The battle for the Arctic
The great
powers have embarked on a new scramble for the Arctic, as profitable sea routes
open up in melting ice. But unless we can salvage the region’s fragile ecology,
all humanity’s fortunes will sink
ByKlaus Dodds&Rachel Halliburton
March 29, 2021
The Arctic
might be one of the coldest regions on the planet but temperatures there are
rising three times more quickly than elsewhere. Its sea ice is melting: last
year, the volume of Arctic ice reached the second-lowest level ever recorded.
This isn’t just a crisis for polar bears; the ice’s reflection of solar
radiation—known as the “albedo effect”—is a check on global warming. As the ice
recedes, more sunlight is absorbed into the oceans, stepping up the rate of
climate change.
While the
concept of “zombie fires” sounds like something out of Dawn of the Dead, they are real and increasingly
devastating to the Arctic. These fires are almost impossible to extinguish
because they smoulder underground in peatbogs. They contributed to the eruption
of wildfires across Siberia, Alaska and northern Canada that emitted an
estimated 244 megatonnes of CO2 between January and August 2020. Satellite data showed that this was
35 per cent more than Arctic wildfires generated over the whole of 2019.
The US National
Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has warned that 2020 saw a “sustained
transformation to a warmer, less frozen and biologically changed Arctic.” More
pithily, the US-based National Snow and Ice Data Center described that year in
the region as “persistently peculiar.”
What happens in
the Arctic doesn’t stay in the Arctic. Both zombie fires and melting ice are
vicious circles, with the power to accelerate climate change across the globe.
Meteorologists can directly trace the severe winter storms that struck the
southern United States in February of this year to shifts in weather systems
around the North Pole.
But where
environmentalists discern only catastrophe, others spy opportunity: as the ice
recedes, the chance to extract resources, grow tourism, build digital
infrastructure and open up new shipping routes grows. And where economic
opportunity lurks, political power play is rarely far behind.
A chilling new Suez
As Texas
battened down the hatches in February, two Russian vessels—a liquefied natural
gas tanker and a nuclear icebreaker—completed a historic first. The two ships
made a winter transit of the eastern sector of the Northern Sea Route (along
the Siberian coastline, from Jiangsu in China to the Russian port of Sabetta).
Normally, sea ice would make such a journey impossible at this time of year.
Ships have only been able to travel the full Northern Sea Route (also known as
the Northeast Passage) between July and November, although traffic within these
months has been getting busier, with an unprecedented 62 ships sailing the
route in 2020. Improvements in “ice-strengthening” engineering also help,
although the Russian tanker needed substantial repairs at the end of its
journey.
In a world in
which 80 per cent of goods are still shipped by sea, new options for crossing
continents are inevitably a big deal for multinationals, and potentially
consumers. Where shipping from Japan to Rotterdam would normally involve the
Suez Canal and take 30 days (or rather longer, if a ship gets wedged across it
after losing control of steering, as happened with an enormous Taiwanese vessel
in March), it could take as little as 18 days with the Northern Sea Route.
Similarly, if a ship travelled from New York to Japan, it would usually go via
the Panama Canal and take 25 days. But by taking the Northwest Passage through
the Arctic, it could knock four days off the journey. Beyond this, there is now
the Transpolar Route—controversial because it will only be fully viable when
more sea ice has receded. This cuts from the Atlantic to the Pacific straight
through the centre of the Arctic Ocean, potentially shaving one to two days off
the other Arctic itineraries. It’s been of special interest to China since one
of its icebreakers, the Xue Long (Snow
Dragon), completed the tricky navigation in summer 2012. As well as being
speedier, the Transpolar Route will allow traders to avoid Russian bureaucracy,
permit costs and ice-breaker support that are necessary for the Northern Sea
Route.
The Russian port of Sabetta, recently established to take advantage of
opening sea routes © Alexander Ryumin\TASS via Getty Images
The vast
mineral treasures hidden beneath the Arctic ice are, on their own, the kind of
prize that has often attracted rivalry and a scramble for conquest. Recent
estimates say the Arctic contains 90bn barrels of undiscovered oil, 17 trillion
cubic feet of undiscovered gas and 44bn barrels of natural gas liquids. But
this potential for new crossings adds another dimension. Throughout history,
wars have been fought over warm water ports and nautical crossings that give
strategic and commercial advantages. Trans-continental connections have often
been a special flashpoint. During the first century of the Suez Canal’s
existence, the many tussles there embroiled not only the French and the British
along with the thoroughfare’s Egyptian hosts, but at times drew in Japan,
Israel and the US. Now, as the planet warms, the Arctic is fast becoming a new
crucible.
