Soviet Union & Northern Water

Book excerpt: First Published in 1988. In 1986 Croom Helm published, for the Royal Institute of International Affairs, Northern Waters: security and resource issues, which included a number of contributions from the Northern Waters Study Group of the Scottish Branch of the Royal Institute. This Study Group brought together academics, businessmen, civil servants and serving officers interested in Northern Waters and helped arrange a number of seminars and international conferences. Its members also had contacts with those in Scandinavia and North America who had a professional involvement in Northern Waters. Since the establishment of the Study Group in 1979, interest in Northern Waters has flourished in Britain, the United States, Canada, West Germany and the Nordic countries. In Autumn 1985 the Centre for Defence Studies, University of Aberdeen, held an International Colloquium on what have probably been the main inspirations for the attention devoted to Northern Waters — increased Soviet activity therein and the response of the Western powers. This book reflects some of the issues dealt with at that colloquium and, like the 1986 book, covers jurisdictional and resource questions as well as those concerned with international security.