Helena Marten
News Editor
On Wednesday, March 4, at 7:30 p.m., Kathryn Lavelle gave a talk relating to her recent book, “Reluctant Conquest: American Wealth, Power, and Science in the Arctic.” Lavelle is the Ellen and Dixon Long professor of political science at Case Western Reserve University. While her work focuses on international relations, U.S. foreign policy and the United Nations, Lavelle’s book gives a comprehensive history of U.S. involvement in the Arctic, from the American Revolution through the acquisition of Alaska to the present day.
The Arctic region is a large common area semi-occupied by multiple nations. The countries that occupy the Arctic region are Greenland (Denmark), Norway, Sweden, Finland, Russia, Canada, Iceland and the United States.
Lavelle discussed elements of national security, economics and the climate as they relate to Arctic studies, which for a long time was not a popular academic field. “When we were doing the early work … the Arctic didn’t really exist as a field of study,” said Lavelle. “We thought of it maybe as a being … but we didn’t think of it as a region for political science or something to study,” said Lavelle. Her intention for her recent book was to bring “together many trends of international relations and the study of climate and the study of economics and national security studies,” and one of her goals was to inspire the next generation of scholars to continue studying the Arctic region.
Lavelle’s presentation was organized into three general categories: “What is the Arctic?,” “Why should we care what happens there?” and “What is the U.S.’s future in the Arctic?”
Addressing her first question, Lavelle said the Arctic is “very amorphous. You could define the Arctic in multiple different ways. You could map it in different ways. And also, if you’re in political science, or if you’re in biology, or depending on what field you’re in, you’re gonna look at it from different perspectives, and you’re gonna have completely different even maps.”
Lavelle argued that people should care about the Arctic for “political circumstances,” such as melting ice and rising sea levels. Ice is “melting at a faster rate than other parts of the global circumstances. So the expectation is that the sea level rise from this ice melt will displace up to 187 million people,” Lavelle said. “So if you know right now, the issues that we have with immigration, and people moving, and where they’re going, it would certainly be a problem that will become more conservable, not just in the Arctic.”
Lavelle described how global warming will affect the Arctic, adding that those effects will impact humans, too. “As the planet warms and permafrost thaws, there’s a whole host of medical and … public health problems that will come, once again, concentrated in the moment, but will also have implications for those of us who don’t live there,” she said. Lavelle also spoke about the United States’ history in the Arctic, including the U.S. acquisition of Alaska and in more recent history, Richard Nixon’s vague policy surrounding the Arctic and its implications.
In reference to current and future interests of the United States and other nations with ties to the Arctic region, Lavelle emphasized that these countries are interested in the Arctic for economic reasons. Economic benefits of the Arctic include wildlife and rare earth mineral resource extraction. Lavelle cited this as a key factor in the United States’ interest in Greenland, as jurisdiction over Greenland would allow the U.S. to mine resources and build the infrastructure to do so.
