Fire Hydrant of Freedom
Politics, Religion, Science, Culture and Humanities => Politics & Religion => Topic started by: Crafty_Dog on August 03, 2007, 08:22:09 AM
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New Race for the Arctic
By ERIC POSNER
August 3, 2007; Page A8
Melting polar ice and the high cost of energy are creating a new battleground at the top of the world. Yesterday a Russian mini-sub released a capsule containing a Russian flag onto the seabed at the North Pole. This was the climax of a research expedition whose purpose is to support Russia's claim to what could be billions of tons of oil and gas reserves in an area of the Arctic twice the size of France. Russia has already been setting up new military and civilian posts, such as in the Zemlya Frantsa Iosifa archipelago in the northeastern Barents Sea.
Meanwhile, Canada has reasserted its claim over the melting Northwest Passage, a portion of the Arctic Ocean linking the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. Its recent announcement that it will build patrol vessels in order to establish sovereignty over the passage had a belligerent tone uncharacteristic of our peaceful neighbor.
The United States has long resisted both claims. The international legal arguments are esoteric, but boiled down they amount to this: Russia's claim is based on the principle that a coastal nation controls the mineral resources of its continental shelf, and the as-yet unproved assertion, which the U.S. disputes, that the continental shelf abutting Russian territory extends deep into the Arctic. Canada argues that the straits composing the Northwest Passage amount to inland seas, and therefore are subject to Canadian sovereignty, just as the U.S. controls Lake Michigan. The U.S. replies that these straits are part of the high seas, and thus anyone can enter them without obtaining Canada's consent.
Power, not international law, will settle the issue. Indeed, international law recognizes this fact by making title dependent on a nation's ability to exert control over an area. That is why Russia is sending ships into the Arctic, and why Canada is saying that it will patrol the Northwest Passage. As long as such expressions of power are credible, other nations, disadvantaged by distance, will generally acquiesce and sovereignty will be extended accordingly.
Russia's expression of power is credible; Canada's is not. Canada cannot prevent other countries from sending ships up the Northwest Passage, as the U.S. has demonstrated from time to time for just this purpose. The melting of the Northwest Passage will significantly shorten the sea route between oceans, as well as open up access to energy resources. The U.S. does not want Canada to reap all the benefits of control of the passage, but this is a side show. The real threat is the Russian bear, not the Canadian beaver.
The world is divided into two types of space: areas controlled by states and areas that are uncontrolled. Oceans are mostly uncontrolled, with the significant exception of territorial seas, where states have been able to exert some control with naval resources. International law has long recognized states' control over their coastal seas (which extend about 12 miles), which means they can block and regulate foreign shipping in those areas. The high seas, however, are free to all.
The major naval powers have always advanced the principle of freedom of the seas for the simple reason that their naval forces dominate them. But "commons" are subject to overexploitation, and overfishing has been the predictable consequence of uncontrolled oceans. Predictable and unavoidable: If no one can control the oceans, then the problem cannot be solved by giving a country nominal title to them.
Where a state can exert control, it is best for it to do so, because this avoids the commons problem. It is in the world's interest for Canada to control the Northwest Passage, even if it will profit and has the formal power to keep the rest of the world out. Canada has an interest in protecting the passage and exploiting its resources, which the rest of the world can purchase. But given its military weakness, Canada cannot have this control without the support of the U.S.
Russia's claims present a different case. It is re-emerging as a global troublemaker, and its claims are far more ambitious than Canada's. At some point, Russia, the U.S. and other countries will carve up the Arctic into mutually exclusive economic zones. Russia is positioning itself to take the lion's share. Russia has major advantages over Canada and the U.S. in the battle over the Arctic. Control over the seas is determined by two things: power and propinquity. With respect to the Arctic, Russia has both. The U.S. has power but not, for the most part, propinquity; Canada has propinquity but not power. As long as the U.S. and Canada are at loggerheads over the Northwest Passage, they will have trouble resisting Russia's claims to the rest of the Arctic.
If the U.S. supports Canada's claim to the Northwest Passage, in return for some sort of guarantee of U.S. military and civilian access, the two countries will strengthen their position vis-à-vis Russia. As the world heats up, the two countries need to prepare themselves for the re-emergence of old rivalries, and in the battle over control of the Arctic, the U.S. and Canada are natural allies.
Mr. Posner, professor of law at the University of Chicago, is co-author of "The Limits of International Law" (Oxford University Press, 2005).
WSJ
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A Russian expedition has proved that a ridge of mountains below the Arctic Ocean is part of Russia's continental shelf, government officials have said.
The August expedition planted the Russian flag on the seabed below the North Pole and gathered soil samples.
Russia's Natural Resources Ministry said early test results on the soil samples showed Russia is geologically linked to the Lomonosov Ridge.
The Arctic is thought to be rich in oil, gas and mineral reserves.
"Results of an analysis of the Earth's crust show that the structure of the underwater Lomonosov mountain chain is similar to the world's other continental shelves, and the ridge is therefore part of Russia's land mass," a statement from the ministry said.
Russia's claim to a vast swathe of territory in the Arctic has been challenged by the other nations with territory bordering the ocean - including the US and Canada.
Competition for territorial and economic rights in the Arctic has heated up as melting polar ice caps have opened up the possibility of exploiting the previously inaccessible seabed.
Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/h...pe/7005483.stm
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A Push to Increase Icebreakers in the Arctic
By ANDREW C. REVKIN
Published: August 16, 2008
NY TIMES
A growing array of military leaders, Arctic experts and lawmakers say the United States is losing its ability to patrol and safeguard Arctic waters even as climate change and high energy prices have triggered a burst of shipping and oil and gas exploration in the thawing region.
The National Academy of Sciences, the Coast Guard and others have warned over the past several years that the United States’ two 30-year-old heavy icebreakers, the Polar Sea and Polar Star, and one smaller ice-breaking ship devoted mainly to science, the Healy, are grossly inadequate. Also, the Polar Star is out of service.
And this spring, the leaders of the Pentagon’s Pacific Command, Northern Command and Transportation Command strongly recommended in a letter that the Joint Chiefs of Staff endorse a push by the Coast Guard to increase the country’s ability to gain access to and control its Arctic waters.
In the meantime, a resurgent Russia has been busy expanding its fleet of large oceangoing icebreakers to around 14, launching a large conventional icebreaker in May and, last year, the world’s largest icebreaker, named 50 Years of Victory, the newest of its seven nuclear-powered, pole-hardy ships.
Adm. Thad W. Allen, the commandant of the Coast Guard, who toured Alaska’s Arctic shores two weeks ago with the homeland security secretary, Michael Chertoff, said that whatever mix of natural and human factors is causing the ice retreats, the Arctic is clearly opening to commerce — and potential conflict and hazards — like never before.
“All I know is, there is water where it didn’t used to be, and I’m responsible for dealing with that,” Admiral Allen said in a recent interview. Given the 8 or 10 years it would take to build even one icebreaker, he added, “I think we’re at a crisis point on making a decision.”
The cost of building icebreakers and keeping the older vessels operating until the new ones have been launched could easily top $1.5 billion, according to several estimates. Arguments for new ships include the strategic, like maintaining a four-seasons ability to patrol northern waters, and the practical, like being able to quickly reach a disabled cruise ship or an oil spill in ice-clogged waters, Admiral Allen said.
Even with the increasing summer retreats of sea ice, which many polar scientists say probably are being driven in part by global warming caused by humans, there will always be enough ice in certain parts of the Arctic to require icebreakers. Admiral Allen and members of the presidential U.S. Arctic Research Commission have been pressing lawmakers for support and urging the White House to issue a presidential directive that emphasizes the need for increased oversight of the Arctic and for new ships.
Shipping traffic in the far north is not tracked precisely. But experts provided telling snapshots of maritime activity to legislators and other officials from Arctic countries at an international conference last week in Fairbanks, Alaska. For example, Mead Treadwell, who attended the conference and is an Alaskan businessman and the chairman of the research commission, said officials were told that more than 200 cruise ships circled Greenland in 2007, up from 27 in 2004.
Lawson W. Brigham, chairman of the three-year Arctic Marine Shipping Assessment that is scheduled to finish work this year, told the gathering that more than 5,400 vessels of 100 tons or larger operated in Arctic waters in the summer of 2004. During that summer there were 102 trips in the Northwest Passage and five complete transits of that legendary route, he said.
The growing Pentagon support for the Coast Guard, which is within the Department of Homeland Security, followed several highly publicized maneuvers by Russia aimed at cementing its position as the Arctic’s powerhouse, including sending a pair of small submarines to the seabed at the North Pole a year ago.
White House officials said they have been reviewing Arctic policies for several years and were nearly finished with a new security policy on the region — the first since 1994. Bush administration officials said last week that it could be issued within a few weeks, but they declined to discuss what it would say.
The enduring question is where the money would come from for rehabilitating the older ships and building new ones. The Department of Homeland Security is still mainly focused on preventing terrorist attacks. The Coast Guard is stretched thin, Admiral Allen said, protecting facilities in the Persian Gulf, seeking drug smugglers and patrolling coastal waters elsewhere.
In Congress, the issue has mainly been championed by lawmakers from Alaska and Washington State. The Polar Sea, Polar Star and Healy are based in Seattle.
As early as 2001, the Navy issued reports saying that it had limited ability to operate ships and planes reliably in the Arctic. But with two costly wars under way, the region has remained a low priority with Navy budgets for polar analysis declining.
The letter from the three military commands to the Joint Chiefs last spring said reliable icebreakers were essential to controlling northern waters and to maintaining American research stations in Antarctica. But the Arctic was clearly the commands’ biggest concern, with the letter citing “climate change and increasing economic activity” as reasons for upgrading the icebreaker fleet.
With no current program aimed at upgrading ships and no new ones planned, the letter said, “The nation’s icebreaking capability has diminished substantially and is at risk of being unable to support our national interests in the Arctic regions.”
On Friday, a Pentagon spokesman said that the military’s leadership recognized the importance of the issue and was arranging for Admiral Allen to give a presentation to the Joint Chiefs on Arctic security this year.
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Russia plans military force to patrol Arctic as 'cold rush' intensifies
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Russia plans military force to patrol Arctic as 'cold rush' intensifies
Tom Parfitt in Moscow
The Guardian
Saturday 28 March 2009
Russia has released plans to create a dedicated military force to patrol the Arctic, where it is laying claim to billions of tonnes of hydrocarbons.
Countries in the northern hemisphere are vying for control of the polar region, which is thought to contain up to a quarter of the world's undiscovered oil and gas. The presidential security council issued a strategy document which outlined Russia's plans for defending its vast swath of polar territory up until 2020.
A major component of the strategy was the creation of a group of general-purpose units of the armed forces of the Russian Federation and other military units and agencies, primarily border guard agencies to ensure security.
The Kremlin has engaged in sporadic tub-thumping over its right to the Arctic's resources ever since two mini subs planted a titanium Russian tricolour on the seabed under the North Pole in 2007. President Dmitry Medvedev said in September that the region must become Russia's strategic resource base for the 21st century.
Moscow's bold assertion that it will militarise the region comes as Russia, the United States, Canada, Norway and Denmark (via Greenland) lobby UN bodies to decide jurisdiction over the region.
The five countries with an Arctic coastline have exploitation rights over a 200 mile zone extending north of their borders, but the Kremlin is claiming a much bigger territory on grounds that an underwater ridge running towards the North Pole is connected to Russia's continental shelf.
The "cold rush" for the Arctic's resources has intensified as global warming opens up new shipping routes and eases the difficulty of offshore exploitation and drilling.
Artur Chilingarov, the polar explorer who is Russia's envoy on international co-operation in the Arctic and Antarctic, said this month that the country was justified in laying claim to waters off its Arctic coast. "We are not squeezing anyone out," he said.
However, other states have said they are unnerved by the Kremlin's "aggressive" stance. Earlier this month the Canadian government demanded an explanation after Russian bombers and a submarine were recorded entering its Arctic zone.
In turn, Moscow has reacted angrily to suggestions by Nato that it could enter the fray in the far north. The Nato secretary general, Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, said in January that the security alliance needed a military presence in the region to defuse tensions. "I would be the last one to expect military conflict - but there will be a [Nato] military presence," he said, adding: "It should be a military presence that is not overdone, and there is a need for political and economic co-operation."
Russia's envoy to Nato, Dmitry Rogozin, said yesterday he would not discuss military co-operation with Nato in the Arctic because it was "totally absurd" for countries not abutting the region to get involved.
The security council sought to play down its strategy document later on Friday, saying its emphasis was on improving the border guard service and its co-operation with other states in "combating terrorism in the sea, seeking to prevent illicit trade and illegal migration, and in seeking to protect aquatic biological resources."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009...il-arctic-nato
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By ALAN CULLISON
MOSCOW—Russia plans to deploy two army brigades in the north to defend its interests in the Arctic regions, where governments citing climate change have made competing claims over natural resources.
Russia's defense minister said officials haven't yet worked out the details of troops or weaponry, but that the brigades, which usually number a few thousand troops, would be cobbled together with an eye toward the experience of Russia's northern neighbors—Finland, Norway and Sweden—which already have such northern forces.
"The location will be determined, as well as weapons, numbers and infrastructure for the brigades," said Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov, according to Russian news agencies. "They could be put in Murmansk, Archangelsk or another place."
Russia has staked a claim to a large part of the Arctic, which is thought to hold as much as a quarter of the world's oil and gas reserves, arguing that an underwater ridge running from its northern Siberian shores leads directly to the North Pole.
As Arctic ice melts amid rising global temperatures—surface temperatures in 2010 tied those of 2005 as the warmest on record, according to NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies—countries abutting the Arctic Circle are vying for new shipping routes and fishing grounds, as well as oil and gas drilling opportunities.
To cap its claim, Russia floated a small submarine under the ice caps four years ago and planted a titanium flag on the ocean floor, an act that had more symbolic than legal significance.
Lately Moscow has been resounding its claims, and on Thursday Prime Minister Vladimir Putin told a pro-Kremlin party congress in the Ural Mountains that Russia would build a $33 billion year-round port on the Yamal Peninsula, in the Russian Arctic.
Mr. Putin said Russia was "open to dialogue" with its northern neighbors, but will "strongly and persistently" defend its interests in the region.
Russia's claims mostly antagonize Canada and Denmark, whose ambitions most closely overlap Russia's in the region.
By deploying forces in the north, Moscow is again sending a message, mostly symbolic, that its claim to the Arctic regions is serious, said Fyodor Lukyanov, editor of the Moscow-based Russia in Global Affairs magazine.
"The Russian position is that in order to be respected they need to have some forces there," said Mr. Lukyanov. But he added, "I don't think that Russia feels it will ever need these forces to defend its interests."
In May, the eight nations abutting the Arctic Circle, the Arctic Council, tried to sound a note of civility by signing an agreement to coordinate search-and-rescue missions in the region. At its meeting in Greenland, the council tiptoed around the tougher issue of territorial claims. But the U.S. said it hopes the agreement could be a template for solving future security issues.
The council is comprised of Russia, the U.S., Canada, Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Finland and Iceland.
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If you think BP was bad in the Gulf of Mexico, just wait until it is regulated by the Russians in the Arctic , , ,
By RUSSELL GOLD
Exxon Mobil Corp.'s blockbuster $2.2 billion deal to drill for oil in the frigid waters north of Russia with OAO Rosneft is the latest sign of the energy industry's white-hot interest in exploring above the Arctic Circle.
The region encompasses about 12 million square miles—just 6% of the earth's land mass. But it is estimated to contain the oil and natural-gas equivalent of 412 billion barrels of oil, about 22% of the world's undiscovered oil and gas.
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.More recently, thinning ice has made it easier to work in some parts of the Arctic. And the persistently high price of oil, along with political constraints elsewhere, has encouraged Royal Dutch Shell PLC and Cairn Energy PLC to invest billions of dollars on previously unexplored areas.
The challenges, however, are daunting. The extreme weather and ice flows during colder months could wreak havoc on oil-industry platforms. Cleaning up an oil spill would be a huge effort. The seas there don't support the microbes that can break down oil droplets. Existing air strips, ports and villages in the Arctic couldn't accommodate the type of massive response that occurred in the Gulf of Mexico last year.
The Arctic is largely untouched by industrial development and, due to its year-round cold, would be least resilient to an oil spill, notes the Arctic Council, an intergovernmental forum of nations bordering the region.
Exxon Mobil and OAO Rosneft, the state-controlled Russian oil giant, reached a sweeping strategic alliance Tuesday that will give the U.S. titan access to potentially huge oil fields in the Arctic Ocean. Russell Gold has details on The News Hub.
.Despite such environmental objections, arctic exploration is poised to move ahead quickly. Exxon and Rosneft, for instance, hope to begin preliminary exploration work next year.
A Rosneft official said on Wednesday that the two companies hope to drill their first exploratory well by 2015 and, if everything goes well, could begin production in the region by early next decade.
Rosneft estimated the areas it hopes to explore over the next few years have estimated recoverable reserves of 4.9 billion tons of oil, or about 36 billion barrels.
More
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Heard on the Street: BP Counts Cost Of Russian Missteps
.Shell has received conditional U.S. approval for up to 10 wells over the next couple of years in shallow waters off Alaska, although the Anglo-Dutch company still needs additional permits.
Off the western coast of Greenland, operating on both sides of the Arctic Circle, Scotland's Cairn Energy has drilled three wells and plans another four this year.
The two parts of the Arctic that are thought to contain giant deposits of oil and gas are north of Alaska and Canada's Northwest Territories as well as the waters north of Russia, stretching from its boundary with Finland and continuing east for more than 1,000 miles.
"All around the coast of Russia, geologists salivate over what they see from the little exploration that we have and salivate over the opportunity to drill," says Peter Robertson, a retired Chevron vice chairman and independent oil advisor to consulting firm Deloitte LLP. "There is the potential for very large finds. It's a great opportunity."
Marilyn Heiman, director of the U.S. Arctic Program at the Pew Environment Group, the conservation arm of the Pew Charitable Trusts, cautions that the energy industry is moving faster to start drilling than most countries are moving to craft appropriate regulations for the region.
"The Arctic is one of the most dangerous places to drill in the world and we need to have standards in place to prevent oil spills," said Ms. Heiman.
WSJ's Liam Denning breaks down the $3.2 billion deal struck between Exxon Mobil and Russia's OAO Rosneft to explore for oil in the Arctic's Kara Sea.
.Shell spokeswoman Kelly op de Weegh said the risks are manageable and the company plans to have oil-recovery vessels staged and ready to respond to any accidents.
"We could respond to any incident within an hour," she said. In addition, the wells that Shell plans to drill are not considered complex by oil industry standards, she said. "Pressures encountered in the Gulf of Mexico are five times greater than what we would encounter in offshore Alaska wells," she said.
There are other challenges for arctic hopefuls. For instance, designing permanent platforms to manage producing wells will require steel that can withstand years of extreme cold without turning brittle.
Border nations are laying the groundwork for more activity. Recently, countries have been clarifying often ill-defined maritime borders above the Arctic Circle, in preparation for expected oil and gas development. Norway and Russia ended decades of negotiation last year and agreed on their border.
Lawson Brigham, a professor of geography and Arctic policy at the University of Alaska at Fairbanks, said several countries that border the Arctic, including Norway and Russia, have economies whose future growth is dependent on developing its oil and gas resources. "The key to the Arctic," Mr. Brigham said, "is that there is a lot in the Arctic that can be sold."
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Few companies wring more earnings from a dollar of investment than Exxon Mobil, so we assume CEO Rex Tillerson knows the risks he's taking by getting into business with Vladimir Putin to explore for oil in the Russian Arctic. Exxon's official partner may be Rusneft, the Russian oil company, but in Moscow the de facto chairman of every board is Mr. Putin. If he turns against you, your investment may vanish faster than you can say Mikhail Khodorkovsky.
That well-known political risk makes it all the more disconcerting to see a U.S. oil company committing to invest billions of dollars in Russia's Arctic Sea, while much of America's own Arctic territories remain off-limits for political reasons. Exxon has long experience drilling in Alaska, and the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is less risky or costly than drilling in the Arctic Sea will be. But Democrats in Washington have barred that and elsewhere in Alaska from energy exploration.
The Obama Administration is using regulations to thwart development in the American far north. The primary gambit is to sit on lease permits. Conoco spent five years to get at one of its leases in the National Petroleum Preserve, only to be denied by the Army Corps of Engineers. The Corps denied an Exxon permit on the North Slope. Shell this year threw in the towel in the Beaufort Sea after a five-year fight for a permit with the EPA. No wonder Exxon Mobil decided to do business with the Russians. What's the alternative?
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Who would have guessed just a short time ago that Russia and China would be better places to do business than America?
Oh, I did when Obama was elected.
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Russia has been setting this up for years...
International Editionupdated 6:43 a.m. EDT, Sat August 4, 2007Russia plants flag on Arctic floorStory Highlights
A Russian sub plants the country's flag on the bottom of the Arctic Ocean
The mission aims to symbolically claim the region, believed to be rich in oil
The second submersible is expected to reach the seabed soon Next Article in World »
Read VIDEOMAP MOSCOW, Russia (Reuters) -- Russian explorers have dived deep below the North Pole in a submersible and planted their national flag on the seabed to stake a symbolic claim to the energy riches of the Arctic.
The Akademik Fedorov research ship carried about 100 scientists to the region.
A mechanical arm on Thursday dropped a specially made, rust-proof titanium flag painted with the Russian tricolor on to the Arctic seabed at a depth of 4,261 meters (13,980 feet).
"It was so lovely down there," Itar-Tass news agency quoted expedition leader Artur Chilingarov as saying as he emerged from one of two submersibles that made the dive.
"If a hundred or a thousand years from now someone goes down to where we were, they will see the Russian flag," said Chilingarov, 67, a top pro-Kremlin member of parliament.
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Russia in Arctic Sea oil and land grab
Russia wants to extend right up to the North Pole the territory it controls in the Arctic, believed to hold vast reserves of untapped oil and natural gas, which is expected to become more accessible as climate change melts the ice.
President Vladimir Putin congratulated the expedition by telephone on "the outstanding scientific project," local agencies reported.
Boris Gryzlov, who heads the State Duma lower chamber of parliament and the pro-Kremlin United Russia party, hailed the expedition as "a new stage of developing Russia's polar riches."
"This is fully in line with Russia's strategic interests," local media quoted him as saying. "I am proud our country remains the leader in conquering the Arctic. I am proud United Russia members took part in this unprecedented mission."
Major Russian channels aired a message from the Russian crew manning the International Space Station who said "this achievement must inspire the younger generation".
Earlier on Thursday Canada mocked Russia's ambitions and said the expedition was nothing more than a show.
"This isn't the 15th century. You can't go around the world and just plant flags and say 'We're claiming this territory'," Canadian Foreign Minister Peter MacKay told CTV television.
Under international law, the five states with territory inside the Arctic Circle -- Canada, Norway, Russia, the United States and Denmark via its control of Greenland -- have a 320-kilometer (200-mile) economic zone around the north of their coastline.
Russia is claiming a larger slice extending as far as the pole because, Moscow says, the Arctic seabed and Siberia are linked by one continental shelf.
"Then Russia can give foundation to its claim to more than a million square kilometers of the oceanic shelf," said a news reader for Russia's state news channel Vesti-24, which made the expedition its top news story.
Russian media have said the move could raise tension with the United States in a battle for Arctic gas.
"I'm not sure of whether they've put a metal flag, a rubber flag or a bed sheet on the ocean floor. Either way, it doesn't have any legal standing or effect on this claim," State Department deputy spokesman Tom Casey told reporters.
A Tass reporter on board the mission support ship said crew members cheered as Chilingarov climbed out of the submersible and was handed a pair of slippers.
"This may sound grandiloquent but for me this is like placing a flag on the moon, this is really a massive scientific achievement," Sergei Balyasnikov, spokesman for Russia's Arctic and Antarctic Institute, told Reuters.
Russia says the mission is intended to show that the Lomonosov ridge, a 1,800-kilometer underwater mountain range that extends under the Arctic to near the pole, is a geological extension of Russian territory.
It denied it was a land grab.
"The aim of this expedition is not to stake Russia's claim but to show that our shelf reaches to the North Pole," Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told reporters in Manila, where he is attending a regional security conference.
The Mir-1 submersible reached the seabed at 1208 Moscow time (0808 GMT) and returned to the surface exactly six hours later.
A second Russian submersible, manned by Swedish businessman Frederik Paulsen and Australian adventurer Mike McDowell, reached the seabed 27 minutes later. It reached a depth of 4,302 meters.
Soviet and U.S. nuclear submarines have often traveled under the polar icecap, but until Thursday none had reached the seabed under the pole. E-mail to a friend
P.C.
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BTW, see the post that opens this thread.
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http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/18/business/global/warming-revives-old-dream-of-sea-route-in-russian-arctic.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=tha25
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http://www.factcheck.org/2012/03/alaskan-island-giveaway/
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http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323751104578149300234713418.html?mod=world_newsreel
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JUST a quarter-century ago, and for millenniums before that, the Arctic Ocean was covered year-round by ice, creating an impregnable wilderness that humans rarely negotiated. Today, as the effects of global warming are amplified in the high north, most of the ocean is open water during the summer and covered by ice only in the winter.
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This unexpected transformation has radically altered the stakes for the Arctic, especially for the eight nations and indigenous peoples that surround it. But while there has been cooperation on extracting the region’s oil, gas and mineral deposits, and exploiting its fisheries, there has been little effort to develop legal mechanisms to prevent or adjudicate conflict. The potential for such conflict is high, even though tensions are now low.
Several countries, along with corporations like ExxonMobil and Royal Dutch Shell, are preparing to exploit the region’s enormous oil and natural gas reserves. New shipping routes will compete with the Panama and Suez Canals. Vast fisheries are being opened to commercial harvesting, without regulation. Coastal areas that are home to indigenous communities are eroding into the sea. China and the European Union are among non-Arctic governments rushing to assert their interests in the region. Some states have increased military personnel and equipment there.
The most fundamental challenge for the Arctic states is to promote cooperation and prevent conflict. Both are essential, but a forum for achieving those goals does not yet exist.
In 1996, eight countries — the United States, Russia, Canada, Norway, Finland, Sweden, Iceland and Denmark (which manages the foreign affairs and defense of Greenland) — and groups representing indigenous peoples established the Arctic Council to chart the region’s future. So far, this high-level forum has identified sustainable development and environmental protection as “common Arctic issues.” But another crucial concern — maintaining the peace — was shelved in the talks that led to the council’s creation. The fear then, as now, was that peace implied demilitarization. It doesn’t. But if these nations are still too timid to discuss peace in the region when tensions are low, how will they possibly cooperate to ease conflicts if they arise?
Since 2006, each of the Arctic nations has adopted its own security policy to safeguard its sovereign rights. What they must do now is compare their separate security policies, identify the ways in which those policies reinforce or conflict with one another, and then balance national interests with common interests.
How, for instance, will each nation position its military and police its territory? How will the Arctic states deal with China and other nations that have no formal jurisdictional claims but have strong interests in exploiting Arctic resources? How will Arctic and non-Arctic states work together to manage those resources beyond national jurisdictions, on the high seas and in the deep sea? Without ratifying the Convention on the Law of the Sea, a 1982 treaty governing use of the world’s oceans, how can the United States cooperate with other nations to resolve territorial disputes in the ocean?
NATO’s top military commander, Adm. James G. Stavridis of the United States Navy, warned in 2010 of an “icy slope toward a zone of competition, or worse, a zone of conflict” if the world’s leaders failed to ensure Arctic peace. Whether it is through the Arctic Council or another entity, there needs to be a forum for discussing peace and stability, not just environmental and economic issues. We need “rules of the road” to take us safely into the Arctic’s future.
President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, whose economy is reliant on its rich deposits of oil and natural gas, clearly understands the benefits of a northern sea route and of the hydrocarbon deposits on his nation’s continental shelf, and has emphasized the importance of peace and cooperation in the Arctic. So have leaders of other Arctic nations. But we have heard virtually nothing from President Obama, even as he has made the dangers of a warming earth a priority of his second term.
At an Arctic Council meeting in Tromso, Norway, last year, Hillary Rodham Clinton, then the secretary of state, said “the world increasingly looks to the North” but did not go much further. She called for “responsible management of resources” and efforts “to prevent and mitigate the effects of climate change.”
As the head of an Arctic superpower and a Nobel laureate, Mr. Obama should convene an international meeting with President Putin and other leaders of Arctic nations to ensure that economic development at the top of the world is not only sustainable, but peaceful.
Paul Arthur Berkman, a biological oceanographer at the University of California, Santa Barbara, is the author of “Environmental Security in the Arctic Ocean: Promoting Co-operation and Preventing Conflict.”
