To Strategise in the Arctic, or Not?

Abstract

As British interest in the Arctic has heightened over the past decade, civil servants, politicians, scientists, civil society, and others have debated whether the British governments should devise and articulate a detailed strategy setting out how Britain will pursue its interests in the Arctic over the coming years. The British Government has so far resisted, but in 2013 did publish an Arctic Policy Framework. This chapter shows that although the Arctic Policy Framework cannot be considered a strategy, it is intended to have strategic effects—namely, to placate domestic critics calling for the Government to do more to support British stakeholders in the Arctic, and reassure the Arctic states that Britain is not a threat to the geopolitical status quo in the region. However, it remains a precarious framework.