Arctic Security in an Age of Climate Change

This is the first book to examine Arctic defense policy and military security from the perspective of all eight Arctic states. In light of climate change and melting ice in the Arctic Ocean, Canada, Russia, Denmark (Greenland), Norway, and the United States, as well as Iceland, Sweden, and Finland, are grappling with an emerging Arctic security paradigm. This volume brings together the world's most seasoned Arctic political-military experts from Europe and North America to analyze how Arctic nations are adapting their security postures to accommodate increased shipping, expanding naval presence, and energy and mineral development in the polar region. The book analyzes the ascent of Russia as the first “Arctic superpower,” the growing importance of polar security for NATO and the Nordic states, and the increasing role of Canada and the United States in the region.

Dr James Kraska serves as the Howard S. Levie Chair in Operational Law at the US Naval War College, where he also teaches on the faculty of the International Law Department. Kraska is a commander and judge advocate in the US Navy who served as legal adviser to joint and naval task force commanders in the Asia-Pacific and completed four Pentagon major staff assignments. He was the principal military contributor to the president's US Arctic Region Policy, and he coordinated Arctic issues and Law of the Sea for the armed forces at the National Security Council and International Maritime Organization. Author of Maritime Power and the Law of the Sea (2011), Kraska also holds appointments as Senior Fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute in Philadelphia and as Guest Investigator at the Marine Policy Center, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Woods Hole, Massachusetts. In 2010, he was selected for the Alfred Thayer Mahan Award for Literary Achievement by the Navy League of the United States.