Arctic Alternatives: Civility of Militarism in the Circumpolar North

problems.

Part I

Co-operation and Security

1

International Co-operation in the Arctic: Opportunities and Constraints

Oran R. Young & Arkady I. Cherkasov

In some international regions, like the Middle East, Southeast Asia, or Central America, regional conflicts threaten to escalate in ways that embroil outside parties and, in the process, trigger wider international conflicts. The essential problem in these regions is to devise codes of conduct to minimize outside interventions (especially competitive interventions), while seeking viable and preferably equitable solutions to the regional conflicts themselves. In other international regions, like the oceans, outer space, or Antarctica, outside powers are drawn to regional settings as attractive arenas in which to pursue their larger interests. In such regions, the central problem is to establish institutional arrangements or regimes regulating the interplay of outside actors in order to protect the integrity of the regions without seriously impeding the efforts of the outside parties to pursue their own interests.

The Arctic, we believe, belongs to the second of these categories. It is a sparsely populated, resource-rich region whose location makes it increasingly important in geopolitical terms. Because the Arctic offers an exceptionally favourable environment for the deployment of strategic weapons systems, like nuclear-powered submarines and manned bombers equipped with cruise missiles, the superpowers are steadily increasing their military presence in the region. About 20 per cent of the crude oil produced in the United States comes from the American Arctic. The comparable figures for the Soviet Union are much higher, with over 60 per cent of both oil and natural gas production coming from the giant fields of northwestern Siberia. The fact that the greenhouse effect is expected to produce temperature increases in the high latitudes that are two to three times those occurring in the mid-latitudes ensures that everyone concerned with global change will pay closer attention to the Arctic during the foreseeable future.

In contrast to the oceans, outer space, or Antarctica, however, the Arctic is a homeland for a sizeable collection of native peoples. What is happening in and to the region presents a growing threat to these peoples, especially those anxious to protect distinctive cultures or ways of life. As the international significance of the Arctic grows, decisions affecting the region’s future are taken increasingly by outsiders who are seldom well informed about the concerns of Arctic peoples and who, in any case, have little reason to make choices that are sensitive to these concerns. But despite (or perhaps because of) this development, there is a pronounced resurgence in cultural awareness among the native peoples of the Arctic, which has unleashed a rising tide of interest in protecting their unique ways of life. The widening gulf between these two trends is a source of deepening concern among those desiring to maintain the integrity of the Arctic as a distinctive international region.

Opportunities for Arctic Co-operation

Co-operation in international society, as in other social settings, occurs when parties who are individuals in the sense that they make choices or select courses of action independently realize that there are joint gains to be achieved through co-ordination of their actions. Sometimes these gains are measurable in terms of the production of mutual benefits. The benefits likely to flow from scientific collaboration and joint economic ventures or enterprises are examples relevant to the Arctic today. In other cases, joint gains take the form of avoiding mutual losses. Arms stabilization or limitation measures as well as initiatives aimed at protecting the natural environment constitute examples of this type of co-operation which seem attractive under the conditions now prevailing in the Arctic.

Rising levels of human activity throughout the Arctic have increased interdependencies in the region and, in the process, enhanced the stakes of all the Arctic states in exploring co-operative arrangements for the region. An expression of American Arctic policy, for example, declares that the United States has unique and critical interests in the Arctic region and speaks explicitly of promoting mutually beneficial international cooperation in the Arctic.¹ For their part, senior Canadian officials refer to international co-operation in the Arctic as a trend of enormous importance and state clearly that Canada wishes to see peaceful cooperation among Arctic Rim countries developed further.²

