Development of various forms of security in the Arctic under different future socio-economic scenarios

Strelkovskii, N. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6862-1768, Erokhin, D., & Rovenskaya, E. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2761-3443 (2022). Development of various forms of security in the Arctic under different future socio-economic scenarios. In: Polar (In)Securities: The Future of Global Affairs in the Circumpolar North, 8-10 June, 2022, The Arctic Institute (online).

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Abstract

Directions of the future development of the Arctic have been heavily debated in research and policy communities. The latest climate projections supported by an already observed significant sea ice retreat are leading various stakeholders to view the Arctic waters as a prospective commercial transportation route. Moreover, the increasing global demand for fossil resources and their abundance in the polar region are driving the development of new extraction projects. On the other hand, there are increasing calls to protect and preserve the delicate environment of the Arctic. The complexity of this environment is further aggravated by often competing interests of various actors: both Arctic and non-Arctic states, businesses, the local population, and indigenous peoples. Therefore, the Arctic is influenced by a plethora of global and regional factors. In the future, each of these factors may develop in several distinctly different directions. The multiplicity of combinations of such plausible developments of factors makes the strategic planning of activities in the Arctic prone to deep uncertainty. It makes it challenging for the governing actors to ensure various forms of security in the Arctic, such as economic security, energy security, environmental security, political security, health security, etc.
In this paper, we present five extreme explorative scenarios covering the uncertainty space of the Euro-Asian Arctic development until 2050: (i) “Global Resource Base”, (ii) “Global Route”, (iii) “Abandoned Land”, (iv) “Sanctuary”, and (v) “Transpolar Shortcut”. Each scenario represents a unique combination of global and regional factor developments. The developed scenarios are loosely coupled with well-established global scenarios and are supported by an extensive literature review and expert inputs. In each scenario, the anticipated development of various forms of security in the Arctic is evaluated.
The presented scenarios can be used by policymakers to better understand the future opportunities and threats they may face and to develop and evaluate corresponding policy measures. They can serve as an aid to develop a robust policy portfolio aiming at achieving acceptable levels of various forms of security under a range of global and regional developments.

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