Pavel Devyatkin is a Senior Associate at The Arctic Institute in Washington DC and a Researcher at the Higher School of Economics in Moscow.
A version of this article was published by The Arctic Institute on June 8, 2021 and by The Polar Journal on November 23, 2022.
The Arctic has long been the setting for collaborative scientific discovery, but tensions related to the Cold War and now the worsening conflict in Ukraine have curtailed effective cooperation. At the same time, the intensifying climate emergency that disproportionately threatens the Arctic has been described as a security threat by policymakers in both the US and Russia, leading to calls for more science diplomacy.
“Environmental Détente” revisits the history of U.S.-Russia Arctic science diplomacy and examines how previous initiatives can help us to understand what can be achieved, as well as the challenges that have to be addressed. Science diplomacy can produce valuable results and may form a suitable communication channel during times of political tensions. However, it is also clear that science cooperation is more easily realized during periods of cordial relations.
Scientific cooperation
The Arctic has long been described as a unique region of peace and cooperation, especially in the field of scientific discovery. One of the earliest examples of East-West scientific dialogue is the correspondence between eighteenth-century polymaths Benjamin Franklin and Mikhail Lomonosov, in which Franklin asked his Russian counterpart for “an account of the discoveries of the Polar voyage” in 1765.
In the post-Second World War period, US-USSRArctic science collaboration had largely been suspended until the 1957-1958 International Geophysical Year (IGY). The IGY was a global science initiative inspired by nineteenth-century Austro-Hungarian explorer Karl Weyprecht, a staunch advocate of international Arctic expeditions. “When countries that consider themselves to be advanced in terms of scientific progress decide to work together, [they] completely eliminate any national competition,” wrote Weyprecht in 1875. Weyprecht’s words continue to ring true in the present, offering an important lesson during a period of renewed international conflict.
It wasn’t until Joseph Stalin’s death in 1953 that the Soviet Academy of Sciences agreed to join the IGY program, opening the door to significant collaborations with the US and other participating countries. 67 nations took part in the IGY, including Canada, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, and Sweden. In the Arctic, over 40 IGY research stations were installed to study weather at high latitudes, the movements of sea ice, and radio interference induced by aurorae borealis bursts. Moreover, the US and USSR agreed to manage and fund two World Data Centers for the IGY. The new institutions compiled an unprecedented amount of data in the form of datasheets, tables, charts, and maps on kilometers of photo and film. Today, there are 50 such centers in 12 countries. The IGY enabled the international scientific community to better understand polar oceanography, glaciology, and meteorology.
Such scientific exchanges became possible during the Khrushchev Thaw in part due to the advocacy of renowned Soviet scientists who had worked abroad, including Igor Tamm and Sergey Kapitsa. The Khrushchev Thaw saw repression and censorship relaxed in the USSR. Some scientists were exposed to Western views in private screenings of the apocalyptic films On the Beach (1958) and Dr. Strangelove (1964), which highlighted the existential threat of nuclear war. It was during this period that scientific views moved away from confrontation towards cooperation, first in nuclear issues and then in larger empiricism.
The end of the Cold War
Before the late 1980s, scientific cooperation between the US and the Soviet Union had been limited. The US-USSR Agreement on Cooperation in the Field of Environmental Protection of 1972, with specific reference to Arctic and sub-Arctic ecosystems, had garnered interest among the Soviet political elite, but it wasn’t until Mikhail Gorbachev came to power that the Arctic witnessed a new era of rapprochement regarding cooperation on non-military challenges like environmental degradation.