Without doubt, however, the clearest and strongest expressions of increasing interest in international co-operation in the Arctic have come from the Soviet Union. In his Murmansk speech of October 1, 1987, for example, Mikhail Gorbachev laid out a six-point programme for Arctic co-operation and pledged the Soviet Union’s profound and certain interest in preventing the North of the planet, its polar and sub-polar regions and all northern countries from ever again becoming an arena of war, and in forming there a genuine zone of peace and fruitful co-operation.³ In the ensuing months, the Soviet leaders acted vigorously to pursue this Arctic zone-of-peace initiative, as it has come to be called. They entered into co-operation agreements with Norway in the fields of scientific research and environmental protection, initiated discussions regarding co-operation with Canada, and expressed enthusiasm for the early establishment of the proposed International Arctic Science Committee. Even more significant for the longer run, the Soviet Union has established a State Commission on Arctic Affairs, which is designed to function as an inter-agency co-ordinating committee and is chaired by a first deputy prime minister. Under the circumstances, it will come as no surprise that Presidents Gorbachev and Reagan spoke specifically of Arctic co-operation during their spring 1988 summit in Moscow. The official statement released at the end of the meeting, in fact, states: Taking into account the unique environmental, demographic and other characteristics of the Arctic, the two leaders reaffirmed their support for expanded bilateral and regional contacts and cooperation in this area.⁴

To be more specific, we wish to differentiate three sets of circumstances currently giving rise to opportunities for joint gains in the Arctic. There is, to begin with, a need for co-operation to protect the shared ecosystems of the region. The natural environment of the Arctic region is indivisible, unusually sensitive to anthropogenic disturbances, and linked to the ecosphere of the mid-latitudes in highly significant ways. Accordingly, air and water pollution cannot be confined to politically demarcated segments of the Arctic. Much the same is true of the effects of megaprojects that threaten the ecological balance of the region (for example, the hydroelectric development in northern Quebec or the currently shelved plan for diverting waters from Siberian rivers to the south). Because of the links between the Arctic and the mid-latitudes, especially with respect to the global climate regime, we must also expect that these northern effects will eventually make themselves felt on the earth’s biosphere as a whole. It follows that all the countries of the Arctic stand to benefit from the cooperation of the northern countries in environmental protection.⁵

There are, in addition, opportunities for co-operation in the Far North arising from the fact that the Arctic states have encountered many of the same problems in their efforts to develop the North while protecting the region’s ecosystems and unique cultures. Some of these problems are essentially technical in nature; they are attributable to similarities in climatic conditions (for instance, the presence of permafrost) and in geographical conditions (for example, long distances and sparse populations) throughout the circumpolar North. Others are better characterized as economic and social problems. The high costs of extracting raw materials in the North and transporting them to distant markets, and the consequent lengthy wait for returns to be realized, constitute an important consideration in all investment decisions (whether under capitalist or socialist auspices). Similarly, the threats to the cultures of northern native peoples associated with participation in industrial development are much the same throughout the Arctic region. It would be both pointless and wasteful to adopt secretive policies in responding to these problems, thereby forcing scientists, engineers, and managers located in different parts of the Arctic to solve the same problems over and over again. Except in cases where the resultant products compete with each other in world markets (which are likely to be rare as far as the Arctic is concerned), therefore, co-operation in the exchange of problem-solving techniques and Arctic expertise will benefit all.

Yet another basis for Arctic co-operation involves joint ventures or enterprises designed to exploit complementarities arising from asymmetries in scientific, technological, and socio-economic development in the North. The Soviet Union, for example, leads in such areas as the construction of multi-storied buildings on permafrost, Arctic marine transportation, the provision of education for northern peoples in their own languages, and (at least in principle) arrangements designed to provide a measure of self-government for-northern peoples. Canada and the United States, by contrast, are ahead in the development of small dwelling units adapted to northern conditions, the use of specialized transportation technologies (snowmobiles, all-terrain vehicles), northern road construction, technologies for offshore oil and gas development, and the design and implementation of environmental safeguards for Arctic ecosystems. The Scandinavian countries have established the most effective systems of reindeer husbandry in the North and could assist in improving Soviet practice in this area and (together with the Soviet Union) in introducing reindeer husbandry into the North American Arctic. Each Arctic country leads in one or more spheres of northern experience. By pooling knowledge and resources through the establishment of joint ventures or enterprises, therefore, the Arctic states can generate mutual benefits exceeding the sum of what each country working alone would be able to produce.

