The New Race for the Arctic and Antarctica:

[Crafty_Dog]

 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

[Crafty_Dog]

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

[Crafty_Dog]

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.

[Crafty_Dog]

Russia plans military force to patrol Arctic as 'cold rush' intensifies

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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

[Crafty_Dog]

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.

[Crafty_Dog]

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
Exxon, Rosneft Drilling to Begin in 2015
Exxon in Arctic Deal; U.S. Access for Russia
Exxon's Arctic Deal Is Black Eye for BP
Heard on the Street: Russia's Need Is Exxon's Opportunity
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."

[Crafty_Dog]

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?

[G M]

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.

[prentice crawford]

  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.

Don't Miss
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.

[Crafty_Dog]

BTW, see the post that opens this thread.

[Crafty_Dog]

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/18/business/global/warming-revives-old-dream-of-sea-route-in-russian-arctic.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=tha25

[Crafty_Dog]

http://www.factcheck.org/2012/03/alaskan-island-giveaway/

[Crafty_Dog]

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323751104578149300234713418.html?mod=world_newsreel

[Crafty_Dog]

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.



Related in Opinion
 
Op-Ed Contributors: China Knocks on Iceland’s Door (March 13, 2013)






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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.”

[Crafty_Dog]

 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

[Crafty_Dog]

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
•   
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.”

[Crafty_Dog]

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.

[Crafty_Dog]

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

[Crafty_Dog]

Check out the map with this article 

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303330204579250522717106330?mod=WSJ_hps_LEFTTopStories

[bigdog]

Surely the Navy, and this left wing Pravada are incorrect since global warming is false.

Check out the map with this article 

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303330204579250522717106330?mod=WSJ_hps_LEFTTopStories

[Crafty_Dog]

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 , , ,

[DougMacG]

"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.

[bigdog]

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 , , ,

[Crafty_Dog]

 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
Follow us: @stratfor on Twitter | Stratfor on Facebook

[Crafty_Dog]

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.

[Crafty_Dog]

 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.

[Crafty_Dog]

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/30/world/united-states-russia-arctic-exploration.html?emc=edit_th_20150830&nl=todaysheadlines&nlid=49641193&_r=0

[Crafty_Dog]

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.

[Crafty_Dog]

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.

[Crafty_Dog]

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.

[Crafty_Dog]

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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.

[Crafty_Dog]

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

[Crafty_Dog]

http://foreignpolicy.com/2016/05/24/u-s-falls-behind-in-arctic-great-game/?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=New%20Campaign&utm_term=*Editors%20Picks

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.

[bigdog]

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.'”

[Crafty_Dog]

Very interesting and an excellent contribution to this thread.

[DougMacG]

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.

[ccp]

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

[Crafty_Dog]

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.

[Crafty_Dog]

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.
 


 

[bigdog]

https://www.wilsoncenter.org/article/chinas-growing-arctic-presence

[Crafty_Dog]

    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.

[bigdog]

https://www.defenseone.com/news/2019/01/arctic-warms-us-navy-considering-summer-transit-bering-sea-port/154018/?oref=d-topictop

[Crafty_Dog]

Wonder if this has anything to do with climate change?

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-00007-1?fbclid=IwAR2zUS7GMJ3uPvc80UF8f15zcmYElsPXNi-j3auoy1_QnuUQ3BU-lW2Ldmg

[DougMacG]

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.

[Crafty_Dog]

https://www.lunduniversity.lu.se/lup/publication/2278604

[bigdog]

https://warontherocks.com/2019/02/how-not-to-compete-in-the-arctic-the-blurry-lines-between-friend-and-foe/

[Crafty_Dog]

Very interesting.

[Crafty_Dog]

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

[Crafty_Dog]

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

[Crafty_Dog]

https://www.defenseone.com/technology/2019/05/admiral-us-operating-blind-arctic/156781/?oref=defenseone_today_nl