Arctic Security
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The author argues that while there has been cooperation on extracting the Arctic’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."
[ More ]The rapid melting of the polar ice cap is turning the once ice-clogged waters off northern Alaska into a navigable ocean, and the rush to grab the region's abundant oil and mineral resources via new shipping lanes is posing safety and security concerns for Coast Guard patrols.
[ More ]To the world's military leaders, the debate over climate change is long over. They are preparing for a new kind of Cold War in the Arctic, anticipating that rising temperatures there will open up a treasure trove of resources, long-dreamed-of sea lanes and a slew of potential conflicts.
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Since 2007, in large part due to aggressive Russian posturing, the Arctic region has become a bone of contention among members of the Arctic Council as well as a subject of international concern. While the signing of the Russo-Norwegian treaty on September 15 put an end to disputes over seabed and maritime borders between two claimants of the region, the Arctic issue has seen the emergence of a critical Asian dimension as it becomes the source of cooperation as well as simmering tension between Russia and China.
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The primary argument against the potential for conflict in the Arctic is that political leaders are appealing to international institutions to resolve disputes before they become militarized. A corollary to this argument is that, via the trappings of economic interdependence, Russia’s need for advanced technology to locate and exploit its potentially vast reserves of hydrocarbons will sufficiently weigh in Moscow’s political calculus to prevent Russia from taking militarized action against neighbors to defend its political-economic claims in the region. Given the reality of political objectives, actions, and intentions, coupled with the dearth of reliably interdependent economic ties, this chapter has exposed these “mitigating factors” against conflict as little more than wishful thinking.
While it is undeniable that the Arctic states are using international institutions focused on Arctic issues, they appear to do so out of political convenience—not out of a commitment to peaceful cooperation. The participating nations all actively pursue a combined environmental and safety agenda with their partners through the Arctic Council. Its charter, however, explicitly bans the organization from discussing issues related to military security, a point reinforced by the Ilulissat Declaration of the five Arctic states: that no legal enforcement regime other than the UNCLOS is needed in the region.
Meanwhile, Russia’s actions and rhetoric in the Arctic leave no room to deduce anything but a firm and committed intent on the part of its leadership to secure its claims. There have been scant, if any, peaceful actions undertaken by the Putin and Medvedev administrations to back up their peace-seeking rhetoric. Calls for diplomatic resolution of territorial disputes in the Arctic and for working “within existing international agreements and mechanisms” have only been operationalized through agreements to cooperate on search and rescue efforts and on (competitive) scientific exploration and research for submission to the Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf (CLCS), a forum that has no binding authority to settle such disputes. All the while, however, Russia’s ambitious militarization of the Arctic has been clearly reinforced with explicit rhetoric proclaiming its intent to defend its national security interests. For Russia, the natural resources in the Arctic are a national security asset of strategic importance.
Based on the methodology established for this analysis, it can be reasonably assessed that conflict in the Arctic is likely. To put this another way, with a score of 18 out of 24 possible points, there is a 75 percent chance that maritime disputes involving the United States and Russia will occur in the Arctic necessitating the show or use of force to achieve a political objective. It should be reiterated that this assessment is acknowledged to be an analytically subjective conclusion and that the intervals of measurement are notably coarse. The evidence presented in this analysis, however, supports this conclusion. Policy-makers should take care not to discount the physical indicators and declared policies of other Arctic nations when judging the seriousness of their intent to protect their various claims in the region. Advocates of a “Pax Arctica” involving regional cooperation ignore the more pragmatic factors underlying international relations and the actual limits of international institutions and economic incentives in restraining actors’ behavior in an anarchic system.
Finally, in the longer term, the gradual opening of Arctic waterways to commercial traffic on a seasonal basis by 2030 will increase the need for persistent and pervasive constabulary patrols by all Arctic nations in order to regulate this activity. Not only will more ice-capable patrol vessels be required, but so too will be a robust logistics infrastructure, to include basing, transportation, supply, and communications. This third window for conflict in the Arctic will probably occur in the 2030 to 2045 time frame. The increase in commercial traffic activity will heighten tensions in U.S.-Canadian relations if a political compromise on the status of the Northwest Passage has not been reached, keeping in mind that the ultimate status of Russia’s Northeast Passage would be likewise affected. As Canada is extremely sensitive to matters of Arctic sovereignty and Russia is are unlikely to welcome unrestricted movement through its backyard, it should be expected that the same nationalist sentiment that erupted in the Sino-Japanese row over the disputed Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands would likewise be manifest in these cases as well, leading to a quick, and potentially intense, confrontation involving the United States, Russia, and Canada.
Despite the melting icecap's potential to transform global shipping and energy markets, Arctic issues are largely ignored at senior levels in the U.S. State Department and the U.S. National Security Council. The most recent executive statement on the Arctic dates to 1994 and does not mention the retreating ice. But the Arctic's strategic location and immense resource wealth make it an important national interest. Although the melting Arctic holds great promise, it also poses grave dangers. The combination of new shipping routes, trillions of dollars in possible oil and gas resources, and a poorly defined picture of state ownership makes for a toxic brew.
