MAXWELL AIR FORCE BASE, Ala -- MAXWELL AIR FORCE BASE, Ala -- In the Journal of Indo-Pacific Affairs’ special issue on Arctic Strategy, the Department of Defense’s senior advisor for Arctic security affairs, retired Maj. Gen. Randy Kee, addresses the establishment of the DOD’s sixth regional center—the Ted Stevens Center for Arctic Security Studies—in his article In “Securing the Northern Flank.” The article addresses the opportunities and challenges facing the new center and expresses the intent for collaboration among allies, partners, agencies, and nongovernmental organizations.
In her article, “Preparing for an Arctic on the Move,” Dr. Victoria Herrmann, president of The Arctic Institute, proposes a framework for the new Ted Stevens Center to address research gaps regarding “human, economic, and ecosystem migration catalyzed by coastal environmental variability and natural hazards in the circumpolar north . . . [and] security consequences of Arctic migrations within and beyond the region.”
The command team of the Eleventh Air Force addresses strategic competition in the Arctic in their senior leader perspective article, “The Arctic in an Age of Strategic Competition.”
In their feature article, “The Polar Trap,” U.S. Air Force Academy professors Dr. Ryan Burke and Lt. Col. Jahara Matisek, PhD, broaden the aperture to contend that “U.S. policy makers should understand the growing problem of suspicious Chinese and Russian actions in the polar regions. The dangers of an uncontested China and Russia may lead to a strategic imbalance in evolving regions of geostrategic and geopolitical relevance.”
The issues’ other feature article, written by Anu Sharma, an associate fellow at India’s Centre for Air Power Studies, focuses on “China’s Polar Silk Road” and its implications for the development of the region and strategic competition therein.
Dr. Rebecca Pincus, of the U.S. Naval War College and U.S. Coast Guard Academy, writes “The Indo-Pacific Dimension in US Arctic Strategy,” which highlights growing Chinese influence in the Arctic and U.S. Indo-Pacific Command’s role in thwarting such developments.
Finally, in “What Makes an Arctic Nation?” Maj. Hila Levy, PhD, Air Force Reserve, calls upon U.S. policy makers to look beyond strategic competition to consider America’s “internal strengths and weaknesses with regard to perceptions, investments, and actions in the Arctic of today and tomorrow.”
To access the full issue, visit https://media.defense.gov/2021/Oct/24/2002878830/-1/-1/1/ARCTIC%20STRATEGY.PDF/ARCTIC%20STRATEGY.PDF
To access individual articles, visit https://www.airuniversity.af.edu/JIPA/