Murmansk Initiative
The Murmansk Initiative (/mərmænsk ɪˈnɪʃətɪvz/; Russian: Мурманские инициати́вы, Russian pronunciation: [/Мурманские/ ɪnʲɪt͡sᵻɐtʲˈivᵻ][clarification needed]) was a series of wide-range foreign policy proposals concerning the Arctic region made in a speech by the Secretary-General of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union - Mikhail Gorbachev - on October 1, 1987 in Murmansk, Soviet Union, considered to be a trademark of his foreign policy.
[4] The Murmansk Initiative was considered a major turning point in the Arctic policy of the Soviet Union (USSR) and represented the application of Gorbachev's "new political thinking" in Northern Europe.
[6] The collection of Soviet military installations along the Kola Peninsula would be considered by Western analysts as being the most heavily concentrated system of air, naval, and missile bases in the world.
[9] He stated that the Soviet Union's military-industrial complex was a barrier to these peaceful discussions and spoke of the importance of the Arctic as a meeting place of three continents (Europe, Asia, and the Americas) and of ongoing security concerns.
[11] His speech invited all those in the Arctic region to engage in discussions about establishing a nuclear-free zone,[12] restricting naval activity,[12] and encouraged peaceful cooperation on topics like resource extraction, scientific exploration, issues of indigenous peoples, environmental protection, and northern shipping routes.
[17] Norway and Sweden had both expressed interest in such a proposal previously and the Soviets were hoping that dismantling long- and short-range missiles would appease their objections.
He proposed to hold a meeting in Leningrad to discuss the prohibition of naval activities in mutually agreed zones of international straits and intensive shipping routes in the Arctic.
There were 26 Indigenous groups with almost 200,000 people living in the Soviet Union, and the industrialization and militarization of the Arctic had a negative impact on their livelihood due to increased pollution.
The Murmansk initiatives encouraged the Soviet Inuit to attend the 1989 International Circumpolar Conference meeting, providing an opportunity to bring attention to these issues.
Thus Gorbachev’s proposal to increase international environmental cooperation in terms of developing a joint plan for the protection of the Arctic's vulnerable environment, including the monitoring of radiation, departed from the USSR's previous policy decisions.
[21] Mikhail Gorbachev, on the dependence on the normalization of international relations, promised to open the Northern Sea Route for the passage of foreign vessels with the help of Soviet icebreakers.
[30] Cold War-era arguments which favored a military focus over commercial traffic were increasingly irrelevant given a new Soviet security sphere, and this contributed to the push for the opening of the Northern Sea Route.
It led to a restoring confidence in diplomatic negotiations in the European North which were lost during the Cold War, and laid the foundation for a fundamentally new arena for cooperation.
[32] Domestically, after Gorbachev's speech, the Central Committee on the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) adopted Resolution 338 in 1988 titled "On Measures to Accelerate Economic and Social Development of the Murmansk Oblast from 1988-1990 to 2005."
Despite this, there were some positive demilitarization results that Gorbachev attributed to the Murmansk Initiative: the signing of the INF Treaty, the removal of INFs from areas adjacent to the European North, the elimination of sea-based nuclear missiles in the Baltic Sea, and the reduction in the number of ground troops stationed in both the European part of the USSR as well as in the Warsaw Pact countries by 200,000.
[21] In fact, Norway and the USSR signed a joint agreement on June 5, 1991, in which they agreed on paying special attention on developing versatile and mutually beneficial cooperation in the Arctic.
Russia's participation in these organizations traced a continuity in its foreign policy development course that Mikhail Gorbachev laid out earlier in his Murmansk Initiative speech.
The Northern Sea shipping route was opened by the Soviet Union on July 1, 1991 to foreign vessels in part as a result of the Murmansk Initiative.
These initiatives demonstrated the success of Gorbachev’s call to desecuritize the Arctic, and helped to facilitate emerging political cooperation in other areas at the time.
