Arctic Daily

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US can get REMs from Africa

Reuters, 9-9, 23, https://www.cnbc.com/2023/09/10/us-saudi-arabia-in-talks-to-secure-metals-in-africa-wall-street-journal-reports.html

The United States and Saudi Arabia are in talks to secure metals in Africa needed to help them with their energy transitions, the Wall Street Journal reported on Sunday, citing people with knowledge of the talks. A state-backed Saudi venture would buy stakes in mining assets worth $15 billion in African countries such as the Democratic Republic of Congo, Guinea and Namibia, which will permit U.S. companies to have rights to buy some of the production, the report added. The U.S. is in a race to catch up with China for supplies of cobalt, lithium and other metals that are used in electric car batteries, laptops and smartphones. In a similar arrangement in July, Saudi Arabian Mining Co (Ma’aden) (1211.SE) and the Saudi Public Investment Fund (PIF) acquired 10% of Brazilian Vale’s base metal unit, while U.S. investment firm Engine No. 1 acquired 3%. The newspaper said the PIF approached Congo in June about investing in cobalt, copper and tantalum in the country via its $3 billion joint venture with Ma’aden called Manara Minerals. Manara is also focusing on iron ore, nickel and lithium. The White House is seeking the financial backing of other sovereign-wealth funds in the region, but talks with Saudi Arabia have progressed the farthest, the Journal added.

Not just supply but rare earth prices demand US act in Arctic

Reuters, reporters Amy Lv and Mai Nguyen, “Chinese reare earth prices hit 20 month high on Myanmar supply worry, September 7, 2023, https://wealthgrowthdaily.com/chinese-rare-earth-prices/

BEIJING/HANOI (Reuters) –Chinese rare earth prices jumped to their highest in 20 months, as mining suspension in major producer Myanmar sparked stockpiling ahead of the peak consumption season, analysts said on Thursday. Prices of dysprosium oxide leapt to 2,610 yuan ($356) per kilogramme on Wednesday, the highest since May 2022, latest data provided by Shanghai Metals Market (SMM) on LSEG Eikon showed. Terbium oxide prices rose to 8,600 yuan a kilogramme, a level unseen since July 3. Mines in Myanmar’s Pangwa region in Kachin State, the country’s biggest source of rare earth, have been closed from Monday in preparation for inspections during Sept. 6-7, consultancy SMM said in a report on Thursday. “A local miner said they have not resumed production and are waiting for a notice on the next step from the inspection team,” said Yang Jiawen, an analyst at SMM.

Myanmar mines and exports rare earth minerals

Reuters, reporters Amy Lv and Mai Nguyen, “Chinese reare earth prices hit 20 month high on Myanmar supply worry, September 7, 2023, https://wealthgrowthdaily.com/chinese-rare-earth-prices/

Rare earth is a prized group of 17 minerals used in consumer electronics and military equipment. Myanmar accounted for 38% of rare earth imports into China in January-July, Chinese trade data showed, while the Southeast Asian country was the fourth biggest source of rare earth mining in 2022, data by the U.S. Geological Survey showed.

China could have rare earth supply problems

Reuters, reporters Amy Lv and Mai Nguyen, “Chinese reare earth prices hit 20 month high on Myanmar supply worry, September 7, 2023, https://wealthgrowthdaily.com/chinese-rare-earth-prices/

Worry of possible supply disruptions amid environmental inspections in late August in Jiangxi province, one of China’s major rare earth production hubs, also added to the price hike, she added. China’s imports of rare earths surged 76% year-on-year to 12,673 metric tons in August, and volumes in the first eight months jumped 54.4% to 118,426 tons, Chinese trade data showed.

Arctic has 30% of undiscovered oil and natural gas

Biagioni, 9-5, 23, Matilde Biagioni holds a Master’s degree in International Relations from Roma Tre University and is currently Chief Coordinator of the Asia-Pacific team for the Opinio Juris review., The International Spectator, China’s Push-in Strategy in the Arctic and Its Impact on Regional Governance, https://www.iai.it/en/pubblicazioni/chinas-push-strategy-arctic-and-its-impact-regional-governance

In parallel, the enormous potential of Arctic resources has fuelled the growing interest of states in the region. The Arctic is home to 13 per cent and 30 per cent of undiscovered oil and natural gas respectively, as well as large amounts of raw materials and mineral resources.[2]

Arctic key to China’s energy security

China’s dependence on imported oil is currently over 70 per cent and predicted to increase further in the coming years, while imports account for more than 40 per cent of the country’s total natural gas supply.[4] Hence, the Arctic may significantly contribute to Chinese energy security.

Arctic resource development encourages China-Russia ties

To develop the Polar Silk Road and its push-in into the Arctic affairs, China has developed relations with the Arctic states, above all, Russia, Iceland and Greenland.

