Volume 7, Issue 2 - Editors’ Forum: The Global Arctic (Special Issue edited by Hagen Schulz-Forberg)

Few historical topics and regions lend themselves to such grand narratives as the Arctic. Dramatic landscapes, extreme climate, heroic explorers and their national pride merge and provide us with fascinating and catchy stories. The current situation of climate change, new possibilities of exploiting natural resources and potential territorial conflict have placed the Arctic in the spotlight once more. Current tensions often call for historical explanation, and scholars hurry to provide them. My perspective on eighteenth century Russian concepts of the Arctic Ocean, however, does not immediately contribute to a better understanding of present challenges. I will not be telling the Russian side of the story in the race among nations to the North Pole or explain how the Russians came to plant a flag under the Pole in 2007. The argument in this article stems rather from a general and explicitly historical interest in territoriality and sovereignty; in concepts, consequences and contradictions. How could absolutist sovereignty, which in the eighteenth century was sovereignty in the making, work “beyond territory”?

The history of nineteenth century Arctic exploration is usually narrated as an ongoing race to the North Pole – by boat, sledge and balloon. The longer this race lasted, the more it became a truly national obsession and an object of public interest. Most of the participating nations were interested as well in completing the age-long quest for the Northwestern or the Northeastern passage, mostly driven by geopolitical and economic concerns or nationalist ambitions. These expeditions created national heroes by the dozen: As countless of the Arctic expeditions became icebound, the ships got crushed by the ice quite often, the adventurers found themselves in a battle with one of the harshest environments on earth. In this article, a different narrative is presented next to the one of sensational nineteenth century Arctic exploration. In this heyday of nationalism and territoriality, other territorial concepts were not only thinkable but also practicable. There was at least one major exception to the production of national heroic adventure tales: The First International Polar Year 1882–1883.

This article presents and discusses how the issue of sovereignty in and over Greenland was handled in the triangular relationship between the United States, the Danish government and the Greenlandic population during the early phase of the Cold War between 1945 and 1954. It highlights the complexity, ambiguity and asymmetry in the status and role of Greenland in a period which saw great transformation. Thus, this was a period when the USA attempted to buy Greenland, but had to contend itself with a new defense agreement in 1951 to replace the agreement negotiated 10 years earlier during World War II. Still the new defense agreement seriously challenged Danish sovereignty over the island. It was also a period in which the relationship between Greenland and Denmark was reconfigured, at the time called a “modernization,” to counterbalance both awakening Greenlandic national sentiments and the anti-colonial agenda and limitations put in place by the newly formed United Nations. The article argues that these transformations must be linked to the fact that two grand historical trends or structural changes within global history intersected and converged on Greenland, namely the Cold War clash between East and West and the global move towards decolonization.

Historians have identified a few important overlaps between the concurrent processes of militarization and modernization in Greenland. Following World War II, the US wanted to strengthen its military presence in northern Greenland in order to be able to deploy nuclear bombers against the industrial centers of the Soviet Union. Denmark had little option but to consent. The postwar modernization of Greenland was enacted in response to requests on behalf of the Greenlandic community and the growing economy in Greenland mainly due to increasing cod fisheries from the 1920s onward. It was also a response and to the military build-up during the early Cold War, which placed Greenland, situated on the Arctic beeline between Washington and Moscow, right at center of the world. In order to maintain provisional sovereignty over Greenland, establish closer economic ties within fisheries and natural resources, and prepare Greenlanders for more frequent relations with other nations, Denmark had to manifest its ambition and its ability to gradually transform Greenland into a modern society and a (semi-)autonomous nation.

The aim of this article is to assess whether circumpolar governance structures have been strengthened so substantially within the last few years that one may rightfully speak of a new level of international cooperation in the High North. Building on a framework of regional integration, the analysis focuses on two recent international agreements: one pertaining to the resolution of a maritime dispute in the Barents Sea; the other to coordination of search and rescue activities under the auspices of the Arctic Council. The article seeks to answer how these agreements are interconnected; why they have strengthened the existing international legal regimes for circumpolar governance; and finally considers whether the two cases represent a shift from intergovernmental cooperation toward regional integration if one considers these opposite ends of a continuum of circumpolar cooperation.

The Arctic is undergoing major, profound changes that open up the region to new economic activities. At the international political level, the potential for conflict is often overstated certain media narratives due to flawed knowledge and the persistence of bipolar narratives. Whereas most interstate disputes are being settled in a climate of détente, conflicts simmer over local autonomy, land use and the overall challenge of sustainable development.