Mikhail Gorbachev, the Murmansk Initiative, and the Desecuritization of Interstate Relations in the Arctic
| Author | Kristian Åtland |
| Published date | 01 September 2008 |
| Date | 01 September 2008 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/0010836708092838 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Cooperation and Conflict: Journal of the Nordic International Studies Association
Vol.43(3): 289–311. © NISA 2008 www.nisanet.org
SAGE Publications,Los Angeles, London, New Delhi and Singapore
www.sagepublications.com
0010-8367. DOI: 10.1177/0010836708092838
Mikhail Gorbachev, the Murmansk Initiative,
and the Desecuritization of Interstate
Relations in the Arctic
KRISTIAN ÅTLAND
ABSTRACT
In October 1987, during a visit to the Kola Peninsula, the Secretary-
General of the Soviet Communist Party,Mikhail Gorbachev, launched a
series of policy initiatives which ultimately came to mark the beginning of
the end of the Cold War era in the Arctic.The move was aimed at trans-
forming the northern part of the globe from being a sensitive military the-
atre to becoming an international ‘zone of peace’.This objective was to be
achieved through the establishment of a nuclear weapons-free zone in
Northern Europe, restrictions on naval activities in Arctic seas, and the
development of transborder cooperation in areas such as resource devel-
opment, scientific exploration, indigenous people’s affairs, environmental
protection and marine transportation.This article analyses the contents of
the Murmansk initiative, the context in which it was launched,the extent
to which it materialized, and the degree to which it contributed to a nor-
malization of interstate relations in the Arctic.In addition to being moti-
vated by historical interest, the article aims at exploring the Copenhagen
School concept of ‘desecuritization’ and shedding light on the challenges
and opportunities of turning security issues into non-security issues.
Keywords: Arctic; desecuritization; Gorbachev; Murmansk initiatives;
Soviet Union
Introduction
In the rich and steadily growing Copenhagen School1literature, the phe-
nomenon of ‘desecuritization’ has been less explored — theoretically as well
as empirically — than the phenomenon of ‘securitization’. Desecuritization
studies have so far focused mainly on the political and societal sectors, and
issues such as migration (Huysmans, 1998), national identities (Morozov,
2004) and minority rights (Roe, 2004, 2006; Jutila, 2006). Few studies have
attempted to explore the dynamics of desecuritization within, or related to,
the military sector. Researchers looking for material about the latter phe-
nomenon may find the post-Cold War Arctic an interesting place to look.
In the past two decades, the security landscape in the northern part of the
globe has undergone a series of dramatic and profound changes,the essence
of which can be captured by the concept of desecuritization. As late as in
the mid-1980s, the Arctic was divided into a ‘Western’ and an ‘Eastern’ sec-
tor, between which there was little or no interaction.The lack of state-to-
state and people-to-people interaction in the Arctic during the Cold War
was largely due to the dominant place of security concerns in national per-
ceptions and policies. Rather than being perceived as a potential arena for
international and regional cooperation, the region was seen as a sensitive
military theatre in which political, economic, cultural and other interests
were subordinated to national security interests. This was particularly the
case in the Soviet Union.
The first indication of a change in the Soviet Union’s approach to the
Arctic came on 1 October 1987, when Mikhail Gorbachev paid a visit to the
Soviet polar capital of Murmansk. Here,the Soviet leader launched a series
of policy initiatives that tied together a wide array of security,economic and
environmental issues in a unified package — an approach radically differ-
ent from previous Soviet approaches to the region. The initiatives were
framed as an integral part of the perestroika, and launched as an invitation
to disarmament and East–West dialogue in and on the Arctic:
The Soviet Union is in favor of a radical lowering of the level of military con-
frontation in the region. Let the North of the globe,the Arctic,become a zone of
peace.Let the North Pole be a pole of peace.We suggest that all interested states
start talks on the limitation and scaling down of military activity in the North as
a whole, in both the Eastern and Western Hemispheres. (Gorbachev, 1988:335)
Gorbachev’s Murmansk speech has been characterized as a major turning
point in Soviet Arctic policies. Russian scholars Raphael Vartanov and
Alexei Roginko concluded in 1990 that ‘more has been done by the Soviet
Union to develop Arctic cooperation since the Murmansk speech than dur-
ing the previous seventy years’ (Vartanov and Roginko, 1990:69). Along the
same lines, Canadian scholar Ronald Purver noted that the multilateralist
approach outlined in Gorbachev’s speech constituted ‘no less than a revo-
lution’ in Soviet Arctic policies (1988: 148).
As far as achievements were concerned, Purver distinguished clearly
between the military and non-military sectors. Indications of a Soviet policy
change were most numerous and most striking in the non-military sectors,
whereas they were fewer and more difficult to spot in the military sector.
Purver went so far as to suggest that the military security and arms control
portion of the speech had been ‘a rather spectacular failure’ (ibid.: 154).
Similar assessments were found in other Western analyses at the time
(Archer, 1988: 47; Scrivener, 1989: 69; Bomsdorf, 1989: 62). However, as I
argue in this article, Gorbachev’s focus on non-military (or ‘soft’) security
issues in the region contributed to a toning down of the military (or ‘hard’)
security rhetoric. Desecuritization in the non-military (societal, economic,
environmental) sectors was, in other words, an important means by which to
achieve desecuritization in the military sector.
In order to get a better understanding of the phenomenon of desecurit-
ization, the dynamics of desecuritization within various sectors, and the
290 COOPERATION AND CONFLICT 43(3)
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