Arctic Geopolitics

(3 Credit Hours) · Undergraduate

The end of the Cold War and global climate change have made a profound impact on the Arctic by opening up new opportunities to Arctic states and societies for cooperation in economic, social and human development areas. At the same time, global warming, i.e. the rapidly melting ice cap, has also posed formidable challenges to both Arctic and global actors. It has not only made untapped Arctic natural resources (i.e. gas, oil and rare minerals, and new trans-Arctic marine routes) more accessible for commercial use, but also raised risks of environmental degradation and political conflicts. The latter could arise from still unresolved territorial claims by the Arctic states, heightened aspirations of indigenous societies for political autonomy, and fledgling regional governance structures. This course offers an introduction to a broad array of political, economic, social and military security issues that make the present day Arctic a focus of global interest. https://canvas.disabroad.org/courses/2872/assignments/syllabus This is a link to the course syllabus as the syllabus is not available as a pdf. In it is the course description as well as the rest of the information for the course. If this is not sufficient please let me know (tmikulsk@nd.edu) and I will attempt to do something different by way of syllabus.