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Hi there, it's Alistair here. I've just finished recording with a guy called Kenneth R. Rosen, an American author, an expert on the Arctic, a mini-series about this, because it's one of

the most important political issues of our time, the battle for the Arctic, and that's what it is.

Russia, China, United States, some of the big European powers, all vying the dominance and

control here, and of course climate change speeding up that process.

So to give you a taste of it, here's an extract from this week's episode,

to hear the full thing, get all the benefits of a trip plus membership, sign up at the rest

is politics.com.

Let's just start off. I really did love your book. When I got to the very, very end,

I love the fact right at the back of the book across both pages, you've got this a map, looking down at the top of the world,

looking down onto the North Pole. And I think that's a good place to start. Can you just give

our listeners a kind of geographical tour d'Orizzona of what we mean by the Arctic.

You know, going into the reporting and research,

I was much like everyone else thinking that the Arctic was a thin sliver of our planet existing at the polar north,

and that it was just ice and polar bears.

And I also believe that it was delineated by this Arctic Circle,

which is at 66 degrees and 33 minutes north.

And that was like the hard stop of where this region began and ended.

But the Arctic really is this conglomerate, if you will,

of eight nations who possess either physical territory

or littoral coastlines along the Arctic Ocean. And to define the Arctic is a real challenge.

...