Teritorijos svarba šiuolaikinėje tarptautinėje politikoje: Arkties vaidmuo Rusijos-Norvegijos santykiuose

• Main Author: Kviklys, Giedrius
• Other Authors: Budrytė-Kvietkauskienė, Rimantė
• Format: Master Thesis
• Language: Lithuanian; English
• Published: Institutional Repository of Vytautas Magnus University 2015
• Subjects: Arctic; Russia; Norway; strategy; cooperation; Barents Sea; Mahan; North Pole; Climate change; Spitsbergen
• Online Access: https://vb.vdu.lt/VDU:ELABAETD2021358&prefLang=en_US

In this article the theory of territory importance, as a component of country’s power, is presented and it is associated with the Arctic region, which again drew the attention of a number of countries, politicians and specialists in various areas of focus for the ongoing climate change and the expressed willingness of Russia Federation to join a large part of Arctic area. In this case highlights the synthesis of Russian-Norwegian relations, which beginning, according to Russian politicians, was not based on reciprocity because Norwegians raised the question of the administration of Spitsbergen archipelago without the presence of Russian representatives during the Paris Conference in 1920 thus eliminating their great neighbour out of the political decision making in Northern Region. In addition, the confrontation between Russia and NATO, continuing since the Cold War, only increases the tension between Moscow and Oslo (Norway is a member of this alliance). However, after the start of developing of the Shtokman gas field in 2007 and the 40 years lasting Barents Sea territorial dispute is settled in 2010, the relations between the two countries should change to some based more on cooperation than confrontation even though NATO factor may lead to some disagreements. The aim of this article is to analyse the role of the Arctic area in Russian-Norwegian relations and in order to achieve it a) the information regarding the importance of territory for the development of the countries must be presented; b) the key factors raising their interest in the Arctic area introduced; c) Russian and Norwegian policy towards the North Pole reviewed. For this task the descriptive, analytical, document analysis and comparative methods are applied that enable to define the policy of those two countries, to discover the intersection points of their relationship including the forecast of what actions can take any of the two parties. All this is introduced from the F. Ratzel, A. Mahan and V. Semen-Tian-Šanskis geopolitical theory perspective. The conclusions of the article highlights that in respect to the policy of any given country, the role of the territory is very important, because of where the country is located, what are its neighbours, military capabilities, what natural resources exists in it, and so on. This determines what domestic and foreign policies a country will form. It is noted that in XXI century the international attention on the Arctic increases due to the climate change impacts, and also as the result of possibilities of economic development in the north. Russia and Norway are seen as the countries, which relations are developing in unexpected way – from confrontation in the beginning and middle of XX century to environmental cooperation at the end of XX century together with the settlement of territorial dispute in 2010, which can become a precedent in international politics. This can prove that countries with different attitude may agree – Norway is a NATO member and Russia considers the alliance as a hostile power.