The final years of the Cold War coincided with a greater emphasis on recognizing mutual interests related to protecting the environment. Gorbachev’s election coincided with a wave of reforms and a “new political thinking” on foreign relations. One example was the incorporation of environmental issues into international affairs. President Reagan and General Secretary Gorbachev called for a joint report on climate change after the 1986 Reykjavik summit. The official joint statement following the 1988 Moscow summit devoted special attention to Arctic cooperation:
“Taking into account the unique environmental, demographic and other characteristics of the Arctic, the two leaders reaffirmed their support for expanded bilateral and regional contacts and cooperation in this area. They noted plans and opportunities for increased scientific and environmental cooperation under a number of bilateral agreements as well as within an International Arctic Science Committee of states with interests in the region. They expressed their support for increased people-to-people contacts between the native peoples of Alaska and the Soviet North.”
The findings of the 1990 publication that came out of the US-USSR study, “Prospects for Future Climate,” hold up well even today. The bilateral environmental dialogue also produced an understanding of the ecological consequences of a possible nuclear winter. It was warned that unrestrained military buildup could lead to a global environmental collapse with no winner.
In his famous 1987 Murmansk speech, which ultimately inspired the creation of the Arctic Council, Gorbachev declared that “the Soviet Union was in favor of radically lowering the level of military confrontation in the region,” and put forward a list of proposed policies to turn the Far North into a zone of international collaboration. Gorbachev praised the exceptional detachment of Arctic environmental protection and sustainable development from global political dynamics.
Managing today’s tensions
The spirit of Arctic exceptionalism and Cold War examples of scientific cooperation offer effective models for improving relations and strengthening soft security despite tensions. In the twenty-first century, one of the noteworthy examples of East-West scientific cooperation is the Russian-American Long-term Census of the Arctic (RUSALCA, an acronym that reads as rusalka or “mermaid” in Russian). The project emerged out of a Memorandum of Understanding between the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS). Across several expeditions to the Bering and Chukchi Seas between 2004 and 2015, Russian and American scientists made major joint contributions that advanced human understanding of the marine chemistry, glaciology, oceanography, and ecosystems of the evolving Arctic.
“The cooperation between Soviet and Western Arctic scientists turned out to be of considerable practical and symbolic value, and it spilled over into the political and military spheres,” writes political scientist Kristian Åtland. Even at the height of the Cold War, and despite the ideological differences, Reagan and Gorbachev embraced the wisdom of engaging in areas of cooperation, rather than striving to isolate one another. In this spirit, the RUSALCA project should be reengaged and reinforced. Russian ice-breaking capabilities, which enable expeditions in sea-ice covered areas, vastly outweigh those of the US. Therefore, collaboration and the sharing of resources and data are crucial to advancing our understanding of the environmental and biological changes in the Arctic.
Thawing permafrost and extreme weather in Russia have prompted President Putin to pay attention to climate change. The Biden administration has identified climate change as a key priority in its Arctic policy. In December 2020, 193 US-based Arctic scientists signed an open letter to the Biden administration asking for the appointment of an Arctic Ambassador to the Arctic Council “to repair frayed U.S. diplomatic ties [and] express renewed US commitment to address climate change in the Arctic and everywhere through intensified cooperation.” Some in Russia share this outlook. However, the context of the war in Ukraine and the pause of Arctic state-to-state cooperation makes collaboration more difficult than ever.
“Geopolitical and environmental processes are seemingly far apart, but they exist shoulder to shoulder in the Arctic region,” said Alexander Sergeev, President of the Russian Academy of Sciences in 2022. “Rivalry should not hinder the joint work of scientists from different countries of the world,” he continued, emphasizing that global collaboration enables “comprehensive research” that leads to “more accurate conclusions,”. Arctic scholars Oleg Anisimov, Kelsey Nyland, Robert Orttung, and Alexander Sergunin likewise call on the USand Russian governments to promote scientific collaboration within the frameworks of the Arctic Council and the 2017 Agreement on Enhancing International Arctic Scientific Cooperation.
There is substantial and ongoing support in the international scientific community for Moscow and Washington to find a common understanding in tackling the climate crisis. The Arctic, warming at nearly three times the global average, should draw immediate attention. Scientific cooperation, an essential endeavor for the world’s survival, may likewise build trust and prevent conflict in a region that has not seen interstate violence in almost a century.
