Abstract
This chapter reexamines Arctic security beyond its traditional framing as a regionally isolated phenomenon, highlighting its deep entanglement with global climate change and great power politics. Employing the Copenhagen School’s Securitization Theory and Regional Security Complex Theory, we propose that the Arctic should be seen as a "Regional Security Configuration" – a distinct, yet globally embedded, pattern of securitization dynamics. The chapter uses Greenland as an illustrative example to show how environmental, geopolitical, and postcolonial factors intertwined in Arctic securitizations. It critiques the limitations of the Regional Security Complex Theory when applied to the Arctic’s unique materiality (ice/sea/land), transitional sovereignty, and postcolonial conditions. In doing so, we outline a research agenda for adapting the Regional Security Complex Theory to account for non-territorial, technologically mediated, and post-sovereign security configurations.