Cooperation, Peace, and defensive approach, or something else? : Russia’s military build-up in the Western Arctic

Sammanfattning

As the Arctic becomes more accessible thanks to climate change, Russia has acquired a strong interest in the region upon economic and strategic-military grounds. As the Russian government declared its intention to make of the Arctic a region of cooperation and peace thus excluding the possibility of conflict. And the same it undertook a considerable military buildup. This research, empirical in principle, seeks to examine if that buildup in the Western Arctic, from 2014 to 2024, points otherwise. It implements a mixed use of theories and methodologies stemming from them. It relied on empirical data on the development of the military buildup and incidents related to it, and on an analysis of policies and speeches on the Arctic and the military buildup proper. The findings seem to point out that the military buildup shall not be seen purely as defensive or offensive, that practices are not reflecting the discourses and even the same discourses show some ambiguity among them. And that a mixed used of theories not only complements each other but helps in understanding better a phenomenon.