The Age of the Arctic.

Abstract

Quietly, and almost unbeknownst to the general public, the Arctic has emerged during the 1980s as a strategic arena of vital significance to both of the superpowers. As recently as the Fall 1981 issue of Foreign Affairs, the political scientist Lincoln Bloomfield of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology could present a comparatively benign view of the Arctic, arguing that the region was free of major international conflicts. Thus, he suggested, the Arctic might make an attractive laboratory for certain kinds of international cooperation. Today, however, the Arctic is rapidly becoming a focus for defense and development issues that touch on the core interests of each of the superpowers. Although this change has intensified the need for cooperative arrangements in the region, it has greatly complicated this task as well. Two trends are largely responsible for the Arctic's dramatic transformation. Recent de-