Arctic Yearbook 2015 | Page 355

355 Arctic Yearbook 2015 While not focusing on military security seems to have actually served the Arctic well in forming a collective identity in the past, the disregarding of military security issues threatens to put a hold to this development in the context of the Ukrainian crisis. While multilateral approaches in the economic, environmental and human dimension seem to be able to overcome most of the negative spillovereffects, NORDEFCO and NATO move closer together in face of a perceived threat by the Russian Federation: The Russian military is acting in a challenging way along our borders, and there have been several infringes on the borders of the Baltic nations. […] The Nordic countries meet this situation with solidarity and a deepened cooperation (Bentzrød 2015). The never fully closed gap between Russia and the other Arctic states – not only, but especially in the military security dimension – seems wider than ever. The Arctic: proving ground or sub-plot of a tensed European security environment? Concluding remarks Indicator While this article was not able to carry out a fully in-depth analysis, it still highlighted some Security Dimension of the most visible spillover Arctic effects from the Ukrainian crisis in the Arctic. While further Security Community research on the formation of an Economic, Politico-Military Environmental, Arctic security community is Human required, this article seems to indicate that the crisis did not Many-sided and Not formalized Yes direct relations put an end to an already existing security community in the High Norms in dispute Strictly limited Yes settlement North, but rather slowed down, or probably even stopped, the Norms for Strictly limited Yes long and slow process of its collective action formation after the end of the No Yes Collective identity Cold War. Many-sided and direct relations, norms in dispute settlement and for Table 4. The Arctic Security Community before the outbreak of the Ukrainian collective action were crisis (by the author). established and a collective Arctic identity seemed to have emerged. While the focus on non-traditional challenges to human, cultural, energy, economic and environmental security dominated the governmental discourse on Arctic security (Bailes & Heininen 2012: 99 ff.; Welch 2013: 5), the politico-military dimension has always been actively kept out (see Table 3). After a period of military confrontation, this approach seemed quite reasonable. Due to climate change, the melting of the Arctic ice sheet accelerated and The Arctic Security Community