Arctic Circle (organization) only eight countries with a speaking role: Canada, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Russia, Sweden, and the United States. The establishment of the Arctic Circle has raised concerns that the organization may give countries such as China, India, and Singapore a greater voice in Arctic affairs. The Canadian newspaper The Globe and Mail called it "a move that seems certain to irk some northern nations" and added that it "will be seen as complicating, if not challenging, the primacy of the Arctic Council in the rapidly changing north." "The question," wrote environmental journalist Irene Quaile, "is which forum will turn out
Arctic Circle (organization) to be the best placed to effectively protect the sensitive ecosystems and traditional lifestyles of indigenous groups in the Arctic at the time when international commercial interest is growing steadily." As the 1996 Ottawa Declaration, a founding document of the Arctic Council, explicitly stipulates that the Council "should not deal with matters related to military security," a 2014 RAND Corporation publication suggested that security dialogue "leverage existing international conferences, such as that run by the Arctic Circle Assembly, where participation can be ad hoc and security is already an item of discussion." The Arctic Circle's honorary board is chaired by