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The Growing Importance of the Arctic Council
Analysis
May 17, 2013 | 0916 Print - Text Size +
The Growing Importance of the Arctic Council
Summary
The Arctic is expected to become more important in the coming decades as climate change makes natural resources and transport routes more accessible. Reflecting the growing interest in the region, the Arctic Council granted six new countries (China, India, Italy, Japan, South Korea and Singapore) observer status during a May 15 ministerial meeting in Kiruna, Sweden. By admitting more observers, the Arctic Council -- an organization that promotes cooperation among countries with interests in the Arctic -- will likely become more important as a forum for discussions on Arctic issues. However, this does not necessarily mean it will be able to establish itself as a central decision-making body regarding Arctic matters.
Analysis
The Arctic Council was established in 1996 by the eight countries that have territory above the Arctic Circle -- the United States, Canada, Iceland, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland and Russia. Its main purpose was to be an intergovernmental forum (also involving Arctic indigenous groups) that promoted cooperation primarily regarding environmental matters and research. The Arctic Council's central focus has remained on environmental issues in the Arctic, and the body has had no meaningful decision-making power.
However, during this year's meeting, the council's members signed a legally binding agreement coordinating response efforts to marine pollution incidents. The council signed a similar agreement on search and rescue collaboration in 2011. These agreements, as well as the interest from countries around the world in gaining observer status, highlight the growing relevance of the Arctic Council and the Arctic region.
The Arctic's Economic Value
Potential Resources in the Arctic
Satellite data collected since 1979 shows that both the thickness of the ice in the Arctic and range of sea ice have decreased substantially, especially during the summer months. According to the United States' National Snow and Ice Data Center, the amount of Arctic ice (usually at a minimum during September) was 3.61 million square kilometers (1.39 million square miles) in September 2012 -- close to 49 percent lower than the average amount of ice seen between 1979 and 2000. The melting of the ice facilitates natural resource exploration in the high north. U.S. Geological Survey estimates from 2008 suggest that 13 percent of the world's undiscovered oil and 30 percent of undiscovered natural gas reserves are located in the Arctic Circle.
Moreover, the retreating and thinning of the ice opens up new trade routes. In 2012, 46 ships transporting a total of 1.3 million tons reportedly used the Northern Sea Route, which runs along the northern coast of Russia; this represents a considerable increase from 2011, when 34 ships transported approximately 820,000 tons. In response to the route's growing importance, Russia set up the Northern Sea Route administration in March to supervise shipping.
Potential Shipping Routes in the Arctic
Interest in profiting from greater access to the high north is not limited to countries around the Arctic Circle. Europe has a vested interest in alternative shipping routes to Asia becoming more economically viable, since such routes would allow trade to circumvent numerous bottlenecks like the Suez Canal and increase access to Asia's growing consumer markets. China has also shown a particular interest in the Arctic, and has lobbied the Nordic countries to support Beijing's bid for observer status in the Arctic Council. For countries like China that lack direct access to the Arctic, diplomatic ties and good bilateral relations with the Arctic countries, as well as participation in groups such as the Arctic Council, are important to improving their chances of profiting from the new access to shipping lanes and natural resources. Even though the observer status does not give countries direct influence in council matters, participating in meetings and research helps these countries know what the main Arctic players are planning. Countries may even intensify relations with individual Arctic Council members to gain better access to resources (China's interests in Greenland and Iceland illustrate this).
Sailing along the Northern Sea Route rather than through the Mediterranean Sea and Suez Canal significantly reduces the trip between Rotterdam and Shanghai -- the Northern Sea Route is around 20 percent shorter. This translates into significant savings in terms of fuel and crew costs. But despite the melting of the ice, the difficulty of navigation, seasonal constraints on use, high insurance costs and weak infrastructure along the route will continue to limit the economic viability of the Arctic route.
The Arctic Council's Rising Profile
The Arctic Council is just one of many bodies dealing with regional collaboration in the Arctic. The Barents Euro-Arctic Council, the Nordic Council and the Conference of Parliamentarians of the Arctic Region also coordinate intergovernmental or interregional collaboration in the Arctic on a number of issues. Allowing six more countries to become observer states shows that the members of the Arctic Council -- even those initially skeptical of expansion, such as Canada and Russia -- see the expansion as an opportunity to give the Arctic Council greater relevance. In the coming years, the debate among member states to determine whether the Arctic Council should move beyond environmental issues and become a forum to address issues related to militarization, natural resources and trade routes will become more prominent.
While the Arctic Council is likely to gain attention as a forum for policymakers to broadly discuss Arctic-related issues, it will struggle to coordinate decision-making as the number of interested parties in the Arctic grows. On May 10, the U.S. government presented its new general strategy for the Arctic. Little concrete information was revealed, but a clearer plan for implementing the strategy reportedly will be worked out in the coming months. This shows that national Arctic strategies are still being defined, and countries are still considering what kind of resources to commit to the region. As the priorities for countries in the Arctic become more concrete, the differences that will have to be resolved and issues that will have to be debated will become more difficult for bodies like the Arctic Council to deal with.
Read more: The Growing Importance of the Arctic Council | Stratfor
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Polar Thaw Opens Shortcut for Russian Natural Gas
Andrew Kramer for The New York Times
A helicopter view of energy facilities in the Russian Arctic. The company Novatek controls natural gas fields there.
By ANDREW E. KRAMER
Published: July 24, 2013
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YURKHAROVSKOYE GAS FIELD, Russia — The polar ice cap is melting, and if executives at the Russian energy company Novatek feel guilty about profiting from that, they do not let it be known in public.
A rendering of Novatek's proposed $20 billion liquefied natural gas plant on Russia's Arctic coast, scheduled to be done by 2016.
From this windswept shore on the Arctic Ocean, where Novatek owns enormous natural gas deposits, a stretch of thousands of miles of ice-free water leads to China. The company intends to ship the gas directly there.
“If we don’t sell them the fuel, somebody else will,” Mikhail Lozovoi, a spokesman for Novatek, said last month with a shrug.
Novatek, in partnership with the French energy company Total and the China National Petroleum Corporation, is building a $20 billion liquefied natural gas plant on the central Arctic coast of Russia. It is one of the first major energy projects to take advantage of the summer thawing of the Arctic caused by global warming. The plant, called Yamal LNG, would send gas to Asia along the sea lanes known as the Northeast Passage, which opened for regular international shipping only four years ago.
Whatever blame for the grim environmental consequences of global warming elsewhere in the world that might be placed on the petroleum industry, in the Far North, companies like Novatek and Total, Exxon Mobil of the United States and Statoil of Norway stand to make profit.
“It’s a reality of what is available today, and commercially it is a route that cuts cost,” Emily Stromquist, a global energy analyst at the Eurasia Group, said in a telephone interview.
Because of easing ice conditions and new hull designs, the tankers will not even require nuclear-powered icebreakers to lead the way — as is the practice now — except through the most northerly straits.
Novatek’s alternative was extending the natural gas pipeline that goes to Europe over hundreds of miles of tundra, at great cost. While shipping the gas from the field on the Yamal Peninsula, one of the long, misshapen fingers of land that extend north of the Urals in Russia, remains expensive, it is relatively cheap to drill and produce from these rich fields, making the overall project competitive.
In addition to making it easier to ship to Asia, the receding ice cap has opened more of the sea floor to exploration. This has upended the traditional business model of using pipelines to Europe. Thawing has proceeded more slowly in the Arctic above Alaska, Canada and Greenland, but one day what is happening in Russia could happen there.
Still, the Arctic waters are particularly perilous for drilling because of the extreme cold. Tongues of ice that descend from the polar cap for hundreds of miles obstruct shipping and threaten rigs. After a rig ran aground last year, Shell canceled drilling this summer in the Chukchi Sea off Alaska.
This is not the first Arctic venture to benefit from newly cleared sea lanes. The decision to open the Arctic Ocean to drilling passed Russia’s Parliament in 2008 as an amendment to a law on subsoil resources. Exxon and Rosneft, the Russian state oil company, are already in a joint venture to drill in the Kara Sea, and last month they agreed to expand to seven new exploration blocks in the Arctic. Fourteen wells are planned.
With these ventures, Exxon has placed itself in the vanguard of oil companies exploring commercial opportunities in the newly ice-free waters.
In Russia, the mining company Norilsk can now ship its nickel and copper across the Arctic Ocean without chartering icebreakers, saving millions of rubles for shareholders.
Norway is also drilling deep in Arctic waters, but has less territory to explore. Tschudi, a Norwegian shipping company, has bought and revived an idled iron ore mine in the north of Norway to ship ore to China via the northern route.
In northwest Alaska, the Red Dog lead and zinc mine moves its ore through the Bering Strait, which is less often clogged with packed ice than in past decades.
(Page 2 of 2)
What is new in the Novatek project is an oil industry business plan that relies explicitly on the Northeast Passage. Though Russian ships have moved goods along the country’s sprawling Arctic coastline for more than a century, and the route was opened to international shipping in 1991, it became apparent only recently that climate change would make the trip profitable.
The German shipping company Beluga made the first international commercial transit in 2009. The first transshipment with fuel, a cargo of gas condensate bound for China, crossed in 2010. By last summer, just three years after the first passage, 50 ships crossed above Russia, including eight tankers chartered by Novatek to test the route.
Novatek has said it needs bank guarantees for $16 billion in project financing, while it and its partners will finance the rest. To secure these loans, the company needs a change in Russian law lifting Gazprom’s monopoly for exports.
President Vladimir V. Putin, in a speech at an economic conference on June 21, said the law would change before this year was out, signaling that Yamal LNG had full Kremlin backing.
If Russia can ship large volumes of gas to Asia, it could send ripples through the Asian markets and put a damper on plans to build liquefied natural gas export terminals in the Gulf of Mexico. The United States and Russia are the world’s two leading gas producers.
Novatek has been experimenting with commercial models to complement the new shipping route. To fulfill contracts in the winter, when the northern route is more hazardous, the company can ship gas west over northern Russia, then around Europe, through the Suez Canal, and onward to Asia.
It has also negotiated with Qatar, a major Middle Eastern natural gas exporter, for a swap arrangement to save tanker fuel and time: Qatar would fulfill Novatek’s Asian contracts during the winter while Novatek, in exchange, would fill Qatar’s contracts to European customers during those months.
The company intends to open the Arctic plant by 2016. It has already asked for bids for two ice-hardened tankers, which should be able to navigate the sea lanes toward China seven months a year and the routes to the west year round.
It says it has mastered building in the Far North where, counterintuitively, Russians labor mainly through the cold polar night in winter, when the tundra is more accessible to heavy equipment.
The company, Mr. Lozovoi said, is keeping an eye on climate studies of the Arctic. He said that because of engineering tolerances built into the ship designs, “even if the climate turns toward cooling, and the ice thickens, we will make money.”
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A Cargo Ship Leads The Way Through Canada's Arctic Waters
Nordic Orion Will Be First Bulk Carrier To Cross Northwest Passage.
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By CHESTER DAWSON
A coal-laden cargo ship is on track to become the first bulk carrier to traverse the Northwest Passage through Canada's Arctic waters, blazing a trail that shippers hope will become a time-saving route in global trade.
Traveling with a Canadian Coast Guard escort, the Nordic Orion underscores Ottawa's recent efforts to bolster a thin presence in its vast Arctic territory. Experts say the country already has fallen behind Russia, which is developing a series of Arctic ports and has a fleet of ice breakers keeping open its competing Northern Sea Route.
The vessel, which left Vancouver Sept. 17 carrying 15,000 metric tons of coal, is off the coast of Greenland and is expected to dock in Pori, Finland, next week after chugging through waters once choked almost year-round with thick sea ice.
In recent years, the Arctic region has drawn interest on the international stage as global warming makes access to resource development easier and opens these trade routes to more ships, even as questions remain about the Canadian sea lane's commercial viability.
"The melting in various places is alarming, but it's creating opportunities that weren't there before," said Edward Coll, the Newport, R.I.-based CEO of Bulk Partners, the holding company that owns Nordic Orion.
Last year, the amount of Arctic sea ice reached an all-time low of 3.42 million square kilometers (1.32 million square miles), though this year it rose to 5.10 million square kilometers, according to the University of Colorado Boulder's National Snow and Ice Data Center.
"We had a bit of a recovery this year, but it's not going to last," said NSIDC Director Mark Serreze.
Bulk Partners said Nordic Orion's route will shave off four days of travel time, or nearly 1,500 nautical miles, worth up to $200,000 in savings. The dry-goods shipper said despite additional expenses on this journey, being the first across the route, it went ahead due to strong Canadian government backing.
"We had the support of people in the government there to do it, and without them, honestly, we could not have done it, nor would we have," Mr. Coll said.
The government, for instance, covers the roughly $50,000-a-day cost for an ice-breaking escort for any ship traveling north of the 60th parallel, which includes the Northwest Passage, according to the Canadian Coast Guard's Marine Communications and Traffic Services.
Under Prime Minister Stephen Harper, Canada has been keen to assert its sovereignty over the waterway and requires registration for all ships weighing more than 500 tons using it.
Still, the risks and financial costs associated with the extreme climate coupled with continued debate over Canada's sovereignty over a passage some, including the U.S., say is in international waters, ultimately could hinder regular use.
Experts say that Canada has to plough additional resources into the route, including search and rescue services, to attract more commercial traffic. They argue that Ottawa has fallen behind Moscow, which has developed a series of ports and other infrastructure along the competing Northern Sea Route, or Northeast Passage.
In August, a Chinese vessel became the first container-transporting vessel to sail through that seaway, shaving two weeks off a regular journey that takes the vessel south and through the Suez Canal.
The Northwest Passage also has more ice and is a trickier route to navigate than the Russian route.
According to the Northern Sea Route Information Office, 46 cargo vessels carrying 1.3 million tons of goods sailed through the Northern Sea route last year. The Northwest Passage saw 21 vessels, of which there were 18 yachts, two cruise ships and one tanker, according to the Cruising World Magazine.
The passage has been marked as a potential game-changing route since explorers, mainly British, mapped it out in the 19th Century. In 1969, a U.S. tanker triggered a bout of commercial enthusiasm when it sailed through the passage. But its ice-hampered journey deterred others.
"In the next couple of years, it'll be a test to see if it's economically feasible," said Mihaela David, a fellow with the Arctic Institute, a Washington, D.C., nonprofit think tank.
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http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/31/world/europe/activists-feel-powerful-wrath-as-russia-guards-its-arctic-claims.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=edit_th_20131031&_r=0
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Check out the map with this article :-o
http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303330204579250522717106330?mod=WSJ_hps_LEFTTopStories
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Surely the Navy, and this left wing Pravada are incorrect since global warming is false.
Check out the map with this article :-o
http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303330204579250522717106330?mod=WSJ_hps_LEFTTopStories
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An interesting and witty zinger BD, but IIRC there is a claim that Antarctic ice is increasing? Let me see if I can get Body By Guiness to chime in here , , ,
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"Surely the Navy, and this left wing Pravada are incorrect since global warming is false. "
I also detected sarcasm though I have been batting 0.000 when trying to read Bigdog's mind.
The WSJ is right wing only on the editorial page and 'mainstream' throughout the rest, IMO. The caption of the map is a good MSM/Pravda example: "Scientists forecast the ice will further extend its annual retreat..." published under ice maps of 2020 and 2030 drawn as if the models are accurate, the science is settled and the lines are already known. By "scientists forecast" do they mean all scientists, or just the literal plural, meaning two or more. US Navy is making plans based on IPCC accuracy? [2013 ice coverage was the] "sixth lowest in recorded history". That refers to what time frame - reliable satellite data goes back to about 1979. What portion of earth's 4,540,000,000 year history is that? The most recent "annual retreat" was the greatest annual ice coverage gain in recorded history, meaning thirty some years, not 4.5 billion.
"incorrect since global warming is false": I don't know anyone who believes global warming is false, but straw arguments can be fun! Wouldn't a person have to deny there was an ice age in order to deny there has been warming? What some of us allege is that the predictions of the models, as illustrated on this map, and the claims of the alarmists, such as that Florida will be mostly under water shortly, are false. 2020 is not that far off. We will see. If the models are correct and global warming is straight line, why the 17 year pause?
The larger point relative to the US Navy, mostly unmentioned in the story, is that there are significant territorial disputes in the Arctic and armed conflicts could arise, ice or no-ice.
-----------------------------------------
Meanwhile, if the cause is warming and the area affected is global, similar routes will be opening in the Antarctic (or did we just find out otherwise):
NASA Announces New Record Growth Of Antarctic Sea Ice Extent, 22 Sept 2013
http://www.spiegel.de/wissenschaft/natur/satellitenbild-der-woche-antarktis-meereis-erreicht-rekord-ausdehnung-a-928703.html
http://www.livescience.com/39720-antarctica-ice-record-highs-2013.html
Sea ice surrounding Antarctica hit a record high in August and is on track for another record-breaking month in September. Clocking in at a stunning 7.2 million square miles (18.7 million square kilometers), last month's sea ice extent was 4.5 percent above the 1981 to 2010 average and the largest extent since record-keeping started in 1979, according to data released today from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in its monthly State of the Climate Report.
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http://www.skepticalscience.com/antarctica-gaining-ice.htm
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/01/03/antarctic_ice_shelf_melt_lowest_ever_recorded_just_not_much_affected_by_global_warming/
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/capital-weather-gang/wp/2013/09/23/antarctic-sea-ice-hit-35-year-record-high-saturday/ (This one is the most interesting to me. Here's why: "The increasing ice is especially perplexing since the water beneath the ice has warmed, not cooled."
An interesting and witty zinger BD, but IIRC there is a claim that Antarctic ice is increasing? Let me see if I can get Body By Guiness to chime in here , , ,
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Russia's Plans for Arctic Supremacy
Analysis
January 16, 2015 | 10:30 GMT Print Text Size
Elements from the Russian Army's Guards Engineer Brigade and Engineer Camouflage Regiment train in Arctic conditions, Jan. 19, 2011. (RIA Novosti/Wikimedia)
Summary
Although the crisis in Ukraine continues to focus attention on Russia's western border, Moscow is seeking to exploit a more lucrative prize along its vast northern frontage: the Arctic Circle. Melting ice has opened up new transit routes and revealed previously inaccessible oil and mineral deposits. Facing a year of harsh economic constraints, securing exploitable energy reserves remains a top priority for Moscow. The planned militarization of the Arctic is already underway, and funding is secured through 2015 (the Ministry of Defense was the only Kremlin ministry not to be curtailed in the most recent budget.) With Russia aiming to consolidate its strength by the end of the year, surrounding countries are already reassessing their positions in the face of an overwhelming regional force.
Analysis
Russia's traditional view of the outside world is colored by a deep sense of insecurity and paranoia. This is best exemplified by the events in Ukraine, where the Kremlin acted to preserve its traditional geographic bulwark against the West. This pattern of protectionism is also apparent in Moscow's current understanding and approach to the situation in the Arctic. Of the eight countries of the Arctic Council, five are members of NATO, fueling Russia's suspicion that opposing forces are massing against it. Although friction with Kiev and the West has overshadowed Russia's military build-up in the Arctic, Moscow's long-term ambitions for the region are making other Arctic countries nervous, Norway in particular.
Russia is interested in the Arctic for a number of reasons, though natural resources and pure geopolitical imperatives are the major driving forces behind Moscow's thinking. The Arctic contains an estimated 30 percent of the world's undiscovered natural gas and 13 percent of its undiscovered oil reserves, regarded by Moscow as important sources of foreign investment that are critical to the country's economic development. The Northern Sea Route from East Asia to Europe via the Arctic Ocean provides another economic opportunity for developing infrastructure in northern Russia.
These resources and transit lanes, however, are also attractive to other Arctic countries, potentially turning the region into a political battleground. The U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea regulates ownership of the Arctic, allowing for exclusive economic zones stretching 200 miles from land and even further if undersea resources sit on a continental shelf. Inhospitable conditions made previous boundary disputes futile, so the Arctic interior remains open to territorial claims and disputes. The interest expressed by other countries feeds Russia's determination to make its role as a central Arctic nation clear by any means possible, including the use of military pressure.
Russia's Arctic Build-Up
Militarizing the Arctic will be a key imperative for the Russian military throughout 2015 and beyond — alongside modernization in general and bolstering forces in Crimea and the Kaliningrad exclave. According to the Russian Ministry of Defense, Soviet-era bases in the Arctic are being reactivated in response to NATO's renewed interest in the region. The airstrip on the archipelago of Novaya Zemlya is being renovated to accommodate modern and next generation fighter aircraft in addition to advanced S400 air defense systems. Part of the Northern Fleet will also be based on the island chain, which is ideally positioned for operations in the Arctic region. The Northern Fleet represents two-thirds of the entire Russian Navy, which is the only navy in the world to operate nuclear-powered icebreaker ships. In addition, Moscow announced the formation of a new 6,000-soldier military group in the far north consisting of two motorized infantry brigades located in the Murmansk area and the Yamal-Nenets autonomous region. Radar and ground guidance systems are also planned for Franz Josef Land (part of Novaya Zemlya), Wrangel Island and Cape Schmidt. The Federal Security Service plans to increase the number of border guards on Russia's northern perimeter as well.
The recent Vostok 2014 full-scale military exercise — the biggest since the collapse of the Soviet Union — was a revealing indication of Russia's intentions in the Arctic. Russian troops, sailors and airmen carried out combat training missions in the region, prominently deploying Pantsir-S (air defense) and Iskander-M (theater ballistic missile) weapon systems, among others. Such activities inevitably evoke the atmosphere of the Cold War, when the region was the focus of U.S. and NATO attention. Furthermore, Russia's Northern Fleet announced that its Independent Marine Infantry Brigade will undergo intensive training in the Arctic region throughout 2015.
The Kremlin reiterated its intention to field a formidable combined arms force to protect its political and economic interests in the Arctic by 2020. Going into 2015, it is estimated that the Russian armed forces have around 56 military aircraft and 122 helicopters in the Arctic region. Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu stated that 14 military airfields on Russia's Arctic seaboard would be operational by the end of the year. The Ministry of Defense also said some of the 50 modernized MiG-31BM Foxhound interceptors expected by 2019 will be charged with defense duties over the Arctic. Despite the economic problems plaguing Russia, the Ministry of Defense managed to escape the significant budget cuts levied against most other ministries. In fact, the Kremlin has increased defense spending by 20 percent, a clear indication of Russia's priorities for 2015 and a likely indication that Moscow intends to meet its military commitments.
At the end of 2014, Russia established a unified strategic command based around the existing command architecture of the Northern Fleet. The force structure successfully facilitates a military reach across the islands of Russia's northern territories, allowing for better oversight and control of the trade route from China to Norway. This structure also serves the purpose of monitoring — and potentially checking — any military moves by any other power in the region.
Along with the Baltic states and their respective environs, the Barents Sea is under constant surveillance by Russian fighter jets. Russia's dominance in the region was further solidified when, in late December, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a new military doctrine. In stark contrast to previous dictums, the Arctic region was officially put on the list of Russian spheres of influence for the first time. The same recognition applies to Russia's maritime doctrine, which has two major geopolitical imperatives: a thrust toward the Black Sea and dominion of the near Arctic.
The Norwegian Response
Although Russia's planned expansion in the Arctic may appear aggressive, military authorities in the Kremlin have no desire for an armed confrontation with Western powers. Moscow is aware of NATO's Article 5 agreement, which states that any attack on an individual member country could invoke a unified response from the alliance. Nevertheless, the increased Russian military presence in the region makes neighboring countries uneasy, particularly Norway.
Russia's Arctic Ambitions
Russia's actions in Ukraine, along with its military exploitation of the Arctic, forced Oslo to reassess Moscow's role and intent in the north, specifically in the area of the Barents Sea. Norway backed the Western application of sanctions against Russia, and subsequent motions from Oslo reveal a major shift in the country's strategic perception of Russia as a potential threat, in addition to highlighting the smaller country's inherent vulnerabilities. Yet, Norway is a leader when it comes to promoting NATO's role in the Arctic; it is the only country in the world that has its permanent military headquarters above the Arctic Circle. Although Norway contributed troops to the multinational force in Iraq and more than 500 personnel to the International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan — and was one of only seven NATO members to actually carry out air strikes during the Libya campaign — the primary force driver for its military is Arctic security. The Norwegians have invested extensively in Arctic defense capabilities, but, in terms of size and means, they are dwarfed by Russia. Because of this, Norwegian officials, both military and civilian, want to see NATO play a larger role in the Arctic.
Despite a tenuous degree of military cooperation between Norway and Russia in the past involving visits of military officials and occasional joint exercises, conventional wisdom dictated that Oslo did not hold any military exercises near its border with the Soviet Union during the Cold War. This reticence continued after the fall of the Iron Curtain, yet the Norwegian government recently announced its intent to conduct large-scale drills in Finnmark — a territory on the Russia-Norway border — in March 2015. The proposed maneuvers will be the country's largest military exercises since 1967. There is a growing recognition in Moscow that Norway's policy toward Russia is going through a major shift as a direct reaction to Moscow's push to militarize the Arctic region.
Russia's Perception of the Arctic
Russia appears to be gearing up for any eventuality in the Arctic, but its policy-makers are beginning to debate whether Russian pressure in the Arctic serves as a geopolitical pivot that could alter the regional balance of power. The emergence of a dominant Arctic player will certainly affect trans-Atlantic trade routes and commitments, relations between Russia and the northern European countries and relations between Russia and China. For half a century, the Arctic was an area of U.S.-Soviet friction and the site of numerous incidents that could easily have led to conflict. Even in a post-Cold War world, the region could once again be transformed into a zone of frozen conflicts. The great powers have long competed over the Arctic, and now countries such as China and India are expressing their own interest in the region.
Although Russia faces a raft of internal and external problems such as a strained economy, matters in Ukraine and pressure from the international community, the Kremlin remains wedded to its pursuit of the Arctic. This has forced Russia's neighbors to reassess their own military presence in places like the Barents Sea, as well as territorial claims to disputed parts of the Arctic Circle. Norway will press harder for a larger NATO presence in the northern region, but while military conflict remains a threat, Russia will stop short of instigating hostilities. The Kremlin knows that when it comes to acquisitions, actions speak louder than words, and any attempt to grab the rich, unclaimed territory of the Arctic Circle will have to be backed by force.
Read more: Russia's Plans for Arctic Supremacy | Stratfor
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HOBART, Tasmania — Few places seem out of reach for China’s leader, Xi Jinping, who has traveled from European capitals to obscure Pacific and Caribbean islands in pursuit of his nation’s strategic interests.
So perhaps it was not surprising when he turned up last fall in this city on the edge of the Southern Ocean to put down a long-distance marker in another faraway region, Antarctica, 2,000 miles south of this Australian port.
Standing on the deck of an icebreaker that ferries Chinese scientists from this last stop before the frozen continent, Mr. Xi pledged that China would continue to expand in one of the few places on earth that remain unexploited by humans.
Continue reading the main story
Related Coverage
China and Russia Said to Block Creation of Antarctic Marine ReservesOCT. 31, 2014
He signed a five-year accord with the Australian government that allows Chinese vessels and, in the future, aircraft to resupply for fuel and food before heading south. That will help secure easier access to a region that is believed to have vast oil and mineral resources; huge quantities of high-protein sea life; and for times of possible future dire need, fresh water contained in icebergs.
It was not until 1985, about seven decades after Robert Scott and Roald Amundsen raced to the South Pole, that a team representing Beijing hoisted the Chinese flag over the nation’s first Antarctic research base, the Great Wall Station on King George Island.
But now China seems determined to catch up. As it has bolstered spending on Antarctic research, and as the early explorers, especially the United States and Australia, confront stagnant budgets, there is growing concern about its intentions.
China’s operations on the continent — it opened its fourth research station last year, chose a site for a fifth, and is investing in a second icebreaker and new ice-capable planes and helicopters — are already the fastest growing of the 52 signatories to the Antarctic Treaty. That gentlemen’s agreement reached in 1959 bans military activity on the continent and aims to preserve it as one of the world’s last wildernesses; a related pact prohibits mining.
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But Mr. Xi’s visit was another sign that China is positioning itself to take advantage of the continent’s resource potential when the treaty expires in 2048 — or in the event that it is ripped up before, Chinese and Australian experts say.
“So far, our research is natural-science based, but we know there is more and more concern about resource security,” said Yang Huigen, director general of the Polar Research Institute of China, who accompanied Mr. Xi last November on his visit to Hobart and stood with him on the icebreaker, Xue Long, or Snow Dragon.
With that in mind, the polar institute recently opened a new division devoted to the study of resources, law, geopolitics and governance in Antarctica and the Arctic, Mr. Yang said.
Australia, a strategic ally of the United States that has strong economic relations with China, is watching China’s buildup in the Antarctic with a mix of gratitude — China’s presence offers support for Australia’s Antarctic science program, which is short of cash — and wariness.
Continue reading the main story
“We should have no illusions about the deeper agenda — one that has not even been agreed to by Chinese scientists but is driven by Xi, and most likely his successors,” said Peter Jennings, executive director of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute and a former senior official in the Australian Department of Defense.
