Environmental and Technological Threats in the Arctic Region: Infrastructures, Geopolitics and Strategy

Arctic subregions have undergone major structural changes in the past few decades. Looking past traditional military and geopolitical understandings of these regions, this book focuses rather on climate change and on the emergence of the digital economy and its infrastructures as two of the most fundamental challenges for Arctic communities and inhabitants.

To this end, Section I, on Arctic (re)newned environment, focuses on the acceleration of permafrost thaw, protection of submarine cables, and the importance of an all-domain military approach. Section II analyses infrastructure challenges linked to this ＂new＂ Arctic environment, providing examples within maritime, transportation, and digital-physical infrastructures. Finally, Section III provides results of research focusing on the emerging geopolitical and strategic threats posed by data routes, technological dependencies, cryptocurrency mining, and disinformation. Over the course of the book, authors offer practical insights into how to tackle these threats, lessons learned, best practices, and recommendations. By bringing together analyses from a range of authors from different interdisciplinary backgrounds, the book provides a holistic understanding of these phenomena.

This volume will be useful for students, scholars, and researchers of Arctic studies, environmental governance, and environmental security.

Chapter 6 of this book is freely available as a downloadable Open Access PDF at http: //www.taylorfrancis.com under a Creative Commons [Attribution (CC-BY)] 4.0 license.

Mathieu Landriault is the Director of the Observatoire de la politique et la sécurité de l’Arctique (OPSA, Canada) and an adjunct professor at École nationale d’administration publique. He also lectures at the School of Political Studies at the University of Ottawa and the School of Conflict Studies at Saint Paul University. He researches media and public opinion on Arctic security and sovereignty matters in addition to conducting research on the evolution of Arctic governance in recent years, especially in relation to subnational governments, the private sector and non-governmental organisations.

Magali Vullierme has a PhD in political science. Her research aims to better understand multi-scalar security issues from the point of view of Indigenous and local populations in Arctic subregions. Magali Vullierme mobilizes the concept of human security and its seven dimensions in research analysing collaboration between the Canadian Inuit and the Canadian Armed Forces, health security in Nunavik or risks linked to the acceleration of permafrost thaw for Indigenous peoples from the Sakha-Yakoutia Republic (Russia) and for Canadian infrastructures, both civilian and military. She is Associate researcher at the Observatoire de la Politique et la Sécurité de l’Arctique (OPSA, Canada) and at the Cultures, Environments, Arctic, Representations, Climate (CEARC, University of Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines, France). Within the OPSA, Magali Vullierme co-directs the annual review L’Année Arctique.

Michael Delaunay published a first article on submarine cable projects in the Arctic in 2013. He completed his Ph.D. in political science at the University of Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines, France, which focused on the role of telecommunications in the Canadian Arctic as a possible instrument of power for local populations and control for Canadian authorities. He is now a research associate at the Observatoire de la Politique et la Sécurité de l’Arctique (OPSA, Canada). He is also a research associate at the Cultures, Environments, Arctic, Representations, Climate at University of Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines. He is co-director of the annual review L’Année Arctique. He is currently working with the Danish Digital Infrastruktur Think Tank on the development of the digital infrastructure in the Arctic as a research coordinator of the research project Northern Clouds. In 2023, he published ＂Les Inuit connectés＂ with Presses de l’Université Laval.