How the Ukraine War Stopped Arctic Brinkmanship
Journal: Arctic review on law and politics
Year: 2025

Based on available data in an open-source environment, there was no military antagonism nor any provocative exercises between U.S. and Russian forces in the Arctic between 2022 and 2024. This contrasts the 2015–2021 period where the two rivals provoked each other outside the coast of Norway. Why have U.S. and Russian forces stopped antagonizing each other? Using brinkmanship as a theoretical model of explanation, this study finds the Ukraine War to be an Arctic tranquilizer. This is partly due t