The Arctic in Transition : Great Power Competition at the End of the Post-Cold War Order

Abstract: This study uses defensive realism, offensive realism and power transition theory (PTT) in order to examine the great powers’ grand strategies in the Arctic region, aiming to recontextualise the security theatre in the Arctic as a reflection of the return of great power politics and the end of Arctic exceptionalism, and to examine the explanatory power of the different strands of realism on the great power behaviour identified in their Arctic strategies. The study is conducted using qualitative content analysis and utilises Jacob Westberg’s theorisation of grand strategies through the categories of context, ends, means and ways as analytical framework, to which the theoretical framework is applied. The result shows that realism is a suitable theory for predicting great power behaviour in the Arctic, where PTT provides the strongest explanatory power; that the dichotomy between hard and soft security is eroding; and that the strategies were highly context-dependent, thus rendering generalisable results difficult to discern.