Forms of Co-operation

Co-operation in international society, as in other social settings, takes a variety of forms. Co-operative arrangements may be bilateral or multilateral. The category of multilateral arrangements, moreover, covers a broad spectrum of cases encompassing three or more parties. Particularly significant for this examination of Arctic co-operation is the distinction between multilateral arrangements in which the participants are members of a well-defined region (for example, the Mediterranean Action Plan) and multilateral arrangements in which the participants are linked along functional lines (for example, the regimes for whaling and for trade in endangered species). In addition, international co-operation may be issue-specific or comprehensive. Here, too, there is a broad spectrum, ranging from highly restrictive arrangements (for instance, the co-operative management of polar bears) to those that encompass a wide range of interlocking issues (for example, the regime for the oceans set forth in the 1982 Convention on the Law of the Sea).

Three additional distinctions regarding forms of international co-operation are worth noting as background for this assessment of prospects for Arctic co-operation. Co-operation may be self-executing in that it involves interactions which are not recurrent or iterative in nature or ongoing in the sense of encompassing relationships of a continuing or repetitive nature. Co-operation aimed at the demarcation of jurisdictional boundaries, on the understanding that each party will subsequently exercise exclusive authority within its own jurisdictional zone, exemplifies such a non-iterative interaction. Regimes for continuing activities like high seas fishing or the use of the electromagnetic spectrum, by contrast, involve relationships of a continuing nature. In either case, the resultant co-operation may be explicit or tacit. Explicit arrangements, which constitute the form of co-operation we tend to think of first, are characterized by articulation of the terms of the relationships in formal agreements (that is, a treaty or a convention). Tacit co-operation, by contrast, requires only a de facto co-ordination of behaviour in order to realize mutual benefits or, more often, to avoid mutual losses. Parties engaging in tacit co-operation may, in fact, experience incentives (that is, the need to maintain public support in situations involving intense conflict) to deny publicly that they are doing so. Finally, co-operative arrangements of an explicit nature may or may not require specialized organizations to administer the interactions they govern. While the Antarctic Treaty of 1959 does not establish any specialized administrative apparatus, for example, the more recent Convention on the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources sets up a commission, a scientific committee, and a secretariat to administer its provisions.⁶

Those who approach international co-operation with the experience of the oceans or Antarctica in mind often take it for granted that co-operative arrangements should be multilateral, comprehensive, continuing, and explicit. Increasingly, moreover, they envision roles for specialized organizations designed to administer the provisions of these relatively complex co-operative arrangements. In these terms, the Arctic lags far behind Antarctica, the oceans, and even outer space with regard to its record of international co-operation. Yet there is no reason to accept this model as a general norm or, more specifically, as the appropriate paradigm to guide the search for co-operation in the Arctic. On the contrary, it makes better sense to think in terms of tailoring co-operative arrangements to the conditions prevailing in geographically demarcated regions or functionally defined issue-areas rather than of attempting to impose a uniform model of co-operation regardless of the circumstances.

Once we abandon the assumption that co-operation should always aim at creating arrangements that are multilateral, comprehensive, continuing, and explicit, it quickly becomes apparent that there is a substantial record of international co-operation in the Arctic. What is more, this experience runs the gamut from scientific and technical arrangements through environmental regimes to co-operation on matters relating to military security. The multilateral regime for Svalbard, which dates back to 1920, calls for the demilitarization of the Svalbard Archipelago and covers the exploitation of the area’s natural resources.⁷ The regimes for fur seals and polar bears are explicit, multilateral arrangements that are Arctic-specific in nature.⁸ At the same time, there are numerous co-operative arrangements in the Arctic of a bilateral nature that encompass environmental protection (for example, the Canada-Denmark marine environmental conservation agreement covering Davis Strait and Baffin Bay or the new Norway-Soviet Union agreement on environmental protection in the area of their common border), the use of shared resources (the grey zone agreement between Norway and the Soviet Union), scientific research (the Soviet agreements with Canada and Norway, respectively), marine transportation (the Canada-United States agreement on Arctic co-operation dealing with the movements of icebreakers in the Northwest Passage), and economic development (the co-operative enterprises the Soviet Union has pursued with various partners to develop non-renewable resources in the Barents Sea).

