Bipandeep Sharma

Dr Bipandeep Sharma is an Associate Fellow at the Non-Traditional Security Centre at the Manohar Parrikar Institute for Defence Studies & Analyses (MP-IDSA), New Delhi. He works on Polar Regions where his core area of expertise is on ‘Arctic Geopolitics’. Here at the institute he focuses on security and strategic developments in the Arctic; aspects of Antarctic governance; deep seabed mining and on issues related to UNCLOS, CLCS, climate change and economic development in the Polar Regions. Dr Bipandeep Sharma has obtained his PhD form the Department of Political Science, Panjab University, Chandigarh. He holds M.Phil. and Master’s degrees in Defence and Strategic Studies. Prior joining MP-IDSA, he has taught papers on Contemporary Global Politics; International Relations; Climate Change and Sustainable Development, at the Institute of Social Science Education and Research, Panjab University, Chandigarh.

Associate Fellow

Publication

Hot Stakes in the Arctic: Global Rivalries and New Geopolitical Forces

The Arctic, so exquisitely remote, seems at times to drift beyond the reach of global politics. In this frigid expanse, the Arctic Council, an intergovernmental forum standing as a rare bridge, kept its most formidable of rivals—Russia and the US—together, compelling the two to cooperate even as they continued to lock horns elsewhere. It seemed almost too good to be true. The enduring East-West peace once held in the Arctic has come under unaccustomed strain due to the Russia-Ukraine conflict, disrupting governance, research and economic activity while challenging decades of practical and operational cooperation across the region’s vast landscapes and seascapes spanning the northern reaches of North America, Europe and Asia.