“This is part of a broader pattern of a mercantilist approach all around the world,” Mr. Jennings added. “A big driver of Chinese policy is to secure long-term energy supply and food supply.”
That approach was evident last month when a large Chinese agriculture enterprise announced an expansion of its fishing operations around Antarctica to catch more krill — small, protein-rich crustaceans that are abundant in Antarctic waters.
“The Antarctic is a treasure house for all human beings, and China should go there and share,” Liu Shenli, the chairman of the China National Agricultural Development Group, told China Daily, a state-owned newspaper. China would aim to fish up to two million tons of krill a year, he said, a substantial increase from what it currently harvests.
Because sovereignty over Antarctica is unclear, nations have sought to strengthen their claims over the ice-covered land by building research bases and naming geographic features. China’s fifth station will put it within reach of the six American facilities, and ahead of Australia’s three.
Chinese mappers have also given Chinese names to more than 300 sites, compared with the thousands of locations on the continent with English names.
In the unspoken competition for Antarctica’s future, scientific achievement can also translate into influence. Chinese scientists are driving to be the first to drill and recover an ice core containing tiny air bubbles that provide a record of climate change stretching as far back as 1.5 million years. It is an expensive and delicate effort at which others, including the European Union and Australia, have failed.
In a breakthrough a decade ago, European scientists extracted an ice core nearly two miles long that revealed 800,000 years of climate history. But finding an ice core going back further would allow scientists to examine a change in the earth’s climate cycles believed to have occurred 900,000 to 1.2 million years ago.
China is betting it has found the best location to drill, at an area called Dome A, or Dome Argus, the highest point on the East Antarctic Ice Sheet. Though it is considered one of the coldest places on the planet, with temperatures of 130 degrees below zero Fahrenheit, a Chinese expedition explored the area in 2005 and established a research station in 2009.
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“The international community has drilled in lots of places, but no luck so far,” said Xiao Cunde, a member of the first party to reach the site and the deputy director of the Institute for Climate Change at the Chinese Academy of Meteorological Sciences. “We think at Dome A we will have a straight shot at the one-million-year ice core.”
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Mr. Xiao said China had already begun drilling and hoped to find what scientists are looking for in four to five years.
To support its Antarctic aspirations, China is building a sophisticated $300 million icebreaker that is expected to be ready in a few years, said Xia Limin, deputy director of the Chinese Arctic and Antarctic Administration in Beijing. It has also bought a high-tech fixed-wing aircraft, outfitted in the United States, for taking sensitive scientific soundings from the ice.
China has chosen the site for its fifth research station at Inexpressible Island, named by a group of British explorers who were stranded at the desolate site in 1912 and survived the winter by excavating a small ice cave.
Mr. Xia said the inhospitable spot was ideal because China did not have a presence in that part of Antarctica, and because the rocky site did not have much snow, making it relatively cheap to build there.
Anne-Marie Brady, a professor of political science at the University of Canterbury in New Zealand and the author of a soon-to-be-released book, “China as a Polar Great Power,” said Chinese scientists also believed they had a good chance of finding mineral and energy resources near the site.
“China is playing a long game in Antarctica and keeping other states guessing about its true intentions and interests are part of its poker hand,” she said. But she noted that China’s interest in finding minerals was presented “loud and clear to domestic audiences” as the main reason it was investing in Antarctica.
Because commercial drilling is banned, estimates of energy and mineral resources in Antarctica rely on remote sensing data and comparisons with similar geological environments elsewhere, said Millard F. Coffin, executive director of the Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies in Hobart.
But the difficulty of extraction in such severe conditions and uncertainty about future commodity prices make it unlikely that China or any country would defy the ban on mining anytime soon.
Tourism, however, is already booming. Travelers from China are still a relatively small contingent in the Antarctic compared with the more than 13,000 Americans who visited in 2013, and as yet there are no licensed Chinese tour operators.
But that is about to change, said Anthony Bergin, deputy director of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute. “I understand very soon there will be Chinese tourists on Chinese vessels with all-Chinese crew in the Antarctic,” he said.
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Russia's Plans for Arctic Supremacy
Analysis
January 16, 2015 | 10:30 GMT
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Elements from the Russian Army's Guards Engineer Brigade and Engineer Camouflage Regiment train in Arctic conditions, Jan. 19, 2011. (RIA Novosti/Wikimedia)
Summary
Although the crisis in Ukraine continues to focus attention on Russia's western border, Moscow is seeking to exploit a more lucrative prize along its vast northern frontage: the Arctic Circle. Melting ice has opened up new transit routes and revealed previously inaccessible oil and mineral deposits. Facing a year of harsh economic constraints, securing exploitable energy reserves remains a top priority for Moscow. The planned militarization of the Arctic is already underway, and funding is secured through 2015 (the Ministry of Defense was the only Kremlin ministry not to be curtailed in the most recent budget.) With Russia aiming to consolidate its strength by the end of the year, surrounding countries are already reassessing their positions in the face of an overwhelming regional force.
Analysis
Russia's traditional view of the outside world is colored by a deep sense of insecurity and paranoia. This is best exemplified by the events in Ukraine, where the Kremlin acted to preserve its traditional geographic bulwark against the West. This pattern of protectionism is also apparent in Moscow's current understanding and approach to the situation in the Arctic. Of the eight countries of the Arctic Council, five are members of NATO, fueling Russia's suspicion that opposing forces are massing against it. Although friction with Kiev and the West has overshadowed Russia's military build-up in the Arctic, Moscow's long-term ambitions for the region are making other Arctic countries nervous, Norway in particular.
Russia is interested in the Arctic for a number of reasons, though natural resources and pure geopolitical imperatives are the major driving forces behind Moscow's thinking. The Arctic contains an estimated 30 percent of the world's undiscovered natural gas and 13 percent of its undiscovered oil reserves, regarded by Moscow as important sources of foreign investment that are critical to the country's economic development. The Northern Sea Route from East Asia to Europe via the Arctic Ocean provides another economic opportunity for developing infrastructure in northern Russia.
These resources and transit lanes, however, are also attractive to other Arctic countries, potentially turning the region into a political battleground. The U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea regulates ownership of the Arctic, allowing for exclusive economic zones stretching 200 miles from land and even further if undersea resources sit on a continental shelf. Inhospitable conditions made previous boundary disputes futile, so the Arctic interior remains open to territorial claims and disputes. The interest expressed by other countries feeds Russia's determination to make its role as a central Arctic nation clear by any means possible, including the use of military pressure.
Russia's Arctic Build-Up
Militarizing the Arctic will be a key imperative for the Russian military throughout 2015 and beyond — alongside modernization in general and bolstering forces in Crimea and the Kaliningrad exclave. According to the Russian Ministry of Defense, Soviet-era bases in the Arctic are being reactivated in response to NATO's renewed interest in the region. The airstrip on the archipelago of Novaya Zemlya is being renovated to accommodate modern and next generation fighter aircraft in addition to advanced S400 air defense systems. Part of the Northern Fleet will also be based on the island chain, which is ideally positioned for operations in the Arctic region. The Northern Fleet represents two-thirds of the entire Russian Navy, which is the only navy in the world to operate nuclear-powered icebreaker ships. In addition, Moscow announced the formation of a new 6,000-soldier military group in the far north consisting of two motorized infantry brigades located in the Murmansk area and the Yamal-Nenets autonomous region. Radar and ground guidance systems are also planned for Franz Josef Land, Wrangel Island and Cape Schmidt. The Federal Security Service plans to increase the number of border guards on Russia's northern perimeter as well.
The recent Vostok 2014 full-scale military exercise — the biggest since the collapse of the Soviet Union — was a revealing indication of Russia's intentions in the Arctic. Russian troops, sailors and airmen carried out combat training missions in the region, prominently deploying Pantsir-S (air defense) and Iskander-M (theater ballistic missile) weapon systems, among others. Such activities inevitably evoke the atmosphere of the Cold War, when the region was the focus of U.S. and NATO attention. Furthermore, Russia's Northern Fleet announced that its Independent Marine Infantry Brigade will undergo intensive training in the Arctic region throughout 2015.
The Kremlin reiterated its intention to field a formidable combined arms force to protect its political and economic interests in the Arctic by 2020. Going into 2015, it is estimated that the Russian armed forces have around 56 military aircraft and 122 helicopters in the Arctic region. Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu stated that 14 military airfields on Russia's Arctic seaboard would be operational by the end of the year. The Ministry of Defense also said some of the 50 modernized MiG-31BM Foxhound interceptors expected by 2019 will be charged with defense duties over the Arctic. Despite the economic problems plaguing Russia, the Ministry of Defense managed to escape the significant budget cuts levied against most other ministries. In fact, the Kremlin has increased defense spending by 20 percent, a clear indication of Russia's priorities for 2015 and a likely indication that Moscow intends to meet its military commitments.
At the end of 2014, Russia established a unified strategic command based around the existing command architecture of the Northern Fleet. The force structure successfully facilitates a military reach across the islands of Russia's northern territories, allowing for better oversight and control of the trade route from China to Norway. This structure also serves the purpose of monitoring — and potentially checking — any military moves by any other power in the region.
Along with the Baltic states and their respective environs, the Barents Sea is under constant surveillance by Russian fighter jets. Russia's dominance in the region was further solidified when, in late December, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a new military doctrine. In stark contrast to previous dictums, the Arctic region was officially put on the list of Russian spheres of influence for the first time. The same recognition applies to Russia's maritime doctrine, which has two major geopolitical imperatives: a thrust toward the Black Sea and dominion of the near Arctic.
The Norwegian Response
Although Russia's planned expansion in the Arctic may appear aggressive, military authorities in the Kremlin have no desire for an armed confrontation with Western powers. Moscow is aware of NATO's Article 5 agreement, which states that any attack on an individual member country could invoke a unified response from the alliance. Nevertheless, the increased Russian military presence in the region makes neighboring countries uneasy, particularly Norway.
Russia's Arctic Ambitions
Russia's actions in Ukraine, along with its military exploitation of the Arctic, forced Oslo to reassess Moscow's role and intent in the north, specifically in the area of the Barents Sea. Norway backed the Western application of sanctions against Russia, and subsequent motions from Oslo reveal a major shift in the country's strategic perception of Russia as a potential threat, in addition to highlighting the smaller country's inherent vulnerabilities. Yet, Norway is a leader when it comes to promoting NATO's role in the Arctic; it is the only country in the world that has its permanent military headquarters above the Arctic Circle. Although Norway contributed troops to the multinational force in Iraq and more than 500 personnel to the International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan — and was one of only seven NATO members to actually carry out air strikes during the Libya campaign — the primary force driver for its military is Arctic security. The Norwegians have invested extensively in Arctic defense capabilities, but, in terms of size and means, they are dwarfed by Russia. Because of this, Norwegian officials, both military and civilian, want to see NATO play a larger role in the Arctic.
Despite a tenuous degree of military cooperation between Norway and Russia in the past involving visits of military officials and occasional joint exercises, conventional wisdom dictated that Oslo did not hold any military exercises near its border with the Soviet Union during the Cold War. This reticence continued after the fall of the Iron Curtain, yet the Norwegian government recently announced its intent to conduct large-scale drills in Finnmark — a territory on the Russia-Norway border — in March 2015. The proposed maneuvers will be the country's largest military exercises since 1967. There is a growing recognition in Moscow that Norway's policy toward Russia is going through a major shift as a direct reaction to Moscow's push to militarize the Arctic region.
Russia's Perception of the Arctic
Russia appears to be gearing up for any eventuality in the Arctic, but its policy-makers are beginning to debate whether Russian pressure in the Arctic serves as a geopolitical pivot that could alter the regional balance of power. The emergence of a dominant Arctic player will certainly affect trans-Atlantic trade routes and commitments, relations between Russia and the northern European countries and relations between Russia and China. For half a century, the Arctic was an area of U.S.-Soviet friction and the site of numerous incidents that could easily have led to conflict. Even in a post-Cold War world, the region could once again be transformed into a zone of frozen conflicts. The great powers have long competed over the Arctic, and now countries such as China and India are expressing their own interest in the region.
Although Russia faces a raft of internal and external problems such as a strained economy, matters in Ukraine and pressure from the international community, the Kremlin remains wedded to its pursuit of the Arctic. This has forced Russia's neighbors to reassess their own military presence in places like the Barents Sea, as well as territorial claims to disputed parts of the Arctic Circle. Norway will press harder for a larger NATO presence in the northern region, but while military conflict remains a threat, Russia will stop short of instigating hostilities. The Kremlin knows that when it comes to acquisitions, actions speak louder than words, and any attempt to grab the rich, unclaimed territory of the Arctic Circle will have to be backed by force.
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ANCHORAGE — President Obama on Tuesday will propose speeding the acquisition and building of new Coast Guard icebreakers that can operate year-round in the nation’s polar regions, part of an effort to close the gap between the United States and other nations, especially Russia, in a global competition to gain a foothold in the rapidly changing Arctic.
On the second day of a three-day trip to Alaska to highlight the challenge of climate change and call for a worldwide effort to address its root causes, Mr. Obama’s proposals will touch on one of its most profound effects. The retreat of Arctic sea ice has created opportunities for shipping, tourism, mineral exploration and fishing — and with it, a rush of marine traffic that is bringing new difficulties.
The number of ships passing through the Bering Strait into the once-frozen expanse of the Arctic Ocean has doubled in just the last seven years, evidence of how the warming climate has transformed a region once largely bound by ice. Related Article
U.S. Is Playing Catch-Up With Russia in Scramble for the ArcticAUG. 29, 2015
“Arctic ecosystems are among the most pristine and understudied in the world, meaning increased commercial activity comes with significant risks to the environment,” the White House said in a fact sheet issued in advance of an announcement by Mr. Obama in Seward, where he planned to hike to Exit Glacier on Tuesday and tour Kenai Fjords National Park by boat.
“The growth of human activity in the Arctic region will require highly engaged stewardship to maintain the open seas necessary for global commerce and scientific research, allow for search and rescue activities, and provide for regional peace and stability,” the statement said.
The aging Coast Guard fleet is not keeping pace with the challenge, the administration acknowledged, noting that the service has the equivalent of just two “fully functional” heavy icebreakers at its disposal, down from seven during World War II. Russia, by contrast, has 41 of the vessels, with plans for 11 more. China unveiled a refurbished icebreaker in 2012 and is building another.
Mr. Obama will propose speeding up the acquisition of a replacement icebreaker that had been planned for 2022, setting a new date of 2020, the White House said. He will also propose that planning begin on the construction of new ones, asking Congress to provide “sufficient resources” to fund them.
In addition, Mr. Obama will announce an initiative by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the Coast Guard to map and chart the newly open Bering, Chukchi and Beaufort Seas. The agency will also install new equipment in the Arctic in the “near future” to monitor climate-change effects and enhance marine safety, including stations to monitor sea-level rise and “a sea-ice thickness satellite product,” the White House said.
Some lawmakers, analysts and even government officials say the United States is lagging other nations in preparing for the new environmental, economic and geopolitical realities in the Arctic.
Gov. Bill Walker of Alaska, who traveled to Anchorage with Mr. Obama on Air Force One on Monday, said he was concerned that the United States military was drawing down in Alaska just as Russia was flexing its muscles.
“It’s the biggest buildup of the Russian military since the Cold War,” Mr. Walker said, noting Alaska’s proximity to Russia. “They’re reopening 10 bases and building four more, and they’re all in the Arctic, so here we are in the middle of the pond, feeling a little bit uncomfortable.”
On Tuesday, Mr. Obama plans to trek through the Alaskan wilderness in an effort to call attention to the urgency of addressing climate change, and to build public support for doing so. At a conference sponsored by the State Department on Monday, he issued a call to action on the issue, exhorting foreign leaders at the gathering to get out and see a glacier to remind themselves of the need to preserve such places for future generations.
“I’ll be sharing my experiences with you along the way, because I want to make sure you see what I’m seeing,” the president wrote about his travels on Monday in a post on Medium, the blogging platform. “And when you do, I want you to think about the fact that this is the only planet that we’ve got — and we’ve got to do everything we can to protect it.”
At the Kenai Fjords park on Tuesday, the president will also announce that he is sending Congress draft legislation to upgrade and promote access to national park facilities in time for the 100th anniversary of the National Park Service.
The bill would support the administration’s efforts “to ensure that our parks and historic sites fully represent our nation’s ethnically and culturally diverse communities, and that all Americans, regardless of their background or where they live, are able to access and enjoy these remarkable places,” the White House said.
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Forecast
The United States, along with several competing countries, will continue to build up its presence in the Arctic Circle.
To compensate for its lack of support and infrastructure in the region, Washington will rely on bilateral and multilateral agreements to protect its interests.
If U.S. multilateral efforts fail to maintain regional security, the Arctic could become more unstable.
Analysis
The Arctic is fast becoming a more important geopolitical region, and the United States is rushing to protect its claims in it. Changing climate and meteorological conditions have opened previously inaccessible areas of the region. By the 2030s, the largely ice-covered Arctic is expected to become seasonally ice-free. While melting polar ice may be detrimental elsewhere, in the Arctic it will enable more shipping traffic to travel through the Northern Sea Route over the next decade and eventually through the Northwest Passage. As a result, mineral extraction, fishing and other commercial, military and research endeavors will increase. According to the 2008 U.S. Geological Survey, the Arctic may also contain 25 percent of the world's oil and natural gas resources, of which approximately 20 percent lies in U.S. territory.
But the United States is not the only country looking to the Arctic. Several nations are trying to enhance their reach and presence in the region. Even non-Arctic states are interested, as the growing number of countries seeking permanent observer status in the Arctic Council, the intergovernmental forum dedicated to addressing issues of the Arctic Circle, attests. In May 2013 for instance, China, Japan, South Korea, Singapore, Italy and India obtained permanent observer status in the council.
Russia in particular is devoting considerable attention to the Arctic, enhancing its infrastructure and military presence there. Moscow already has a notable infrastructure, military, geographic and demographic advantage in the region. More than 60 percent of Arctic land area is in Russia, and over 80 percent of the Arctic's population lives in Russia. It will be difficult for the United States to match Russia's influence in the Arctic.
Limited U.S. Capabilities
And the United States is aware of its disadvantage. In May 2013, Washington released a new national strategy for the Arctic region, setting priorities to advance U.S. security interests and strengthen U.S. and allied collective interests in the region. Specifically, the United States seeks to enhance its Arctic search and rescue and military infrastructure, improve its intelligence-gathering operations in the region and work closely with its allies in resolving Arctic environmental, security and economic issues.
The U.S. military is clearly interested in the region as well. Building on the Cold War legacy of early warning radar systems laid out in the Distant Early Warning Line, the United States and Canada maintain the North Warning System in the Arctic, guarding against potential incursions across North America's polar region. Nuclear ballistic missile submarines in Russia's Northern Fleet also operate constantly in Arctic waters. So do U.S. nuclear attack submarines, which monitor Russian ports and traffic.
Still, the United States suffers from clear capacity limitations in the region. The most glaring is its all but absent icebreaking capabilities, which are critical for Arctic access. In contrast to Russia's 41 icebreakers, the U.S. government operates only three, one of which is inactive. The United States may attempt to accelerate vessel production, but even then the U.S. Coast Guard is unlikely to receive its desired three heavy and three medium icebreakers anytime soon. The United States also lacks key infrastructure that needs to be developed before it can maintain a presence in the Arctic. For instance, the United States does not have any ports north of the Bering Strait and lacks support facilities for search and rescue efforts and environmental surveillance. The U.S. Coast Guard has implored Washington to strengthen its Arctic capacity, but budget shortfalls and delays will prolong any improvements from being made.
A Multilateral Approach
In the meantime, the United States is joining bilateral and multilateral efforts with other powers with Arctic interests to compensate for its capability shortfalls and to secure its position. The United States has assumed the two-year chairmanship of the Arctic Council this year, and it will use the forum to mediate and safeguard its interests through multilateral agreements.
Despite considerable opposition in the Senate, the U.S. government is also promoting the need to accede to the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea. As the only Arctic state not party to the international agreement, the U.S. government believes that its position in the Arctic is being undermined. The lack of ascension already complicates the process of negotiating and concluding consistent maritime boundary agreements. Moreover, even without being a part of the convention, the United States still upholds the convention's norms without benefiting from them, particularly in the process of delineating the outer limit of the U.S. Extended Continental Shelf in the Arctic. Using the convention's legal framework, Russia (2001), Norway (2006), Canada (2013) and Denmark (2014) have all submitted continental shelf claims to the United Nations in the last 15 years. Until Washington ratifies the convention, it will not be able to submit its claim.
The Arctic is going to continue to interest Arctic and non-Arctic states alike. The United States, though currently without certain capacities, is demonstrating a desire to defend its interests in the region. Rather than engaging in a potentially destabilizing Arctic military race with Russia, the United States is building consensus, working through bilateral agreements as well as promoting multilateral venues such as the Arctic Council to settle any disputes. If successful, the approach could keep the Arctic region peaceful. If it fails, however, it could revert the Arctic back into an unstable frontier, with more access — and the opportunities that come with it — potentially creating more risks.
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True north. Deputy Defense Secretary Bob Work is in the middle of a long road trip, hitting Iceland, the U.K., and Norway where he’s slated to talk quite a bit about security in the Arctic. His visit to Norway comes at a time when the NATO ally is involved in a complicated balancing act, both honoring its commitment to the NATO alliance while trying to maintain its traditionally open commercial relationship with Moscow. Following Russia’s annexation of Crimea last year, however, Norway suspended all forms of military cooperation with Moscow, and Oslo is also considering taking part in a NATO missile defense program strongly opposed by Moscow.
Don’t sleep on Norway. Norway is also considering partnering with Poland to buy three submarines over the next several years, and a Norwegian surveillance ship, the Marjata, is currently being overhauled at a shipyard in Virginia, after which it's expected to head to the Arctic to start keeping tabs on Russian military maneuvers in the region. (There has even been a far less pressing, but still significant, diplomatic spat recently over a Norwegian TV show that dramatizes what life would be like if the Russians invaded and occupied the country. Moscow, unsurprisingly, gives it the thumbs down.)
Spies like us. Work’s trip also comes on the heels of a big push by all of the big U.S. spy agencies to reacquaint themselves with the far north. The Los Angeles Times reports after a 14-month effort by U.S. analysts at the various agencies, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence recently held a "strategy board" meeting so the analysts could compare notes about what is happening at the top of the world.
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Russians in the Arctic: The Prize of a Presence
Analysis
November 28, 2015 | 14:00 GMT Print
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Analysis
Russia is bolstering its Arctic installations. As mentioned in previous Stratfor analyses about the facilities under construction by the Russian military and the logistical effort that goes into maintaining them, these outposts are not typical military bases and are not meant to host significant ground combat elements. The overall military purpose of Russia's activity in the Arctic is of a different nature.
As the northernmost outposts belonging to Russia's armed forces, the Alexandra and Kotelny island facilities are mainly used for monitoring and observation duties. Through the construction of radar stations and new runways, identified in satellite imagery by experts at AllSource Analysis, Russia is able to maintain a limited yet capable presence on the islands. The radar facilities enable Russia to track activity in the Arctic's airspace, a theater that has some significance in both the scramble for the Arctic itself and the broader military balance between Russia and the West.
The Arctic contains the most direct routes between northern Russia and North America, thereby playing an important role in the element of deterrence that is maintained through bomber fleets.
In addition to the radar stations, Russia has also been constructing new runways on the islands to support the deployment of military aircraft to its bases there. The main goal is not necessarily to set up an air combat capability, but rather to forward deploy intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance assets. Aircraft are a key part of maritime reconnaissance, and the ability to deploy them so far north vastly expands Russia's reach.
Although Moscow's most immediate concern is monitoring activities, the potential for Russia to deploy combat-capable forces to the islands in case of crisis cannot be ruled out. Ground combat forces would make little sense on the islands; any military conflict in the Arctic would be heavily focused on maritime and aerial capabilities, but nonetheless, Russia has been deploying forces to the islands to familiarize them with operations in the harsh Arctic climate. Imagery of exercises shows Russian forces using equipment geared specifically toward operations in the Arctic, but it also indicates the small scale of such deployments. In times of crisis, the Arctic bases could play a much more critical role as staging points for bomber or interceptor aircraft and perhaps even as supply points for maritime task forces.
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Hamburg — TRAVELING through the chilly landscape around the arctic city of Murmansk, Russia, it quickly becomes clear that this barren region is, in fact, a strategic centerpiece in President Vladimir V. Putin’s vast armory. The overland road from the Norwegian border passes by miles and miles of double-row fences of ice-crowned barbed wire, warning signs and surveillance cameras. Many of the gray, silent settlements along the way appear to be less towns than military installations, with soldiers in long, thick coats trotting through the streets.
But to grasp the full military import of this place, the Kola Peninsula — Russia’s northwestern-most territory — you would have to look down on it with thermal imaging from high above. Instead of ice, you would see a long stretch of land bathing in the relatively warm waters of the Gulf Stream. The Kola Peninsula is a gigantic marine pier, guaranteeing Russia’s naval fleet access to the Atlantic and offering a hub for operations in an area of the world that might well become the next crisis zone between Russia and NATO: the North Pole.
The area around the pole is not yet divided up among its adjacent states. Its waters — and potentially rich natural resources — are claimed by Russia, as well as by three NATO members: America, Denmark (via Greenland) and Canada. Many of these claims overlap.
It’s not a purely lawless region: The United Nations Law of the Sea includes rules for settling such claims, largely based on how far the continental shelf of the respective country extends below the sea. These rules are supported by the White House, but they have yet to be ratified by the United States Congress, because Republicans are reluctant to leave the decision over America’s economic borders to a United Nations body.
Some Republicans are convinced that, after the invasion into Ukraine, Russia’s military buildup in the High North is preparation for yet another land grab. “The Russians are playing chess in the Arctic and our administration still seems to think it’s tick-tack-toe,” said Senator Dan Sullivan, Republican of Alaska, accusing the Obama administration of a “strategic blunder.”
Photo
Atomic ice-breakers at the port of Murmansk. Credit James Hill for The New York Times
Whatever his intent, President Putin has indeed ordered the Russian military to increase its capabilities in the North. Russia is building six new bases, refurbishing old runways from the Cold War era, constructing new icebreakers, and putting modern submarines with nuclear warheads into service.
Few know for sure just how symbolically important the North Pole is to Mr. Putin. In 2007, the Kremlin had a submarine place a metal Russian flag on the seabed, right at the pole. Was it just a photo op? Legally, the gesture no more makes the pole Russian than Neil Armstrong’s 1969 flag makes the moon American.
Then again, the Arctic presents a huge strategic opportunity for Mr. Putin to make gains against the West. Russia, the largest country on earth, has one big geostrategic disadvantage: limited access to the world’s oceans. Its Black Sea fleet, stationed in Crimea, could in case of conflict be denied passage through the Bosporus, whose gatekeeper, Turkey, is a NATO member. Mr. Putin’s Baltic fleet would meet the same obstacle in the Skagerrak, the strait between Denmark and Norway. But the Arctic is open territory — and, in a time of melting ice caps, open sea as well.
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The Russians, of course, see things differently. Policy makers and analysts in Moscow say Russia is not on the offensive, but on the defensive. NATO has repeatedly proved that it doesn’t stick to international rules, Nikita Lomagin, a professor of political science at the European University at St. Petersburg, told me. Thus, he said, Mr. Putin does not believe he can count on “soft security” alone. And the modernizing of the Northern Fleet, with its nuclear-missile submarines, was partly a reaction to NATO’s missile defense shield.
Both sides might be justified; that’s not the point. A Russian proverb says that the past is unpredictable. And indeed, the “Arctic pivot” is reviving Cold War stereotypes at a time when East-West communication is practically nonexistent. Russians and the West should bear in mind how easily political uncertainties can become rigid convictions.
Confidence-building measures — treaties, regular dialogue, joint commissions on global challenges — helped defuse one Cold War. We need new measures, now. The world can’t expect Mr. Putin to take the first steps, so it’s up to America to show sobriety and to avoid giving Russia any pretext for military action. Moscow’s propaganda machinery performed masterfully in the Ukraine crisis; it can easily do so again. For the United States, ratifying the Law of the Sea would be one splendid pre-emptive strike.
Jochen Bittner is a political editor for the weekly newspaper Die Zeit and a contributing opinion
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The United States is scrambling to catch up with a big, global push to build icebreakers as the melting Arctic opens the once-frozen north to oil drilling, new shipping and cruise routes, and intensified military competition.
Countries from Russia to China and Chile are all muscling ahead to build a new generation of icebreaking ships. The United States, despite a belated polar effort last year by the Obama administration, has struggled to upgrade its tiny and aging icebreaker fleet, potentially leaving it at a disadvantage in the race for influence in the Arctic.