We note as well that interest in devising a variety of co-operative arrangements for the Arctic is on the rise. The proposed International Arctic Science Committee has evoked enthusiasm throughout the region, and there is considerable optimism about the prospects for launching such a committee officially during 1990.⁹ The Finns have taken the initiative in promoting the idea of developing an Arctic Action Plan (along the lines of those currently in place for the Mediterranean and the Baltic) to protect the marine environment of the Arctic Basin. As awareness of the links between the Arctic and the rest of the earth’s biosphere grows, moreover, officials in all the Arctic countries are beginning to give serious consideration to proposals for international co-operation designed to protect Arctic systems that play critical roles in controlling the heat budget of the northern hemisphere and the global climate regime. There is evidence that tacit co-operation is emerging to reduce the risks of accidental or inadvertent clashes between strategic weapons systems deployed in the Arctic, a development of particular importance given the atmospheric irregularities that make command and control difficult under Arctic conditions. And numerous bilateral arrangements are now under consideration encompassing shared living resources (for example, Soviet-American arrangements for the Bering Sea), the development of non-renewable resources (Soviet-Norwegian joint enterprises for the Barents Sea), and general expressions of interest in exploring additional bases for Arctic co-operation in the future (the Canadian-Soviet agreement).

Obstacles to Co-operation

Nonetheless, international co-operation, in the Arctic as elsewhere, is not easy to achieve. While the prospect of realizing joint gains is a necessary condition for co-operation, it is by no means a sufficient one. One of the most robust findings of the social sciences is that parties behaving in ways that seem rational from an individualistic point of view regularly produce collective outcomes that are suboptimal (sometimes drastically suboptimal) for all concerned.¹⁰ In this section we identify some of the substantive obstacles that must be overcome in efforts to take advantage of the growing opportunities for international co-operation in the Arctic. We then proceed, in the following section, to comment on several collective action problems that may impede the process of arriving at agreement on co-operative arrangements for the Arctic.

At the most general level, there is, as the Soviet prime minister, Nikolai Ryzhkov, has put it, a lack of trust that has built up in a region that is so sensitive from the viewpoint of security interests.¹¹ Unlike the oceans where there is a long-standing tradition of shared use or Antarctica where a complex of co-operative arrangements in the area of science emerged during the International Geophysical Year of 1957-8, the Arctic has been plagued by a variety of expansive and often conflicting jurisdictional claims during the twentieth century.¹² The growing geopolitical significance of the region has combined with these jurisdictional conflicts to heighten the sensitivities of officials in all the Arctic countries regarding the strategic implications of new developments in the region. What is needed, then, to reverse the resultant atmosphere of distrust is a broad commitment to mutual respect for each other’s interests, and the development of mutually useful cooperation, in the course of which trust is born and strengthens, the ‘image of the enemy’ collapses, and its place is taken by the image of a partner.¹³

We note as well a striking disjunction between the strategic perspective on Arctic affairs and the point of view of those who approach the region in cultural, scientific, or environmental terms. Military planners tend to think of the Arctic as a theatre of operations for weapons systems and as a potential theatre for actual combat. Such a perspective is antithetical to the views of those who perceive attractive opportunities for collaboration in scientific research in the Arctic and of those who sense a growing need for co-operation to protect the shared ecosystems of the region. Even more to the point, the perspective of the military planners is viewed with horror by the permanent residents of the Arctic who regard the region as a homeland rather than as a theatre for the interactions of alien powers. One response to this situation is to seek a decoupling of military and civil issues in the Arctic, concentrating on efforts to promote civil co-operation in the region in the hope that co-operation regarding military issues will follow as experience with civil co-operation grows. We are not convinced, however, that this approach is the most fruitful one. An alternative response is to broaden the conception of security to encompass economic, environmental, and cultural concerns and to recognize the existence of reciprocal relationships among the various aspects of security. In this regard, Gorbachev may well have been on the right track in proposing a multidimensional approach to Arctic co-operation in his Murmansk speech, whether or not the individual elements of his six-point programme prove attractive to the other Arctic countries.

