DECEMBER 2023 - Arctic Diplomacy at a Crossroads - Addressing Present and Future Geopolitical and Strategic Risk

The A5 for instance emerged as a separate entity in the region around the Arctic Ocean when they issued the Ilulissat Declaration in 2008 to the great dismay of the remaining Arctic states, Iceland in particular.8 Finally, the national level allows us to understand the individual states’ decisions around their national security. [...] NATO’s expansion and the resulting changing alliance relationships in the region is perhaps the most tangible piece of evidence that the Arctic is indeed susceptible to events outside the region and that these may have lasting effects upon the cooperation between the A8 on issues relating to the Arctic. [...] In its 2018 Arctic White Paper, China considers itself as a “near-Arctic state”, whose policy goals in the region are ‘to understand, protect, develop and participate in the governance of the Arctic, so as to safeguard the common interests of all countries and the international community in the Arctic, and promote sustainable 23. [...] In the North American Arctic, the US and Canada do not agree about the status of the waters in the Canadian Arctic Archipelago where Canada claims the waters are internal and the US that these are international. [...] However, since the Russian war against Ukraine both the US and the United Kingdom have highlighted the necessity of protecting Freedom of Navigation in their respective Arctic strategies.42 In July 2022, months prior to both the US and UK new Arctic strategies, Russia issued a renewed Maritime Doctrine that list the Arctic as the most important region and claim that Russia’s control of the NSR is.