The American Security Project has just released a new report authored by Andrew Holland, Nick Cunningham, and Xander Vagg, titled “The Arctic: Five Critical Security Challenges.” The five challenges identified include:
I. Energy Exploration
II. Territorial Disputes and the Law of the Sea
III. Infrastructure for Emergency Response
IV. American Military Presence
V. Managing the U.S. Presence on the Arctic Council
We look forward to reading it over the weekend!
ASP missed the biggest risk: the disappearance of the ice cap itself. That’s likely to affect seasonal circulation patterns, even if the ocean is open for only a few weeks. Such perturbations in the jet stream and the associated seasonal high and low pressure systems are likely to change rainfall patterns that agriculture in the Northern Hemisphere depends on. The security implications of a more or less instant world-wide food shortage are almost unimaginable, but not quite. Economic stress, refugees, conflict, aid triage, and resentment over any decision-making related to those phenomena that will drive extreme social unrest and international tensions.