Another general obstacle to international co-operation in the Arcticarises from a lack of mutual knowledge and understanding among the Arctic states regarding each other’s organizational arrangements and decision-making processes. While scientific research in the Western countries is ordinarily carried out by scientists based in the universities, for example, scientific research in the Soviet Union is spearheaded by scientists attached to the Soviet Academy of Sciences. Though the native peoples of the Soviet north share many problems with their counterparts in the North American Arctic, they are ethnically and culturally distinct so that they do not fit easily into organizations like the Inuit Circumpolar Conference. In the field of economics, moreover, there is a tendency to think in terms of efforts to promote international trade, whereas what is needed, in the Arctic at least, are exchanges of technologies and the development of joint ventures or enterprises. The solution to this problem, we believe, lies in a commitment to expand the flow of information and persons across all the Arctic’s borders. Such a development would serve to increase mutual understanding of differing organizational arrangements and decision-making processes. In the process, it would help to break down the general atmosphere of distrust that prevails in the Arctic today.

Collective Action Problems

Quite apart from these general obstacles, we can identify a number of collective action problems that complicate efforts to realize joint gains in the Arctic, just as they do in many other social settings. Four such problems seem particularly critical to the prospects for international co-operation in the Arctic today. To make the discussion concrete, we illustrate our analysis with examples drawn from the negotiations regarding the establishment of an International Arctic Science Committee (IASC).¹⁴ The effort to establish this committee has given rise to complex negotiations in which a number of interesting collective action problems have surfaced.

Negotiation Arithmetic

Even when joint gains are feasible, efforts to reach agreement on co-operative arrangements can easily founder on problems relating to the choice of participants and the configuration of issues to be included in the arrangements. In the case of the IASC, these problems have been reflected in the need to reconcile two distinct visions of the proposed committee. On one account, the IASC should be a non-governmental organization that concentrates on identifying and refining research opportunities and which is open to all parties engaging in Arctic research. Such a committee would resemble the Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research (SCAR) and might join SCAR in due course as a constituent element of the International Council of Scientific Unions (ICSU). An alternative approach envisions the IASC as an intergovernmental organization that focuses on the management and logistical support of Arctic research and which is limited in membership to the eight Arctic countries. Much of the discussion in the recent negotiations on the character of an IASC has centred on efforts to reconcile these competing visions.¹⁵ The current plan envisions a complex hybrid which would deal with managerial issues as well as the design of scientific research and which would handle the problem of membership by establishing a two-tiered arrangement under which a board would be composed of the eight Arctic countries as founding members, while an Arctic science conference meeting every third year would be open to all.¹⁶ Under this plan, the participants would seek to play down the issue of whether the committee is to be a governmental or a non-governmental organization by avoiding the use of these terms altogether. It appears to us that this plan amounts to an uneasy compromise; it does not constitute a true reconciliation of the alternative visions of the IASC.¹⁷ Because of the general enthusiasm for the establishment of an IASC, however, the treatment of this problem may well be shifted to the implementation phase in order to allow the parties to take the symbolically significant step of announcing publicly the formation of the IASC sooner rather than later.

Positional Bargaining

Co-operation and competition are by no means mutually exclusive. With rare exceptions, they occur simultaneously in interactions among the members of international society, a fact that has led many students of international affairs to describe these interactions as competitive/co-operative relations.¹⁸ More specifically, parties endeavouring to reach agreement on the terms of co-operative arrangements seldom ignore concurrent opportunities to obtain the best possible outcomes for themselves. In the language of those who study negotiations, they engage in positional bargaining even while they are endeavouring to collaborate to maximize social or collective welfare. The negotiations regarding the creation of an IASC offer several illustrations of this class of collective action problems. The Soviet Union, for instance, has exhibited a distinct interest in orchestrating the negotiations in such a way that the formal establishment of the IASC would take place at a meeting in the Soviet Union, an occurrence that would reflect positively on its Arctic zone-of-peace initiative. The Americans, by contrast, have manœuvred to prevent such a development, precisely because the United States does not want the Soviet Union to gain credit for the establishment of co-operative arrangements for the Arctic. Not surprisingly, it now seems probable that the formal announcement of the establishment of the IASC will occur in Canada, an arrangement acceptable to the Soviet Union because of its interest in fostering co-operative relations with the Canadians regarding Arctic matters and to the United States because of the long-standing tradition of friendship between Canada and the United States. In the shadow of this positional bargaining on the part of the superpowers, the negotiations have also given rise to a positional pirouette among the Nordic countries over the locus of the secretariat for the IASC. The current proposal, which involves locating the secretariat initially in Norway but includes a provision allowing for its subsequent rotation among the Nordic countries, is easy to understand as a device to resolve the competing interests of the relevant participants. But it remains to be seen whether a rotating secretariat is an ideal arrangement from the point of view of those desiring to build a strong international Arctic science community or, for that matter, whether the locus of the IASC secretariat ever rotates in practice.¹⁹

