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Can the United States and Russia actually cooperate in the Arctic? It might seem like wishful thinking, given that Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev between the two countries in a speech at the Munich Security Conference. 鈥攁t that conference 鈥攕ee the idea as far-fetched. Sure, Russia is launching air strikes in what has become an all-out proxy war in Syria, continues to be aggressive against Ukraine, and has increased its military build-up in the High North. To many observers, the notion of cooperating with Russia in the Arctic was a non-starter as recently as the mid-2015. There have been, however, significant changes in Russia鈥檚 behavior in the last several months鈥攕o, maybe it is possible to bracket the Arctic out of the evolving confrontation.

These and other matters were the subject of discussion at a recent of Columbia University in New York, in which we had the pleasure to partake last week.

More reflections from Pavel Baev and Tim Boersma are at the , 18 February 2016.