But on Tuesday, a Senate Appropriations subcommittee earmarked $1 billion for a new polar icebreaker — a potentially big step forward toward building at least the first new ship of its kind in more than a generation.
If passed by Congress, that would fund nearly the entire cost of the ship’s construction, avoiding contentious and yearly fights over money. But it also essentially puts any larger American ambitions in the Arctic on ice for at least a decade while the ship is being built.
The U.S. Coast Guard, which operates the icebreaking fleet, has said it needs six big ships to handle all its missions in the Arctic and in Antarctica. Building fewer than that will make it harder for Washington to police those open waters, escort commercial and cruise shipping, and carry out search-and-rescue missions, among other things.
“It’s unfortunate that our nation, an Arctic nation, has fallen so far behind with this capability, particularly as the Arctic enters an extremely dynamic geopolitical and environmental period of rapid change,” retired Adm. David Titley, who set up the U.S. Navy’s task force on climate change, told Foreign Policy.
“Icebreaking capacity is a very good hedging strategy, and our capacity is very limited.”
“Icebreaking capacity is a very good hedging strategy, and our capacity is very limited.”
The newly proposed funding would ease budgetary pressure on the Coast Guard, which has a total ship acquisition budget of less than the cost of a single new icebreaker. And it’s a throwback to the way the United States funded and built its last Arctic workhorse, the Healy, beginning in 1990.
To judge by bustling shipyards, plenty of other countries are preparing for increasing activity in the Arctic and the Antarctic, even countries far from the poles. Russia, which already has the world’s biggest icebreaking fleet, is building a dozen more ships, including several nuclear-powered icebreakers. China just launched its second icebreaker and has a third under construction. Finland is currently constructing the world’s first icebreaker to be powered by liquefied natural gas, or LNG. A Korean shipyard is building a fleet of ice-capable LNG shipping tankers in anticipation of the coming Arctic gas boom. Norway and the Netherlands are building ice-capable cruise ships. And several countries — France, Britain, Chile, and Australia — are all building new ships to operate in Antarctica, and Argentina just refurbished its single icebreaker to restore its polar capability.
Most of the activity is in response to a record-setting melt of Arctic sea ice. This past winter, the Arctic again set a record for the lowest amount of winter ice coverage and is on track this year to shatter the summertime minimum as well. The Arctic is warming so fast that the U.S. Navy this spring had to call off its annual Arctic exercise a week early, after the ice began to crack.
That is literally opening what amounts to a new ocean at the top of the world. Countries and companies, especially in China, are eyeing new shipping routes. Beijing said recently it intends to promote more shipping through the Northwest Passage, via Canada, while Chinese shipping giant COSCO plans greater use of the Northern Sea Route, along the top of Siberia. The opening Arctic is creating a new market for tourists, as well: This summer, for the first time, a cruise ship will sail from Anchorage, Alaska, to New York City, through the Northwest Passage.
And while oil companies have bailed out of the U.S. Arctic for now, exploration and drilling for oil and gas continues apace in Europe and especially in Russian waters.
“We’re in a situation where the global icebreaking fleet is not meeting demand,” said Tero Vauraste, the president and CEO of Arctia, a Finnish shipbuilder specializing in icebreakers.
But the United States is lagging behind. It currently has a single heavy icebreaker nearing the end of its operational life and a medium icebreaker used in the Arctic. For years, despite pleas by the Coast Guard, Congress was loath to fund new ships, which can cost upwards of $1 billion each.
Now, the rapidly melting Arctic and new geostrategic battleground are seemingly changing that calculus. U.S. President Barack Obama visited Alaska last year and called for rebuilding the icebreaker fleet. Earlier this year, the Coast Guard asked for $150 million in funding to design two new planned icebreakers and hopes to award a production contract by 2019. If the defense appropriations bill passes Congress, the construction of at least one new ship is guaranteed.
A few years ago, the changing conditions in the Arctic “weren’t seen as the wolf closest to the sled,” said Sherri Goodman, a former deputy undersecretary of defense and a fellow at the Wilson Center. “It’s still not the closest, but it’s getting closer.”
But building two new ships would simply replace the two currently in service and would still leave the Coast Guard short of the six-strong fleet it says it needs. What’s more, it will take at least a decade to build the first of the new heavy icebreakers, even if funding is guaranteed. That leaves a dicey window in the meantime.
“We’re very mindful that, as vulnerable as we are today, our vulnerability will only increase over time,” until the new ships are built, Adm. Paul Zukunft, the commandant of the U.S. Coast Guard, told FP.
“We’re very mindful that, as vulnerable as we are today, our vulnerability will only increase over time,” until the new ships are built, Adm. Paul Zukunft, the commandant of the U.S. Coast Guard, told FP.
Some lawmakers have railed for years against Washington’s bureaucratic infighting and go-slow approach to Arctic issues.
“I get very impatient because I don’t see us prioritizing icebreakers as a national asset,” said Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), who formed an Arctic caucus last year to push for greater U.S. involvement in the region. And that, she said, has implications as the Arctic becomes a focus of economic and geopolitical competition.
“People can quibble about what we have versus what Russia has versus what China is building. All I can tell you is we are not in the game right now,” Murkowski said. She and colleagues from across the aisle pushed through the defense appropriations bill this week in a bid to resolve the long-standing fight over who will pay for the new ship.
Other lawmakers are also pushing the administration to make new icebreakers a broader priority. Alaska’s other senator, Dan Sullivan, a Republican, compared Russia’s huge fleet of nuclear-powered icebreakers that open new routes through the Arctic with the aging U.S. ships stretched among several missions.
“Right now, the Russians have superhighways, and we have dirt roads with potholes,” Sullivan said.
“Right now, the Russians have superhighways, and we have dirt roads with potholes,” Sullivan said.
Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-Calif.), who serves on the House Armed Services Committee and its panel that oversees the Coast Guard, is usually an outspoken critic of the White House. But he has become an unlikely booster of the Obama administration’s Arctic push, worried that the cash-strapped Coast Guard can’t purchase the pricey new ships on its own. Hunter this week had called on the U.S. Navy to help pay for the new ships.
“It’s more of a Navy issue,” he said, which requires “getting the Navy to realize they’re the ones who are going to benefit from this; the Coast Guard can’t do it.”
Despite the possible funding through the defense budget, the U.S. Navy insists icebreaking is not its mission: It can go through the Arctic anytime it wants with nuclear submarines.
“U.S. Navy submarines regularly use the Arctic as a transit route between the Atlantic and the Pacific, greatly improving mission agility and flexibility. Only submarines can do this,” Navy spokesman Lt. Cmdr. Tim Hawkins said.
But Titley, the former Navy admiral, says the United States needs the ability to operate on the ocean’s surface as well. “Virtual presence is physical absence,” he said. “It’s all well and good to say you have interests in the Arctic, but if you can only be on the surface where there is little or no danger of ice, then your presence is very restricted.”
Canada may be in an even tougher bind: It has greater Arctic responsibilities than the United States but faces many of the same constraints on new icebreaker construction. As part of its joint Navy-Coast Guard $37 billion shipbuilding plan, Canada currently aims to construct a new polar ship over the next decade at a cost of about $1.2 billion. But it won’t start construction until the Vancouver shipyard where it will be built has finished new support vessels for the Royal Canadian Navy. In the meantime, a Canadian Coast Guard spokesperson told FP, Ottawa will refurbish its sole existing icebreaker to keep it in service for another decade.
Other countries have been floating possible solutions to help both the United States and Canada bridge their icebreaker gaps. Finland, for example, built more than half of the worldwide icebreaking fleet and has plenty of shipyards with specialized design and construction experience. Finnish government representatives reportedly met with U.S. and Canadian government officials this year to propose collaborating on the design and construction of new icebreakers, and they bent the ear of U.S. lawmakers at a recent summit between the United States and Nordic leaders on the same issue.
Vauraste says Arctia can build a heavy icebreaker in Finnish yards for about 250 million euros, far cheaper than the proposed price tag for new U.S. and Canadian ships. And Arctia could also help the United States design its new ship, he said, given U.S. shipyards haven’t built an icebreaker in 20 years or a heavy icebreaker in 40. “There is increasing interest” in Washington, he said. “It’s definitely not a non-starter.”
Murkowski said international collaboration, whether for co-design, building, or leasing existing ships, “needs to be on the table.”
Zukunft of the Coast Guard said he has held lots of conversations about collaboration with other nations, including Finland, but that it’s “too early” to make any commitments. The Coast Guard does have partnerships with Finland and Canada to share best practices on icebreaking acquisition.
But there are legal and political restrictions in both the United States and Canada that prohibit relying on foreign shipbuilders. Under U.S. law, no major component of a Coast Guard ship can be built in a foreign shipyard. And U.S. shipbuilders are gearing up for billions of dollars in local contracts, especially Huntington Ingalls Industries, which manufactures the Coast Guard’s National Security Cutters and built the last U.S. icebreaker in 1997. And there are no heavy icebreakers currently available to lease, even if that were an option, said Zukunft.
That means, for the foreseeable future, both the United States and Canada could well find themselves short-handed when it comes to being able to operate in the Arctic, just as the region is opening up to new economic and even military activities. Finding a way to patrol U.S. waters, respond to oil spills and stranded cruise ships, or police a flurry of shipping activity through the Bering Strait will likely strain America’s tiny and aging icebreaking fleet, especially if there’s no will or ability to lease ships from other countries to help fill the gap.
“That’s the near-term risk that needs to be addressed, and that’s why it’s urgent to develop that capability now,” Goodman said. “Because those risks are only going to increase as there is more activity in the Arctic.”
FP reporter Molly O’Toole contributed to this article.
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https://www.lawfareblog.com/russias-lawful-land-grab
"...the failure to join UNCLOS also 'denies the United States any right to review or contest other claims that appear to be overly expansive.'”
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Very interesting and an excellent contribution to this thread.
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Canada’s only Arctic deep-water port is now closed,
http://www.macleans.ca/news/canada/abondoned-churchill/
This should go under Pathological Science, Arctic shipping lanes are not yet open in the polar bear capital of the world.
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Cruises available from Alaska to New York via the Northwest Passage.
http://www.adn.com/alaska-news/2016/08/21/nome-rolls-out-warm-welcome-for-high-rolling-travelers-aboard-arctic-cruise/
In 1970s I wrote science report on the SS Manhattan the largest vessel ever built by Esso (at the time at least):
http://www2.gi.alaska.edu/ScienceForum/ASF6/639.html
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Toward a Geopolitics of the Arctic
Aug 3, 2017
Summary
In the fourth century B.C., Aristotle used evidence and reason to argue that the world was a sphere. More than a millennium later, explorers like Christopher Columbus set sail on the assumption that Aristotle and other Greeks from his time were right, and that the distance involved would not prohibit travel from Europe to India. The New World was discovered and the slow decline of the European epoch began. Yet humanity, despite all its technological and scientific innovation, still has not been able to interact with the Earth as if it were a simple sphere. The North and South poles are covered in ice, and for most of human history, traversing these harsh geographies was an impossibility.
Today we know that some basic facts of the Earth are changing, and that its limitations on human travel are being eliminated. It won’t be the seamless process some have made it out to be, but over the course of the next century, as ice in the Arctic melts, humans will be less constrained in their ability to travel through the North. Maritime trade routes that traverse the Arctic Ocean are already being used and will be used more frequently. Some of these routes can reduce the distance between countries in Northwestern Europe and Asia by almost 40 percent, or between East Coast U.S. ports and Asian ports by almost 20 percent. This will improve the bottom line of many companies as well as trade-oriented nations and will reshape global trade patterns. It may even attract new population centers to the Arctic coast, especially if the promise of national resource wealth in the Arctic is even half as extensive as advertised.
There are precedents for the opening of new trade routes changing global geopolitics. When European powers found a way around the Mediterranean and the Ottoman Empire’s grip over its trade routes, it set in motion a reordering of the balance of power across the world. The construction of the Panama Canal was an integral part of the rise of a global hegemon in North America, because it meant the U.S. could move its naval forces from the Atlantic to the Pacific at will.
The opening of the Arctic – a process that will take at least multiple decades, if not until the end of the century – should not be thought of in this same vein. There will no doubt be ramifications of geopolitical import, but most of those ramifications will alter current geopolitical realities rather than create new ones. This piece, therefore, will attempt to accomplish two goals. First, it will integrate the Arctic region into GPF’s model of the world. In so doing, it will define the balance of power in the Arctic and how Arctic nations interact with the rest of the world. Second, it will give a preliminary and balanced account of the ways in which developments in the Arctic will change the world, while carefully avoiding the slip into hyperbole that has afflicted much of the analysis of this part of the world in recent years.
Integrating the Arctic Into Theories of Geopolitics
The Arctic Ocean is the world’s smallest and shallowest ocean. Water covers almost 71 percent of the Earth’s surface; the Arctic Ocean makes up just 3.9 percent of that total. The Pacific is the world’s largest ocean by far, with an area of over 60 million square miles (160 million square kilometers). The area of the Arctic Ocean is not even a tenth of that size.
It’s not just that the Arctic is small. No other ocean in the world is surrounded by landmasses the way the Arctic is. The distance between the U.S. and Japan across the Pacific Ocean is roughly 4,000 miles. The distance between the U.S. and continental Europe is roughly 3,600 miles. By comparison, the Arctic countries are right on top of each other. For example, the U.S. and Russia sit roughly 60 miles apart from each other at the Bering Strait. The International Hydrographic Organization may well classify the Arctic as an ocean, but in geopolitical terms, it has little in common with the world’s major oceans.
The closest analogue in the world for thinking about the geopolitics of the Arctic is not its fellow oceans, but another large body of water surrounded by countries of different continents: the Mediterranean Sea. This comparison isn’t perfect: The Arctic Ocean is about five times as large as the Mediterranean Sea, and the center of the Mediterranean is not a hunk of impassable ice. Many Mediterranean countries also share land borders, and there are much fewer of them to start with. Despite the deficiencies, the comparison gives us a more realistic picture of the Arctic. More important, it helps define the Arctic not as a moat separating vast continents but as a potential seascape over which the region’s strongest powers may eventually compete.
(click to enlarge)
The Mediterranean has been a center of global conflict for millennia, while the Arctic has been exceptional for the adverse. This will remain the case for decades to come but not indefinitely. There is a scientific consensus that the current rate of melting will mean that some of the Arctic’s maritime routes will be open during the summer by the 2030s. But even if these projections are correct, it will only be if the Arctic Ocean becomes traversable at most, if not all, times of the year that we can expect to see conflict there. The more ice that melts, the more apt the comparison to the Mediterranean becomes, and the history of competition between Mediterranean powers is bloody.
Even so, there is another way in which the comparison to the Mediterranean helps conceptualize the Arctic’s geopolitical position in the world. The authors of the three most influential theories of global geopolitics in the 20th century were Alfred Thayer Mahan, Halford Mackinder and Nicholas Spykman. These three thinkers had profoundly different ideas about the main source of global power in the international system. Mahan’s focus was on sea power; he believed that whichever country controlled the world’s oceans would in turn dominate global power. Mackinder developed a different thesis based on control of the heartland, which he defined as much of the land that would end up being controlled by the Soviet Union after World War II. Spykman came after Mahan and Mackinder, and though his views were more akin to those of Mackinder, he significantly modified the heartland theory. Spykman posited that what he called the “rimland” was the real key to global power. It was the areas surrounding the “heartland” – places that also had access to the sea – that were most important in understanding geopolitics.
(click to enlarge)
Despite the conceptual differences in these theories, all three have one thing in common: They did not consider the potential importance of the Arctic Ocean. This omission makes more sense for Mahan, who passed away in 1914, well before the potential of the Arctic Ocean as a viable maritime trade route was understood. But Spykman lived until 1943 and Mackinder until 1947. They lived through a time when the Allies sent Russia supplies and munitions to fight off the Central Powers via the Barents Sea. In 1917, Britain, France and the U.S. shipped 2.5 million tons of cargo to Russia along this route. In 1932, a Soviet ice breaker made the first ever transit of the Northern Sea Route in the Arctic in one season, and U.S. media were entranced with the Arctic’s potential.
Broadly speaking, it was Mahan whose theory proved most successful in predicting what was to come. The Cold War set up a battle royal between a heartland power and a sea power, and the United States emerged not only victorious but also as the only global hegemon in history to control the world’s most important oceans. As the map above shows, for Mahan’s purposes the Mediterranean was not one of those oceans. The importance of sea power was the way it could isolate a potential power in the heartland or the rimland. As we will explore in the next section, this is the appropriate way to think about the importance – or lack thereof – of the potential opening of Arctic trade routes. For these fathers of 20th-century geopolitics, the Arctic was inaccessible. For 21st-century students of geopolitics, we might simply say that the Arctic Ocean is containable.
Balance of Power in the Arctic
With the theoretical construct laid out, the next step is to look at a map.
(click to enlarge)
There are a few definitions of what constitutes the Arctic, so we must begin by defining what it is. One potential definition comes from the Arctic Council, which is made up of eight countries, all of which hold territory above the Arctic Circle (66 degrees, 32 minutes north latitude). But not all of these countries are Arctic littoral states. Only five main countries border the Arctic Ocean: the U.S., Canada, Denmark (via Greenland), Norway and Russia. Some consider Iceland a littoral Arctic country as well, and for the purposes of this article, its inclusion is reasonable. So when GPF writes about the Arctic region, we are talking about the six countries that border the Arctic Ocean, as well as the seascape itself.
Russia and Canada are the most important countries in the Arctic. Russia holds the most Arctic territory by far. Accounting for the 200-nautical-mile limit that the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea grants Russia the right to claim, Russia occupies approximately 40 percent of the Arctic’s territory. More important, the two major sea routes that permit ships to traverse the Arctic run along the Russian and Canadian coasts: the Northern Sea Route and the Northwest Passage. The Northern Sea Route is a more reliable maritime trade route than the Northwest Passage, which the Arctic Institute noted last year was impossible to traverse even at the peak of summer because of ice conditions. Russia and Canada also have the largest naval fleets equipped to deal with the Arctic’s harsh climate. Russia has over 40 icebreakers in its fleet, while Canada has 15. By comparison, the United States has only two functional ice breakers, and though it could build more, it would take 5-10 years.
(click to enlarge)
It is tempting to say that Russia already dominates the Arctic – that its power there exceeds even that of the United States. Certainly, thinking like that is part of the reason for the sensationalist reporting about Russia’s military modernization campaigns and its increased deployment of military assets in its territory in the region. It is true both that Russia is seeking to modernize its military forces and that it has dispatched forces in greater numbers to the Arctic, though the size and abilities of those forces still pale in comparison to what Russia had stationed in the area during the Cold War. More important, however, this type of view of Russian behavior in the Arctic misreads the geopolitical reality of the situation. The West tends to view the Arctic as a potential source of Russian strength; in reality, it is more of a Russian vulnerability.
(click to enlarge)
The map at the beginning of this section shows the Arctic region from above. What immediately jumps out is that Russia’s vast holdings of territory in the Arctic do not help it deal with one of its fundamental strategic weaknesses: its lack of access to the world’s oceans. Russia cannot exit the Arctic to get to the Pacific without passing the Chukchi Sea and the Bering Strait, both of which are off the coast of Alaska. The U.S. may not have many ice breakers, but the rest of its navy is without peer and could easily shut down this shipping lane if it deemed it in its national interest to do so. To exit the Arctic Ocean to the Atlantic, Russia would have to traverse the waters between Iceland and Greenland, or between Iceland and the United Kingdom. These are larger openings than the Bering Strait by far – about 200 and 500 miles, respectively – but they are still eminently susceptible to a blockade from anti-Russian forces.
Russia’s position in the Arctic, then, is something of a trap. If the U.S. so chose, it could block traffic coming into and out of the Arctic, and there is little Russia could do to retaliate. Furthermore, increased accessibility to the Arctic opens the Russian heartland to a vulnerability it has never had to face before. The core of Russian strategy in Europe has been to establish buffer zones between Moscow and the North European Plain. This strategy is based in part on the idea that Russia has not had to worry about a potential threat to its long Arctic coastline, the Arctic being impossible for its enemies to traverse. If Arctic ice melts enough to allow trade in the Arctic Ocean year-round, that also means that enemy naval forces would have more room to operate. This explains why Russia has assumed such a defensive posture in the region.
It also explains why Russia has, from a diplomatic perspective, been relatively cooperative in the region. The United States is the only country among the Arctic nations that has not signed on to the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea, which provides a legal framework for how much maritime territory a country can claim. The U.S. has a long history of avoiding the strings attached to multilateral treaties and institutions. On the one hand, the U.S. wants freedom of navigation in global trade routes and provides that security with its navy. On the other hand, the U.S. does not want to open its own forces to potential retaliation by international bureaucracies.
Its aversion to international agreements doesn’t mean the U.S. is an aggressive player in the Arctic. By and large, Arctic nations have exhibited an exceptional level of cooperation and willingness to compromise in settling disputes. This makes some sense because the value of the Arctic is not in holding strategic territory so much as it is in establishing viable maritime trade routes, with the attendant economic benefits that come to countries located in key chokepoints. Another value of the Arctic is its vast resource potential, and conflict only prevents that kind of development from taking place. Finally, there is no country for which control of the entire Arctic region is a part of the national ethos. The relative uninhabitability of the region plays at least a small part in why disagreements have thus far been consigned to negotiations and to courts.
(click to enlarge)
Russia is the largest power in the Arctic, but it cannot control the Arctic and does not seek to. Canada, Norway and Denmark/Greenland all have significant interests in the region, but none of these interests would be advanced by military conflict. As for the U.S., which has claims to the Arctic by virtue of Alaska, its main interest is in making sure that any maritime trade routes that are opened as a result of technological innovation or climate change have the same status as maritime trade routes in the rest of the world. The U.S. cannot dictate what happens in the Arctic, but it doesn’t need to. The U.S. and its allies can control what goes in and out, effectively undermining any Russian advantage in terms of territory or available ice breakers.
Cold Water
This piece takes a necessarily high-altitude view of developments in the Arctic. Still, before concluding, it is worth also laying out some of the potential opportunities within the Arctic as well as its limitations. The potential benefits lie mainly in two areas: reducing the distance required on certain key trade routes, and developing oil and gas in the region.
Let’s begin with the issue of distance. It is true that there are many trade routes that the Arctic could shorten. The important thing to keep in mind, however, is that distance is not the only factor in determining cost. The cost of fuel and the cost of outfitting ships to survive in the Arctic’s harsh climate also affect the bottom line.
(click to enlarge)
In 2013, when oil prices were still high (Brent crude prices were around $108 per barrel for the year), 71 ships used the Northern Sea Route, carrying a total of 1.35 million metric tons of cargo. Last year, when Brent crude prices averaged around $46 for the year, only 19 ships used the route, with a decrease in cargo volume of 84.1 percent. Unless prices unexpectedly jump significantly, the economics of using Arctic maritime trade routes even if the ice is melting won’t be justified.
In addition, outfitting ships for the Arctic is costly, and the modifications needed to operate in the Arctic and in some of the narrower chokepoints in the region limit the size of ships. For instance, just to get permission to enter the Northern Sea Route, a ship must be equipped with a reinforced double hull and meet several technical requirements, as per the Arctic Institute. Also affecting the bottom line is that the capacity of ships operating in the Arctic is no more than a third the size of ships that can operate in open water. Even by 2035, the Arctic Institute projects that the economics of ice-reinforced vessels will still make it cheaper to use traditional shipping routes.
A 2016 study by the Arctic Institute looked at this issue in detail and concluded that “sea ice will continue to be an integral part of the Arctic Ocean for decades to come and the shipping lanes will be covered in ice throughout most of the year.” Even with Arctic ice continuing to melt, there is the problem of the variability of ice conditions, which remain unpredictable at best. One of the most important elements in the shipping industry is time scheduling, and the Arctic’s waters pose fundamental problems in attempting to run any kind of normal shipping schedule.
The other major potential benefit of the Arctic lies in its vast potential energy resources. The emphasis, however, is on the word “potential.” A U.S. Geological Survey report released in 2008 is the source of every optimistic data point for potential natural resources in the Arctic. That report suggested that the Arctic held about 10 percent of the world’s existing conventional resources, or 240 billion proven barrels of oil and oil equivalent natural gas. In addition, the study estimated that the Arctic could contain 90 billion barrels of undiscovered oil, 17 trillion cubic feet of undiscovered gas and 44 billion barrels of natural gas liquids, making up 13 percent, 30 percent and 20 percent of the world’s undiscovered hydrocarbon resources, respectively.
Of course, that report was mainly focused on estimates and was written at a time when today’s low oil prices were unthinkable to most. As recently as 2013, oil prices were averaging above $100 a barrel. That is an important benchmark. The Arctic Institute reports that the break-even price for oil on many projects in the Arctic region is about $100 a barrel. Russia in particular has been banking on oil to support its economy and was expecting higher oil prices to last. But the shale revolution in the U.S., the oversupply of the market and the consequent reduction in oil prices have not only decreased the financial incentive for shipping companies to use the Arctic trading routes, but they have also made developing many of the energy resources available in the Arctic a less attractive prospect. This is not a permanent state of affairs; new technology could significantly lower the cost of production in the Arctic, for example. But in the short to medium term, GPF does not expect higher oil prices, and that limits the efficacy of natural resource extraction in the Arctic even if some of the estimates from the USGS on proven reserves are accurate.
Future analyses will delve into some of these issues with more depth. For now, the important takeaway is that Arctic trade routes can reduce distance, but that does not mean they are economical to use, and most estimates of ice melting and the cost benefits of shipping via the Arctic don’t envision a scenario in which the Arctic is a feasible or logical trading route in the next two decades at least. As for the Arctic’s oil and gas reserves, they are doubtless formidable in their size, but they are also expensive to access. The combination of low oil prices and a glut in the market make them irrelevant in the near term.
The Arctic region is changing. These changes have the potential to alter global trade routes and may lead to increased competition in the region, and there is no reason to expect that competition to be entirely nonviolent. Moreover, it will take a century or more – not decades – for these developments to occur. Even if projections on ice melting in the Arctic are too conservative and the region’s maritime trade routes open themselves up to greater degrees of trade, the geography of the Arctic Ocean is such that it will not have a transformative effect on global geopolitics. The Arctic Ocean is a less consequential version of the Mediterranean Sea, and access to it can be controlled by the United States. Understanding developments in the Arctic requires recognizing what is changing and what isn’t.
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A Cold War in the Arctic Circle
NATO plans a new command to counter Russia’s buildup. It should be only a start.
By Paula J. Dobriansky
Updated Jan. 12, 2018 9:48 p.m. ET
The Arctic is a region of tremendous strategic importance for global trade and national security. The High North is also experiencing a massive Russian military buildup, which calls for the U.S. and North Atlantic Treaty Organization to adopt a new strategy.
Vladimir Putin has been hyping the threat posed by U.S. attack submarines deployed in the Arctic Ocean. Meantime, Russia has been using Arctic waters as a sanctuary for its ballistic-missile-carrying submarines—the key component of its strategic nuclear forces—and wants to enhance its regional military infrastructure to protect them. This is driven by Moscow’s longstanding view that a nuclear war can be won by a better-prepared side.
With these strategic imperatives in mind, Russia created an Arctic Command, which became operational in 2015. It has also embarked on a costly military buildup—new airfields, ports, air-defense installations and barracks—and heightened the tempo of military exercises and activities.
Moscow’s Security Council has designated the Arctic as a “main strategic resource base.” The Council on Foreign Relations reported in 2017 that products from the Arctic account for 20% of Russia’s gross domestic product and 22% of its exports. Much of this is energy—95% of Russia’s natural gas and 75% of its oil.
Receding ice adds to the region’s significance. The Northern Sea Route, a path along Russia’s Arctic coast, has become available for ice-free navigation during an entire summer. If current trends continue, it may become available for ice-free navigation year-round. The Northern Route is shorter by 40% than the Suez Canal or Cape of Good Hope route, so this could lead to a major reshuffling of global oceanic transportation. Given uncertainty over whether the Northern Sea Route is in international or Russian territorial waters, its extensive use would give Moscow formidable economic leverage.
Meanwhile, Russia has been pressing ambitious territorial claims that overlap with those advanced by other Arctic nations. Denmark and Russia have asserted ownership of the North Pole and swaths of Arctic sea bed. Canada is expected to submit a major competing claim this year. The disputed territory amounts to some 200,000 square miles and may hold up to 10 billion tons of hydrocarbon deposits, according to Russian estimates.
To date, Arctic governance has been driven through the Arctic Council, created in 1996 by Canada, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Russia, Sweden and the U.S. The council has grown to include 13 non-Arctic observer countries, including China, India and Japan. While the council has worked well on matters within its jurisdiction—such as health and the environment—it has no power to enforce agreements, making it incapable of dealing with security matters.