Internal Divisions

As many students of international negotiations have observed, the parties to such processes are seldom monolithic entities behaving as rational utility maximizers as they interact with each other. Far more common are situations in which competing interest groups are active at the subnational level, seeking to influence the positions their countries adopt at the international level.²⁰ And the resultant intra-party bargaining regularly affects international negotiations, distorting the character of the co-operative arrangements that emerge and, in extreme cases, preventing the establishment of co-operative arrangements altogether. Once again, the negotiations regarding the proposed IASC offer interesting illustrations. Clear evidence has emerged, for example, of vigorous jockeying for position within several of the participating states over the composition of negotiating teams and, therefore, the interests emphasized in the negotiations. In the case of Canada, this has taken the form of a successful effort on the part of the Department of External Affairs to take the lead in negotiations regarding the IASC, shifting representatives of other departments, like Environment Canada and Indian Affairs and Northern Development, into a secondary role. In the United States, by contrast, the internal dynamics have centred on the roles of the National Science Foundation, the National Academy of Sciences, and the Arctic Research Commission, with the Department of State taking a back seat and the National Science Foundation increasing its influence in the negotiating process over time. Similarly, there are obvious conflicts of interest at the intra-party level regarding the choice of agencies to serve as official members of the IASC and to make decisions about national participation in the activities of the committee. The United States, for example, has frequently expressed the view that the IASC should be a non-governmental organization, a position suggesting that American participation in the committee should be handled through the National Academy of Sciences (as in the case of SCAR). But the National Science Foundation, which is clearly a governmental organization, has become the dominant participant in the American negotiating team, and there are unmistakable indications of conflicts of interest between the academy and the foundation in this area. In Canada, confusion reigns with respect to the issue of formal membership in the IASC. External Affairs, which is clearly not a candidate for formal membership, now dominates the negotiating team. The Canadian Polar Research Commission might become a candidate for formal membership.²¹ And though no one has proposed the Royal Society as the vehicle for Canadian membership, it is probably the closest counterpart to the American National Academy of Sciences and the Academy of Sciences of the USSR. For their part, those engaged in the effort to negotiate the terms of the IASC at the international level have now adopted the sensible view that arrangements for national participation in the activities of the IASC are matters for each country to deal with according to its own preferences and procedures.

Political Will

Efforts to reap joint gains through international co-operation can and often do become bogged down in attempts to resolve the collective action problems we have discussed. Still, these problems can be overcome or swept aside in short order when the will to act is strong on all sides. Perhaps the most dramatic illustrations of this proposition have occurred in the realm of arms control. Negotiations over the reduction of intermediate-range nuclear forces, for example, dragged on for years in an inconclusive fashion. But when it became politically expedient for both the United States and the Soviet Union to conclude an agreement in this area, the two sides finalized and signed the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty of 1987 without delay. The point we wish to stress in this discussion, however, is that circumstances in which the will to act is present simultaneously on all sides are exceptional and almost always fleeting. Regardless of the issue-area, one or more of the key players will often be preoccupied with other concerns (for example, an election, a change of leadership, domestic turmoil) or find it expedient to drag out negotiations in the hope of benefiting from enhanced bargaining strength at a later date. In assessing the prospects for the proposed IASC, then, we must constantly ask whether the will to act on this matter is present in all the important parties. In our judgment, the will to make progress in this area is currently clear and strong in the Soviet Union. The desire to take steps towards the development of multilateral co-operative arrangements for the Arctic has been expressed repeatedly at the highest levels of the Soviet leadership. By contrast, it seems less clear whether the will to act is sufficiently strong in the United States or Canada to ensure success. In the United States, the unmistakable desire of the scientific community to press forward with the creation of an IASC has not been matched by unambiguous support from senior political leaders, and it remains to be seen what the attitude of the Bush administration will be on this matter. With respect to Canada, it appears to us that there is some division of opinion between those who would politicize the IASC and hope to use it to promote Canada’s political agenda in the Arctic and those who would decouple this issue from the rest of the Arctic agenda and treat it as a worthwhile enterprise in its own right.

