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Interest in formal discussion concerning military security issues for the Arctic has continued to grow in recent years. Arctic and non-Arctic nations, China primarily, have all increased activities and/or attention toward the North with both direct and indirect military association. Shipping potential, natural resource exploitation, and environmental impacts represent a few of the strategic prizes of the Arctic. The Arctic, as it was throughout the Cold War, remains the shortest path for a Russian nuclear missile to hit the United States. But it is not all doom and gloom in the High North. The Arctic remains rather protected from external tensions and is a region of cooperative stakeholder engagement, for now.

The Arctic (an ocean surrounded by land masses) has been carved up in a sector-principle approach. Further, international law is treated as the gold standard for regional engagement. The remaining North Pole territorial dispute represents a commitment to the United Nations’ Law of the Sea, with overlapping claimants (Russia, Canada, and Denmark) all constructively referring their cases for North Pole sovereignty to the UN Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf for ruling. A treaty-based management system specific for the Arctic simply will not be accepted by the five Arctic sovereign states, let alone work as some have tried to argue. Whereas, the Antarctic—landmass surrounded by ocean—remains an international commons protected by the Antarctic Treaty System. For the South Pole, the issue of sovereignty is essentially frozen whilst the Treaty is in place. The Treaty also holds off strategic competition for the continent—or rather its mineral resources, fresh water, and fisheries—until a “later stage.” So, when it comes to new Cold Wars and new great games, it is the Arctic that features predominantly. It is becoming apparent Arctic-rim powers need a security institution or mandated forum in which strategic-military issues can be dealt with collectively.