Realist Approach to Arctic Policy
The objective of this paper is to evaluate arguments for and against the realist approach to international relations commentary on the Arctic. The paper argues that the Arctic is a highly mutable space, characterized by a strong disconnect between perception and interpretation, on the one hand, and material reality, on the other. While novel approaches to realism in international relations (IR) theory, like neoclassical realism, offer ways of thinking about distortions to decision-making capabilities, they tend to neglect the ways in which Arctic dynamics are endowed with meaning through the interplay of strategic priorities operating outside of the region itself. Addressing this lacuna makes it possible to centre the role of perception; assess the co-creation of security dynamics; and address the subtle differences between the dominant realist perspective and a more pragmatic appreciation of the region’s security dynamics.
During the Cold War, the Arctic represented a “buffer zone between… two superpower rivals” — a strategic concept that shaped high-level thinking regarding the risk of nuclear conflict between two hegemons of the bipolar world order (Østhagen 2020, 5). While both liberal and realist paradigms failed to anticipate the Cold War’s relatively peaceful end, they have nonetheless remained dominant lenses for understanding foreign policy and state behaviour, particularly as strategic interests in the Arctic have undergone a resurgence. The continued prominence of these frameworks underscores the enduring appeal of systemic explanations for state behaviour, even in the face of unpredictable geopolitical shifts.
Throughout the 1990s, the formation of various supranational organizations — the Arctic Council (1996), the WWF Arctic program (1992), the Northern Forum (1991), and the Barents Euro-Arctic Council (1993) —as well as the establishment of norms governing state actions — like the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), which entered into force in 1994 — led scholars like Oran Young to observe a transformation in the Arctic and frame it as a “focal point for a range of initiatives involving transnational cooperation” (Young 2005, 9). Over time, these discursive spaces and practices, founded on the mutual commitment of participating members to common objectives, would become second nature (Young 2005, 9).
Today, the realist paradigm has once again become the preferred framework for understanding foreign policy and national security in the Arctic (Buchanan 2023). While Russia’s 2016 Foreign Policy Concept follows a “dual track” approach to the Arctic —peaceful and cooperative on one hand, zero-sum and realist on the other — Lieutenant General Rolf Frolland of the Norwegian Air Force points to the decision of Russian Chief of Defense Gerasimov in 2019 to launch the “active defense” concept — high readiness, mobility, strong coordination and massive firepower — in urging the Norwegian government to adopt an approach that is “realistic, pragmatic and aimed at ensuring hard security” (Frolland 2021). This self-perpetuating, securitizing cycle has led to the increasing militarization of the Arctic by Russia and NATO, hindering possibilities for cooperation in the region (Fakhoury 2023).
According to Mariya Omelicheva, numerous scholars have analyzed the Arctic from the realist perspective, both through defensive realism — which perceives Russia as a status quo state reacting defensively to NATO’s eastern encroachment — and offensive realism — which, in the tradition of John J. Mearsheimer, sees Russia as a power maximizer driven to expand its regional dominance and secure a strategic advantage on the world stage (Omelicheva 2016; “The Kremlin’s Arctic Dreams” 2022). The media and popular writing on the subject have been dominated by the more sensationalist framing approaches of realist accounts (Knutsen and Pedersen 2024).
With the longest Arctic coastline, sovereignty over half the region’s population, and a technological edge inherited from the Soviet Union, Russia stands as the undisputed hegemon in the Arctic (Charron, Plouffe, and Roussel 2012). Russia seeks to leverage its position in the Arctic as a pivot into a new world order (“The Kremlin’s Arctic Dreams” 2022). Arctic countries adopt standard responses prescribed by realist theory, including bandwagoning (joining the hegemon) or balancing (counterweighting the side of the hegemon) (Charron, Plouffe, and Roussel 2012).
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has increased threat perception in the Arctic, serving as a key vector in the evolving security landscape of the region (Newcomer et al. 2022). Despite this, Elizabeth Buchanan argues that the Kremlin is interested in pursuing peaceful relations in the Arctic for strategic reasons (Buchanan 2023). Jonas Kjellén observes that Russia’s construction of built infrastructure along the latitudinal axis of its Northern Sea Route rather than the longitudinal axis of a nuclear strike, as during the Cold War, suggests economic rather than military motives for its Arctic frenzy (Kjellén 2022). Elina Brutschin and Samuel R. Schubert argue that the co-occurrence of military, extractive, and transportation infrastructure suggests that Russian military mobilization in the region can be explained by an upsurge in economic activity, itself the outcome of a warming climate (Brutschin and Schubert 2016). The Nitze School of Advanced International Studies has described Russia’s Arctic policy as a proactive response, which seeks to diminish the uncertainty of geo-strategic developments in the Arctic resulting from a changing climate (“The Kremlin’s Arctic Dreams” 2022).
While realist frameworks help explain many key dynamics in the Arctic, they often underestimate the region’s symbolic and strategic fluidity, as well as its historical entanglement in broader international and security orders — thereby offering an overdetermined perspective on the options available to states in the region. The Arctic is not a fixed geopolitical arena, but a mutable space shaped by extra-regional priorities and strongly influenced by perceptions and interpretations of state behaviour. A more pragmatic approach would invite greater attention to the ways in which meaning is produced, contested, and leveraged in shaping the actions of states.
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