Mistra Arctic Futures Annual Report 2011 (pdf)

ARCTIC FUTURES
Managing Competition and Promoting Cooperation
Arctic Futures is a project dedicated to research into
the security and international politics of the Arctic.
As changes in the region bring new opportunities and
challenges, SIPRI aims to produce knowledge beneficial
to the continued peaceful and cooperative development
of the Arctic.
CONTACT:
info-arctic@sipri.org
Neil Melvin, project leader, Stockholm International Peace
Research Institute:
melvin@sipri.org
The Arctic is emerging as a distinct sub-region in an increasingly
globalised world. Improving access to the Arctic is presenting new
challenges and opportunities for the people and nation states of
the Arctic region, and to the broader international community.
As never before, the Arctic has become part of a complex set of
political and economic dynamics linking actors within and outside
the region.
At the heart of these processes are local, national, regional
and international claims regarding identity, stewardship and
sovereignty in respect to the territories and resources of the
region. If the opening of the Arctic is to be stable and peaceful
over the long term, it will be critical to fashion political and
security arrangements capable of managing the Arctic’s
transformation and integrating the various claims on the region
in a cooperative fashion.
The SIPRI project Arctic Futures: Managing Competition and
Promoting Cooperation is designed to examine the challenges
emerging around these issues. A key set of questions is at the
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