I Played Too Many Strategy Games as a Kid
One of the most interesting things about strategy, and I'm talking about it from a general perspective as an overarching plan to accomplish a goal over a long time period, is how it is formed, and, in the case of the Arctic, if it is suitable for the many changes coming or if it will become obsolete quickly. A couple of months ago I came across an article called Governments for the Future: Building the Strategic and Agile State by Mikko Kosonen and Yves Doz from SITRA (The Finnish Innovation Fund).
It basically outlined that traditional governance models are not suitable for the types of complex problems beginning to emerge in the world, and how they need to change to respond with better strategies. It didn't specifically mention the Arctic but I think this is ultra relevant, because the Arctic is something of a lab for new governance models as climate change is moving faster there than other places. The complex problems of globalization and climate change, and the revealed inadequacies of the old state system to deal with them are nowhere more apparent than in the Arctic. And this is another interesting thing about strategies, which traditional thinking would relegate as set plans to deal with set problems, that they will in the future be defined more by how they can deal with changing situations, according to SITRA.
SITRA has a few solutions for how governments can change their old models for the future. Part of the problem is that governments are more often quite decentralized, and show little inter-agency unity. In fact, the nature of budgeting has locked up resources and incentivized turf wars between bureaucratic units, ensuring that money can't be quickly redirected to new problems. What's more these agencies often don't seek out opinions from outside sources, resulting in a kind of tunnel vision that sees no need to change practices. Structurally then, governments have become risk averse to the point where trying and failing at something new in good faith is discouraged. SITRA argues that these qualities have left governments unable to be proactive, and only capable of muddling through, which will not hold up in the face of rapid change, such as is facing the Arctic. They offer three ideas for making a government "strategically agile": resource fluidity (as in, people and funds moving between departments easily), strategic sensitivity (good dialogue and incentivized ambition), and collective commitment (shared agendas and the like).
So can Finnish or, for that matter, American strategy appropriately deal with the problems facing the Arctic? Do they show, as the article calls it, "strategic agility"? Or do they reinforce the same old systems and thus are incapable of addressing future challenges? Well that's a silly little trick I did, asking a question implying there's some high stakes to finding the answer when I already have a strong opinion on the matter! I tend to think that despite the holistic nature of most countries' Arctic strategies that they are still too tied to the old systems of the nation state to be truly appropriate for the Arctic and the transnational problems therein. At least, this opinion has been reinforced by SITRA's (Mikko Kosonen and Yves Doz really) article on the issue.
From what I can see now reading the texts is that though there is some experimentation on governance with the inclusion of many different levels of players and more extra-Arctic involvement, there is still a strong desire on the part of the Arctic states to focus on sovereignty issues. What's more, the structure of the government strategies for both Finland and the United States seem to go against the recommendations laid out by SITRA in their vision of governments for the future. The United States' approach is highly decentralized with something like 20+ agencies involved. There is some effort, as laid out in the US's implementation plan, to unify the efforts of the agencies involved, but there is nothing in there about how resources will be allocated, and the United States government is notorious for inter-bureaucracy turf wars. So perhaps they have one of the three. But they talk of cooperation between agencies all the time and who nows how it's going? Finland, too (and the article specifically looks at the case of Finland though not specifically for its Arctic strategy) has locked in ministries with little shared agenda, little incentives for changing jobs, and less of a robust dialogue to promote change. But, it seems they are making more efforts to change this and have more of a sense of urgency than the United States does, especially on the Arctic. I would think they even out, but Finland's government, being smaller and with less divisive issues, should be able to move quicker.
This is my initial impression, but I hope to learn more and incorporate this idea of strategic agility into my paper on this subject.
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