Jørgen Meedom Staun

Denne artikel analyserer og diskuterer fremtiden for Arktisk Råd i konteksten af den intensiverede stormagtskonkurrence, herunder særligt det styrkede strategiske partnerskab mellem Rusland og Kina på den ene side og de vestlige arktiske stater på den anden side. Hovedspørgsmålet er, hvorvidt Rusland – i en situation, hvor Moskva i stigende grad er under pres fra Vesten og stærkt afhængigt af Kina – kan tænkes at efterkomme det kinesiske ønske om institutionsbygning udenom Arktisk Råd?

De næste år vil derfor blive vanskelige for Arktisk Råd, der skal balancere forskellige hensyn og interesser. Der er meget, der taler for at få en pragmatisk dialog i stand med Rusland om Arktisk Råds fremtid. Det forudsætter, at de vestlige arktiske stater, inkl. Danmark, som i 2025 overtager formandskabet for Arktisk Råd, bliver enige om en fremtidsvision for Arktisk Råd, som inkluderer Rusland.

Russia’s full-blown invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 has led to concern about the implications for Arctic governance and stability. The Arctic Council has been temporarily suspended and the security tension between Russia and the seven other Western Arctic states has intensified. A more isolated Russia under Western sanctions leans even more towards the East, where China, especially, figures as an attractive strategic partner. In this article, we set out to examine the prospects for Russian-Chinese strategic cooperation in the Arctic. We introduce a social constructivist perspective highlighting how strategic culture may serve as a lens through which to analyse developments in states’ strategies – specifically their ends, ways and means. Applying our culturally applicable ends-ways-means (EWM) model, we show how Russian and Chinese strategic cultures set distinct limits to their strategic cooperation in the Arctic. The two states’ identity-driven urge to secure and display their great power position will increasingly collide. It is therefore our prediction that Russia and China will eventually act in ways that will gradually come to undermine their strategic cooperation in the region.

This article explores Russia's attack on Ukraine using the lens of strategic culture. Specifically, two strands in Russian strategic culture are identified. The first is a deep-seated sense of vulnerability, especially vis-a-vis "the West." To counter this perceived threat, Russia's national security establishment has long emphasized the importance of possessing strategic depth and buffer zones. The second strand revolves around a feeling of entitlement to great power status. A central component in Russia's great power vision is the right to have a sphere of influence in its Eurasian neighborhood. The article shows that Kremlin officials perceived Ukraine's drift toward the West as a major threat to both Russia's security interests and its status aspirations. As a result, Russia's rhetorical milieu regarding Ukraine became increasingly radicalized. The article concludes that this provided the discursive and intellectual habitat that enabled Putin to launch a large-scale attack.

Russia's strategy in the Arctic is dominated by two overriding international relations (IR) discourses – or foreign policy directions. On the one hand, there is an IR-realism/geopolitical discourse that puts security first and often has a clear patriotic character, dealing with ‘exploring’, ‘winning’ or ‘conquering’ the Arctic and putting power, including military power, behind Russia's national interests in the area. Opposed to this is an IR-liberalism, international law-inspired and modernisation-focused discourse, which puts cooperation first and emphasises ‘respect for international law’, ‘negotiation’ and ‘cooperation’, and labels the Arctic as a ‘territory of dialogue’, arguing that the Arctic states all benefit the most if they cooperate peacefully. After a short but very visible media stunt in 2007 and subsequent public debate by proponents of the IR realism/geopolitical side, the IR-liberalism discourse has been dominating Russian policy in the Arctic since around 2008–2009, following a pragmatic decision by the Kremlin to let the Foreign Ministry and Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov take the lead in the Arctic. The question asked here is how solid is this IR-liberalist-dominated Arctic policy? Can it withstand the pressure from more patriotic minded parts of the Russian establishment?

After the Cold War the Danish Armed Forces moved away from its traditional role of territorial defense of Danish soil and towards a role as a globally deployable expeditionary force, imbedded with UK and/or US forces. This shift in national strategy amplified the requirements of the young officers’ ability to think and act strategically in international missions. This article discusses to what extent this has been reflected in the education of the young officers.