Abstract
The geopolitical landscape of the Arctic underwent a structural shift following the February 2022 invasion of Ukraine, disrupting decades of 'Arctic exceptionalism'—the notion that the region could remain insulated from global security tensions. This study examines the acute tension between geopolitical fragmentation and the imperative for climate cooperation within the Arctic Council. Utilizing Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) of 114 official statements, policy briefs, and ministerial declarations from the Arctic Eight states between March 2022 and December 2023, we track how 'security' and 'cooperation' have been discursively re-conceptualized. Our findings reveal a dual-track discursive regime: while Western Arctic states (the A7) have shifted toward a 'soft containment' discourse prioritizing regional defense and democratic solidarity, the Russian Federation has increasingly framed Arctic governance through bilateral arrangements with non-Arctic states, notably China. Consequently, the discourse of environmental security has been instrumentalized, shifting from collaborative climate science to a securitized narrative of resource protection and sovereign vulnerability. This fragmentation threatens the operational capacity of the Arctic Council's working groups, effectively stalling critical climate mitigation and monitoring efforts. The paper concludes that restoring functional governance requires decoupling environmental data-sharing from hard security disputes, though institutional path dependency makes such functionalist separation highly challenging.