Conclusion: The Road Ahead

We have shown that a considerable network of co-operative arrangements in the Arctic already exists. It is also undeniable, in our judgment, that opportunities for new forms of international co-operation in this region have grown steadily in recent years as levels of human activity in the Arctic have risen. Yet it is equally apparent that the obstacles impeding efforts to realize joint gains through international co-operation in the Arctic are substantial. In this concluding section, therefore, we endeavour to pinpoint some key elements of a strategy designed to overcome these obstacles in the interests of linking together and building on the co-operative arrangements currently operative in the Arctic.

Above all, there is a need to reconcile two basic approaches to Arctic co-operation. On one account (which we may loosely describe as the Western approach to Arctic co-operation), it is desirable to decouple Arctic issues in order to promote co-operation regarding those issues that are not politically sensitive while setting aside the more sensitive issues in the hope that the growth of co-operation will make them easier to deal with at a later time. The critical implication of this approach is that the politico-strategic issues associated with the militarization of the Arctic should be passed over at this stage in favour of efforts to co-operate in areas like scientific research and environmental protection. The alternative strategy (which we may loosely describe as the Soviet approach to Arctic co-operation) rests on an extended conception of security, under which economic security, environmental security, and cultural security are inextricably linked with military security, and calls for a comprehensive approach to international co-operation in the Arctic region. Whatever the merits of its individual elements, it seems evident that the six-point plan articulated in Gorbachev’s 1987 Murmansk speech is an expression of this broader approach to Arctic co-operation. It is not our purpose to say which of these approaches is more promising or ultimately correct. We wish only to point out that a mutual understanding of the bases of these alternative approaches seems necessary to achieve genuine progress towards enhanced international co-operation in the Arctic.

With regard to specific cases (for instance, the negotiations regarding the IASC), there is also a critical need for political leadership or entrepreneurship to overcome the collective action problems that threaten negotiations even when there is general agreement regarding the availability of joint gains. The role of the political entrepreneur is not to exercise power in the conventional sense, bringing pressure to bear on parties to accept particular forms of co-operation, but to package issues in ways that facilitate agreement, de-emphasize positional bargaining by highlighting the scope of feasible joint gains, and build transnational coalitions of supporters.²² In our judgment, the lesser Arctic states (with Canada perhaps in the lead) are in the best position to assume this entrepreneurial role with regard to the growth of international co-operation in the Arctic during the near future. Regrettably, we feel compelled to conclude that the entrepreneurial efforts of the lesser Arctic states (with the partial exception of Sweden) in connection with the proposed IASC have not been particularly well conceived or effective. But this does not alter our view that these states must accept an entrepreneurial role if we are to solve the collective action problems arising in connection with the pursuit of international co-operation in the Arctic.

Finally, we note the role of organized groups and even persistent individuals in shaping the terms in which issues relating to international co-operation are framed and shifting the centre of gravity of public debate regarding these issues over time. It is hard to overlook the impact of the World Commission on Environment and Development (the Brundtland Commission), for instance, not only in pushing the issue of sustainable development to the forefront of the international agenda but also in providing the intellectual capital underlying efforts to broaden our thinking about security to encompass economic security, environmental security, and even cultural security.²³ With respect to the Arctic more specifically, similar comments are in order. There is no doubt, for example, that Karl Weyprecht and his associates played a role of enormous importance in launching the International Polar Year of 1882-3 and the growth of transnational co-operation in scientific research that flowed from this undertaking.²⁴ And it is