There is not a major Western military facility in the Arctic and only a few U.S. Coast Guard assets operate there. A new robust Western response to the Russian military buildup in the Arctic is necessary. At the November Halifax Security Forum, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg previewed the alliance’s plans to create an Atlantic Command covering the Arctic. This initiative has broad support, including from the five Arctic NATO members.
The Trump administration supports the new NATO command, but it can do more. It should ensure that the new command has a clear mission set addressing the alliance’s interests in the Arctic—surveillance and monitoring of Russian intelligence and military activities, coordination of maritime search and rescue operations, and buildup of military infrastructure in the region to counter Russian threats to sea lanes and communications. The mission set should be backed by appropriate resources—ships, submarines and aircraft, including surveillance and maritime patrol platforms—provided by NATO allies, particularly those with Arctic interests.
The U.S. should start building advanced icebreakers and conduct more exercises, patrols and training missions. It would also be wise to host the new command’s headquarters on American soil. Strong action to make the robust Atlantic Command a reality would counter Russia’s military buildup and demonstrate continuing U.S. leadership within NATO and around the world.
Ms. Dobriansky is a senior fellow at Harvard’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs. She served as an undersecretary of state, 2001-09.
Appeared in the January 2, 2018, print edition.
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https://www.wilsoncenter.org/article/chinas-growing-arctic-presence
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he Arctic's growing strategic importance will oblige Beijing to continue its efforts to assert itself in the region from a position of constraints.
Because China lacks an Arctic shore, it will rely on bilateral and multilateral cooperation, particularly with Russia and the Nordic countries, and adopt a soft approach to ensure its say in the development of the region.
Russia's economic quandary and standoff with the West could provide Beijing a window into the region, but such cooperation will be subject to future shifts among the United States, Russia and China.
The Arctic's formidable natural barriers have deterred most human activity for millennia. But with the ocean expected to be ice-free in summer by 2030, the Arctic is now squarely in the geopolitical spotlight, as powers near and far rush to secure their positions in an emerging competition. By some estimates, the Arctic contains 30 percent of the world's undiscovered natural gas and 13 percent of its oil reserves. What's more, the receding ice could soon provide access to minerals, fish and other resources. At the same time, potential shipping routes — including the Northern Sea route and the Northwest Passage along the Russian and Canadian coasts, respectively — will become available, along with perhaps the Transpolar Passage in the more distant future. At present, the Arctic's climate will largely hamper hydrocarbon exploration, the use of sea routes and the construction of infrastructure for many years to come, but the promise of energy and mineral riches and shorter maritime routes between Asia and Europe will ultimately drive interest in the region, creating competing demands for sovereignty, governance and right of passage.
The Big Picture
Persistent warming and changing meteorological conditions have transformed the Arctic Ocean into a more strategic region, as its diminishing icecaps open up access to natural resources and new shipping corridors. As regional powers like Russia, the United States and Canada vie for dominance in the area, the more distant China is racing to legitimize its presence wherever it can and secure its interests by expanding its access and capabilities in the region.
Entering the fray is China, albeit from a position of weakness. Unlike the five Arctic states, China's lack of a coastline on the ocean deprives it of a legal basis to articulate claims for access to the region, as well as the ability to project power alone. At the same time, the Arctic's strategic value — and the cost to China if doesn't get a slice of the pie — is simply too great for Beijing to settle for the status of a mere stakeholder, like South Korea and Japan. In the end, the growing importance of Arctic resources and sea routes, as well as the emerging military competition between Russia and the United States, obliges Beijing to sail north. But instead of projecting power outright, Beijing is carefully pursuing multilateral mechanisms and bilateral cooperation with friendly Arctic states to gain access to the area. In so doing, China might ultimately help change the strategic map of the North Pole.
A "Near-Arctic State"
While territorial disputes have created a vociferous debate over the ownership of natural resources in the South China Sea, much of the undiscovered oil and gas reserves in the Arctic are believed to lie in uncontested areas, making it possible for outside nations like China to enter the region. And although the Northern Sea route is still not a routine maritime passage, ships sailing from the northeastern Chinese port of Dalian to Rotterdam could shorten their travel time by as much as 10 days, or 5,000 nautical miles, if they opted for it rather than passing through the Strait of Malacca and then the Suez Canal. For China, the route would not only eliminate some of the country's exposure to security risks and supply disruptions associated with existing shipping lanes but also spur development in the relatively neglected and landlocked northeast provinces of Jilin and Heilongjiang.
A map showing various passages through the Arctic Ocean, as well as forecasts for the decline in sea ice.
With these interests in mind — alongside fears that it could be sidelined from the Arctic contest as a non-littoral state — Beijing has moved to assert its position where possible in the already-crowded North Pole. So far, China has taken only baby steps in the region, as high transit costs due to the need for ice-breaking services from Russia have prevented the route from becoming commercially viable, yet Beijing has markedly increased its efforts to establish itself in the strategic region.
Since its first research expedition to the Arctic in 1999 and its construction of the Arctic Yellow River Station on Svalbard in 2004, China has intensified its soft approach and scientific involvement in the region. It has elevated its role in climate change affairs, forged closer scientific cooperation with Nordic countries and taken further steps to join the Arctic Council as a permanent observer. Beijing is also in the process of constructing two more icebreakers, including a nuclear-powered icebreaker. Beyond that, the country has also quickened the pace of its Arctic exploration, traversing the Northwest Passage with an icebreaker and the Northern Sea route with commercial ships. Less conspicuously, Beijing has expanded its economic footprint in Nordic states from Iceland to Sweden to Russia, allowing it to leverage its influence for future expansion in the region. All of these efforts culminated in the publication of the country's first white paper on the Arctic at the beginning of 2018. Titled "The Polar Silk Road" and linked to Beijing's signature Belt and Road Initiative, the policy paper outlined the country's aspirations as a "near-Arctic state."
Camaraderie at the High Table
As with other aspects of the Belt and Road Initiative, the Polar Silk Road is more of a concept and loose framework than a clearly defined national strategy. Moreover, the ambiguity — whether intentional or not — of the self-proclaimed designation of "near-Arctic state" gives Beijing the ability to cultivate its role at its convenience. Such an identity, however, does not automatically grant China the right to access resources and sail without restrictions in the region due to its lack of legal recourse to Arctic territory and the absence of international agreements on Arctic sovereignty and right of passage. To achieve its objectives, Beijing initially sought to frame Arctic affairs as an international issue, but that strategy risks drawing suspicion from a number of littoral states, particularly Russia, thus undermining Beijing's attempts to form a closer partnership with regional states. But as Beijing has worked to nurture ties with these regional states — cooperating, for instance, with Greenland over mineral resources and attempting to gain oil exploration rights in Iceland — Russia's economic challenges and standoff with the West have provided China with a window into a relatively closed region.
As the dominant Arctic power thanks to its long coastline from the Barents Sea in the west to the Bering Sea and the Sea of Okhotsk in the east, Russia is well-placed to benefit from its position, especially as melting sea ice will allow it to sail along its northern coast. At the same time, however, the Arctic is naturally of great concern for Russia in terms of security. For this reason, Moscow traditionally has been suspicious about Beijing's increased Arctic involvement, its partnership with other states and its desire to internationalize the Arctic due to fears that China will eventually challenge its own sphere of influence. The Kremlin, for instance, has refused to permit Chinese research vessels to enter Russia's Arctic economic exclusive zone at least twice, while it also opposed Beijing's application for observer status in the Arctic Council — only relenting when it also endorsed Japan's application to the body in an apparent bid to balance China's entry. But with the decline of Russia's options as a result of its economic crisis in 2013 and Western sanctions over the Ukraine crisis in 2014, Moscow has beaten a path to Beijing's door at a time when Arctic development is becoming a greater priority.
For Moscow and Beijing alike, Arctic development is a marriage of convenience — much like their cooperation in many other theaters.
For Moscow and Beijing alike, Arctic development is a marriage of convenience — much like their cooperation in many other theaters. Whereas Beijing compensates for Moscow's lack of funding and infrastructure development capacity with its rich capital and construction expertise, Russia is satiating China with its long-desired access to resources and fewer restrictions on passage to the Northern Sea route. In line with such cooperation, Chinese entities have purchased about a 30 percent stake in Yamal LNG in a deal that could eventually meet 10-25 percent of China's total liquefied natural gas import demands. Both countries are expected to cooperate further on a new liquefied natural gas project, Arctic LNG 2, which will also boost Russia's energy exports to China. Naturally, such cooperation is also helping Moscow reorient its energy exports from the Western market to the East.
Icy Competition
But despite positive rhetoric from both Moscow and Beijing, their cooperation so far has failed to fulfill its potential, concentrating mostly on energy projects, rather than Arctic infrastructure development on ports, logistics facilities and transport links to Russia's domestic system. The reason stems partly from their misaligned priorities: While Moscow sees the Northern Sea route as both an economic and security imperative, the dearth of short-term commercial prospects, high costs and the need for massive investment have all inhibited Beijing from entering the field. Likewise, Moscow's ultimate desire for greater exclusivity in the Arctic — on everything from shipping routes to security — gives Beijing less incentive to devote itself to strengthening Russia's position in the Arctic. In other words, while Moscow is happy to have Beijing step in to help mitigate its investment deficits, it continues to harbor suspicions that China wants to chip away at Russian sovereignty in the Arctic.
Despite these competing interests, Russian-Chinese cooperation offers both powers practical benefits in their respective objectives that neither can find elsewhere. In the end, both are likely to pursue more cooperation in areas ranging from energy cooperation to infrastructure construction, technological development and efforts to shape future international law regarding the region. Such cooperation grants Beijing the territory and strategic resources to bolster its security at a time when the Arctic is becoming increasingly militarized. Nevertheless, Beijing will focus on cultivating ties with as many partners as possible due to its conflicting interests with Russia, the possibility that Moscow could look elsewhere itself if the West lifts sanctions and the prospect that Japan could also make greater forays into the region. But leaving aside all of China's commercial and scientific interests, the emergent great power competition over sea routes and resources, as well as the militarization of the Arctic, will likely compel Beijing to turn its focus toward the military front — raising the stakes in the already-crowded Arctic region.
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https://www.defenseone.com/news/2019/01/arctic-warms-us-navy-considering-summer-transit-bering-sea-port/154018/?oref=d-topictop
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Wonder if this has anything to do with climate change?
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-00007-1?fbclid=IwAR2zUS7GMJ3uPvc80UF8f15zcmYElsPXNi-j3auoy1_QnuUQ3BU-lW2Ldmg
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Wonder if this has anything to do with climate change?
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-00007-1?fbclid=IwAR2zUS7GMJ3uPvc80UF8f15zcmYElsPXNi-j3auoy1_QnuUQ3BU-lW2Ldmg
Yes. Humans inhabiting the earth is not the only thing going on.
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https://www.lunduniversity.lu.se/lup/publication/2278604
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https://warontherocks.com/2019/02/how-not-to-compete-in-the-arctic-the-blurry-lines-between-friend-and-foe/
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Very interesting.
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https://www.militarytimes.com/news/your-military/2019/04/25/great-powers-on-ice-coast-guard-drops-arctic-manifesto/?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Army%20DNR%2004-25-19&utm_term=Editorial%20-%20Army%20-%20Daily%20News%20Roundup
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https://www.defenseone.com/threats/2019/05/pentagon-report-warns-chinas-rise-arctic-missile-subs-influence-operations/156726/?oref=defenseone_today_nl
https://www.defensenews.com/news/your-military/2019/05/06/northcom-arctic-now-americas-first-line-of-defense/?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Army%20DNR%2005-06-19&utm_term=Editorial%20-%20Army%20-%20Daily%20News%20Roundup
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https://www.defenseone.com/technology/2019/05/admiral-us-operating-blind-arctic/156781/?oref=defenseone_today_nl
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https://www.defenseone.com/ideas/2019/05/next-south-china-sea-covered-ice/157020/?oref=defenseone_today_nl
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Good article for strategic defense aspects. More snark than fact in the area of weather reporting. Can't bring themselves to say human caused in front of climate change because that would be redundant, all climate change is human caused?
From the article:
"Oh, so why is the sea ice vanishing? Ha! Good question. Next?"
"The Arctic has warmed roughly twice as fast as the rest of the planet,"
No mention of the NOAA whistleblower witnessing a tampering of the exact data they cite.
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/feb/5/climate-change-whistleblower-alleges-noaa-manipula/
“insisting on decisions and scientific choices that maximized warming and minimized documentation.”
Back to the article:
"Alaska, which “is warming faster than any other state.” It projected that climate change could eventually cost the state $270 million per year."
It defies logic and common sense to believe warming would be a net cost to Alaska, at the same time they announce new shipping lanes opening. But if 14 Obama infiltrated agencies said it and The Atlantic reported it , it must be true, as certain as a roomful of Russian prostitutes peeing on a bed because Trump is racist.
"Pompeo even attacked their climate policies. “It isn’t clear that Russia is reducing emissions at all, despite being the largest emitter of black carbon in the entire Arctic,” he said. He attacked China for tripling its emissions since 2006. These would have been a much more powerful points if Pompeo had approved the Arctic Council statement in the first place."
- Make sure I have this right. The US is cutting it's emmisions, China is tripling theirs, Russia is spewing filth, and Trump being a hypocrite is the problem in this picture according to The Atlantic because he wouldn't sign an anti-US agreement.
In a "Defense" article they criticize Trump for "repealing fuel efficiency standards" that caused the SUV craze and that the Obama administration levied on its successor, not his own economy. If not for that, the Earth would be fine.
The Arctic is losing more ice "every summer", except in the periods where it is not:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/trevornace/2018/12/10/arctic-sea-ice-is-growing-faster-than-before-but-theres-a-catch/
“There is likely to be a nearly sea ice-free Arctic during the summer by midcentury,”
- An update from their last prediction that was false.
https://nsidc.org/news/inthenews/arctic-ice-cap-grows-same-year-al-gore-predicted-it-would-disappear-networks-ignore
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https://link.navytimes.com/click/16976081.6198/aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cubmF2eXRpbWVzLmNvbS9uZXdzL3lvdXItbWlsaXRhcnkvMjAxOS8wNS8yMi9ib2x0b24tY29hc3QtZ3VhcmQtdG8taGVscC1yZWFzc2VydC11cy1sZWFkZXJzaGlwLWluLWFyY3RpYy8/575f05f7498eb1c2b42c0323B68e939b9
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https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/07/us-russia-cold-war-arctic-competition-regional-hegemony/?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=NR%20Daily%20Monday%20through%20Friday%202019-07-09&utm_term=NRDaily-Smart
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What Russia Stands to Gain, and Lose, From the Thawing Arctic
By Rodger Baker
Senior VP of Strategic Analysis, Stratfor
The Yamal, a Russian nuclear-powered icebreaker, clears the way in the Kara Sea.
(SOVFOTO/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)
Highlights
Among the eight countries with territory inside the Arctic Circle, Russia currently sees the greatest economic benefits from its vast, resource-rich northern regions.
In recent years, Russia has begun returning to Cold War-era levels of Arctic activity in order to seize the frozen energy reserves that the warming climate is helping bring to the surface.
But Moscow's financial constraints, coupled with U.S. and European sanctions, will leave it dependent on China to build out the infrastructure needed to fully develop its northern frontier.
As a result, Moscow will be placed in a complex situation in the coming years — balancing its national and economic security with its evolving relations with the United States and China.
Although the Arctic was a front line during the Cold War, the harsh climate and limited transit options also made it a relatively secure frontier in the post-Cold War era. And as a result, Russia's Arctic infrastructure and activity — particularly in the security realm — waned considerably as the country's priorities shifted elsewhere. But this has been changing in recent years, as the sea ice that has long barricaded Russia from the rest of the world begins to open up. Russian shipping in the Arctic recently reached levels not seen since the late 1980s, with Russian President Vladimir Putin highlighting Arctic shipping along the Northern Sea Route as a key development project for the country.
Moscow's renewed Arctic push, however, is less about allowing more transit through Arctic waters, but about exploiting mineral and energy reserves that will become more accessible as the climate shifts and technology advances. Upon its return to the Arctic, however, Russia will be forced to maneuver a landscape that has changed drastically since the Cold War — one where "near-Arctic" China is advancing its own interests, and where the United States is revisiting its Arctic security concerns. As a result, the gains from new extraction opportunities could turn into long-term security vulnerabilities for Russia, should its need for financial support end up handing Beijing an even clearer geopolitical advantage.
The Big Picture
Covered in snow and ice, the Arctic has long been a place borne of idealized adventure — home to undiscovered resources and new potential trade routes. Over the past several decades, both the Arctic and its southern counterpart Antarctica has also become a focal point for environmental awareness, a fragile ecosystem threatened by oil exploration and climate change. With changing sea ice patterns and China's recent emergence onto the scene, many of the geopolitical issues surrounding the Arctic are also moving back to the fore, though this time with new players and thus new complications.
See Russia's Internal StruggleSee China in Transition
Opportunities Beneath the Ice
Following the Cold War, the Arctic seemed to slip back into its older position as a distant frontier to test the limits of technology and human endurance — and for many Arctic nations, it has remained a place of secondary importance at best. For Russia, however, the region's strategic significance never really waned. Moscow's Arctic territories — which comprises more than half of all Arctic coastline on Earth — still contribute some 15 percent of national gross domestic product (GDP), driven primarily by resource extraction. Some 40 percent of Canada’s landmass, for example, is considered "Arctic" (as defined by the government). But Canada’s three Arctic territories (Yukon, Northwest Territories and Nunavut), by contrast, comprise a mere half-percent of Canada’s total GDP.
Much of Moscow's mineral and energy resources in the Arctic remain untapped, buried in challenging terrain and environments in far-off locations. But changing climate patterns and advancements in technology are beginning to revive energy and mineral exploration in the region. Today, the core economic activity in the Russian Arctic takes place in the western half of the territory.
The Russian company Norilsk Nickel — the world's leading producer of palladium as well as a major producer of platinum — has its mining and smelting operations centered on both the Kola Peninsula (which is located along the Barents Sea, roughly 200 miles east of northern Finland), as well as near Dudinka on the Yenisei River (which empties into the Kara Sea).
A map showing Russian Northern Sea Route ports.
In addition to mineral resources, some of Russia’s largest emerging natural gas projects are located on the Yamal Peninsula. This includes the Yamal liquified natural gas (LNG) project, which is jointly owned by Novatek, Total, China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) and the Silk Road Fund. The Yamal project has an annual capacity of 16.5 million metric tons of LNG, and is serviced by ice-hardened LNG tankers that can traverse the Northern Sea Route (NSR) along the Russian Arctic coast, operating in ice more than a meter thick without the assistance of icebreakers. Near the Yamal plant also lies Russia’s Arctic 2 LNG project, situated just across the mouth of the Ob River.
The Future of Transit on the Russian Arctic
With the melting ice, there has been heightened international attention around how Arctic shipping routes can provide a shortcut between Europe and Asia. And indeed, by taking the NSR, it takes roughly 15 days to deliver gas from the Yamal LNG project to China, compared with the 30 days it would take by going southwest (which requires looping around Europe and coming back through the Suez Canal).
But just like the Northwest Passage through Canada never panned out as a reliable and cost-effective shortcut between Europe and Asia, Russia's Northern Sea Route remains seasonal at best. Viable operations through the Arctic waters still require specialized ships, and Russian regulations (as well as seasonal variations in ice patterns) often require the added use of icebreakers. And even those vessels can only reliably operate in warmer months — limiting the commercial viability of projects in the area. And while the receding ice is gradually making the territory more manageable, it will still be many years before the promise of decreased shipping times will outweigh the upfront costs needed to transit through its still largely frozen waters.
Thus, as energy and mineral reserves become increasingly accessible, the main use of Russian arctic waters for the foreseeable future will remain what's known as "destination shipping" — that is, focused solely on bringing Russian commodities out to the market, or to bring foreign and domestic goods and services into the Russian Arctic. Of the 1,908 ship voyages that traveled within the NSR in 2017, for example, only 27 were full transits between Asia and Europe, or between further-flung Russian ports outside the NSR; the rest traveled between ports within the NSR, or were destination shipping.
A graphic showing Russian Northern Sea Route traffic in 2017.
That said, the increased use of the NSR for destination shipping still requires the same investment in communications, navigational aids, and response and rescue capabilities, which could pave the way for more transit traffic in the future. But for now, high-profile complete transits across the NSR — however infrequent — will likely serve as a way to attract additional external investment in the infrastructure, which it needs to both develop the necessary shipping infrastructure and capitalize on the expanded energy and mineral extraction from the region.
China's Encroaching Presence
But this need for foreign revenue streams will also place Russia in a tricky situation with its nominal partner China, which is becoming an increasingly active player in the region. Despite many areas of common interest, Russian-Chinese relations remain framed by suspicion. In the modern era, the balance between the two neighbors has shifted dramatically. Not only is China no longer the second-tier power, but it has far surpassed Russia economically and is also, in certain aspects, on its way to surpassing Moscow politically and militarily.
But to continue to build out its Arctic capabilities and seize economic opportunities, Moscow also needs significant foreign investment and access to expanding consumer markets. And China's massive appetite for resources and its relatively large pocketbook provide both a market and the capital to do just that. But for Russia, this also comes at the risk of becoming overreliant on China, and further tilting the relationship in Beijing's favor — something Moscow will try to avoid.
Russia has thus sought to balance Chinese investment in Arctic LNG projects with European and Japanese firms, though this has been challenging given the ongoing sanctions regime. Moscow has also begrudgingly allowed China to partner in its infrastructure development along the NSR, but primarily to tie China into Russia’s plans, rather than allow China to build capacity to bypass Russian territory and transit fees.
The U.S.'s Return to the Arctic
Meanwhile, Russia's revived presence in the region — combined with China's growing activity — has also reawakened its other geopolitical rival, the United States, to the strategic importance of the Arctic frontier. The U.S. Arctic state of Alaska makes more than 18 percent of the United States' total landmass, but it only represents less than a third of a percent of national GDP. However, for Washington, the Arctic's importance lies less in its economic value and more in its strategic location as the link between North America, Asia and Europe. As was the case during the Cold War (and continuing today), the Arctic remains the shortest route between the United States and its northern-hemisphere challengers for missiles (whether land-based or sea-based) and aviation. The U.S. Arctic is thus the centerpiece of U.S. national missile defense, and will soon host the largest concentration of U.S. fifth-generation military aircraft anywhere in the world.
A map showing minimum Arctic sea ice extent and modeled future extent by year.
But the melting sea ice has opened the way for increased surface traffic into the Arctic, adding a layer of complexity to the defensive frontier for both the United States and Russia. Both Moscow and Washington have resource constraints on their renewed Arctic focus. But as the physical and political environments change, each is reassessing its need and capacity to operate in and provide security over the Arctic. China’s growing activity has, perhaps unexpectedly, also provided at least one area of U.S.-Russian agreement — that is, the desire to keep Arctic governance within the hands of the eight Arctic nations, and to not allow the internationalization of the region (which is something China seeks).
Great Power Games Head North
But while both the United States and Russia see the strategic significance of the region, for Moscow, the economic component serves as an added compulsion for action. And for this reason, Russian activities in the Arctic will continue to prioritize further resource exploitation to strengthen the Russian economy, while rebuilding a robust strategic defense capability along the Arctic frontier. Moscow is already re-establishing front-line military bases in the region, deploying additional missile and anti-missile assets and aircraft to the Arctic.
The idea of the Russian Arctic becoming a mass maritime highway, meanwhile, remains far-off due to technological, economic and climate constraints. But transit prospects will also largely depend on whether Russia feels a maritime bridge between Europe and Asia would provide it with enough leverage and strength to outweigh the potential exposure along its last secure frontier. In the meantime, resource extraction projects in the Russian Arctic will continue to make up the bulk of shipping along the NSR. But as Russia continues its Arctic redevelopment with the help of Chinese funding, tensions between the three great powers in the vast frontier will undoubtedly grow more pronounced.
Editor's note: This column has been amended to clarify the locations of Russian energy and mineral projects in the Arctic.
As Stratfor's senior analyst, Rodger Baker leads the firm's strategic thinking on global issues and guides the company's analytical process. He is a leading expert on North Korea, U.S.-China relations and the integration of geopolitics and intelligence analysis for business applications.
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The Melting Arctic Heats Up the Question of Who Governs the Northwest Passage
By Philip Leech-Ngo
Board of Contributors
Philip Leech-Ngo
Philip Leech-Ngo
Board of Contributors
A project manager for the Arctic Research Foundation on April 9, 2015, walks past snowmobiles used by Canadian troops deployed to the territory of Nunavut to demonstrate Canadian sovereignty in the Arctic.
(PAUL WATSON/Toronto Star via Getty Images)
Contributor Perspectives offer insight, analysis and commentary from Stratfor’s Board of Contributors and guest contributors who are distinguished leaders in their fields of expertise.
Highlights
U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo recently seemed to ratchet up an old dispute between the United States and Canada over sovereignty and the Northwest Passage.
The United States rejects Canada's claim that the Northwest Passage is an internal waterway, holding instead that the passage is an international waterway that should not be subject to Canadian jurisdiction.
In 1988, the United States and Canada agreed to find a pragmatic solution to governing the Northwest Passage. But 30 years ago, the far-north shipping lane was largely an academic matter; not so today.
Ultimately, U.S. concerns about Russian and Chinese ambitions in the Arctic will prove greater than worries about Canadian sovereignty claims, and Washington and Ottawa will maintain the useful compromise of the 1980s to protect their intertwined interests.
The existing U.S.-Canadian compromise agreement over Arctic sovereignty serves both countries' best geopolitical interests. Thus, in a rapidly changing climate, it is likely that recent U.S. attacks on Canadian claims of sovereignty in the far north are intended to remind Ottawa that the status quo depends on Washington's goodwill.
Speaking at a meeting of the Arctic Council in Finland in May, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo surprised many of his fellow delegates with an apparently unprompted attack on Canada's claims to sovereignty over the Northwest Passage (NWP), a maritime route joining the Pacific and the Atlantic oceans along the northern coast of North America.
While at first glance Pompeo's words are in line with a general commitment by the United States to freedom of navigation all over the world, the bluntness of his statement seemed to represent an unprovoked reopening of a decades-old dispute between two close allies. It is unlikely the United States seriously wants to relitigate the status quo. Rather, because the existing arrangement — based on a mutual understanding between friendly neighbors rather than on international law — allows both Canada and the United States to meet their primary geopolitical concerns, Pompeo's assertion should be best understood as a means of reminding Ottawa that it depends on U.S. consent to maintain the current compromise.
The Northwest Passage
While Inuit peoples have inhabited and navigated the territories of northern Canada for centuries, modern Western attempts to navigate through the Canadian archipelago began in the mid-19th century. These were spurred by European ambitions to find a trading route to Asia that would be shorter than the existing two options at the time: traversing the Suez Canal (after it opened in 1869) or circumnavigating the southern tip of Chile. (The Panama Canal did not open until 1914.)
Following several failed efforts to sail across the Arctic Ocean — including the disastrous Franklin Expedition of 1845 and the McClure Expedition of 1850, which fully charted the NWP — Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen finally navigated a route between 1903 and 1906 that ran from Baffin Bay, between Greenland and what is now Nunavut, to Alaska and then down the West Coast to San Francisco. While several ships have managed to replicate Amundsen's voyage in decades since, the high level of risk and expense involved have prevented the NWP from being considered a serious alternative to more traditional trade routes, at least until recently.
As a result, for most of the past century, the issue of who governs the NWP was relegated to a somewhat abstract dispute between two of the world's closest allies. In 1946 the Canadian ambassador to the United States, Lester Pearson, asserted that the NWP falls within legitimate Canadian claims to sovereignty over territory all the way to the North Pole. However, Ottawa's official position remained hazy until an American tanker, the SS Manhattan, entered the NWP without Canadian permission in 1969. Fearing that it might lose control of the route, Ottawa clarified its position that the NWP is an internal Canadian waterway and tightened a range of regulations. While the SS Manhattan and its parent company would comply with Canadian demands during its subsequent voyage in 1970, the U.S. government rejected Canada's claims over the NWP.
As the dispute continued in the early 1980s, it would be impacted by the conclusion of the third round of negotiations over the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS III) in 1982. The agreement — which came into force in 1994, but is still not ratified by the United States — outlined some significant clarifications on what defines internal, territorial and archipelagic waters. It also codified relatively recently established norms such as the link between states' claims to exclusive economic zones and the extension of the continental shelf on which they rest.
However, while UNCLOS III established a common legal language over maritime sovereignty, it did little to settle the dispute. Canada continued to legislate over the NWP throughout the 1980s and began highlighting Article 243 of UNCLOS III — which ostensibly grants Arctic-bordering nations broad regulatory powers — as the legal basis for doing so. Meanwhile, most other states, including the United States, would contend that the NWP represents an international waterway and should not be subject to Canadian jurisdiction.
The Arctic Cooperation Agreement allowed both the United States and Canada to save face while effectively ensuring that North America's continental perimeter remained secure.