Following Western sanctions imposed on Russia due to the Ukraine crisis in 2014, Moscow and Beijing have grown closer as strategic allies, and the Arctic has gradually turned into a long-term cooperation region. Russia is a relevant player in the Arctic Council due to its extent and proximity to the Arctic Circle. After 2014, the PRC started to invest in the Yamal project, a joint venture around a liquified natural gas plant located in the North-East of the Yamal Peninsula, in northwest Siberia. In 2016, Chinese banks loaned 12 billion US dollars to the plant, effectively stepping in as a potential lender and covering two-thirds of the project’s external financing demands.[10] China’s National Petroleum Corporation and the Chinese company Silk Road Fund now have a 20 per cent and 9.9 per cent share in the project, respectively.[11] The Yamal plant is paramount because it is one of the Polar Silk Road’s initial projects. It showcases Beijing’s commitment to providing logistical support, such as port building and infrastructure in the Arctic; indeed, Chinese engineers have been involved in the development of infrastructure in the Yamal Peninsula, including a Chinese-made polar drilling rig. Moreover, in April 2023, the Russian and Chinese Coast Guard signed an Arctic cooperation agreement to strengthen maritime law and collaborate on joint exercises in the future.[12] In parallel, pre-existing cooperation between Russia’s and other Arctic states’ coast guards through the Arctic Coast Guard Forum was suspended as a result of Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine, boosting the role of Beijing as a strategic partner for Moscow.[13]

Russia militarizing the Arctic

Katz, 9-5, 23, Breaking Defense, Admiral sounds alarm amid rising Russian, Chinese movement in high north, https://breakingdefense.com/2023/09/admiral-sounds-alarm-amid-rising-russian-chinese-movement-in-high-north/

NORFOLK, Va. — The melting of the polar ice caps combined with increased Russian ship movements is driving “heightened awareness” of the arctic region among US Navy leadership, who are increasingly concerned about the possibility for geopolitical rivals to make unfounded claims to vital sea lanes and natural resources. “Russia has made a decision to militarize that space,” Adm. Daryl Caudle, commander of US Fleet Forces, told Breaking Defense in an interview here in August. “That’s increased our need to actually go pay attention to what they’re doing, to make sure we’re not ceding that territory, to make sure they’re not … first to market in an area that has normally not been heavily transited.” As the head of US Fleet Forces, Caudle is a top advisor and the maritime component commander to US Northern Command chief Gen. Glen VanHerck, whose area of responsibility includes a large portion of the arctic region. (The Navy considers any geography north of the Arctic Circle as part of the region. Specific parts also fall under the responsibility of US European Command and US Indo-Pacific Command.) During an interview, Caudle said the service has noticed both Russia and China taking more interest in the arctic, particularly Moscow, which is militarizing “their coastline… from coastal defense, cruise missiles, long-range aviation, undersea systems [and] radar systems.” “We’re seeing an enhancement in how they are viewing that part of their northern border, and how they’re actually patrolling” more often, he said. “Because of that we are concerned about what they may or may not be doing.” The admiral explained that with the melting of the ice caps, the arctic is becoming one of the fastest routes to move ships between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, something Caudle said the Navy has observed Russia doing more frequently. Beyond the military’s interest in those routes, civilian mariners will also inevitably begin using it for commerce — and keeping international sea lanes open is a longstanding mission the US Navy maintains.

Ukraine war killed Arctic cooperation

Benjamin Valentino Martin and Krista Viksnins, Center for European Policy Analysis, 8-30, 23, Ripples From Putin’s Invasion Reach the Arctic, https://cepa.org/article/ripples-from-putins-invasion-reach-the-arctic/

The damage done by Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine is hard to quantify. To stalled grain shipments, world hunger, soaring energy prices, and rampant inflation must be added the baleful effects for one of the most remote and uninhabitable regions of the world, the Arctic. The war has essentially frozen the region’s preeminent governing body, the Arctic Council. For decades, the Council has been a shining star of light-touch, collaborative governance. Driven by its mandate of sustainable development and environmental protection, its work has informed some of the most significant legally binding international agreements and treaties like the International Maritime Organization’s Polar Code and the Arctic section of the annual Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report. This work ground to a halt in March 2022, as the other seven Arctic States — the United States, Canada, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Iceland — “paused” their cooperation with Russia. In a joint statement in June, the “Arctic 7” announced a “limited resumption of our work in the Arctic Council, in projects that do not involve the participation of the Russian Federation.” However, without data from Russia’s roughly 45% share of the Arctic, the Council’s working groups cannot possibly function at full capacity. “One thing is clear — the Arctic Council will not return to ‘normal,’” says CEPA Fellow Mathieu Boulègue. Having forsaken its traditional “leave politics at the door” policy by excluding Russia, the Council must now evolve to compensate for today’s realities. The Arctic has changed significantly since the Council’s inception in 1996 and according to Boulègue, the traditional “High North — low tension” paradigm in the region has been replaced by a “high-octane” environment of geopolitical competition and crisis.

