CRITICAL THINKING
A HISTORIC RACE
The Birkebeiner ski race is a cross-country race starting at Rena and finishing in Lilleham- mer, Norway. The winter 1206 journey of Birkebeiner loyalists, Torstein Skevla and Skjervald Skrukka, to save the infant heir to the Norwegian throne, Håkon Håkonsson, inspired the race. Since then, the trip over the mountains has challenged hundreds of thousands of Norwegians. (Photo by pixabay)
“Change is coming to the Arctic, and it’s going to be for better or for worse. We have to be involved and we have to be present, to make sure it’s for the better.” DeHart said that his goal, and the goal of the State Department, is for the Arctic to remain peace- ful as those changes take place. “We want to keep it low tension and high cooperation, particularly among the nations that are in the Arctic region. And that we make sure that there’s no threats emerging to the U.S. homeland.”
Te eight nations of the Arctic—Canada, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Russia, Sweden and the United States—make up the Arctic Council, the principal international cooperative forum for addressing issues related to the Arctic. Established in
1996, the council is primarily concerned with sustainable devel- opment and environmental protection, rather than hard security. In fact, its mandate, outlined in the Ottawa Declaration, explic- itly omits any military security.
“We all want the Arctic to be a region of peaceful cooperation, where we’re focused together on scientific research, emergency preparedness and on sustainable economic growth,” DeHart said. “But the reality is, that it’s also NATO’s northern flank. Te Arctic is a geographic entryway to the United States, to our home- land, and it connects to the North Atlantic, where we have key lines of communication between the United States and Canada and our European allies. So, there’s a really important security
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