A new northern security - Environmental and Human Security in the Arctic - page 47

central and southern Europe and North America. Examples of these new risky
hotspots are the new Russian terminals at the bottom of the Gulf of Finland
and the Kola Peninsula in the Barents Sea area, and the consequent grow-
ing transportation of oil and liquid gas (see Frantzen and Bambulyak 2003;
Flamini 2005). Increased drilling and transportation of oil and natural gas
and potential nuclear accidents will affect other aspects of security, e.g. cul-
tural survival and food security (see Paci et al. 2004).
Although the Cold War is over, and there are discourses of comprehen-
sive security and even changes in problem definition on security premises,
the reality is that for Russia and the USA, as well as partly for the UK, the
circumpolar North still has high strategic importance both politically and
militarily. This means that a holistic picture of a (new) northern security
includes traditional security dimensions in combination with the influences
of newer threats and risks. Thus military security is still very relevant, as is
regional security due to impacts of climate change, energy security meaning
both access to, and import and export of, oil and natural gas, and also envi-
ronmental security due to oil transportation, nuclear accidents and impacts
of climate change. Overall, there are both traditional and alternative security
dimensions that all deal with the security of the circumpolar North in the
early twenty-first century.
Comprehensive security in the North
There are many security dimensions present in the circumpolar North, but
there is no common definition for circumpolar or Arctic regional security.
Instead of that, comprehensive security, either emphasizing environmental
or human aspects, gives another, alternative and partly contrasting point
of view to the traditional security of the Cold War period defined in the
southern capitals.
In the 1980s, people in northern Europe started to become concerned
about trans-boundary pollution in general and especially about radioactive
contamination due to nuclear tests in Novaya Zemlya, the Chernobyl accident
and accidents of nuclear submarines (Heininen 1994). The risk of radioactive
contamination due to nuclear submarine accidents in the northern Atlantic
was seen as a real threat among the Icelanders and the Norwegians, and the
anxiety it created gave the Icelandic government a good reason to restate its
position concerning growing risks of nuclear accidents (see Pa'lsson 1988).
Behind this kind of statement is the fact that in the circumstances of a nuclear
accident the relationship between the environment and the military will eas-
ily become concretized, since as a result there might be real environmental
damage, meaning radioactive contamination. Even rumours of a possible
radioactive leakage can damage, for example, the fishing industry, which is of
great economic importance to Iceland and Norway (Heininen 1999a).