China has military capabilities in the Arctic

Rob Huebert is a senior fellow at the Macdonald-Laurier Institute and associate professor of political science at the University of Calgary, “China is on a relentless mission to control Canada’s Arctic waters”, The Globe and Mail, published August 25, 2023, updated August 27, 2023, https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/article-china-is-on-a-relentless-mission-to-control-canadas-arctic-waters/

Ever since an icebreaker called Xue Long arrived in Tuktoyaktuk, NWT, in 1999, Canadians have been curious about China’s interest in the Canadian Arctic. While some observers view China’s presence in the region as benign, even benefiting Arctic science and research, recent Chinese actions and announcements are pointing to Beijing’s determination to have a military capability in the region that will exceed that of Canada. China has already developed the ability to deploy underwater listening devices that can be used to track American and other allied submarines in the Arctic, and in about two years the country will have deep-diving submersibles that can be used in those waters. So, unlike Canada, they will be able to listen to what is happening under the ice cap and will have the ability to deploy assets there accordingly.

Earlier this year, there was major news-media coverage of a series of Chinese high-altitude balloons (HABs) that flew over North American airspace, as well as Chinese monitoring buoys that floated (or were deployed) into Canadian waters.

China has underwater listening capabilities

What has not received as much attention is a research paper, published in 2021, in which Chinese scientists explain their success in developing Arctic-resilient underwater listening systems. The paper says the listening systems are for peaceful purposes, but the actual ramifications of the HABs, buoys and research systems are inescapable. China is refining its means of monitoring the Canadian North.

This ability to monitor underwater activity is troubling for Canada. First, Canada itself has no such ability to monitor its own regions. Second, it means that any allied submarines in or near these waters can be closely tracked by the Chinese, which is a tremendous strategic benefit considering that a submarine’s main advantage in this situation is its ability to operate undetected. For years, American and British subs have worked carefully to utilize their ability to discreetly patrol Arctic waters. This advantage will soon end.

China’s new icebreaker will have deep diving submersibles that pose a threat

A second major announcement by China this summer is that it is building a third icebreaker. Expected to enter service in 2025, this one will be outfitted with deep-diving submersibles. This development would enable China to interfere with any underwater cables or pipelines if it chooses to do so, since these deep-diving submersibles could likely attach listening devices to communications cables, or simply cut them, without Canada having any knowledge of who has taken such action. Canada has no such deep-diving capability and has never indicated any interest in acquiring such assets.

China will probably develop a nuclear powered submarine

As a recent Auditor-General’s report makes clear, Canada may soon lose the capacity to use its own satellites to monitor even surface activities in the Arctic. The potential ramifications are worrisome: For example, the Chinese could copy Russian capabilities and place deep-diving submersibles on nuclear-powered submarines designed to operate in Arctic waters. While there is no public information that China has or is building an equivalent to the Russian Belgorod submarine, which can carry the Losharik deep-diving mini-submarine (which can pick up objects from the sea floor), it is logical to assume China will soon advance to such systems.

China had its eye on the Arctic but several specific programs fell apart

Andrew Latham is a professor of international relations at Macalester College in Saint Paul, Minn., a Senior Fellow at the Institute for Peace and Diplomacy, and a non-resident fellow at Defense Priorities in Washington, D.C, “How China’s Arctic plans went awry”, The Hill, August 23, 2023, https://thehill.com/opinion/international/4166188-how-chinas-arctic-plans-went-awry/

What grand future had Beijing planned for itself in the Arctic? Leaving aside the massively overblown claims that China has committed itself to dominating the region, aspiring to become the Arctic superpower, there is little doubt that Beijing has long aspired to become a major player in the high north.

Climate change and the shrinking of the polar ice cap have transformed the Arctic into what China officially classifies as one of the world’s “new strategic frontiers,” a space ripe with new opportunities to extract natural resources (oil, gas, rare earth elements and even fish), to invest in infrastructure and to develop new and more secure shipping routes (the Northern Sea Route and the Transpolar Sea Route).

So it is perhaps unsurprising that China would have developed an ambitious vision of itself as a “near-Arctic” power, perhaps even a “polar great power,” over the past decade or so. But what was China’s Arctic strategy? Answers can be found in statements such as China’s 2018 White Paper, various speeches delivered by President Xi Jinping and senior Chinese officials with responsibility for Arctic policy, and a number of People’s Liberation Army military publications.

