A New Role for NATO in the High North? The European Arctic and Russia’s War against Ukraine

The diversity of scholar­ships examining the range of the issues in the High North shows that the Arctic is not a unified space from a security perspective, which obviously makes ensuring security a difficult task. The Russian-Ukrainian conflict in 2014 already revealed the problem, however tensions in the Arctic were mitigated then. The large-scale war forced European Arctic states to reformulate postures towards Russia, the Alliance, and the Arctic security environ­ment, calling the traditional mode of security governance in the region into question. Correspon­dingly, the project analyzes security and foreign policy of European Arctic states (Norway, Denmark, Iceland, Sweden, Finland) since 2014 to track the change and continuity vis-à-vis Russia as well as NATO.

The project aims to investigate how European Arctic states reconstruct threats, challenges, and risks, and correspon­dingly their security and foreign policy, especially vis-à-vis NATO: are European Arctic states open to a more substantial role for NATO in the region? Should the essence of the Alliance’s role in the Arctic be limited to Article V of NATO’s Treaty? Will the Arctic be remilitarized and re-securitized again if NATO is to be a proactive game changer and a security provider there? Is it possible to construct a security model that would combine traditional and non-traditional thinking about security and its practicing correspon­dingly? How could a security dilemma associated with Russia be addressed under an increased NATO’s role in the High North?

Photo: NOAA via Unsplash, Unslpash Lizenz