In his introduction of his popular book ‘The Future History of the Arctic’, Emmerson held the opinion that the Arctic is perceived differently depending on the actual profession of the observer. For Emmerson, a geographer’s Arctic is a fixed spatial area north of the Arctic Circle; however, a political scientist’s Arctic is one in a constant state of flux, conditioned by the interests and ambitions of states south of the Arctic Circle that claim a regional role (2010: 3–4). Although his interpretation of a fixed geographical Arctic has to be challenged from a critical geopolitics’ perspective, Emmerson’s continuing perception of the Arctic as a mental framework, an individually descriptive idea of a “[c]old, isolated, empty, white, pristine” place somewhere beyond (Ibid.: 4), offers a valuable starting point for the broader discussion on a more critical and deliberate perception of recent Arctic developments.
But what exactly does the term ‘the Arctic’ then entail? The answer to such a question is by no means an obvious, straightforward one. In considering ‘the Arctic’, a geographical delineation is not enough, with an additional historical and/or ideational angle needed in order to truly understand what ‘the Arctic’ encapsulates (Archer 2010a: 2–3).59 Young & Einarsson referred to the idea of treating the Arctic as a distinct region as “nothing intuitively obvious”, explicitly highlighting the problematic application of different geopolitical conventions in individual sectors across the region. For instance, although it would be reasonable to adopt 60°N as the southern limit in the Canadian Arctic, a similar approach would make little sense in Europe as such a definition would make both Oslo and Helsinki Arctic cities (2004: 17). Similarly, Steinberg et al. argued that, due to a distinct set of globally applicable Arctic images, there is no “definitive answer” concerning the de facto geographic scope of the Arctic (2015: 12). However, it is actually that fluidity of borders of the Arctic that has offered a fruitful venue for analysis, both for the study of Political Geography and IR (Dahl 2015: 38).
More often than not, the Arctic Circle (66°32’N) is used as regional delimitation, defining the geographical area north of it as ‘the Arctic’.60 As already briefly mentioned in Footnote 6, this area covers the territories of the A8: Canada, Denmark (in relation to Greenland and the Faroe Islands), Finland, Iceland, Norway, Russia, Sweden and the U.S., see Figure VIII.61
Figure VIII: Arctic Administrative Areas
Source: (Dallmann 2014) The map was slightly edited for the purpose of this dissertation.
60 The Arctic Circle encircles the area of the midnight sun as its southern limit; an area where the sun
does not set at least one day each year (Ibid.: 6).
61 The Declaration on the Establishment of the Arctic Council, often referred to as Ottawa Declaration
enumerates these eight states, determining them as “the Arctic states” (Arctic Council 1996). However, the question of which states are actually Arctic actors had long been contested (Keskitalo 2004: 45–47). The region and its states, respectively, covers around 40 million km2 or 8% of the
earth’s surface and is currently inhabited by approximately 4 million people (Bogoyavlenskiy & Siggner 2004: 27; Young 2005: 10).
However, despite this common and widespread characterisation, a generally accepted definition of neither the ‘Arctic’, the ‘marine Arctic’ nor the ‘Arctic Ocean’ exists (Molenaar et al. 2014: 4). Moreover, due to altered regional weather patterns and ocean currents, the biophysical borders of the Arctic can also be determined according to certain scientific parameters that take into account physical, geographical and/or ecological features, see Annex III (page 354).
As the Arctic Ocean is lacking a universally accepted definition, its geographical scope varies upon definition inter alia between 14.056 km2 and 15.558
km2 (Arctic Council 2009a: 16; Eakins & Sharman 2010).62 It is widely accepted that the five costal states to the Arctic Ocean, commonly known as ‘Arctic Five’ (A5) are Canada, Denmark, Norway, Russia and the U.S. (The Ilulissat Declaration 2008; Keil & Raspotnik 2014: 106). The A5 are, however, “exposed to the Arctic Ocean in different ways” (Pedersen 2012: 148). Both Canada and Russia hold a vast, largely unpopulated Arctic territory that is inherently present in their national self-perception and psyche. Denmark is an Arctic coastal state because of Greenland, which is an autonomous country within the Kingdom, predominantly populated by an indigenous population. The archipelago of Svalbard makes Norway an Arctic littoral state and the U.S. by virtue of its possession of Alaska, acquired from the Russian Empire in 1867 (Ibid.: 148).63
In addition to this pan-Arctic perspective, the geographical definition of the European Arctic also needs to be clarified. The European Arctic, as illustrated in Figure IX (page 86) (onshore area coloured in blue), extends from Greenland to
62 For an often used delimitation of the Arctic Ocean, see (International Hydrographic Organization
1953: 11–12). Regardless its definitional size, the Arctic Ocean is the smallest of the world’s oceans, connected to the Atlantic Ocean via the Greenland Sea and the Pacific Ocean via the Bering Strait. The Arctic Ocean is bordered by numerous marginal or coastal sea fronting either the Eurasian continental land mass (Greenland Sea, Norwegian Sea, Barents Sea, White Sea, Kara Sea, Laptev Sea, East Siberian Sea and Chukchi Sea) or the North American continent (the Bering Sea, the Beaufort Sea, the waters within the Canadian Archipelago including those of the NWP, Hudson Bay and Hudson Strait, Lincoln Sea, Baffin Bay, Davis Strait and Labrador Sea) (Arctic Council 2009a: 16).