However, after another diplomatic incident in 1985 — when a U.S. Coast Guard icebreaker traversed the NWP without Canadian permission (though it did submit to a Canadian inspection) — the governments of U.S. President Ronald Reagan and Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney signed the Arctic Cooperation Agreement in early 1988. The purpose of this agreement was to sideline any legal complications and instead find a pragmatic solution to governing the NWP. Thus, the U.S. government accepted Canadian demands that U.S. icebreakers would require permission from the Canadian government before entering the NWP, albeit without formally altering the U.S. stance on the legal status of the waters.
This compromise agreement, therefore, allowed both sides to save face while effectively ensuring that North America's continental perimeter remained secure. Moreover, though tensions with the United States in the Arctic briefly remerged as an issue of concern for Ottawa in 2005, when U.S. Navy submarines entered the NWP without Canadian permission, the compromise held into the new century even as Canada began reasserting its claims through polar patrols that combine both military assets with local and indigenous volunteers.
Changing Climates
Perhaps the major reason why the NWP has never become a serious international flashpoint is that, until recently, the promise of its utility as a shipping lane had far outweighed the practical reality. While a northern route joining the Atlantic and Pacific oceans would cut shipping distances by thousands of kilometers, equating to potentially millions of dollars' worth of savings for transit companies, layers of thick Arctic ice blocking the way have made such a route impractical at best.
However, the effects of global climate change — which are more extreme in the Arctic than just about anywhere else on the planet — have changed these conditions. Indeed, according to scientific data gathered since the 1970s, annual average temperatures have increased at twice the rate in the far north as the rest of the world. This has already led to changes in ocean circulation patterns, animal and human lifestyles, and significant melting of the permafrost. Should current trends persist, by 2030 it is likely that there will be a summer without ice in the Arctic. But even before then, ice thickness in the NWP has diminished significantly, meaning that it may be much more accessible to ships with modern ice-breaking technology.
Of course, scientific consensus holds that the impact of a melting Arctic is likely to be devastating to local communities, the indigenous Inuit way of life and eventually catastrophic on a planetary scale. But even in the shadow of this widely accepted reality, the NWP has become the site of a new geopolitical game that includes states far beyond the traditional U.S.-Canada axis.
Resources and Geopolitics
The retreating sea ice not only makes the possibility of using the NWP for shipping more likely, but it also opens potential opportunities to exploit a myriad of natural resources, including hydrocarbons and other commodities. The United States, like any state, would much prefer direct access to these resources for its own industries, unencumbered by complications like sovereignty claims by other countries, even if such claims come from a friend like Canada.
However, the United States and Canada are not the only states that see the NWP as strategically interesting. Russia has a vested interest in avoiding the setting of any new precedents in the NWP lest they become a basis for challenging the Russian dominance over the Northeast Passage (a similar Arctic Ocean route that runs north of the Eurasian continent). The Europeans tend to take an internationalist view of the NWP, which is unsurprising given the potential reduction in import costs from Asia and the opportunities for European-based shipping conglomerates such as Maersk (which has already sent a trial shipment through the NWP in August 2018).
While the United States may be interested, in the short term, in jostling with Canadian sovereignty claims, its apparent long-term geopolitical interests remain intertwined with Canada's.
However, by far the most important new actor in the region is China. Despite being nearly 3,000 kilometers (1,864 miles) south of the Arctic Circle, Beijing has set its sights on the far north. Indeed, though China has developed its interest in the Arctic throughout the early years of this century, its level of interest has peaked recently. In January 2018, China adopted the designation of a "near-Arctic state," demonstrating that it sees itself as a major stakeholder. Moreover, a government white paper published at the same time highlights plans for China to develop a "polar Silk Road" through developing the Arctic shipping routes and constructing an array of infrastructure.
Beijing's ambitions have not escaped Washington's notice. As Pompeo identified in his Finland speech in May, "Chinese activity … continues to concern us in the Arctic." This then highlights the United States' second primary concern: the exclusion of access to untrusted foreign actors. Indeed, for decades, the Canadian and U.S. governments have agreed on the basic principle that their mutual defense is of common concern. Thus, while the United States may be interested, in the short term, in jostling with Canadian sovereignty claims, perhaps to strengthen its hand in any potential dispute over resources, its apparent long-term geopolitical interests — particularly the defense of the North American continent — remain intertwined with Ottawa's.
As U.S. President John Kennedy told the Canadian Parliament in 1961, "Geography has made us neighbors. History has made us friends. Economics has made us partners. And necessity has made us allies. Those who nature hath so joined together, let no man put asunder." In the Arctic that "natural" and "necessary" relationship effectively manifested itself through a useful compromise in the 1988 agreement, allowing both sides to claim a different interpretation of sovereignty, while in practice working together to ensure their mutual defense. Even as the Arctic ice melts, it is most likely that this compromise will endure.
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https://www.theepochtimes.com/us-second-fleet-declared-fully-operational-to-challenge-chinas-arctic-ambitions_3192806.html?utm_source=Epoch+Times+Newsletters&utm_campaign=0821fbfb56-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2020_01_06_12_32&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_4fba358ecf-0821fbfb56-239065853
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https://www.defenseone.com/ideas/2020/01/arctic-exceptionalism-melting-away-us-isnt-sure-what-it-wants-next/162557/?oref=defense_one_breaking_nl
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https://globalnews.ca/news/6548127/norad-commander-us-canada-russia-arctic/
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https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2020/mar/3/pentagon-pressed-on-russian-chinese-push-in-arctic/
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https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2020/mar/3/pentagon-pressed-on-russian-chinese-push-in-arctic/
"Russia has 38 active icebreakers, including 10 capable of breaking through ice up to six feet thick. China recently commissioned several new icebreakers and announced plans for a nuclear-powered heavy icebreaking ship as part of its polar ambitions."
- The Obama administration tried to out-smart them by just waiting for the ice to melt. I guess the Russians and Chinese aren't stealing all of our 'science'.
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https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/16052/russia-arctic-empire
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July 7, 2020 View On Website
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Russia’s Arctic Ambitions
Moscow's security efforts have historically focused on its western front, but it's increasingly concerned about the east.
By: Ekaterina Zolotova
The Russian government is reigniting its push into the Arctic. Despite the challenging global economic environment, the Kremlin plans to build at least five new icebreakers, which, according to Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin, will be used to further develop the Northern Sea Route across Russia’s Arctic coast. On Monday, Russia announced that it had started construction on the Leader project, the world’s most powerful nuclear-powered icebreaker, at the Zvezda shipyard in the Far East region. According to the government, the project is worth the expense because it will help make the Northern Sea Route accessible year-round and tap into the growing interest in the new transit corridor between Europe and Asia. But the Kremlin’s own interest in the Arctic is not only a result of the potential economic benefits; it’s also a matter of securing Russia’s eastern borders.
The Eastern Front
Russia has long concentrated its security efforts on its western front. The main threats to Russia's territorial integrity have historically emanated from there, and so it has spent considerable time and resources building up its Baltic and Black Sea fleets. But Moscow is increasingly focusing on its eastern frontier, which is facing growing threats from several sources, some of which are building up their own naval capabilities. Japan, the United States (through the Bering Strait) and China are all neighbors of this region, and though it’s unlikely that any of these countries would initiate military action against Russia’s east, Moscow is taking no chances, initiating steps to increase the fleet’s combat effectiveness in order to guarantee that no nation can block its access to the Pacific. It also faces internal threats. This is a massive and remote region with poor infrastructure, making it potentially difficult to control. Maintaining the unity of such a vast territory requires a strong military.
Russia has thus been beefing up its military presence in this region by developing the Pacific Fleet’s technical base and boosting its combat effectiveness. The fleet currently has 58 surface ships and 20 submarines, including strategic missile submarines and multipurpose nuclear and diesel submarines. It also has marine missiles, anti-submarine and fighter aircraft, and coastal troops. In fact, the Pacific Fleet is the second-largest and most efficient of Russia’s fleets and has a wide range of tasks, including protecting Russia’s exclusive economic zone and ensuring access through these waters for commercial and military vessels. Its operational area, which includes the Arctic, Southern Hemisphere, Pacific Ocean and Indian Ocean, is the largest of all of Russia’s fleets.
(click to enlarge)
To maintain its combat effectiveness, the Pacific Fleet needs to be constantly modernized and supplied with up-to-date equipment. But this requires large investments as well as complex logistics and fleet support. The Pacific Fleet’s main weakness is its remoteness; it’s poorly connected to Russia’s center as well as the country’s other fleets and flotillas. This is due to the fact that roads and infrastructure in this part of the country are poor – there are only three railways connecting the Far East to the center of the country, for example. There are several railway projects under construction, but they won’t be ready until 2030. The region’s complex terrain, consisting mostly of uplands, makes road and infrastructure development difficult. So Russia is now turning to an alternative path to connect the Pacific Fleet with the rest of the country: the Northern Sea Route.
(click to enlarge)
Icebreaker Revamp
Russia's long-term strategy is to turn the Northern Sea Route into a transport corridor that would be accessible year-round from Murmansk to Vladivostok, the location of the Pacific Fleet’s main headquarters. But even taking into account the effects of global warming, it’s unlikely that the ice in this area of the Arctic will melt enough in the next 10-20 years to make these waters traversable for commercial or military vessels. This means that the future of the Pacific Fleet depends primarily on how quickly and efficiently the Kremlin can create a unified network that connects the fleet’s infrastructure with the center. Considering the thickness of the ice in this region, which can exceed 2 meters (6.5 feet), it’s hard to imagine that this would be possible without a modern icebreaker fleet.
Russia proudly says that it is the only country that has a nuclear-powered icebreaker fleet: two 75,000-horsepower twin-reactor icebreakers called Yamal and 50 Years of Victory, and two 50,000-hp single-reactor icebreakers called Taimyr and Vaigach. It also has the Sevmorput nuclear-powered container ship with 40,000 hp capacity.
The fleet is in need of a revamp, however. Three of the four nuclear-powered icebreakers will be decommissioned by 2030, with the fourth going out of service in 2035. Russia is therefore planning to build new icebreakers. Rosatomflot, which operates the four aforementioned ones, will receive three new icebreakers (the Arctica, Siberia and Ural) as part of Project 22220. Arctica reached the final stage of sea trials in late June. Two additional nuclear-powered icebreakers are planned at a cost of 100 billion rubles ($1.4 billion).
In addition, the government approved in January the construction budget, totaling 127.5 billion rubles, of the Leader nuclear-powered icebreaker. This vessel can break up to 4.3 meters of ice and operate year-round. Moscow plans to have three Leader-type icebreakers operational by 2033. By 2035, the Kremlin plans to have at least 13 operational heavy-duty icebreakers, nine of which will be nuclear.
Financing
Though the total cost of all these projects is unknown, they definitely won’t be cheap. Nuclear-powered icebreakers – as well as the ports, roads and other infrastructure needed to operate them – are extremely expensive to build. The Kremlin is the main financier of these Arctic projects, but considering the collapse of oil prices and the fallout from the coronavirus pandemic, the federal budget is extremely tight.
The Kremlin is thus looking for other ways to finance construction of the new icebreakers. It has unveiled a new strategy to develop the Arctic zone until 2035 that will include attracting investment and creating jobs. It wants to build an Arctic trade route for international shipping – a project that has been a priority for President Vladimir Putin since he introduced the idea in 2018. Putin believes the cargo turnover of the Northern Sea Route can reach 80 million tons by 2024, a highly ambitious goal considering that turnover was 10.7 million tons in 2017, 20.2 million in 2018, and 31.5 million in 2019. Putin’s goal could be achieved only through large investments and expanding the borders of the Northern Sea Route to include the Barents, White, Pechora, Bering and Okhotsk seas. In the short term, Moscow wants to increase investment interest in the route, which means providing incentives, developing trade and creating a favorable business environment. The Ministry of Natural Resources and Ecology generally supports the liberalization of access to the Arctic shelf. On June 23, the State Duma passed a bill in the second reading that would create a special regime for businesses operating in the Arctic, including tax benefits, a register of participants and a free customs zone.
Russia’s long-term goal to develop the Northern Sea Route and build nuclear icebreakers is extremely costly. But given the need to secure the eastern frontier, Russia will continue to invest millions in the Arctic, despite the challenging economic times, even if it means running a deficit. It believes that bridging the gap between the Pacific and the rest of the country is worth the cost, and hopes that it will pay off financially in the future.
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Remapping the American Arctic
Rodger Baker
Rodger Baker
Senior VP of Strategic Analysis, Stratfor
8 MINS READ
Jul 24, 2020 | 15:53 GMT
Maps play an important role in shaping national policy, and in shaping society’s consciousness and support. But they can also reinforce ideas of relative unimportance by leaving key areas off, or having areas appear as mere incidental inclusions, which can subconsciously constrain developments in foreign policy. Indeed, it is perhaps no surprise that many Americans still fail to recognize the United States as an Arctic nation when the majority of U.S. maps place Alaska in a small inset box, relegating it to a secondary geographic status despite Alaska’s critical role in U.S. national security, from missile defense to the interception of Russian strategic bombers.
Alaska’s Second-Class Map Status
Thanks to Alaska, the United States is one of eight nations in the world with territory within the Arctic Circle. But in its latest poll of American attitudes toward the Arctic, the Arctic Studio noted that nearly half of respondents expressed strong disagreement with the statement “The United States is an Arctic nation.”
The failure to appreciate America’s fourth coast may help explain Washington’s late awakening to the changing strategic dynamics in the Arctic. The U.S. government has issued several Arctic policy papers, as have various departments and military branches, but there has been little coordinated action. Only in recent years has the United States approved the construction or acquisition of new icebreakers (the United States currently has only two such ships in its fleet, one rarely in operation and the other often deployed to the Antarctic), or prioritized establishing an Arctic deepwater port for Coast Guard and Naval operations. The 2020 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) also calls for the creation of a Department of Defense center for Arctic security studies.
But despite some progress, it is clear that Americans still struggle with the concept of an American Arctic, or of the significance of the Arctic for U.S. national security. In the same aforementioned poll conducted by the Arctic Studio, a higher percentage of Americans agreed the United States has “broad and fundamental interests” in the Middle East than in the Arctic. This may, in part, reflect flagging geographic education in the United States, as well as a dogged persistence of a horizontal Mercator map mindset.
The Weakness of Maps: Inaccurate Perceptions
Maps have long been tools of statecraft and national cohesion. They depict the connection between people and place, assert sovereignty, and portray messages of progress, opportunity and risk. The recognition of a "sea to shining sea" America drove U.S. involvement in Central America, highlighting the significance of the isthmus of Panama. World War II, with its far-flung battles on coral atolls in the Pacific, drove an increase in U.S. geographic literacy, and maps were frequently utilized to explain and gain support for U.S. sacrifices far from American shores.
But maps are also flawed. By their very nature, flat maps are an inaccurate representation of the round earth. Cartographers work to ease these inaccuracies, but each adjustment to fit one metric (comparative size or distance, for example) creates a distortion in another. Political intent adds another layer to mapmaking. If maps represent narratives, those narratives are shaped by political and social context. Even the choice of colors, scale or features reflects tradeoffs that highlight certain priorities and downplay others.
So long as the American Arctic is considered something distant and separate from the United States, it risks being subconsciously sidelined in the national narrative, as well as U.S. foreign policy.
The fallibility of maps, however, does not negate their usefulness. Many of the core choices made in mapmaking are shaped by the intended purpose — are they for maritime or aviation navigation, are they to highlight comparable size and area of global geography, or are they for understanding political divisions? The smaller the area a map covers, the more fidelity to relative size and distance that can be preserved. With world maps, it is always a trade-off. The Mercator projection distorts the size of the northern latitudes, and its ever-present image has shaped perceptions of relative scale and location. The penchant for horizontal maps further limits ways of thinking about a round earth.
The Strength of Maps: Framing the National Narrative
I have several maps in my collection that highlight clear political choices to shape national perceptions. Two maps of the Korean peninsula, one made in South Korea, the other in North Korea, both show the underlying provincial structure of a unified single Korea. The South Korean map, however, is fairly clear in showing where South Korean sovereignty ends and North Korean sovereignty begins. The North Korean map chooses not to show the divisions of split provinces that cross the demilitarized zone. But more interesting is the way the two maps showcase both countries' claims to Dokdo, a disputed islet with Japan. Dokdo is so small, it essentially disappears unless you are looking for it. But on the South Korean-made map, the frame is extended far enough east to ensure Dokdo is inside the boundary of the map. The North Korean-made map, by contrast, has a thick border, and it cuts out a chunk of that border to ensure Dokdo fits on the map. Rather than being a small speck far off from the mainland area, this breaking of the frame draws attention to Dokdo, and thus to the sovereignty claim.
China has also been rather intentional in its efforts to use maps to change both the national narrative and international perceptions. In 2014, China debuted a new vertical map of China for national use. China’s traditional horizontal map always had a cut-out box in the lower corner showcasing its maritime claims in the South China Sea, similar to the boxes on U.S. maps for Alaska and Hawaii (and at times Puerto Rico). China’s vertical map resolved that issue by ensuring that the South China Sea region was contiguous.
By tilting China and extending the map further south, there is no longer a break between continental China and its maritime claims. While I do not have empirical survey data for China, it is not unlikely that this shift in mapping aided domestic acceptance and even support for China’s assertion of its territorial claims and its strong resistance to U.S. maritime action in the Western Pacific. The map reinforced the idea that China was not merely a continental power, but also a maritime power.
A New View of the American Arctic
Map changes do not immediately lead to perspective changes. But they can contribute to a national narrative and reinforce the significance of certain geographies to both the general public, as well as decision-makers. In Alaska, there are two common maps clearly designed to reclaim the sense of Alaska’s place in the American sphere. One shows the state of Alaska and its island chains stretched across the continental United States, reaching from California to Florida. The other shows Alaska as the main map, with two small inset boxes for Hawaii and the entire lower 48. Each tries to draw the viewer to geographic or political realities. The former regarding the sheer scale of Alaska, the latter the frequent ignoring of the state in the national psyche.
With the changing dynamics in the Arctic, it may be time to consider a new map of the United States, one that highlights all four coasts in a single image, and thus reveals their relationship to national security and identity. In building from the Chinese example, a vertical map could include the Far North, potentially excluding only Hawaii due to its distance. One particular projection is used several times in D.W. Meinig’s series, The Shaping of America; A Geographical Perspective on 500 Years of History. This map doesn’t show the United States in the context of the rest of the world, and it gives a bit of a jarring twist to common perceptions as it moves into the northern latitudes. Nonetheless, the map highlights very clearly a United States with four coasts, and the connections between the Gulf Coast and the Caribbean with the Atlantic, and between the Arctic and the Pacific. For both the Gulf Coast, the Caribbean and the Arctic, it also showcases their unique vulnerabilities and their potential contribution to U.S. national security. Similar maps, as the one displayed above, can help Americans reenvision the continental and four-coastal nature of the United States.
While a map by itself does not change the way a nation sees itself, or the way it prioritizes its interests and resources, it can serve to reorient perceptions and open new ways of thinking about place. The United States is an Arctic nation. It maintains a strong interest in a secure and stable Arctic, for its Alaska citizens, for economic reasons, and for core national security. So long as the American Arctic is considered something distant and separate from the United States, it risks being sidelined in the national narrative, and thus sidelined in national priorities and attention. The United States is already playing catch-up in the Arctic amid climate changes, Russian development and Chinese involvement. Remapping the Arctic to place it clearly as a fourth American coast may help shift the dialogue, and reinvigorate America’s recognition of its northern frontier.
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Russia's Emerging Arctic Maritime Frontier
Rodger Baker
Rodger Baker
Senior VP of Strategic Analysis, Stratfor
9 MINS READ
Sep 15, 2020 | 10:00 GMT
The Magadan icebreaker in the Bay Nagayeva, Sea of Okhotsk, in March 2019.
The Magadan icebreaker in the Bay Nagayeva, Sea of Okhotsk, in March 2019.
(Anton Afanasev/SHUTTERSTOCK)
HIGHLIGHTS
The thawing Russian Arctic is both a strategic opportunity and challenge, one that may fundamentally reshape Russia's foreign relations....
"Because of the inadequacy of the Arctic Coast as an outlet to the ocean, the great heartland can find access to the sea only by routes that cross the encircling mountain barrier and the border zone beyond."
Nicholas J. Spykman, America's Strategy in World Politics (1942)
Russia's surge of Arctic activity reflects the economic significance of the region and the impact of shifting climate patterns that now offer the prospect of an extended Russia maritime frontier. Russia has rebuilt and expanded its Cold War-era security architecture along its Arctic frontier, significantly increased natural gas production from its operations on the Yamal Peninsula, and laid out a 15-year plan to improve land-, air- and sea-based infrastructure connecting the Northern Sea Route to northern Russia and farther south. The thawing Russian coastline is both a strategic opportunity and challenge, one that may fundamentally reshape Russia's relations with its European and Asian neighbors, and with the United States.
Enclosed Geography
One of the core tenets of geopolitics is the significance of geography in setting the stage for foreign and domestic policy. As American geopolitician Nicholas Spykman noted in his 1942 America's Strategy in World Politics, "Geography is the most fundamental factor in the foreign policy of states because it is the most permanent." Geography's importance is often altered by technology, from canals and railroads to new critical minerals or changing energy sources. But rarely does geography itself change enough to alter the constraints and compulsions on states, at least not in a short time frame or outside localized events or disasters. The warming of the Arctic, however, is changing the core realities of Russia's geography, and it is happening at a pace that allows and compels a Russian response.
A key characteristic of geography that has shaped Russia over the centuries has been its lack of riverine connectivity. Unlike Europe or the United States, Russia's rivers rarely served to link agricultural zones and population centers, or connect the interior to the coasts. Rather, the major river drainage systems empty into the landlocked Caspian; into the constrained Black and Baltic seas; and most of all, into the iced-over Arctic Ocean. This constraint also offered a measure of security: Russia historically has proven incredibly resilient to invasion, particularly by sea. This river drainage system was one of the primary characteristics of Russia that led British geographer Sir Halford Mackinder initially to identify the Russian region as the geographical pivot of history, and later to identify it as the Eurasian heartland.
A map showing Russia's rivers and population density.
Russia's rivers and population density.
Russia long sought to break out of its continental heartland, pushing for sea access on the Pacific, seeking to expand its frontiers in the Baltic, and pressing south toward India and the Middle East (the latter being the subject of the so-called Great Game between Britain and Russia.) The Russo-Japanese War of 1904-5 made the weakness of Russia's limited maritime access manifest. Japan defeated the Russian Pacific fleet based in northern China, and it took Russia's Baltic Fleet — unable to reach East Asia via the Arctic Sea — some seven months to sail around the world only to meet defeat in the Tsushima Strait.
Arctic Opportunities
That inaccessibility is changing rapidly. Coastal navigation along the Northern Sea Route now starts earlier in the year, lasts longer and is even reaching the point that several passages have little need for icebreakers. Moscow's response has been to increase investment in both resource extraction and infrastructure development and to rebuild its Cold-War era military positions along the Arctic coast, updating with new equipment and technology. This year, Moscow established a special security council commission on the Arctic, and Russia produced a 15-year plan for Arctic development.
A map showing Russia's Northern Sea Route Ports
Russia has some 24,000 kilometers of Arctic coastline, compared to less than 20,000 kilometers of total U.S. oceanic coastline. The Russian Arctic accounts for more than 10 percent of national GDP, some 90 percent of Russian natural gas production and is a major contributor of strategic minerals, including nickel and palladium. An early sign of the potential future value of Russian Arctic ports came in the early years of World War II, when the allies supplied Russia through Murmansk and Arkhangelsk. The rest of the Northern Sea Route, however, remained unusable, and played little role in Russia's support of anti-Japanese fighters in the Far East, nor in the final days of the war when Russia declared war on Japan.
Today's changing climate is allowing not only greater access to the Russian Arctic frontier, but more reliable transportation of key commodities out of the Arctic. Already, Russian LNG from the Arctic has shipped to as far away as India, and this year saw the first tanker shipment of Russian Arctic oil to China. Russia has plans to develop large ports at each end of the Northern Sea Route for both containers and commodities, allowing ice-class vessels to move more frequently within Arctic waters and shifting cargos to traditional vessels for the rest of the journey to Europe or Asia.
China has shown strong interest in using the Russian Arctic seaways, and has been a major funder and consumer of Russian Arctic natural gas production. Japan and South Korea have also shown interest in the Northern Sea Route and Russian resources, and Russian and Finnish companies are cooperating on a possible undersea fiber cable through the Russian Arctic connecting Northern Europe to Japan. An opening Arctic provides opportunities for resource extraction, transportation and communications connectivity, and provides Russia with a shorter maritime route between its east and west coasts, the Northern Sea Route serving in that sense as a greatly extended Panama Canal.
Arctic Challenges
This international interest may also prove a challenge to Russia. China is funding Russian Arctic resource extraction, but it is also carrying out its own energy exploration in Arctic waters, and is exploring ways to bypass the Northern Sea Route, or at least the requirements Russia puts on its use. China's reach into the Arctic matches a push through Central Asia and one through the Indian Ocean, all parts of the Belt and Road Initiative, and together wrapping around Russia and its traditional areas of influence, forcing an eventual Russian response. The opening Arctic seas have spurred Russia to restrengthen its Arctic defenses, but this has reawakened the United States and Europe to the strategic challenges of the same region, and seen renewed defense activity and repositioning of forces to match.
The Russian government has established a new review of foreign investment and economic activity in the Arctic to ensure Russian national interests.
What once served as a largely impenetrable wall of ice protecting Russia's back is now an opening avenue exposing a long Russian coastline with little infrastructure and few population centers. Russia's Arctic coastline is largely empty. The government is offering incentives to increase migration to the region, to start businesses and develop infrastructure, but even with the melting sea ice, the area remains inhospitable and difficult territory. Changing permafrost patterns and poor quality construction and maintenance of Soviet-era infrastructure are adding to the cost of future development.
Most Russian Arctic development is in the west along the Kola Peninsula and at the Yamal and Gydan peninsulas, where the Ob River empties into the Kara Sea. There are also mineral developments in the Arctic areas of Krasnoyarsk Krai and The Republic of Sakha (Yakutia), as well as plans for expanded port infrastructure on the Chukchi Peninsula at the eastern end of the Northern Sea Route. The nearly 2 million people in Russian Arctic territories may be the largest Arctic national population, but this is far shy of what it would take to develop a truly connected and robust region capable of sustaining a broad economic base or supplying the manpower and presence necessary to ensure security along the long opening coastline.
What to Watch
For Russia, then, the opening Arctic provides both opportunity and risk. For much of Russia's history, the country has been oriented south, looking to spread its influence and at times its borders to warmer seas. The Arctic was a shield, even during the Cold War when the polar route was the shortest for strategic aircraft and nuclear missiles. An open Arctic coastline increases foreign activity along Russia's north, and draws increasing interest from Asian nations seeking resources and routes. Russia's FSB has already raised concerns that foreign actors are trying to use Arctic native populations in Russia to undermine Russian strategic security, and the government has established a new review of foreign investment and economic activity in the Arctic to ensure Russian national interests.
New Russian naval development will need to take regular Arctic operations into consideration, not merely through the construction of more than a dozen new icebreakers, but from the design of ships themselves. The longer coastline and increased maritime traffic require a robust observation and communications infrastructure, linked into territorial defense and search and rescue. Russian aviation is expanding Arctic operations, from plans to add heavy drones to maintain surveillance to additional fighter aircraft, and even experiments once again as the Soviets did during the Cold War era with establishing temporary airfields on ice to ensure expanded operational capabilities. Russia is also modifying existing weapons systems and designing new ones for Arctic conditions.
Arctic infrastructure, resource extraction, transit safety and national security all require expenditure, and while the Arctic is a critical component of Russia's GDP, it does not provide the needed resources to fund the rising infrastructure and development needs. Yet for Moscow, Arctic development isn't an option, it is increasingly a necessity. The Russians may have a head start in rebuilding Arctic defense structures and in deploying and building icebreakers, but they are also dealing with a 24,000-kilometer coastline that now needs securing. In the global naval race, Russia remains far behind the United States and China.
Russia's Arctic development is a new priority for Moscow, adding to its existing long land borders, its troubled relations along its former Soviet European frontier, its expanded activity in the Middle East and North Africa, and in the face of a rising China. As we look over the next decade, the shift in Russian geography will play a significant role in how Russia reassesses its international relations and its national priorities.
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Daily Memo: US Deploys to the Arctic, German Trade Plummets
U.S. bombers were deployed to Norway for the first time.
