Descriptive Statistics and Cross-National Comparisons of Arctic Power Projection

• Main Author: Markowitz, Jonathan N.
• Format: Book Part
• Language: unknown
• Published: Oxford University Press 2020
• Subjects: Arctic; Norway
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780190078249.003.0004

Chapter 4 employs data from three new data sets, the Arctic Military Activity Events Data Set, the Arctic Bases Data Set, and the Icebreaker and Ice-Hardened Warships Data Set. These new data enable a systematic comparison of each state’s Arctic military forces and deployments before and after the 2007 climate shock. The data offer a corrective to both sensationalist media accounts that suggest that all states are scrambling to fight over Arctic resources and those who downplay real changes in states’ Arctic military capabilities and presence. Confirming Rent-Addition’s Theory’s predictions, the descriptive statistical comparisons reveal that the states that were most economically dependent on resource rents, Norway and Russia, were the most willing to back their claims by projecting military force to disputed areas and investing in Arctic bases, ice-hardened warships, and icebreakers.