COMMUNITIES: Navigating the Future of Communities in the Arctic

The Origins of a Conceptual Framework

For years, members of Congress and other government leaders have conveyed to me their awareness of the Arctic region’s growing importance to the nation; they also conveyed a need to better understand, synthesize, and crystalize the many issues that were quickly unfolding throughout the region. Members of the United States Congress—indeed all policymakers in the United States and elsewhere—have many issues to address. Their comments were not stinging rebukes of the importance of the Arctic nor a failing grade in communicating why the Arctic matters. Rather, I took these exchanges as a challenge that needed a response.

It seems incumbent upon the Arctic policy community to identify the most pressing issues to address in the region while simultaneously, effectively and creatively communicating their complexities and interrelated nature. What members of Congress and others needed, I thought, was a conceptual framework that would help explain and address the nation’s Arctic interests and objectives.

The Arctic has evolved from the perception of a cold, dark, remote, isolated, and disconnected region—used brilliantly over 200 years ago by Mary Shelley as the backdrop for her famous novel Frankenstein—to a new, interconnected, increasingly consequential, and globalized Arctic. But why has the Arctic become the topic of an ever-increasing number of news stories, documentaries, and Congressional hearings? How can we better frame the issues for U.S. lawmakers in a way that advances a whole-of-government approach to the region?

Reflecting on these questions, I considered seven key issues and drivers at play in today’s Arctic, and to my surprise, each of them began with the letter C.

The Cs fell in place easily as I reflected on the issues my colleagues and I address at the Wilson Center’s Polar Institute: climate, commodities,