In a blog entry for The Hill, Dartmouth’s Ross Virginia and three colleagues write about the future of the Arctic Council, in particular the heightened role of the United States within the council. “As the U. S. prepares to take on the chairmanship of the Arctic Council in 2015, the appointment of an experienced, capable leader, Admiral Robert Papp, former Commandant of the U.S. Coast Guard, has real potential to focus and unite U.S. Arctic policy and give the Arctic Council the leadership it will need to preserve the Arctic as a zone of international cooperation and peace during a period of rising global unrest,” they write.
“As it takes up the Arctic Council chair, the United States has immense resources and influence that it can bring to bear in leading the council. It can bring great authority to the council’s efforts to maintain the Arctic as a zone of cooperation and to build the consensus that permits all parties to work together effectively.”
Virginia is director of the Institute of Arctic Studies at the John Sloan Dickey Center for International Understanding and the Myers Family Professor of Environmental Studies.
Read the full opinion piece, published 8/8/14 by The Hill.
