America in the Arctic: Foreign Policy and Competition in the Melting North
By Mary Thompson-Jones
As climate change accelerates, the Arctic has become a frontline of global competition. Melting ice and swelling seas have made remote regions at once newly accessible and rife with new dangers. Vladimir Putin’s Russia has embarked on a substantial military buildup in the Arctic, and China has also turned its attention northward. The United States, however, has only recently begun to reestablish its Arctic presence after many years of waning influence.
America in the Arctic offers a timely and compelling case for why the United States must deepen its commitment to a region threatened by climate change and geopolitical rivalry. Mary Thompson-Jones traces the history of the U.S. presence in the far north from the purchase of Alaska through the Cold War, arguing that lessons from the past should inform America’s relationships with its Arctic neighbors today.
At its best, U.S. Arctic policy balanced security interests with residents’ needs and international cooperation on environmental and regional issues. In recent years, many policymakers scrambling to reassert U.S. leadership have framed their goals solely in security terms. Thompson-Jones argues that climate change now poses the greatest challenge, calling for a new approach that is inclusive of all the Arctic’s inhabitants. Bringing together national security expertise and historical insight, this book charts a course for American Arctic policy in a warming world.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Mary Thompson-Jones is a professor of national security affairs at the U.S. Naval War College and a former foreign service officer who attained the rank of minister counselor. She is the author of To the Secretary: Leaked Embassy Cables and America’s Foreign Policy Disconnect (2016). Her diplomatic experience spans more than two decades serving in the Czech Republic, Canada, Guatemala, Spain, and Washington, DC.
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We are proud to partner with the Loudoun County Public Library who makes available multiple copies of this book for checkout at the Rust Library.