By: Geopolitical Futures
Message to Moscow. The U.S. Air Force is sending B-1B Lancer bombers to Norway for the first time to begin missions within the next three weeks, reportedly as a signal to Russia of Washington’s commitment to defending its allies and the Arctic. Two hundred U.S. personnel will join the bombers in Norway’s Оrland Air Base. In response, Moscow deployed A-50 early warning and control aircraft to the Olenya air base on the Kola Peninsula in Murmansk on Feb. 7. Russia’s Defense Ministry also announced on Tuesday that two Tu-160 strategic bombers have completed a flight over the Barents, Greenland and Norwegian seas.
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April 16, 2021
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Russia's Arctic Buildup
Moscow is building unprecedented military power in the region.
By: Geopolitical Futures
Russia's Military Rise in the Arctic
(click to enlarge)
The Arctic, rich in natural resources and potential, is quickly becoming an area where the interests of major players, especially the United States and Russia, may collide. Russia, which controls significant territory in the region, has for years been increasing and strengthening its defensive positions, developing the northern territories, and modernizing infrastructure, including oil and gas production. It has also developed and tested shipping along the Northern Sea Route, which Moscow puts forward as an alternative trade route between Europe and Asia. Regarding its military presence, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu says it is necessary because competition for access to the Arctic’s resources and for transit routes among the world’s great powers will only grow.
The U.S. State Department has repeatedly voiced concerns about Russian radar stations near Alaska and Russian air bases in the Far North, which the U.S. says could have offensive as well as defensive purposes. Moscow is building unprecedented military power in the Arctic and testing new weapons there, Washington says. Recently, Russia began testing its Belgorod nuclear submarine, which can carry an autonomous, nuclear-powered, nuclear-armed torpedo called the Poseidon. The Kremlin is also making plans to place a radar station on the Novaya Zemlya archipelago capable of detecting hypersonic targets. All this modernization will take time, however, not to mention scarce federal resources.
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https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17283/china-antarctica
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https://www.defenseone.com/ideas/2021/05/blinkens-arctic-opportunities/174127/
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The Geopolitics of Climate Change: Russia’s Paradigm Shift
undefined and Senior VP of Strategic Analysis
Rodger Baker
Senior VP of Strategic Analysis, Stratfor
8 MIN READJun 30, 2021 | 10:00 GMT
A view of Russia’s northernmost military base on the island of Alexandra Land on May 17, 2021.
A view of Russia’s northernmost military base on the island of Alexandra Land on May 17, 2021.
(MAXIME POPOV/AFP via Getty Images)
Editor’s Note: This is part of an occasional series exploring the geopolitical and strategic implications of climate change.
The U.S. Defense Department is increasingly considering climate change in its assessments of future threats and challenges. In numerous reports, climate change implications are often characterized as “threat multipliers” — that is, elements that exacerbate existing trends or instabilities. But there are aspects of climate change that have even deeper implications by changing either the physical geography of particular spaces or their perceived relative significance. These are the geopolitical impacts, ranging from shifts in critical natural resources to the radical transformation of the Arctic.
Changes in climate patterns alter humanity’s interaction with geography directly and indirectly. There are immediate physical impacts, like shifts in land use, water availability, coastlines and soil stability. And there are also secondary impacts, like technological developments to adapt to or alter the physical environment, changes in migration patterns, or new competition over routes and resources.
National power — whether measured in economic opportunity, human capital or military strength — has long been shaped and influenced by geography. Natural resources, however, are not distributed evenly across the globe, nor is arable land, natural transportation routes or conducive conditions. Geography is not deterministic, but it clearly provides uneven opportunities and challenges around the globe. And today we are seeing climate change potentially alter fundamental geopolitical structures, with the Russian Arctic at the forefront.
A New Arctic Emerges
Perhaps the most immediate and obvious impacts of climate change can be seen in the Arctic. A May report by the Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Programme (AMAP) recognized that the Arctic is warming three times faster than the rest of the globe, even faster than reports by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) only a few years ago. With less ice protecting shorelines, winter storm erosion is eating away at coastal villages. Arctic and near-arctic fish stocks are moving to adapt to changing water temperatures. Arctic fires are becoming more frequent and covering greater areas. Thawing permafrost is undermining existing infrastructure around human settlements, military installations, and critical energy and mineral projects. Russia’s Northern Sea Route (NSR), meanwhile, is opening nearly year-round, with increased access even without icebreakers.The U.S. military has taken note of these impacts on its airstrips, radars and missile defense installations in Alaska. Russia, too, has stepped up the modernization of its Arctic defense facilities, and Moscow, as the new Chair of the Arctic Council, is emphasizing managed resource exploitation in the Arctic.
A Map Showing Arctic Sea Ice and Shipping Corridors
Both countries, along with NATO, are increasing military exercises and naval patrols in the Arctic, both for national security and in recognition of the likely increase in search and rescue and disaster response in much more accessible seas. But beyond these reactive aspects, there is a deeper geostrategic change underway — a fundamental restructuring of Russia’s strategic position.
The Thawing Eurasian Heartland
Modern Western geostrategic thought pays homage to British geographer Sir Halford J. Mackinder’s observations at the turn of the last century on the inherent insularity of a Eurasian “Heartland,” as well as on Mackinder and American geopolitician Nicholas Spykman’s considerations of the competition between traditional continental and maritime powers. Mackinder’s primary observation was that the core heartland of Eurasia was largely impenetrable to sea power, but could serve as a base of resources and manpower that, when brought together under a single power, would then be able to exert its power beyond the continent to the surrounding seas. Spykman emphasized that the clash between maritime powers and continental powers would take place where they met along the coastal periphery, or what he called the Rimland.
A Map Showing Russia's Major Rivers and Population Density
Key to the Eurasian heartland concept was the idea that the region had limited access by sea, but could maintain robust internal lines of communication, particularly with the advent of rail. This heartland was protected by strategic depth (something the French and Germans both discovered at different times in their drives toward Moscow), and was shielded along its entire northern frontier by ice. The rivers of the heartland also drained into inland seas, or into the inaccessible Arctic — limiting their use as internal transit corridors, but also as routes of maritime access and invasion.
These ideas shaped U.S. strategic thinking in its intervention in World War II, as well as its containment of the Soviet Union during the Cold War. And they remain alive today, as the United States sees China’s Belt and Road Initiative as just the latest attempt by a Eurasian continental power to connect Eurasia and Africa and harness its inherent resources and strength.
A Shift in Russia’s Strategic Perspective
Despite the interest in Arctic and Far East resources, Russia has traditionally oriented away from its icy Arctic frontier, pushing either west toward Europe, south toward the Middle East and India, or east toward the Pacific coast. This has included attempts to access alternative sea routes and resources, as Russia’s naval reach is geographically constrained by bottlenecks in the Baltic and Black Seas or by Japan along the Pacific coast.
A more open and less frozen Arctic fundamentally alters Russia’s geography. It provides greater access to critical energy and mineral resources and, most significantly, opens a vast new maritime frontier. Moscow has placed the Arctic at center stage in its future economic development. Russia is investing in the infrastructure necessary to monitor and control the NSR. It has also announced plans for new rail links connecting its Arctic frontier to the core of Russia west of the Urals, and has launched an incentive drive to coax more internal migration into the Arctic and Far East regions.
A Mixed Blessing
Moscow has rapidly rebuilt its long depleted Cold War defense architecture along the Northern frontier, recognizing that access to the seas is not just a benefit, but a potential threat. Despite new efforts, Russia still has a minimal population in the Arctic, a poorly developed transportation infrastructure to link the Russian core to its Arctic frontier, and sees this newly open Northern flank as a strategic vulnerability. Moscow’s attempts to control all shipping through the NSR is but one additional response to this mixed blessing of an open Arctic.
From a geopolitical perspective, a Russia that now has an extensive coastline is a fundamentally different Russia than ever encountered in history. If Moscow is able to connect its Arctic frontier to its traditional core and take advantage of both the resources and the routes, it can begin to mitigate the traditional Western containment strategies, opening the path for a new dynamic in Russian strategic thought.
Rarely does geography change so quickly and so radically across such a broad space. A man-made example would be the opening of the Panama Canal, a transformative geopolitical event that allowed the United States to be not just a trans-continental power, but a two-ocean power. The opening of the Arctic provides similar new strategic opportunities for Russia if it is able to develop the infrastructure along its new maritime frontier. Already Moscow is building transshipment ports at each end of the NSR to better facilitate trans-Arctic transit and establish Russia in control of a key alternative link between Asia and Europe. The warming climate also opens the possibility for shifting land use in the Russian Far East, in addition to expanded resource extraction.
Great Power Competition
But it also creates new risks for Russia by opening maritime access to its competitors and opponents across a long and unprotected coast. Russian and Chinese cooperation in developing Russia’s Arctic energy infrastructure is tainted by differences in views on the use of the NSR. Russia considers the NSR internal waters, subject to Russian control and transit fees, while China considers it international waters, open to free passage. And Beijing is also exploring ways to sail further north, bypassing Russia’s NSR altogether.
China’s growing interest in the Arctic, coupled with Russia’s expanded military facilities, have also triggered responsive attention and actions in Europe and the United States. With the deployment of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter to supplement the F-22, Alaska is emerging as the largest concentration of fifth-generation fighters in the world. The U.S. Army is also reshaping its Arctic strategy, stepping up Cold Weather training. And the U.S. Navy is slowly resuming Arctic patrols as well. In addition, the United States is stepping up joint bilateral and multilateral training and exercises in Arctic areas with Canada and Europe, as well as with its Pacific partners. Renewed calls to keep the Arctic a “zone of peace” are complicated by the physical realities of climate change in the Arctic, and by national responses.
As attention to the Arctic increases, Russia is faced with a new strategic reality. It must shift its traditional southward focus and secure its newly open northern flank, while also trying to encourage internal population migration and fund infrastructure to facilitate connectivity and resource development. Russia’s relations with the West remain strained, and its strategic partnership with China hides underlying distrust and a growing imbalance of power in Beijing’s favor. Russia’s new need for more robust naval capabilities will compete with its longstanding risks along its extensive land borders. How Moscow manages these competing geopolitical realities will determine whether the opening of the Arctic is a new opportunity for Russia to reshape its future, or a new risk that leaves Moscow vulnerable as the world changes around it.
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https://freebeacon.com/national-security/chinese-arctic-incursion-spooks-lawmakers/
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Icebreaker gap gives Russia lead in Arctic control
Coast Guard sends distress signals to Congress
BY MIKE GLENN THE WASHINGTON TIMES
A Seattle-based Coast Guard cutter is almost halfway through a monthslong voyage that took it through the ice-choked Northwest Passage north of Canada and will eventually result in a circumnavigation of North America once it transits the Panama Canal and returns home.
The mission of the USCGC Healy, a 420-foot medium icebreaker, was to stage military exercises alongside allies such as Canada and carry out highlatitude scientific research. Another assignment was to demonstrate a U.S. presence in the Arctic as long-term warming trends reduce the ice and dramatically increase maritime traffic in the region.
One problem for American strategists seeking to make a statement: By itself, the 22-year-old Healy represents exactly 50% of the U.S. Coast Guard’s “fleet” of active polar icebreakers. Russia, by contrast, boasts dozens and is building more. Other states vying for influence and resources in the Arctic also outpace the U.S.
The USCGC Polar Star, also based in Seattle, is a heavy icebreaker and even older. It was commissioned in 1976. A third USCG heavy icebreaker, the Polar Sea, is being cannibalized to provide parts for its sister ship. For years, Coast Guard officials have
been pleading with Congress to help bulk up the icebreaker fleet to ensure continued access to the polar regions.
With Russia and China making a concerted push for influence in the Arctic, the lagging American presence is even more glaring in light of the Pentagon’s strategy of focusing on “great power” rivals.
“We absolutely need to be up in the Arctic and down in Antarctica on a more persistent basis than we are today. Great power competition is alive and well there,” Adm. Karl Schultz, commandant of the Coast Guard, told the House Homeland Security Committee at a hearing this summer.
Russia has at least 40 heavy icebreakers, including six that are nuclear-powered, and intends to use the northern sea route through the Arctic as essentially an economic toll road, Adm. Schultz said.
“There will be freedom-of-navigation issues in the future,” Adm. Schultz warned.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has made the development of the Arctic a strategic priority and moved to make sure Moscow plays the dominant role. The Agence France-Presse news service reported this month that Russian state corporate giants such as Gazprom Neft, Norilsk Nickel and Rosneft are already exploring for oil, gas and minerals in the Arctic.
“The Arctic region has enormous potential,” Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak told AFP. “In terms of resources, we’re talking about 15 billion metric tons of oil and 100 trillion cubic meters of gas, enough for tens if not hundreds of years,” he said.
In 2019, the Coast Guard and the Navy awarded a $745 million design and construction contract for up to three polar security cutters to Mississippi-based VT Halter Marine. The contract includes options that could push the price tag to more than $1.9 billion.
The new cutters “will fill a current, definitive need for the Coast Guard’s statutory mission and provide support for other mission needs in the higher latitudes vital to the economic vitality, scientific inquiry, and national interests of the United States,” company officials said.
The first ship delivery is scheduled for 2024, the second for 2025 and the last for early 2027, VT Halter Marine said.
The U.S. has been an Arctic nation since it purchased Alaska from Russia in 1867. The Arctic Circle is the source of untapped oil and gas reserves along with rare earth minerals. Vessels like the Healy and the Polar Star are the most effective tools for maintaining access to the icy regions for scientific, economic and security purposes, advocates say.
“They definitely are invaluable. We really do rely on these ships to be able to get deep into what ice remains and take measurements, said Jim Thomson, an oceanographer at the University of Washington. “It’s unfortunate how limited that capability is. I would almost use the word ‘embarrassing.’” Even with the global warming trends, parts of the Arctic and Antarctic are impassable without an icebreaker, Mr. Thomson said.
“When these platforms are available, I’d give us pretty high marks of making good use of them,” he said. “It can’t really overstate it. It’s an essential tool for this kind of work.”
Russia accounts for more than half of the Arctic Ocean coastline, so the Kremlin’s fixation on high-latitude opportunities might be understandable. China, though not an Arctic nation, also has ambitions to become a major player in the region. Beijing says it needs an Arctic presence and access as it builds up a global trading economy second only to that of the U.S. It is constructing a fleet of icebreakers as part of a “Polar Silk Road” initiative.
Officials at Coast Guard headquarters in Washington said the geopolitical environment in the Arctic region is changing as allies and adversaries contend for economic and strategic advantage.
“Russia and China exemplify that strategic competition,” the Coast Guard said in a statement. “Both have declared the Arctic a strategic priority. Both have made significant investments in new or refurbished capabilities and both are attempting to exert direct or indirect influence across the region.”
Malte Humpert, the founder of The Arctic Institute, a Washington-based think tank, said the northern sea route was frozen year-round with little to no commercial traffic as late as the early 2000s.
“Suddenly, climate change is offering this opportunity for Russia to access resources that previously would have been impossible. Now you have a whole new ocean that is opening up,” he said. “It’s a new theater of engagement — just like the Mediterranean, the Atlantic or Pacific.”
Heavy icebreakers like the Polar Star are capable of cutting through ice at least 10 feet thick. Medium cutters like the Healy can break through ice packs about 8 feet thick. But years of crashing through the ice have taken their toll on both vessels.
In 2018, the Polar Star had major mechanical problems while carving a path through the Ross Sea in Antarctica for its annual Operation Deep Freeze mission to resupply McMurdo Station, the primary U.S. hub there. After a fire on the Healy last year, Coast Guard officials scrapped a key excursion to help broaden the U.S. footprint in the Arctic and push back against Russian expansion.
Sen. Dan Sullivan, Alaska Republican, said Russia has opened more than a dozen deep-water ports, military bases and airfields in the Arctic as part of its push to control the region.
“Without persistent U.S. presence in the Arctic, we risk leaving an opening for these types of aggressive actions to continue,” Mr. Sullivan said in a statement provided to The Washington Times. “Our rivals in Moscow and Beijing already acknowledge and are acting upon the Arctic’s geopolitical significance, and it is well past time for the U.S. to do the same.”
The Coast Guard this year awarded a $119 million contract to Mare Island Dry Dock in California to keep the Polar Star running for at least another four years until the first new-generation polar security cutter joins the fleet. The work will be performed in stages so the Coat Guard can still meet missions such as Operation Deep Freeze, officials said.
For the past two decades, the polar regions took a back seat as U.S. political and military leaders focused on Iraq and Afghanistan. Even now, it will be a challenge to keep policymakers’ attention on the Arctic and Antarctic, Mr. Humpert said.
“This needs to be part of a sustained effort,” he said. “It really starts with Congress. They appropriated trillions of dollars to Afghanistan and Iraq, [and] the same needs to happen to the Arctic.”
Rep. Don Young, Alaska Republican, said the wealth of resources in the Arctic means the future belongs to whoever controls the region. The Coast Guard’s coming polar security cutters are only part of the solution, he said.
“The second part is securing the physical infrastructure to support homeporting [and] deployment in and to Alaska,” he said in a statement. “America is an Arctic nation only because of Alaska, and it is time we utilize our state’s unique positioning to enhance our national security and ensure peace and stability in the region in the decades ahead.”
‘Embarrassing’
Wear and tear
HUMBLE BEGINNING: The Coast Guard Cutter Healy (left) and the Cutter Polar Star are the only active polar icebreakers in the U.S. “fleet.” Russia, meanwhile, boasts dozens and is building more. ASSOCIATED PRESS
The U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Healy is a medium cutter that can break through ice packs 8 feet thick. Its sister ship, the Polar Star, is a heavy cutter that can cut through ice at least 10 feet thick. Years of crashing through ice have taken their toll on both vessels.
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NATO Tensions Reinforce and Complicate Russia's Arctic Ambitions
undefined and Senior VP of Strategic Analysis
Rodger Baker
Senior VP of Strategic Analysis, Stratfor
9 MIN READMar 17, 2022 | 14:59 GMT
A Russian serviceman stands guard by a military truck on Alexandra Land, the largest island in Russia's Franz Josef Land archipelago in the Arctic Ocean, in May 2021.
A Russian serviceman stands guard by a military truck on Alexandra Land, the largest island in Russia's Franz Josef Land archipelago in the Arctic Ocean, in May 2021.
(MAXIME POPOV/AFP via Getty Images)
The Ukraine invasion has returned NATO's attention to Russia as a strategic threat, which has in turn only fueled Moscow's perception of the Western security bloc as an expansionist force. As a result, the whole of the Russia-NATO contact line has been brought back into play — including in the Arctic, where thawing ice is unlocking a plethora of natural resources and transit routes.
For Russia in particular, new Western sanctions related to Ukraine increase the Arctic's economic and strategic importance. But the added financial strain also increases the complexity of realizing Moscow's ambitious vision for the region.
Tapping Into the Arctic's Wealth
Russia is in the midst of an ambitious 15-year plan to increase the amount of infrastructure, people and economic activity in the Arctic. This plan includes extracting mineral resources and expanding oil and gas production in the region, as well as developing a robust transit corridor along Russia's Arctic frontier.
The West's response to the Ukraine invasion has only reinforced Moscow's need to strengthen its Arctic security, particularly as the Arctic holds much of Russia's resource wealth. As Russia assesses its long-term response to Western sanctions, the strategic oil, gas, and mineral resources in the Arctic will be an important component of its future economic security. Despite bans on Russian oil imports by the United States, Europe has struggled to cut off its Russian energy supplies, providing Moscow with a tool to mitigate efforts to isolate or decouple the Russian economy. Russia's Arctic and Far East production of key minerals, including nickel and palladium, provide similarly limited insulation for Moscow against long-term sanctions, as they remain critical to the global energy transition and high-tech trade.
The Arctic routes may also prove an important link in Russia's supply lines to Asia and beyond, particularly if relations with Europe deteriorate further and potentially threaten rail and road connections from Russia and Belarus to the Continent. Prior to the outbreak of COVID-19, Arctic economic activity made-up roughly 10% of Russia's GDP, and nearly 90% of its natural gas output. In a semi-isolated Russia, this resource base will only grow in economic and strategic significance.
If the trend of Western economic separation from Moscow continues, Russia will become increasingly reliant on the Arctic's energy, mineral and timber resources for national revenue and as a way to mitigate deeper economic isolation. The challenge for Russia is to find the money and technical expertise to develop its Arctic resources fully, while not finding itself overly dependent on China.
Economic Challenges to Russia's Arctic Ambitions
New Western sanctions complicate Russia's plans for the Arctic, which was an already challenging prospect even before the added financial fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic and, more recently, the Ukraine invasion. The sanctions and individual company responses to the war in Ukraine are constraining Russian companies' access to financing and key technologies far beyond those initially imposed following the 2014 annexation of Crimea. The withdrawal of several Western oil companies from Russian Arctic and Far East projects further constrains Russia's operations, and potential Chinese expertise may not be able to quickly replace their Western counterpart's roles and capabilities.
Russia must also contend with the longer-term implications of sanctions and shifting European politics. Europe has not immediately cut its imports of Russian oil and gas. However, this latest crisis involving Russia's Ukraine invasion — coupled with long-term energy transition plans — will drive European countries, key among them Germany, to more readily seek ways to wean off of their over-dependence on Russian supplies. Plans for new liquified natural gas (LNG) terminals and the suspension of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline project between Germany and Russia will incentivize new import sourcing for Europe, though this will take time.
If the political and economic isolation of Russia continues, Moscow will find itself even more dependent on China as a market and investor, solidifying Russia as the weaker partner and raising longer-term tensions between Moscow and Beijing. While Moscow is currently focused on securing its European frontier, China — which sits along Russia's exposed southern and eastern flanks — is also expanding its economic and political influence throughout Central Asia, adding to Moscow's long-term strategic challenges.
NATO's Response in the Arctic
In addition to the economic challenges, Russia faces a more active NATO in the Arctic. Moscow has already spent the last decade reinforcing its Arctic security forces as the warming climate opens up once-frozen transit routes in the region. But while the fighting is far from Russia's northern frontier, the war in Ukraine is also reinforcing the Arctic's strategic significance to Russia's national defense, as Moscow increasingly views NATO activity anywhere as a strategic threat to core Russian interests — a perception that has been reinforced in recent years by a series of agreements among NATO and non-NATO members in the European North, particularly Norway, Finland, Sweden and Denmark.
The Russia-Ukraine war has brought support for NATO membership to a new high in Sweden and Finland — two of the eight countries in the world with territory in the Arctic Circle (with the others including Russia, Canada, the United States, Norway, Denmark and Iceland). It's currently unlikely Finland and Sweden will rapidly shift their semi-neutral stance and join the North Atlantic defense bloc, which would leave Russia as the only non-NATO Arctic state. But their trend toward expanded defense cooperation and planning will still be seen in Moscow as shifting Arctic nation relations from a multipolar format to a nominally bi-polar structure — with Russia on one side, and NATO and its aligned countries on the other.
Regardless of Finland and Sweden's future standing in the Western security alliance, the Ukraine invasion has reawakened NATO to the Russian threat. The Arctic is the shortest route between Russia and North America, making it a key focal point of strategic competition. Russia's not-so-subtle threats of nuclear weapons as a deterrent to NATO intervention in Ukraine have highlighted the Arctic's traditional role as the frontline between potentially opposing nuclear forces, as the region serves as the shortest route for nuclear missiles and nuclear-armed strategic bombers, as well as a hiding place for nuclear missile submarines. In addition to these traditional Cold War systems, the shifting Arctic climate and advances in technology are increasingly bringing surface combatants and land forces to the Atlantic Arctic frontier.
Even prior to Russia's Ukraine invasion, NATO and individual NATO members have stepped up Arctic exercises and training in and around Norway. New U.S. Arctic strategies are also directing new funding, infrastructure and increased training near Russia's Pacific Arctic frontier in Alaska. So while the thawing Arctic offers Russia a new key strategic route to manage far-flung threats from both ends of the Eurasian continent, it also serves as a potential vulnerability by melting the ice wall that has helped shield Russia from invasion and containment.
Implications for the Arctic
Increased attention to and tensions in the Arctic over the next several years have several implications for Russia, Europe and North America:
The Arctic Council, the primary body for managing regional cooperation and stability, may find itself more politicized as a result of Russia's economic and political isolation. The eight states with territory in the Arctic make up the permanent members of the Arctic Council. Without Russia, the body loses its ability to manage broader Arctic issues, as Russia fronts half of the Arctic coastline. This may open opportunities for ''near-Arctic'' China and others to assert the need for a new Arctic management mechanism that is more inclusive of non-Arctic countries.
Joint scientific research in the Arctic may also fall victim to growing strategic tension between Russia and the West. This is significant for climate research, but also for research over maritime food stocks. Changes in ocean temperatures are already driving locational changes of key commercial fish and other ocean foodstuffs. Fish do not respect international borders, and weakened Russian-Western scientific cooperation can impact fisheries rights, and contribute to potential clashes over contested fishing grounds. In the South China Sea, such tensions have nearly led to war. Along the Arctic frontier, fisheries can quickly become caught up in strategic competition — impacting livelihoods, food security, and potentially triggering clashes near Norway or the Bering Sea.
Rising Arctic tensions will bring Greenland back to the forefront, with the United States and NATO seeking expanded access. A nascent independence movement on the island could become integrated into any discussions of an increased military presence or of access to critical minerals in Greenland as a way to ease dependence on other international sources. Complex Greenland/Denmark/U.S. relations provide an opportunity for political interference by Russia or China, each for their own ends.
As Arctic military training and patrols increase, there is a parallel increase in the risk of accidental confrontations or miscalculations. Russia and NATO have long had communication channels and ways to de-escalate, but these are not always followed or effective. NATO (and more recently Japan) and Russia regularly scramble their own interceptors and fighters to shadow flights of the others' strategic aircraft, but the opening of Arctic waters is adding more surface maritime activity — creating new areas for possible miscalculation, not least because these activities often overlap with commercial fishing and shipping operations.
A final implication comes from China, a self-proclaimed near-Arctic nation. Beijing sees the Arctic as a key component of its broader strategic connectivity plans. But both its Arctic maritime routes and its rail routes across Eurasia to Europe may be interrupted by European economic restrictions on Russia. China is likely to seek its own Arctic routes, north of Russia's Northern Sea Route, which will increase Chinese surveying and scientific vessels in the Arctic — ships that may serve dual military purposes.
Bringing the Arctic Back Into Focus
Since the end of the Cold War up until about a decade ago, the United States' security focus on Russia and the Arctic took a backseat to more pressing threats. But this has started to change in tandem with the Arctic's increasingly accessible landscape and Russia's increasingly aggressive behavior. Washington and, more recently, its European allies are now seeing the Arctic as an area of increased strategic threat, which is in turn only fueling Moscow's interest in the region. The 2014 Ukraine crisis and Russia's annexation of Crimea triggered a renewed NATO focus on Russia — not just as a neighbor, but once again as a strategic opponent. But it took the full Russian invasion of Ukraine to bring this into sharp focus.
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China's Opportunity to Break Into Arctic Governance
9 MIN READMay 13, 2022 | 20:15 GMT
Polar bears in Essen Bay off the coast of Zemlya Georga -- an island in the Franz Josef Land archipelago -- on August 22, 2021.
Polar bears in Essen Bay off the coast of Zemlya Georga -- an island in the Franz Josef Land archipelago -- on August 22, 2021.
(Photo by Ekaterina Anisimova/AFP via Getty Images)
Following the Russian re-invasion of Ukraine, seven of the eight Arctic Council members (all aside from Russia) suspended participation in council activities, as Russia is currently the Arctic Council chair. Representatives of these nations will meet soon to discuss how to maintain collaborative Arctic governance and determine what level of cooperation with Russia will be necessary, particularly in areas of scientific research and fishery management. But the pause, which is unlikely to be lifted anytime soon, provides an opportunity for China to call for a new Arctic governance structure. Beijing sees this as the moment to further internationalize Arctic governance, giving China a greater say and softening the grip of the eight geographically Arctic nations.
Although international law and norms hold sway in the Arctic, both at sea and on land, the Arctic Council serves as a focused body to collaboratively manage Arctic development and current and future issues (aside from traditional security). Established in 1996 by the eight nations with territory north of the Arctic Circle, the Arctic Council is a post-Cold War creation built around the idea of active and equal participation of all Arctic nations — most notably Russia, which accounts for nearly a third of Arctic land and was at the time transitioning from Soviet-era isolation to a new inclusion in the international system. A year after the formation of the Arctic Council, for example, Russia was invited to join the Group of Seven nations (Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States), another sign of Western attempts to include Russia in the Western-led liberal economic and global order. While Russia was suspended from the then-Group of Eight after its 2014 annexation of Crimea, Russia remained an active participant in the Arctic Council and even took on its second two-year rotational role as chair in May 2021.
While the Arctic Council is dominated by the eight Arctic nations and special representation from Indigenous Arctic communities, the council has slowly expanded through the introduction of official observer states. In 2006 and 2007, China began working with the Arctic Council, seeking to engage with and gain a foothold in future Arctic governance. In 2013, the council finally admitted China as one of six countries granted permanent observer status. Beijing is also active in the Arctic Circle, a forum established in 2013 with much wider membership and participation, where China can drive areas of focus and collaboration and seek to insert its own views of Arctic management and access. For China, both groups, as well as several other international bodies and organizations, provide space for asserting Chinese interests in future Arctic development.
