New NDC Research Paper Series
Russia’s Military Posture in the Arctic – Managing Hard Power in a “Low Tension” Environment

NDC Research Paper 4: "Russia’s Military Posture in the Arctic – Managing Hard Power in a “Low Tension” Environment", by Mathieu Boulègue.

Introduction

Ever since Mikhail Gorbachev’s “Murmansk speech” in 1987, in which he defined
the Arctic as a “zone of peace and cooperation”,1 the region has been widely
understood by coastal states to be an area of “low tension”. In other words, it has
been seen as a place where great-power politics between coastal states should be set
aside and replaced with practical, depoliticized cooperation.

However, the Arctic is not insulated from global security challenges, especially
those around the impacts of climate change. “Arctic exceptionalism” is coming to
an end. Despite its unique geography, the Arctic does not exist in isolation from
the wider international context, or away from the pressures around the strained
relations between Russia and the West.

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