Military Footprints in the Arctic

"Arctic Arena": This map was drawn by Richard Edes Harrison and published in 1942 in Fortune magazine. Public Domain Image

By Ernie Regehr, O.C.
Senior Fellow in Arctic Security and Defence,
The Simons Foundation Canada
with Kelsey Gallagher
Researcher,
Project Ploughshares
March 2024

 

The report identifies 69 continuously staffed Arctic military sites in the five states with Arctic Ocean coastlines and discusses the challenges of reducing strategic tensions and recovering diplomacy. As Canada’s first northern indigenous Governor General, Mary Simon, has reminded all Arctic states, there is a need “to figure out how [they] can continue working together when a terrible war is going on [which is] contradictory to the rules-based international order.”

 

Military Footprints in the Arctic
March 2024

 

 

Ernie Regehr, O.C. is Senior Fellow in Arctic Security and Defence at The Simons Foundation Canada; Research Fellow at the Centre For Peace Advancement, Conrad Grebel University College, the University of Waterloo; co-founder and former Executive Director of Project Ploughshares.

Kelsey Gallagher is a Researcher at Project Ploughshares. He holds an MA in Peace and Conflict Studies from Conrad Grebel University College, University of Waterloo, and a BA in Political Science from Western University.