One of Beijing's biggest concerns with the Arctic Council structure is that it locks Arctic management in the hands of the current eight Arctic nations, constraining the roles of all others. In 2018, China declared itself a "near Arctic nation," to both mirth and concern among the Arctic countries. But from Beijing's perspective, the phrase is an assertion of China's right to play a larger role in Arctic governance and future use, whether measured by China's (tenuous) geographic propinquity, its share of the global population (and thus need for resources) or its share of global economic activity (and thus potential contribution to future development).
Beijing asserts that, as the Arctic is a critical aspect of the global climate system, it is in the interest of all nations to play a role in Arctic management. Thus, the Arctic is the common heritage of humankind, a region of global concern and an area of abundant resources that should be more "equitably" accessible to nations beyond the eight Arctic countries. Although China agreed to abide by the current rules and norms in the Arctic as part of its observer status in the Arctic Council, Beijing wants to play a bigger role in shaping future Arctic governance and development. "Internationalizing" Arctic governance would serve several goals for Beijing.
First, the region is a storehouse of natural resources, including hydrocarbons, critical minerals, abundant fish and other maritime food stocks. As the climate continues to shift, opening new areas of the Arctic, Beijing wants to ensure it has a key role in shaping any future agreements on access to Arctic resources.
Second, Beijing sees the area as a key future transit region. China currently cooperates with Russia on its Northern Sea Route, but Beijing counters Moscow's assertion that the NSR is internal Russian waters and instead asserts that the route is an international straight (and thus transit should not be constrained by Russian rules or fees). Beijing is also eyeing the future opening of the Trans-Polar Route, which would bypass either Russian or Canadian claims of internal passage. By keeping active in the Arctic region through scientific, commercial and potentially military presence, China is establishing its "right" to shape any future agreements on Arctic transit. This not only has commercial value for Beijing but also allows China a role in changing the strategic nuclear balance in the Arctic via submarines.
Third, China sees Arctic governance in a similar context as Antarctic governance — models of international control that are exclusionary, keeping China out due to history or geography, despite China's population and economic heft. Adjustments in one could crack the governance of the other open as well.
Finally, the polar regions serve as areas for China to take a leadership role in establishing new forms of global governance. The polar areas are, from Beijing's perspective, some of the last global frontiers, along with the deep seas. These are areas where China can focus its efforts to assert its right as a major global power to revise or write new global agreements for access and regulation — agreements that are not necessarily constrained by Western liberal ideologies. These "frontier" areas may also serve as models for China's desire to set the new rules for access to resources in space, including the moon.
Beijing has long argued that current global norms and standards are not globally representative, rather that they reflect a North Atlantic system put in place following World War II that once represented the core of global economic power. But the world has evolved since the 1940s, and the post-World War II order does not match the social, political or economic historical norms of most of the world, which had little say in the past. Therefore, Beijing argues that it is time to begin readjusting these global norms and mechanisms to better represent other countries, not just a handful of European and North American liberal democracies. Cracking Arctic governance would begin eroding the seams of broader global governance.
With the current suspension of Arctic Council actions, China may be positioned to renew its argument for a better and more representative governance structure. The likely move by Finland and Sweden to join NATO would only reinforce China's position, as it would divide the Arctic between NATO nations and Russia — effectively forcing the security dynamic into the equation and making it harder to separate Arctic collaboration from Arctic competition. There are already voices in the Arctic nations wondering whether the Arctic Council can survive the loss of Russia or ever re-engage Moscow. There are also concerns about China trying to internationalize Arctic governance by breaking out of Cold War- and Western-centric mindsets and moving toward a more equitable system of management (meaning one with a greater role for China).
Any move to re-frame the Arctic Council to permanently suspend Russia would embolden China to work with Moscow to promote an alternative forum for global Arctic governance. The West's political constraints make the Russia dilemma nearly insoluble. As an intergovernmental body, the Arctic Council effectively requires the members to either engage with Russia as a state fully on issues of the Arctic, or somehow separate Russian government membership from the actions of specific government bodies and private actors in areas such as science, search and rescue, or fisheries management. The latter seems unacceptable to Moscow, the former distasteful to the United States and many of the European members, particularly with the increased attention to Arctic defense. If the remaining seven Arctic Council members seek to proceed with their own cooperation and hope for a future change after Russia's chairmanship lapses in 2023, they reinforce China's position that the Arctic Council has devolved from a cooperative forum to a competitive one, thus needing to be replaced in the interest of world peace.
Beijing does not need to act overtly to exploit the cracks in the seams of Arctic governance. China may simply call for a greater role for observer states during the current suspension, using cooperation now as a way to strengthen its future influence without overtly challenging the current organization. Beijing could also work through the Arctic Circle, which is often seen as an end-around to the more closed Arctic Council, informally strengthening the Arctic Circle's role and influence while the Arctic Council sits in limbo. In both these cases, China may enlist other interested nations, such as India, which seeks greater Arctic access and continues to walk a careful line of cooperation between Russia and the West.
But at the bolder end of the spectrum, Beijing could simply heighten its Arctic cooperation with Russia, exploiting Moscow's economic losses to gain greater traction in shaping Russian Arctic development and expanding its own presence in the Arctic as an assertion of its right to shape future rules. Or China could even begin making the argument that the breakdown of the Arctic Council and the rising "Cold War mentality" of NATO and Russia make the Arctic Council itself largely moot, and with the urgent need to consider climate change impacts and maintain the Arctic as a "zone of peace and cooperation," it needs U.N. oversight, reformation or eventual replacement.
As the seven other Arctic Council members prepare to meet without Russia and seek near- and mid-term solutions to coordination and collaboration, they will watch China's responses closely. Most Arctic nations remain committed to keeping regional management in regional hands, but the longer relations with Russia remain on hold, the more likely a new, internationalized Arctic governance model becomes.
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https://www.wsj.com/articles/sweden-and-finland-will-help-nato-confront-russia-in-the-arctic-ice-submarine-nuclear-11654786841?mod=opinion_lead_pos6
Three Russian submarines, seemingly equipped to carry 16 ballistic missiles with multiple nuclear warheads, simultaneously broke through the ice near the North Pole in March 2021. The boats were soon joined by two MiG-31 aircraft and ground troops participating in Umka-2021, a Russian Arctic military exercise that signaled a new and dangerous era for the polar region and the world. But Sweden’s and Finland’s accession to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization provides an opportunity to contain the Kremlin’s strategy for domination of the Arctic and North Pole.
Thanks to climate change, the Arctic has increasingly become a navigable sea route. The maximum ice coverage hit the lowest level on record, 5.57 million square miles, in 2017. One model suggests the Arctic Ocean could be largely free of ice in summer by 2035, although some experts say the mid-2040s is more realistic. This means that nations bordering the Arctic, including the U.S. and Russia, will have an enormous stake in who has access to and control of the resources of this energy- and mineral-rich region as well as the new sea routes for global commerce the melt-off is creating. Forty-three of the nearly 60 large oil and natural-gas fields that have been discovered in the Arctic are in Russia, according to a 2009 American Energy Department report. Eleven are in Canada, six in Alaska and one in Norway.
With this in mind, Russia has been active in taking advantage of the retreat of sea ice to militarize the region. U.S. Alaska Command reported that it intercepted more Russian military aircraft near the Alaska Air Defense Identification Zone in 2020 than at any other time since the Cold War. In 2007, Artur Chilingarov, a Russian Duma member, led a submarine expedition to the North Pole and planted a Russian flag on the seabed. Later he declared: “The Arctic is Russian.”
While China isn’t an Arctic country, Beijing has also shown a keen interest in the region. Besides eyeing the Arctic’s rich energy deposits (perhaps 30% of world’s unexplored natural-gas reserves), the Chinese know new shipping routes through the Arctic would provide a route from East Asia to Europe that is about 8,000 miles long. The one most often traversed now, which runs through the Suez Canal, is roughly 13,000 miles. Ships would save between 10 to 15 days of travel.
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Chinese business interests have made bids for Arctic real estate. In 2016, China attempted to buy an old military base in Greenland before Denmark blocked the purchase as a favor to the U.S. In 2018 a Chinese company even tried to build an airport near the U.S. base at Thule, Greenland, again without success. More alarmingly, Chinese officials tried to buy Finland’s Kemijärvi air base in Lapland, ostensibly to conduct Arctic research. Finland blocked the sale, reasonably fearing that plans to expand the airport to handle large Chinese aircraft could have other, more sinister purposes.
The U.S. has been slow in developing an Arctic strategy of its own. The region is mentioned only once in the 2017 National Security Strategy and not at all in the 2018 National Defense Strategy. Although the Biden administration has yet to make public its 2022 National Defense Strategy, the Pentagon did issue an Arctic strategy document in 2019, and the Air Force and Navy have their own versions. But these are isolated documents with no plans for coordination of operations or resources—let alone with fellow members of NATO, such as Canada, that also have a vital stake in the Arctic.
NATO hasn’t done much better—its joint statement after the 2021 summit mentioned “the High North” exactly once—but that could change. Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine made the allies acutely aware of the threat Russia poses, and in Sweden and Finland, it will gain nations capable of leading Arctic strategy. Until now, the loudest advocate inside NATO for security in the Arctic has been Norway. In March it conducted Cold Response, a 30,000-strong Arctic military exercise, including forces from Finland and Sweden.
Now all three Nordic nations will be able to work to secure the Arctic through NATO. Both Finland and Sweden bring quite a bit to the table. Finland is a leader in icebreaker ship building, while the Swedish navy has a quiet and highly effective submarine fleet, which will be crucial for polar defense. Of the eight nations that are permanent members of the Arctic Council—the principal intergovernmental forum for coordinating Arctic policy—all but Russia are or soon will be NATO members (the U.S., Canada, Denmark, Norway, Iceland, Sweden and Finland). The alliance has an opportunity to develop a robust Arctic strategy to contain Russia and China. It’s vital that NATO protect freedom of navigation and the Arctic’s abundant natural resources for the future.
The first order of business for NATO should be conducting joint exercises in the Arctic, especially naval exercises and ballistic-missile-defense drills. Russia could use long-range missiles and naval assets in the Russian Arctic to threaten NATO in the Atlantic or the Baltic. The alliance needs to demonstrate a capability to meet that threat, which ought to include working with non-Arctic NATO members like the Baltic republics.
The alliance should also develop an outreach program for the Arctic’s indigenous peoples, who are also represented on the Arctic Council as permanent members through various indigenous peoples’ organizations. Norway, Denmark (which governs Greenland) and Canada already work with their indigenous populations to improve relations, which includes military operational procedures. NATO should do the same and make clear that a strong and resilient alliance presence benefits all the people living in the region.
NATO would also be wise to use its June summit in Madrid to establish an Arctic Strategy Task Force that can plan and coordinate a joint response to Russian aggression, among other things by creating a network of high-altitude unmanned aircraft to keep persistent watch over the region and share intelligence and data, including satellite links, among allies.
The alliance should also hold its next summit above the Arctic Circle. Choosing a Norwegian city such as Tromsø or Bodø would clearly demonstrate that NATO takes threats to this region seriously.
Mr. Putin believes the Arctic is Moscow’s exclusive enclave. NATO and Washington need to demonstrate the opposite: Keeping the Arctic region free and open is the best policy for our respective national interests as well as global stability and peace.
Mr. Herman is senior fellow at the Hudson Institute and author of “The Viking Heart: How Scandinavians Conquered the World.”
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China in the Arctic. In an article published in Canada’s Globe and Mail newspaper, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said Russia’s activities in the Arctic were a strategic challenge for the alliance. He noted that Russia had significantly increased its military activity in the Arctic, which is increasingly a major focus for world powers. China is also expanding its presence there, declaring itself a subarctic state and planning a Polar Silk Road connecting China to Europe via the Arctic.
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Russia Occupies American Land, Too
The U.S. should reclaim Wrangel Island, which Lenin’s gunboat Red October seized in 1924.
By Thomas Emanuel Dans
Nov. 4, 2022 6:25 pm ET
Wrangel Island in the Arctic Ocean.
PHOTO: SYLVAIN CORDIER/GAMMA-RAPHO VIA GETTY IMAGES
This week, an obscure Russian environmental publication challenged the Kremlin’s move to waive the country’s environmental restrictions so its military could hold war games on a distant island in the Arctic Ocean.
The writers were no doubt courageous but missed a bigger problem. The island, eight time zones east of Moscow and home to some of Earth’s greatest natural wonders, belongs to the U.S.
As Vladimir Putin pursues his illegal war on Ukraine, he avoids inconvenient truths from Russia’s Soviet past. Among them, Russia has been holding U.S. territory since 1924.
Only once in its history has the U.S. ceded control of its territory to a hostile power. That was to the marauding forces of another Vladimir—Lenin—and it’s the saga of America’s lost Arctic islands. They remain under Russian control, and the U.S. should demand them back.
One hundred years ago Lenin’s Bolshevik henchmen on the Soviet gunboat Red October seized the islands from American settlers. They arrested the settlers and detained them for years, with some dying in captivity. Joseph Stalin’s forces subsequently used the islands to imprison and torture dissidents, including Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg.
Today the islands are home to a state-of-the-art Russian military base, from which Mr. Putin can threaten American sovereignty. Last month, the U.S. Air Force intercepted Russian bombers menacing Alaska’s borders, part of a projection of force where Wrangel Island plays a strategic role.
On Aug. 12, 1881, U.S. Revenue Cutter Service Capt. Calvin L. Hooper and his crew landed on Wrangel Island, a roughly 2,900-square-mile uninhabited island in the Arctic Ocean 270 miles northwest of Cape Lisburne, Alaska. On the banks of the Clark River, Hooper and his fellow officers of the U.S. Revenue Marine Steamer Thomas Corwin raised the American flag and took possession of the island.
That day, Hooper was in the middle of the Arctic fulfilling his duties as commander of the Bering Sea Patrol, a part of the Treasury Department that would later become the Coast Guard. As America’s senior official in the young District of Alaska, Hooper was also the de facto governor of Alaska, tasked with overseeing the territory, which had been formed following the purchase by the U.S. 14 years earlier.
Hooper and his crew, including naturalist John Muir, had been ordered by Congress to rescue a U.S. Arctic research vessel, the USS Jeannette. The rescue ultimately failed, but as it happened, only weeks before the Corwin’s arrival at Wrangel Island, the Jeannette’s Lt. Cmdr. George Washington De Long and his crew—still alive but having abandoned ship after an ordeal trapped in the Arctic ice floe—discovered and claimed the nearby Bennet, Henrietta and Jeannette islands, which today are also held by Russia.
In the decades that followed, American and Russian publications recognized U.S. sovereignty over Wrangel. In 1921 the island saw its first party of permanent settlers. Three years later, on Aug. 20, 1924, the Soviet gunboat Red October arrived with a company of Red Army infantry. Taking the 14 American settlers prisoner, the Red October transferred them to captivity in the Russian port of Vladivostok, where they remained for years. At the time, the settlement was owned by Lomen Brothers, a Nome, Alaska, reindeer and trapping company, which along with the state of Alaska maintains its claim to this day.
Roughly the size of Delaware and Rhode Island combined, Wrangel is no barren Arctic wasteland. Aside from its Russian military base, the island features the world’s highest density of polar bear dens and Pacific walruses, more than 400 species of plants and 100 species of migratory birds, many endangered. It was home to the world’s last woolly mammoths, prehistoric creatures that survived there until a few thousand years ago. Indications are that what lies underground at Wrangel could be no less valuable, including potentially large quantities of oil, gas and other minerals.
If Mr. Putin has forgotten this history, Joe Biden may well remember it. Thirty years ago he ran the Senate Foreign Relations Committee debate during which Sen. Frank Murkowski (R., Alaska) said that a vote in favor of a 1991 U.S.-Russia boundary treaty would in no way prejudice potential future U.S. claims to the islands. Sen. Jesse Helms (R., N.C.) also emphasized this, saying, “I doubt that the State Department will make use of the opportunity to press U.S. claims to the five islands—even though the right to do so is preserved.”
Today, that opportunity has just made land.
Mr. Dans is a co-founder and portfolio manager at Amberwave Partners, an investment manager. He served as counselor to the U.S. Treasury undersecretary for international affairs (2020-21) and as a Commissioner of the U.S. Arctic Research Commission (2021).
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https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2023/jan/24/polar-opposite-chinas-growing-push-antarctica-spar/?utm_source=Boomtrain&utm_medium=subscriber&utm_campaign=dive_deeper&utm_term=newsletter&bt_ee=c4tJZhca8IqHPzpj2CIKYQ0ES0aYLjL1%2FAbU6ezgpTxjxmeOxTLDbSiNaKpNWF0f&bt_ts=1674855615467
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https://jamestown.org/program/amid-russias-problems-china-assumes-a-larger-role-in-the-arctic/?fbclid=IwAR3C2gz5-evXINsu02115YX-Az8W3xSB0NyR-Ku5pUVC_v9VBOUz3qv4KSU
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In the Arctic, Russia's Geopolitical Isolation Opens New Doors for China
undefined and Director, Stratfor Center for Applied Geopolitics at RANE
Rodger Baker
Director, Stratfor Center for Applied Geopolitics at RANE, Stratfor
May 16, 2023 | 19:34 GMT
Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang (3rd from right), Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Store (4th from left) and members of their delegations meet in Oslo, Norway, on May 12, 2023.
Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang (3rd from right), Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Store (4th from left) and members of their delegations meet in Oslo, Norway, on May 12, 2023.
(TERJE PEDERSEN/NTB/AFP via Getty Images)
The transfer of Arctic Council leadership in 2023 from Russia to Norway will not end the uncertainty over the organization's activities and role, but China is positioning for a greater role regardless of how things evolve. On May 11, Norway took over the two-year rotating chairmanship of the Arctic Council, ending Russia's troublesome term. Oslo has been forthright in noting that the Arctic Council cannot simply pick up activities as if things are normal with Russia, but neither can there be effective Arctic cooperation without some engagement with Moscow or at least Russian entities. As the Arctic Council seeks to resume activities and balance the political isolation of Russia, China has offered its services as a friendly mediator to bridge the gap with Russia. Beijing also signed security and economic development deals with Moscow, ensuring China a stronger voice as the future of Arctic governance comes into question.
From Cooperation to Competition
The Arctic Council long stood as a post-Cold War example of cooperation between Russia, the United States and Europe — an area that was supposed to be ''a genuine zone of peace and fruitful cooperation,'' as then Soviet Communist General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev said in his 1987 speech in Murmansk. In 1991, shortly before the collapse of the Soviet Union, the eight nations with Arctic territory began a series of dialogues and agreements that ultimately led to the formation of the Arctic Council in 1996. The Council has served in many ways as the gatekeeper of the Arctic, coordinating scientific research, managing political, social and economic relations among members, and driving management and regulation of the broader Arctic region. While the Arctic Council has expanded to allow observer states a role, including China, the eight Arctic nations have jealously guarded their central position within the organization and in global Arctic governance as a whole.
Despite Russia's military actions in Georgia in 2008 and Ukraine in 2014, the Arctic Council continued to keep itself largely separate from strategic competition below the Arctic Circle. In part, this was intentional. The Arctic Council has no mandate to discuss or deal with military issues and, in fact, precluded them from its agendas, thus insulating it from shifting geopolitical balances. But as Russia began rebuilding its Arctic military infrastructure in the late 2000s and through the 2010s, the United States began to take note. In 2019, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo challenged protocol to criticize Russian and Chinese Arctic actions on the eve of the Arctic Council meeting. While most Council members continued to adhere to the restriction on addressing security matters, things changed with the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, a year after Moscow took the chairmanship of the Council. In March 2022, the so-called Arctic 7 (Canada, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden and the United States) issued a statement suspending their involvement in the Arctic Council. A few months later, they resumed limited cooperation within the Council framework, but only on issues that did not involve Russian participation.
Moscow had stepped into the role of Arctic leadership with grand ambitions and a focus on Arctic development, despite the ongoing COVID-19 crisis having interrupted Arctic collaboration. Russia holds the largest land territory in the Arctic, has the largest Arctic population, and by far the largest Arctic economy of any of the Council members, and Moscow had adapted to changing ice patterns to both re-strengthen its Arctic defense and expand its goals for Arctic resource extraction and transit routes. Scientific cooperation in the Arctic was dependent on Russia's participation, given its large territory. The decision of the Arctic 7 not only stopped their work with Moscow but interrupted the interaction of many of the observer states.
U.S. and European sanctions on Russia and the rising cost of a longer-than-expected war in Ukraine forced Moscow to shift its Arctic development priorities, slow many planned infrastructure projects and refocus its attention on collaboration with China and non-European states. The accession of Finland to NATO and the likely inclusion of Sweden soon added another layer of complication to peaceful Arctic coordination, as the Arctic Council will now be split between NATO and Russia, leaving no even nominally neutral parties as core members.
Disruptions to Arctic Cooperation
The Arctic 7 decision to suspend Council activities triggered concern not only in Moscow but among the Indigenous representatives to the Council and the Observer states, none of which were consulted before the decision was made. This will further complicate Norway's ability as chair to bring some sense of normalcy to the Arctic Council activities, even beyond the question of what to do about Russia. The Arctic Council is unique in providing Permanent Participant status to six Arctic Indigenous People's organizations, giving them consultative rights that were overlooked or denied in the political decision to suspend Council activities during Russia's tenure. The Arctic 7 will need to either address the concerns of the Indigenous representatives or risk providing Russia or China space to exploit the perceived sidelining of their voices. China has used formal and informal relations with Indigenous groups and organizations to spread its influence, claiming itself as the voice of the developing world, anti-colonialism and the rights of the under-represented (despite restrictions on many of its own domestic ethnic minorities).
The sidelining of the observer states, particularly those from Asia, may present an even bigger challenge for the future of the Arctic Council and the protection of Arctic governance by Arctic nations. Beijing has been clear that the Arctic Council activities are largely untenable without the inclusion of Moscow, given Russia accounts for half of the Arctic region. China has also long argued that the Arctic should be an area of international, rather than regional, management, as Arctic issues have global impacts. There are hints from India that New Delhi is unsatisfied with the idea of a divided Arctic Council or being constrained by Western interests in engagement with Russia in the Arctic. India continues to walk a careful line between its economic and security cooperation with Moscow and Washington, but New Delhi is benefitting from Russian Arctic energy supplies, and Indian companies may find new opportunities in Russian Arctic development as Moscow seeks to replace Western investment and participation and simultaneously expand Arctic infrastructure and resource extraction.
Moscow has already offered small incentives for non-Arctic states to increase bilateral and multilateral cooperation with Russia in the Arctic, bypassing the Arctic Council and Western involvement. Russia's Ambassador at Large for the Arctic Cooperation Nikolay Korchunov extended an invitation to Gulf and Latin American countries to participate in Arctic research at the Snezhinka international scientific station in the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Region earlier this year. Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Chernyshenko offered to reciprocate joint scientific and climate research with Vietnam, offering Hanoi opportunities for Arctic research parallel to Russia's tropical research in Vietnam. Russian Minister of the Development of the Russian Far East and Arctic Alexei Chekunkov also suggested that the BRICS nations could cooperate in Arctic research at Russia's facilities on Svalbard. On the security front, Russia hosted representatives from 13 countries, including Iran, Saudi Arabia and Kazakhstan, at its recent Secure Arctic 2023 exercises in April, and Moscow and Beijing signed a memorandum between their coast guards to increase cooperation in Arctic maritime security, with plans for Chinese participation in future multilateral Arctic maritime exercises.
China's Arctic Opportunities
As Russia reaches out to strengthen Arctic cooperation with non-Arctic nations to counter its likely continued shunning at the Arctic Council, China has expanded its cooperation with Russia and offered to serve as a bridge between Russia and the Arctic 7 to ease potential tensions in the Arctic. China has numerous bilateral projects and agreements with European Arctic nations and a robust Arctic research program on land and at sea. Beijing has been a source of funding for Arctic projects and development and has expanded its reach among the Arctic and ''near Arctic'' nations through its active role in the Arctic Circle, a wider body of Arctic-interested nations focused on economic activity. For China, the Arctic is a region of rich future resources, an alternative route between Asia and Europe and a key region for managing strategic competition with the United States (the shortest route for missiles and aircraft is via the Arctic, not across the Pacific). The international implications of climate change and changes in the Arctic provide Beijing with a clear case to reshape global governance away from a North-Atlantic-centric model toward one where China and the Global South have a greater say.
The United States is increasingly concerned about China's growing Arctic interest and activity (Chinese fishing fleets have operated just outside U.S. Arctic territory, Chinese naval vessels have carried out operations with Russia near Alaska and Chinese maritime and atmospheric research including ships and balloons — seen as dual-use — have frequently operated over and around the U.S. Arctic). But many European nations and numerous non-Arctic states elsewhere see China as an important partner for funding, joint research, or as a voice to expand involvement in Arctic governance beyond Russia and the Arctic 7.
China, then, is positioned to see its role in Arctic management, investment and governance expand. Beijing is critical for Russia's continued development of its own Arctic resources as well as the Northern Sea Route, and China's involvement may encourage other countries, like India or the Gulf States, to take a more active role in Russian Arctic and Far East resources and infrastructure. China is also a bridge for Norway and the Arctic Council to facilitate some slow, targeted resumption of scientific cooperation with Russia, particularly in environmental monitoring. Beijing will use this leverage and its own investments as assets to press for a broadening of international involvement in the Arctic region, pushing back against the closed model represented by the Arctic Council.
Beijing sees the Council as one more example of the North Atlantic powers retaining a stranglehold on international rules. Given the significance of the Arctic for global climate monitoring (not to mention current and future resources), Beijing is asserting its right to play a more active role in Arctic development and governance. The rift in the Arctic Council provides China with the opportunity to press this claim both inside and outside the Arctic Council. However the Council manages its split relations with Moscow, Beijing has already gained ground in concrete terms in the Russian Arctic and is likely to see its role rise within the Arctic Council, even if only as a mediator with Russia. While the United States and its partners are likely to push against a stronger Chinese role, that may only serve to further weaken the cohesiveness of the remaining Arctic 7, giving Beijing even more justification to press for a new global governance model for the Arctic, one where it will play a lead role and further reshape the Post-WWII U.S.-led international order.
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China to Wage War on America from the Arctic
by Gordon G. Chang • July 24, 2023 at 5:00 am
This month, Hong Kong's South China Morning Post reported that the Shanghai-based Polar Research Institute of China revealed that "China has completed the field testing and evaluation of an underwater listening device that will be deployed on a large scale in the Arctic Ocean."
The innocuous-sounding report tells us that China intends to wage war against the United States and Canada from the Arctic.
Other than this buoy, the institute said, China had "never planted a listening device there."
That assertion is not truthful. Last fall, the Canadian military, according to Canada's Globe and Mail in February, removed buoys placed by China in Canadian waters in the Arctic.
"China is now covertly preparing the groundwork for militarization of the largely undefended northern territory and critical Arctic sea routes." — Charles Burton of the Ottawa-based Macdonald-Laurier Institute, to Gatestone, July 2023.
All of this data is needed to listen for submarines, specifically American ones. China wants to track and destroy American subs from the top of the world before they can flood into Asian waters.
The U.S.'s generous "engagement" approach to China has resulted in China obtaining observer status in the Arctic Council although no Chinese territory is in or near the Arctic.
China already has two permanent research stations in the Arctic, one in Norway and the other in Iceland. That is two too many.
[F]or China the Arctic is primarily a military domain. In addition to the buoys they are leaving in the Arctic, the Chinese are surveilling the area by air. The spy balloon that flew over the lower 48 states this year initially crossed into Alaska and Western Canada.
China is not only pressing the United States and Canada from the north. In the other direction, China is establishing military bases in South America and the Caribbean and is infiltrating saboteurs across the border with Mexico. The Biden administration is allowing a hostile state to go hard against America from all sides. A menacing China is now everywhere in the Western Hemisphere.
[F]or China the Arctic is primarily a military domain. In addition to the buoys they are leaving in the Arctic, the Chinese are surveilling the area by air. Pictured: The Chinese research vessel and ice-breaker Xuelong arrives in China's Fujian province on June 27, 2010, in preparation for sailing to the Arctic. (Photo by STR/AFP via Getty Images)
This month, Hong Kong's South China Morning Post reported that the Shanghai-based Polar Research Institute of China revealed that "China has completed the field testing and evaluation of an underwater listening device that will be deployed on a large scale in the Arctic Ocean."
The innocuous-sounding report tells us that China intends to wage war against the United States and Canada from the Arctic.
China had installed the "polar subglacial shallow surface acoustic monitoring buoy system" on floating ice in the Arctic on August 9, 2021. Information obtained by the device was uplinked to Chinese satellites.