a Senior Fellow at the Wilson Center’s Polar Institute who was instrumental in the Council’s establishment and evolution during his long career as the top polar official at the U.S. State Department, joins the podcast to discuss Arctic and Antarctic governance in the aftermath of the war in Ukraine. Support the production of the Polar Geopolitics podcast through our PayPal or Patreon pages.

Arctic and Russia expert Caroline Kennedy-Pipe, Professor of War Studies at Loughborough University, joins the podcast for a wide-ranging discussion on the implications of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on Arctic and Baltic security, Eurasian geopolitics and the liberal international order, as well as the threat of nuclear escalation and the possibility that great power competition between the United States, Russia and China could result in a new Cold War. Prof. Kennedy-Pipe also shares insights on the new UK Arctic military strategy and the lessons and legacies of the Falklands War forty years ago. Support for the Polar Geopolitics podcast can be provided via PayPal https://www.paypal.com/donate/?hosted_button_id=KXUVZKGALMFXU or Patreon https://www.patreon.com/polargeopolitics

Klaus Dodds, professor of geopolitics at Royal Holloway University of London and author of the recent book Border Wars: The Conflicts that will Define our Future, joins the podcast to discuss the impact of the Russian invasion of Ukraine on the Arctic Council and Antarctic Treaty System, on Baltic security and UNCLOS processes, and the ways in which the war has deeply disrupted the liberal international order, and potentially ushered in a new era of de-globalization.

The tensions in Arctic relations that began after the 2014 Crimea crisis will in all likelihood be greatly exacerbated by the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Could the new security situation in Europe, together with the increased military activity in the High North in recent years, lead to an Arctic arms race? Russia and Arctic expert Mathieu Boulègue, a research fellow at the Russia and Eurasia programme at Chatham House, joins the podcast to provide a real time analysis of the war in Ukraine, the new geopolitical reality in Europe, and the potential implications for Arctic security.

Camp Century, a 1960s US Army base embedded in the Greenland ice sheet, was not only a High Arctic test site for advanced technologies—including a modular nuclear reactor—and secret military schemes at the height of the Cold War, but also a seminal location for the extraction of ice cores that would become an important baseline for modern climate science. Associate professor Kristian H. Nielsen of Aarhus University, who-coauthored a definitive account of this fascinating chapter of Cold War history, “Camp Century: The Untold Story of America's Secret Arctic Military Base Under the Greenland Ice” (Columbia University Press, 2021), joins the podcast to discuss this audacious geostrategic initiative and its enduring afterlife that has continued to complicate Denmark-US-Greenland relations for over 60 years. 

The European Union updated its Arctic policy in October with a communication that took a strong stand on climate change—calling for hydrocarbons to be left in the ground—and pronounced its status as an Arctic geopolitical actor that would assert its interests across the circumpolar North. Ambassador Michael Mann, the EU Special Envoy for Arctic Matters, joins the Polar Geopolitics podcast for an in-depth discussion on the multiple dimensions of the European Union’s engagement in the Arctic, from interactions with Russia, China and the United States, to plans for opening an EU office in Greenland, and its ongoing quest to become an Arctic Council observer.

Despite asserting itself as a regional and global power, Brazil has traditionally taken a back seat to Chile and Argentina in terms of the Antarctic geopolitics of South America. Why has this been the case, and will Brazil continue its somewhat limited engagement relative to the extensive Antarctic programs of its neighbors? Ignacio Javier Cardone, author of the new book "The Antarctic Politics of Brazil: Where the Tropic meets the Pole" joins the Polar Geopolitics podcast to explain the evolution and future prospects of Brazilian activity in Antarctica, as well as the wider Antarctic geopolitics of Argentina, Chile and other countries of South America.

Australia’s plans to build a 2.7 km airstrip and other infrastructure in the ice-free Vestfold Hills near its Davis Station in East Antarctica have been heavily criticized, primarily on environmental grounds. The aerodrome, which Australia contends would improve scientific access to the continent and facilitate search and rescue operations, could also have an array of geopolitical implications. Antarctic legal expert Jeffrey McGee, an associate professor at the University of Tasmania in Hobart who has come out in support of the project, recently co-authored a report for the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, “All-weather aerodrome in Antarctica would be a gamechanger for Australia”. Dr. McGee joins the podcast to explain the strategic rationale and current status of the aerodrome and why he believes, if the plans go forward, it would not only benefit Australia but also other Antarctic stakeholders.    

