Global Security, Climate Change, and the Arctic

Abstract

This issue of Swords and Ploughshares examines the complex set of global security challenges that are emerging as a result of warmer temperatures and melting ice in the Arctic region. For policymakers and analysts alike, the contemporary Arctic presents a particularly acute convergence of compelling problems and opportunities related to global security, foreign affairs, climate change, environmentalism, international law, energy economics, and the rights of indigenous populations. The goals of this publication are two-fold: to provide thoughtful analysis of recent developments in the Arctic both from scientific and geopolitical perspectives; and to offer careful and informed assessments of how evolving conditions in the Arctic might impact the broader global security framework and relations between the international actors involved, not to mention the region’s inhabitants and ecosystem. The articles in this issue were contributed by each of four panelists invited by the Program in Arms Control, Disarmament, and International Security (ACDIS), the European Union Center, and the Russian, East European, and Eurasian Center at the University of Illinois to participate in a November 2009 symposium entitled “Global Security, Climate Change, and the Arctic: Implications of an Open Northwest Passage.” The symposium and this publication were supported through grants to the host centers from the European Commission, the US Department of Education (Title VI international education program), and the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.published or submitted for publicationnot peer reviewe