Mapping the problem
The most
obviously interested parties are the eight members of the Arctic Council, the
intergovernmental forum of the states that have territory in the region. In
terms of sheer scale, Russia predominates: it is sovereign over more than half
of all Arctic land. It also leads the charge on visible military presence, with
weapons like the recently tested Tsirkon hypersonic cruise missile, its
impressive fleet of almost 50 icebreakers, and—more quaintly—proudly publicised
infantry manoeuvres involving huskies and reindeer. At the end of February, it
cemented its influence from space, sending up a satellite—the Arktika M—to
monitor the region’s climate and environment.
Under Donald
Trump, the US—on the Council because of Alaska—developed a characteristically
chest-beating approach. Trump seemed especially interested in mining: an
awareness of rare-earth metals probably lay behind his ludicrous (but not
unique) suggestion of “buying” Greenland in 2019. Yet he was no more capable of
consistent geopolitical strategy here than anywhere else.
Since Joe
Biden’s election, however, the US has shifted gears. Biden has launched a US
army training programme called “Arctic Warrior” to develop skills in “cold
weather warfare” that were mothballed after the Cold War. In February, he sent
four US Air Force bombers and 200 personnel to Ørland Air Station in Norway,
350 miles south of the Arctic Circle. Normally the US military monitors the
Arctic from a British base; being based in Norway enables a swifter response to
any signs of Russian aggression.
Click to enlarge
Less than a
week later, Denmark revealed that it too was going to boost defence spending by
$250m in response to the Russian build-up. Its surveillance capabilities will
be improved by drones in Greenland (where it is sovereign) and sophisticated
air radar in the Faroe Islands.
The new rivalry
is not confined to Council members. China defines itself as a “near-Arctic”
nation, with ambitions to make those opening ocean routes into a “Polar Silk
Road.” China first gained a notional foothold through the 1925 Svalbard Treaty
which, while determining that the archipelago was Norwegian territory, gave other
signatories the same rights to access it. With impressive far-sightedness,
China made sure it was one of them. A lifetime later, in 2003, the People’s
Republic established the Yellow River Station in Svalbard and its presence
became a physical one. By 2018, China was co-operating with Iceland to create a
joint Arctic Science Observatory, and haggling over buying or leasing an
airport in Lapland, something the Finnish Defence Ministry ultimately blocked.
The global
extent of the phenomenon is demonstrated by the fact that, this January, even
India released a draft Arctic policy. Delhi rationalised it by pointing to the
“intricate link between conditions in the Arctic and the monsoon and Himalayan
systems.” Britain too has shown its hand, announcing a regular Royal Navy
presence there from early March as part of an international bid to make sure
that Russia and China cannot monopolise the new trade routes.
Among the
Arctic Council’s members, Canada’s Justin Trudeau is getting almost as worried
about China as Biden is about Russian expansionism. In December, he blocked the
Chinese state-owned company, Shandong Gold Mining, from buying a goldmine on
national security grounds. The mine is close to both Canada’s Northwest Passage
and to US and Canadian early warning radar facilities and underwater monitoring
systems.
“With so much at stake, the very mapping of the Arctic
has become intensely political”
With so much at
stake, the very mapping of the Arctic has become intensely political. Back in
1997, an international scientific mission to document the sea floor was
launched in St Petersburg. Despite its stated neutral intent, the resulting
charts always had geopolitical implications. The UN Convention on the Law of
the Sea gives scope for coastal states to extend sovereign rights, or—put more
bluntly—to launch sub-sea land grabs. An underwater mountain range called the
Lomonosov Ridge has become a particularly contested prize: Canada, Denmark and
Russia all see it as an extension of their own territories. In 2007, Russia
pointedly planted a flag on the ridge, just two and a half miles below the
North Pole, after a UN specialist body rebuffed its first official bid for
sovereign rights. Since then, it has reapplied and both Denmark and Canada have
made submissions. The commission’s recommendation is pending, but Moscow’s
interest doesn’t wait. In October, two Russian ships were sent to collect
further data for new high-tech maps of the ridge to bolster its claim.