63 Svalbard is a Norwegian archipelago in the Barents Sea that includes all the islands situated
between 74° and 81°N and 10°E and 35°E, inter alia Spitsbergen, Nordaustlandet, Edgeøya or Bjørnøya, with a total landmass of 62,400 km2. Formerly and more prominently known under its
Northwest Russia and covers the area with the greatest leverage of EU policies affecting the Arctic: Northern Fennoscandia and the European Economic Area (EEA) (Stępień, Kankaanpää & Koivurova 2014: 3).64 Consequently, and from a state-centric perspective, five out of the eight Arctic states are EU/EEA states, namely Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden.
Figure IX: The European Arctic
Source: (Ibid.: 4) The map, received upon e-mail request, was slightly edited for the purpose of this dissertation.
64 Fennoscandia, see Annex IV (page 355), is the geographic term for the area covering the
Scandinavian Peninsula (Norway and Sweden), Finland and Northwest Russia (Karelia and the Kola Peninsula) (Donner 1996: 101; Hölttä 2011: 582).
As Powell noted: “There are different ways of mapping the Arctic.” (2011: 105) As a matter of fact, “[m]ap-making is an inherently political process” (Moore & Perdue 2014: 892). Subject to the thematic area under research, such as maritime transportation, fisheries or environmental protection, the Arctic, both from a territorial or maritime perspective, may be defined slightly differently, with each particular definition serving its very own purpose, depending as much on political and historical as on geophysical elements (Rudloff 2010: 8; Powell 2011: 105). In other words, “[t]he political, geographical, cultural and legal extent of the Arctic is highly context-dependent” (Stephens 2011: 330). This is considered a relevant starting point for this dissertation, as competing spatial “definitions have allowed for many narratives to be constructed about the northern latitudes” (Powell 2011: 105) and consequently also allow the EU construct its very own Arctic story.
Concerning the Geography of Maritime Arctic Transport Systems
As specifically demonstrated in Section 4.4.3, three Arctic shipping routes, namely the Northeast Passage (NEP) or Northern Sea Route (NSR), the Northwest Passage (NWP) and the Transpolar Sea Route (TSR), see Figure X (page 89), dominate the public perception and related analyses of economic feasibility, risk calculation, environmental concerns and infrastructure challenges.
According to Østreng et al. these three routes can be “delineated by fairly exact historical coordinates” (2013: 300). It has to be noted that the terms ‘passage’ and ‘route’ are somehow misleading as neither the NEP, NWP or TSR depict one single lane but a variety of passages between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, either north of the Russian Arctic, the northern coast of North America (the Canadian Arctic Archipelago) and across or near the North Pole. Climatic uncertainty and constantly changing navigational and sea ice condition essentially determine this variability of routes and lead to varying estimates on the actual length of each route.
The NEP is defined as a set of routes from northwest Europe around North Cape and along the north coast of Eurasia and Siberia through the Bering Strait to the Pacific (Arctic Council 2009a: 34). The NEP is publically often referred to as NSR, which however only signifies the definition as set out by Russian law (Solski 2013).
Consequently, the NSR is a set of marine routes from Kara Strait (south of Novaya Zemlya) in the west to the Bering Strait in the east with some of the routes running along the coast and others running north of the islands of the Russian Arctic (Arctic Council 2009a: 23). In comparison, the definition of the NEP additionally comprises the Barents Sea, which is partly Norwegian and Russian, and provides access to the port of Murmansk, the largest Russian Arctic port (Buixadé Farré et al. 2014: 299). Accordingly, the NSR is part of the much longer NEP (Tymchenko 2001: 271).
The NWP is a series of five major channels between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans along the northern coast of North America, separating the islands of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago and the Canadian mainland (Arctic Council 2009a: 20).
The TSR represents the third option of trans-Arctic shipping.65 Unlike the NEP and the NWP, both considered coastal routes, the TSR represents a mid-ocean route across or near the North Pole. Again, this route can vary due to climatic uncertainty and constantly changing navigational and sea ice conditions, either traversing closer to the North Pole or closer to the NEP/NSR (Humpert & Raspotnik 2012: 284).
65 The TSR is also often referred to as ‘Central Arctic Ocean Route’, ‘North Pole routes’ or
‘Transpolar Passage’ (Molenaar & Corell 2009b: 9; Stephenson, Smith & Agnew 2011: 158; Østreng et al. 2013).
Figure X: Major Arctic Shipping Routes
Source: (Ibid.: 282) The map was slightly edited for the purpose of this dissertation. For the purpose of the quoted analysis NSR was used instead of NEP and consequently the map refers to NSR.
The term ‘Arctic Bridge’ defines a (potential) maritime transportation route linking the Arctic seaports of Murmansk and Churchill (Canada) (Arctic Council 2009a: 12).