The situation is especially dangerous because there are currently no overarching political or legal structures that can provide for the orderly development of the region or mediate political disagreements over Arctic resources or sea-lanes. The Arctic has always been frozen; as ice turns to water, it is not clear which rules should apply. The rapid melt is also rekindling numerous interstate rivalries and attracting energy-hungry newcomers, such as China, to the region. The Arctic powers are fast approaching diplomatic gridlock, and that could eventually lead to the sort of armed brinkmanship that plagues other territories, such as the desolate but resource-rich Spratly Islands, where multiple states claim sovereignty but no clear picture of ownership exists.
There are also a handful of unresolved issues at play in the Arctic that are not covered under UNCLOS. Between 1958 and 1992, Russia dumped 18 nuclear reactors into the Arctic Ocean, several of them still fully loaded with nuclear fuel. This hazard still needs to be cleaned up. Furthermore, the Arctic region is home to one million indigenous people, who deserve to have a say in the region's future, especially as regards their professed right to continue hunting bowhead whales, their safety alongside what will become bustling shipping lanes, and their rightful share of the economic benefits that Arctic development will bring. With the prospect of newfound energy wealth, there is also growing talk of Greenland petitioning Denmark for political independence. Finally, there has been an explosion in polar tourism, often involving ships unsuited for navigation in the region. Last year, 140 cruise ships carried 4,000 intrepid travelers for holidays off Greenland's icy coast, a dangerous journey in largely uncharted waters.
Until such a solution is found, the Arctic countries are likely to unilaterally grab as much territory as possible and exert sovereign control over opening sea-lanes wherever they can. In this legal no man's land, Arctic states are pursuing their narrowly defined national interests by laying down sonar nets and arming icebreakers to guard their claims. Russia has led the charge with its flag-planting antics this past summer. Moscow has been arguing that a submarine elevation called the Lomonosov Ridge is a natural extension of the Eurasian landmass and that therefore approximately half of the Arctic Ocean is its rightful inheritance. The UN commission that is reviewing the claim sent Russia back to gather additional geological proof, leading Artur Chilingarov, a celebrated Soviet-era explorer and now a close confidant of Russian President Vladimir Putin, to declare, "The Arctic is ours and we should manifest our presence" while leading a mission to the North Pole last summer.
So, with over 300 in attendance from over 40 nations, Hagel outlined the department’s Arctic strategy emphasizing President Obama’s fundamental goal to ensure that “the Arctic region is peaceful, stable, and free of conflict.” Hagel explained how the U.S. would strengthen its military-to-military ties between Arctic nations, specifically referencing Russia, lest minds drift to the “us versus them” mentality of the past century. Indeed, all Arctic nations share a common interest in coordinating military activities for numerous reasons brought on by increasing interest in the Arctic region from nations far and wide.
For example, even though we have seen a drastic loss of multi-year Arctic ice, this does not mean that conditions for maritime activity are any less treacherous. Indeed, increasing marine transit and a desire for exotic tourism will assuredly accelerate the necessity for multinational search and rescue missions. The significance of multi-state cooperation was well illustrated when a Russian research ship, the Akademik Shokalskiy, was stranded in Antarctic ice pack on December 24, 2013. China’s icebreaker, the Xue Long, or Snow Dragon, made the first attempted rescue. But at 6.5 nautical miles from the 74 passengers including scientists, crew, journalists, and tourists, the Xue Long was also stalled in an estimated 4 meters (13 feet) thick ice.
French and Australian icebreakers followed, both of which were unable to break through the heavy ice. The passengers were eventually airlifted by a Chinese helicopter and transferred to an Australian icebreaker. The U.S. icebreaker, the Polar Ice, was en route, when the Akademik Shokalskiy and the Xue Long finally broke free on January 8, 2014. This rescue mission alone took the efforts of four countries, countless personnel, and a yet to be calculated financial expenditures shared among nations that came to the rescue. Simply put, rescue missions in the Polar Regions are costly and require multinational cooperation.
That does not mean, however, that there is no threat of conflict over the Arctic. The danger, in fact, comes from an imbalance of attention. While the United States has largely ignored the Arctic, Russia and non-Arctic powers, especially China, have actively sought to find new geopolitical advantages in the melting ice. As the Arctic develops, it is clear there is a disparity of attention to the region, with some countries seeing it as central to their national affairs, while others, particularly the United States, pay little more than lip-service to their status as an Arctic power. It is this imbalance, and the uncertainty about the priority that the United States places on Arctic affairs, that could cause international misunderstandings or even conflict. This imbalance is apparent in the rush to resources, the promotion of new international trade routes, and—especially—the military power available in the Arctic.
What is certain, however, is that the Russian Arctic-based Northern Fleet is continually “stalked” by American (and perhaps British and French) fast-attack submarines from the moment the Russian sub- marines leave port. While, as noted above, the number of Russian “boomer” patrols has sharply declined since the days of the Cold War, the underwater games of “cat and mouse” continue as before, and several near-collisions have been reported as the Russian subs become increasingly successful in shaking off their American “tails.”54 The Cold War is not entirely over beneath the rapidly melting Arctic ice, and Russia’s nuclear submarine bases north of the Arctic Circle are yet another powerful signal that the Russians intend to enforce their claims in the Arctic. So, while the prospects of major progress on U.S.- Russian bilateral disarmament have never been brighter, the gradual rebuilding of the Russian Northern Fleet’s roster of ballistic missile submarines and the ongoing mission of American SSN’s to track them aggressively has meant increased rather than decreased U.S.-Russian naval competition.