The Circumpolar

Will the next war be hybrid?

Hybrid threats are everywhere and nowhere. Cable cutting in the Baltic, drone incursions in Copenhagen and Oslo, the shadow fleet moving sanctioned oil under foreign flags, self-igniting parcels routed through DHL, GPS jamming that no longer triggers Article 5 conversations the way it once might have. What counts as hybrid, what counts as warfare, and where is the line? Dr. Gabriella Gricius returns to The Circumpolar to map how Russia operates differently across the Barents, the Baltic, and the Black Sea, why the shadow fleet is really about testing political cohesion rather than oil revenue, and why compounding threats keep her up at night. The conversation covers attribution problems, the limits of UNCLOS, what to make of Russia's ambassador to Norway saying Moscow has no interest in hybrid confrontation, and whether the West can hold a coherent red line when it cannot agree on a coherent response. Dr. Gabriella Gricius is an Associate Professor at the Norwegian Military Academy, a Senior Fellow at The Arctic Institute, and a Fellow with the North American and Arctic Defense and Security Network. Her work focuses on Arctic and northern European security with a focus on Russia.

Is Russian oil benefiting from the war in Iran?

Arild Moe, research professor at the Fridtjof Nansen Institute, joins Serafima Andreeva to unpack what the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East mean for Russia's Arctic energy sector. They discuss whether Russia is really benefiting from higher oil prices, why the "Arctic dream economy" looks increasingly fragile, the future of Yamal LNG as Europe prepares to phase out Russian gas, and the growing role of the shadow fleet. Drawing on his recent book with Anna Korppoo, "Climate, Hydrocarbons and Sanctions in the Russian Arctic", published with Edward Elgar, Arild explains why long-distance energy supplies are looking more vulnerable, how climate concerns figure into Russian planning (briefly, it turns out), and what rebuilding relations with Russia might eventually require. Book: https://www.e-elgar.com/shop/gbp/climate-hydrocarbons-sanctions-9781035355501.html [https://www.e-elgar.com/shop/gbp/climate-hydrocarbons-sanctions-9781035355501.html]

Can we explore space without colonising the Earth?

What does space sustainability actually mean, and why does it matter for the Arctic? In this episode of The Circumpolar, Serafima sits down with Tom Gabriel Royer, PhD candidate in space law at the University of Lapland, co-lead of Working Group 5 on COST Action FOGOS, and Visiting Researcher at the Arctic Centre, to talk through what's happening in the space sector right now and where the real tensions lie. Tom walks through the new EU Space Act proposal, the global push to attract space operators, and what scholars call the space sustainability paradox: we need space to monitor climate change on Earth, but to get there we build infrastructure that disrupts ecosystems on the ground. Launch-related pollution, he argues, is the missing piece in regulation. Even reusable rockets pollute. Reusability solves hardware waste, but it does not eliminate the environmental impact of launch operations. The conversation also turns to Tom's own work on immaterial extractivism around Arctic spaceports like Esrange, where the soundscape, the peacefulness and the emptiness of the land are extracted in the name of science, defence and economic growth. From the 1972 Liability Convention to indigenous perspectives on going to the Moon, Tom asks who actually benefits when we say space is the province of all humanity, and what it would take to do this thoughtfully.

Geopolitics of Outer Space: competition, militarisation, cooperation?

Is space governed well enough, and can we still prevent it from becoming a field of conflict or competition? Serafima sits down with Michael Byers, Professor of Political Science at the University of British Columbia, co-director of the Outer Space Institute and author of Who Owns Outer Space. Space is more governed than people think, Michael argues. The 1967 Outer Space Treaty was a remarkable document, and its negotiators were prescient. But space is developing very quickly. In just the last ten years we've gone from 2,000 operational satellites to 15,000, with plans for more than a million more. Add superpowers who are suspicious of each other, a heavy military reliance on satellites, and Donald Trump's so-called Golden Dome with over 1,000 space-based missile interceptors, and the security dilemma starts to look familiar. Drawing on his years working on Arctic governance, Michael walks through the parallels between two areas beyond national jurisdiction where countries almost necessarily have to cooperate. They also get into the renewed race to the moon and why it might really be about Donald Trump's ego, Elon Musk's Mars ambitions and the Starlink user agreement that already declares Mars "a free planet beyond the reach of nation states," the bubble economy of space startups, and what it would actually mean for humanity to find ancient life on another world.

France in the Arctic

France is not an Arctic state, but it has been present in the region longer than most. Dr. Florian Vidal, senior researcher at UiT's Center for Geopolitics, Peace and Security, joins us to map the shape of that presence and the direction it is now taking. Much of France's standing in the Arctic rests on science. French polar research goes back to the 19th century, and the station at Ny-Ålesund on Svalbard, operated jointly with the Alfred Wegener Institute, continues to anchor that footprint. Around it runs a tradition of climate diplomacy that successive governments have used to claim a leadership role on the environmental future of the region. The defence picture is newer, and moving faster. French naval deployments in Arctic waters are increasing, bilateral ties with Denmark, Finland and Norway are being reinforced, and NATO has emerged as one of the key structures through which France's contribution is organised. Vidal works through what it means that France holds the only nuclear deterrent inside the European Union, and how this has begun to signal that this protection could extend to European partners willing to engage. Greenland threads through the conversation. As transatlantic relations have wobbled, France has been unusually visible there: the first EU member state to open a consulate general, a small military unit sent to take part in Danish-led exercises, and a strategic agreement between the French National Geological Survey and the Greenlandic Department of Geology on critical minerals. Looking further out, Vidal weighs concerns over Russian force posture on the Kola Peninsula and possible spillover from the Baltic against longer-term issues like the Greenland ice sheet and its consequences for the AMOC. He closes with a frank point: if France wants a reliable position in the polar regions, it has to commit to invest.