Geopolitical Divisions Over Ukraine: The Impact on Iceland’s Arctic Policy

Some scholars have defined contemporary Arctic geopolitics as an uneasy interaction between liberal institutionalism, emphasizing interstate cooperation and its ability to mitigate conflict, on the one hand, and neo-realism, with its preoccupation with the “anarchic” international system, power politics, and national security interests, on the other. Thus, the reopening of the Arctic from the military confines of the Cold War was interpreted during the last decade of the twentieth century as an opportunity to establish a new cooperative political order. In the twenty-first century, however, the Arctic was sometimes defined in terms of a resurgent neo-realism as states allegedly scrambled to reterritorialize a space to pursue national goals as part of resource competition. A case can be made for such a dualist reading, but with qualifications. The immediate post-Cold War period witnessed, as we have seen, a period of collaboration in the Arctic. Subsequently, the spate of media accounts on the “Scramble for the Arctic” and the potential for Great Power rivalry temporarily disturbed this narrative. It was, however, quickly dwarfed by a revival of government and scholarly discourses on neo-liberal cooperation schemes underscored by the commitment of the Arctic Five to the Law of the Sea and a peaceful settlement of potential territorial disputes.