China too—which
maintains that the Arctic is an international space—is indulging in creative
cartography. Its policy is framed by a polar-centred map that depicts the US
and China as being separated by the Arctic rather than the Pacific Ocean, a
flip in geographical thinking so brazen that Beijing would not have dared adopt
it before the sea ice began melting away.
Window-dressing vs the
world
How bad could
the power tussle get? Gloomier Arctic members of Nato, such as Norway, look
back at Russia’s behaviour in Georgia, Syria and Ukraine and shudder. A visit
to Norway’s cavernous joint military headquarters in Bodø is telling. A large
screen constantly monitors traffic in and around the country’s northern
borderland with Russia. Oslo also keeps a vigilant eye trained on another
“frontline”—the Barents Sea to Norway’s immediate north. Some there even ask if
the Russians could “do a Crimea” in the Arctic. Defence planners will tell you,
in confidence, that they worry about Svalbard, about 1,000km from northern
Norway. Imagine a routine argument about fishing quotas, for example, being
used to deploy “grey zone” tactics and sow chaos. A misplaced fishing vessel
could end up being seized by the other side, potentially acting as a dangerous
trigger.
Allies like
Iceland and indeed the UK urge Nato to take a similarly muscular stand, but
Alliance states whose geographical focus is further south tend to see the
Arctic as a distraction. For all the grandstanding and military posturing in
the region, a “hot” war is not the gravest danger—the chances of that are
remote. A lot of the positioning is captured by the Russian term pokazukha, usually translated as
“window-dressing”—showing off to scare or impress. What we are in for is best
described as a very cold war.
Locals of Baffin Island, Canada, which has seen a surge in shipping traffic
© Rachel Halliburton
A bigger threat
than any physical conflict is that while the world is distracted by a classic
power struggle, the fragile Arctic ecosystem will be ruined. That would inflict
collateral damage on all of us—the supposed “victors” included.
Drilling for
oil and extracting gas is, both through its direct effect on the local
environment and its carbon contribution to climate chaos, the most damaging
activity possible for the region. Professor Martin Siegert, the co-director of
Imperial College’s Grantham Institute for Climate Change, explains:
“introducing oil production leads to catastrophes, as we saw with the Russian
oil spill last year,” when 20,000 tonnes of diesel oil leaked into a river in
Siberia.
And in the
design of energy projects, there are signs of the anti-western alliance that is
the subject of dark warnings at Nato conferences: in December 2019, the “Power
of Siberia” pipeline was inaugurated, a joint investment project between
Gazprom and the China National Petroleum Corporation that promises to transport
Russian gas to Chinese markets over a 3,000km network.
A Russian flag is planted on top of the deepwater Lomonosov Ridge, in a
provocative declaration of sovereignty © AFP PHOTO / NTV
But the west is
in no position to demonise its rivals for putting short-term profit ahead of
long-terms costs for the planet. Many oil companies from many nations have
exploration plans. These include the British-Dutch multinational Shell and,
until 2018, America’s ExxonMobil, which partnered with Russia’s Rosneft before
US sanctions on Moscow forced it to pull out. Yet money has a way of working
around politics: Rosneft’s Arctic projects continued regardless. In November
2020 its £111bn Vostok Oil project was announced, which will potentially access
five billion tonnes of oil as well as introducing two new airports, 15 industry
towns and a pipeline. The nearby port of Sabetta—built between 2012 and 2020 to
be the Arctic’s biggest shipping destination, as well as part of a major
liquefied natural gas project—will give easy access to the Northern Sea Route.
While many
nations are involved, a distinct Russian grand strategy—combining resource
development with militarisation, in a way Stalin would have recognised—aims to
make the most of the country’s Arctic assets by 2035. Which, in no small irony,
is the year that environmentalists are warning the Arctic’s sea ice could
disappear.
Northern lights
It is not all
doom and gloom in the Arctic. Prior to the pandemic, smaller states like
Iceland and Finland were investing heavily in tourism in response to the surge
of well-heeled visitors, especially from China; in the small Norwegian town of
Kirkenes they enjoyed the chilled-chic of an ice hotel. The Northern Lights is
big business. In our own separate visits to the region in recent years, the
buzz of change has often been palpable. Cranes litter the skyline of little
Iqaluit, on Canada’s Baffin Island, where the products of a building boom
include two new luxury hotels and a deep seaport. While some locals worry about
the pressure on creaking infrastructure, others talk excitedly about the
opportunities to take wealthy foreign tourists heli-skiing or snowmobiling, to
watch nature at the ice floe edge.
