Foreign Policy Institute and Henry A. Kissinger Center for Global Affairs

      Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies

      Johns Hopkins University

      1717 Massachusetts Ave., NW

      Washington, DC 20036

      Tel: 202.663.5882/202.663.5813

       https://www.fpi.sais-jhu.edu/

       https://sais.jhu.edu/kissinger

      ISBN: 978-0-9997406-8-2 (electronic)

       This is a matter of global significance.

       If we lose the Arctic, we lose the world.

      Finnish President Sauli Niinistö, in Arhangelsk, April 2017

       Foreword

      For centuries, the Arctic—remote, inaccessible, often-bitterly cold—was peripheral to world order. Today it is at the forefront of leading global trends. It is the epicenter of the world’s climate emergency. It is becoming the front line between geo-economic struggles and environmental degradation. The Arctic “regime” has pioneered innovative means of governance among often-contentious state and non-state actors. Instead of being the “last white dot on the map,” the Arctic is now our first frontier.

      In this book, scholars and practitioners—from Anchorage to Moscow, from Nuuk to Hong Kong—explore the huge political, legal, social, economic, geostrategic and environmental challenges confronting the Arctic in the face of global warming and a shifting world order, and what this may mean as we look to 2040. They exchanged their findings, offered comments and experiences, and shared national perspectives at an authors’ workshop we hosted virtually (due to the COVID-19 pandemic) at Johns Hopkins SAIS on May 6–7, 2020.

      This project has been conducted under the aegis of the Foreign Policy Institute (FPI) and the Henry A. Kissinger Center for Global Affairs (HKC) of Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), and specifically our program on “The United States, Europe and World Order.” We are particularly grateful to the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) and the German Federal Foreign Office (AA) for the generous funding of our program and of this project; and to our SAIS colleagues Francis Gavin and Christopher Crosbie (HKC Director and Associate Director respectively), and Carla Freeman (FPI Director) for their support.

      Last but not least, we express gratitude to cover designer Margaret Irvine and to Peter Lindeman for converting the manuscript so professionally into this volume; while special thanks are due to our Associate Editor, Jason Moyer, who has worked tirelessly with us to make our workshop and this book project a success.

      The views and opinions expressed are those of the authors, and do not necessarily reflect those of any institution or government.

       Kristina Spohr

       Daniel S. Hamilton

       November 2020

       Introduction

       From Last Frontier to First Frontier: The Arctic and World Order

       Kristina Spohr and Daniel S. Hamilton

       As goes the Arctic, so goes the world.

      —Inuk leader Sheila-Watt Cloutier¹

      The Arctic has been described as the world’s “last frontier”—the final place on earth where states have staked claims to untapped territories, maritime boundaries, and natural resources. It was called the “last white dot on the map” because for centuries it was remote, inaccessible, largely untouched and of little overarching importance to global affairs. The Arctic was last then because so little was at stake.²

      Today, however, the Arctic may become our first frontier—the first place on earth where state and non-state actors are being driven to devise new governance approaches for a world of more diffuse power, sharper geopolitical competition, and deepening interdependencies between nature and humanity. The Arctic is now often the first, not the last, space that comes to mind when one thinks of climate change, resource exploitation, and novel global connections. Attributes of what may prove to be a new world order could begin to take shape there. The Arctic is now first because so much is at stake.³

      A space of often-bitter cold, the Arctic is the fastest-warming place on earth.⁴ As the region’s ice-scape becomes a sea-scape, some see geophysical calamity. Others glimpse new economic vistas. Across one of the bleakest and most fragile landscapes in the world, the race is on for gas, oil, minerals and fish and to control the emerging shipping routes of the High North. As a consequence, the Arctic is becoming the front line between geo-economic competition and environmental degradation.

      What happens in the Arctic doesn’t stay in the Arctic. Because the region is at the forefront of climate change, it is the world’s climate “messenger.”⁵ The accelerating loss of Arctic sea ice, the collapse of the Greenland ice-sheet, the greening of the Arctic, and disruptive changes to the planet’s thermohaline system have potentially significant consequences for the world’s weather, marine ecosystems, coastal water quality and nutrient cycling, the trajectory and force of the Gulf Stream and the North Atlantic Current, the relative accessibility of mineral and biological riches, and the lives and livelihoods of both local communities and those far away. Changes in the Arctic could affect threatened and endangered species and could result in migration of fish stocks to new waters. Moreover, Arctic changes are not only affecting climate all around the world, those changes are rippling back to further worsen the Arctic climate.⁶

      The Arctic’s frontier status reflects, of course, the simple fact that nobody owns it. Unlike Antarctica—regulated since 1959 by the Antarctic Treaty, which established the continent as a scientific preserve and banned military activity—the polar region of the north, specifically the Central Arctic Ocean, is one of the least governed places on earth. There are more rules even in outer space.⁷ That has led to tensions and disputes, but has also helped to generate innovative approaches to unconventional challenges that could offer lessons for other regions.

      Traditionally, the Arctic has been a region where some big powers act small and some small powers act big. Norway, for example, has been an Arctic Big Power. So too has Canada, a country of great geographic expanse but modest global influence. The United States, in contrast, is a global superpower that traditionally