Hosting scientific facilities representing 12 countries, the Ny-Ålesund Research Station in Svalbard is perhaps the most international location in the Arctic. The former coalmining community, which Norway has over the past 30 years transformed into a leading center of Arctic research, also serves a geopolitical function for many of the states represented there. Associate Prof. Maarten Loonen from the Arctic Center at the University of Gröningen has since the late-1980s been a first-hand witness and participant in Ny-Ålesund’s transformation. Currently the chairman of the Ny-Ålesund Science Managers Committee, Dr. Loonen joins the podcast to discuss the international dynamics and underlying geopolitics of Ny-Ålesund, and recent changes that portend potentially significant changes in the community’s future development. Articles mentioned on the podcast: T Pedersen (2021): The politics of research presence in Svalbard and E Paglia (2020): A higher level of civilisation? The transformation of Ny-Ålesund from Arct

Could the incident of the Ever Given running aground in the Suez Canal, disrupting global trade for six days, be a turning point that leads to an expansion of container shipping along the Northern Sea Route and other Arctic passages? Or will the risks and costs associated with Arctic shipping, even when taking climate change and geopolitics into consideration, continue to exceed those of established Europe-Asia routes for decades to come? On this episode, the Polar Geopolitics podcast takes up these and other questions with shipping industry expert Lars Jensen, CEO of Sea Intelligence Consulting in Copenhagen, Denmark.

On this episode, Prof. Caroline Kennedy-Pipe—an Arctic, Russia and Cold War expert at Loughborough University in England—analyses the emerging great power competition in the Arctic by providing a longer-term perspective on the geopolitical dynamics and developments in the circumpolar North over the past forty years. This period encompasses the close of the Cold War, the rise of international cooperation in the Arctic, and key shifts in the geopolitical position of Russia in the region and the world. Prof. Kennedy-Pipe also reflects on the role of ideology and how differing conceptions of sovereignty influence state actors in the Arctic.

Dr. Mike Sfraga, director of the Polar Institute at the Wilson Center in Washington D.C., joins the podcast to discuss the various ways he sees the Biden administration altering American policies and geopolitical positioning in the polar regions. From global issues like climate change and great power competition, to regional and local issues such as renewed U.S. engagement with the Arctic Council, the key role of Greenland, and infrastructural development in his home state of Alaska, Dr. Sfraga analyses how American interests in the Arctic and Antarctic may be pursued over the next four years.

The rise of great power competition in the Arctic, the disruption of Antarctic governance due to COVID-19, and the impact of the coronavirus on vulnerable Arctic communities were some of the notable polar topics covered on this podcast during the course of the pandemic year of 2020. In this year-end review, Klaus Dodds, professor of geopolitics at Royal Holloway University, discusses what he sees as some of the most significant geopolitical aspects of the pandemic in the polar regions and beyond during this extraordinary year in world history.

Science is to a large extent the currency of governance and geopolitics in Antarctica, giving countries that conduct scientific research there a seat at the Antarctic Treaty System table. But should countries—often from the global South—that bear the brunt of the effects of climate-induced geophysical changes in Antarctica be given a greater voice in the ATS, even if they lack the resources to conduct costly research in the southern high latitudes? Similarly, should the influence of ATS states somehow be related to their level of carbon dioxide emissions, which drive the melting of the Antarctic ice sheet?  Peder Roberts, associate professor at the University of Stavanger, joins the podcast to reflect on how countries could be incentivized to reduce their impact on Antarctica while continuing to pursue ambitious polar science programs.

China’s increasingly ambitious polar activities have to date largely centered on exerting physical presence in the Arctic and Antarctic, according to Dr. Nengye Liu, an associate professor of international law at Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia. In a recent online presentation for China’s polar elite, Dr. Liu recommended that China should abandon such 19th century thinking, which causes anxiety among other stakeholders, and instead embrace a future in which China plays a leading role in combating global environmental change. In this episode of the podcast, Dr. Liu discusses his theoretical framework that could, he asserts, underpin a potential Chinese polar strategy 2.0 to replace current policies for the polar regions.