More signs of money
and influence are on show at the annual Arctic Assembly in Iceland and the
Arctic Frontiers conference in northern Norway. Until the virus struck, these
lavish political and commercial marketplaces were drawing a cosmopolitan crowd:
you might hear the Singaporean Arctic ambassador Sam Tan and Scottish first
minister Nicola Sturgeon speak in the morning, and Chinese shipping executives
in the afternoon.
The Arctic
Circle conference hosted in Shanghai in 2019 (just a month before Nato hosted
its own Arctic get-together) was a fascinating showcase of ambition. Before
entering the auditorium, visitors could admire models of China’s two
icebreakers, alongside a polar bear made out of resin. That creature, so
threatened by thinning sea-ice, was an unintentional reminder of the
frightening direction in which the region is headed. But the rising superpower
continues to see opportunities and not only in damaging mining projects; its
presence is felt in everything from Icelandic
geothermal energy projects to the Canadian coldwater shrimp industry.
Digital
connectivity is another big interest— one that is shared with America.
Globally, sub-sea cabling is responsible for handling 99 per cent of digital
traffic. What everyone wants is a fast, high-capacity route that criss-crosses
the world’s oceans. The melting of ice in the previously non-negotiable Arctic
Ocean is seen as creating opportunities for such infrastructure. On top of this
the Arctic environment is viewed as prime for data centres, because its low temperatures
mean that money can automatically be saved on cooling them down. Russia has its
own plans for what it terms Northern Digital Stream 1. It has teamed up with
Finland on an ambitious plan for an internationally funded, trans-Arctic
undersea communication cable called Arctic Connect. Moscow is also—somewhat
warily, amid concerns about data security—exploring partnerships with China
Telecom and Huawei Marine.
“The treasures of the Arctic are provoking a furious
competition for control that nobody can win”
All this serves
to highlight that while there are obvious dangers in rivalry, co-operation
holds risks of its own. Direct investment from powers like China is becoming
politically—and even socially—hard to resist, because of the opportunities that
come with a new mine or airport.
Take the ugly
row that erupted earlier this year over a proposed mining project in
Greenland’s Kvanefjeld, for the extraction of uranium and rare earth metals.
The question of whether Greenland Minerals—an Australian company backed by the
Chinese Shenghe Resoures Holding—should be given permission to go ahead saw
some local government ministers receive death threats. Ultimately it caused the
ruling coalition in the capital, Nuuk, to splinter. The project’s fate will be
determined by whoever wins the snap election planned for this April.
Conversely,
Trudeau came under fire after imposing a five-year ban on drilling in the
Beaufort Sea. Environmentally it was a good move, but indigenous leaders in
Nunavut and the Northwest Territories condemned him for shutting down the
potential for good jobs and economic growth. Just because wider humanity faces
an ecological-civilisational crisis, it does not follow that all Arctic
inhabitants are opposed to further development. The Inuit have been at the
forefront of those warning of the consequences of climate change, but poverty,
substance abuse and suicide are also pressing problems. Outside interest in
local resources can provide a chance to focus global attention on the needs of
their communities.
But more
broadly, the importance of preserving the Arctic is beyond argument, and not
least for those who live there. Its singular treasures and opportunities are
provoking furious competition, and the temperature is now rising politically as
well as meteorologically. But as the ice sheets melt, permafrost thaws, sea
levels rise and zombie fires take hold, this could prove to be a competition
that nobody can win.
Whatever
decisions the security professionals take, the greatest problem of all is the
collective human rampage that will, if unchecked, destroy the region. The
events of the last six months provide little reassurance. The Arctic is not
doomed—for now. Yet it will struggle to survive in a world where microplastics
end up entombed in floating sea ice, while a Russian flagpole lies on the
seabed below.
We want to hear what you think about this article.
Submit a letter to letters@prospect-magazine.co.uk
Klaus Dodds is
professor of geopolitics at Royal Holloway, University of London and the author
of “Border Wars” (Ebury) as well as several books on the Arctic
Rachel Halliburton is
former editor of Avaunt magazine and curator of the
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