Arctic Challenges Could Lead to Expanded International Cooperation, Moscow Expert Says

 Paul Goble

            Staunton, Dec. 15 – Most analyses of recent developments in the Arctic have suggested that that region is becoming a new cockpit of conflict between East and West, but Ivan Filippov of the Moscow Foundation for Geopolitical Expertise argues that the size of the problems the region presents could become the basis for cooperation.

            “Nothing so unifies people as common problems,” he argues. And in the Arctic today, as a result both of global warming and changes in attitudes around the world on how best to counter it, the common problems the Arctic is highlighting contain within themselves “a large opportunity for cooperation” (ng.ru/ideas/2021-12-15/7_8327_arctic.html).

            Few if any of these problems can be addressed by one country on its own, Filippov suggests; and most can be solved or at least ameliorated only if the countries interested in the region cooperate. If they don’t, the problems the Arctic presents at a time of global warming will only grow, making any national victories there Pyrrhic at best.

            And one of the most immediately threatening common problems is China’s entry into the Arctic, a trend that undercuts the ambitions of the current Arctic powers and should lead them to cooperation so that China’s growing role there will lead to its integration into the international system rather than becoming the occasion for refusing to cooperate at all.

            Unfortunately, Filippov says, while the Europeans understand this full well, American policies against both Russia and China are pushing the two together in an alliance that will make cooperation far more difficult and thus will mean that the impact of global warming on the entire world will be far greater because the problems of the Arctic will remain unaddressed.

            The Moscow researcher’s argument is intriguing for at least two reasons. On the one hand, his position suggests that there are some in Moscow who might be prepared for a radical revision in Putin’s policies on the North because they recognize that no victory he could win now would compensate for the losses an absence of cooperation will bring.

            And on the other, Filippov’s words also constitute an appeal to the West and above all the US to recognize this point and not to pursue policies against Russia and China that will end up hurting not just them but the entire world if global warming, driven by the melting of the ice cap, continues unabated.