First, the plan was to become a polar great power by building on China’s record of scientific diplomacy. While outwardly promoting the pursuit of scientific research for the common good, China’s prominent scientific figures, and high-level members of the Chinese Communist Party, asserted that scientific endeavors are also driven by the desire to assert a “right to speak” about Arctic affairs, to cultivate China’s identity as an Arctic stakeholder, and to ensure access to strategic resources.

Second, the plan envisioned an intensification of regional economic partnerships. Beijing sought to enhance its access to Arctic economic resources by investing in a wide range of onshore mining, offshore oil exploration and extraction, and infrastructure development projects.

Third, Beijing saw enhanced participation in regional governance initiatives as a key element of its Arctic strategy. It aspired both to play a larger role within existing institutions, like the Arctic Council and various Track II forums, and to create alternative Chinese governance mechanisms — including the “Polar Silk Road,” the China-Russia Arctic Forum and the China-Nordic Arctic Research Center — to complement, or even transcend, existing institutions.

Fourth, without sovereign jurisdiction in the region, Chinese leaders pursued cooperation with Russia in the economic and governance fields. Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin released a joint statement mere weeks before Russia attacked Ukraine proclaiming a “no limits” partnership that included “practical cooperation for the sustainable development of the Arctic” and the further opening of bilateral Arctic maritime commerce.

Finally, China’s Arctic strategy potentially involves an expansion of its military footprint in the region. Chinese military texts treat the Arctic as a space of future military competition, noting that “the game of great powers” will “increasingly focus on the struggle over and control of global public spaces” like the Arctic. These texts further argue that China “cannot rule out the possibility of using force” in the inevitable “scramble for new strategic spaces.”

But recent events have sent those best laid schemes well and truly aglay.

To be sure, Beijing has enjoyed some measure of success. It became an observer on the Arctic Council; invested heavily in Russian Arctic infrastructure; and made its presence felt in the high north, especially in the field of scientific diplomacy.

But the harsh reality from Beijing’s perspective is that recent developments, much like Burns’s plow, have left considerable pain in place of once-promised joy. The fate of both China’s Polar Silk Road initiative and its “without limits” partnership with Russia tell perhaps the most important part of the tale.

Almost all of China’s ambitious plans have come to naught. Notable among these faltering or failed projects are Chinese investments in the Kuannersuit rare earths and uranium mine and the Isua iron-extraction projects in Greenland; the acquisition of TMAC Resources, a mineral exploration and development company in Canada; China’s proposed railway connection between northern Finland and Norway; liquified natural gas investment in Alaska; land acquisitions in Iceland and Norway; the purchase of a gold mine in Nunavut, Canada; a tunnel between Finland and Estonia; and its effort to establish an underwater communications conduit along the Northern Sea Route between Asia and Europe.

China was shut out in the Arctic when the Arctic Council was suspended

At the same time, the suspension of the Arctic Council since the onset of the Ukraine War has closed an important window into polar affairs for China. And this is just a snapshot of China’s misfires and setbacks associated with the Western members of the Arctic community.

China hoped to work with Russia but the Ukraine invasion interfered

While one might have expected China to have had greater success with Russia, this aspect of China’s Arctic strategy has also mostly been a failure. Chinese apprehension about a too-close political and economic relationship with Moscow has been growing steadily since February 2022. Chinese firms have been tentative at best in their engagement with the Arctic liquefied natural gas project in Siberia, and no Chinese cargo vessels transited the Northern Sea Route in 2022, reflecting Beijing’s concerns about Western sanctions. Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, China’s “no limits” partner has become more of a hindrance to Beijing than a help.

Whether in the economic, diplomatic or military realms, the combined effects of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, mounting resistance among Western powers that largely predates that invasion, and China’s own unforeseen economic woes have effectively sent Beijing’s grand Arctic schemes seriously awry.

Russia projects power in the Arctic while diplomatic efforts are non-existent

Gunhild Hoogensen Gjorv, professor of Security and Geopolitics, The Arctic University of Norway, “Gigantic Russian flag unveiled in the Arctic Ocean”, The Barents Observer, August 22, 2023, https://thebarentsobserver.com/en/2023/08/gigantic-russian-flag-unveiled-arctic-ocean-its-sign-dominance-and-defiance-uit-professor

A group of scientists from the Russian Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute unveiled a 1,400 square metre white-blue-red Russian flag on the sea ice nearby the drifting polar station “Severny polyus-41”.

A statement on the institute’s website states that the unveiling is part of a project called “All Elements” and was done to celebrate the State Flag Day in Russia on August 22. “The idea of the project is that the Russian state flag is being unveiled in the most extreme climates and in the most significant places of the planet: in the air, in the water, on a volcano and on soil….”, the statement continues. The flag is surrounded by two scientific icebreakers “Severny Polyus” and “Akademik Tryoshnikov”. Photo: Screenshot from the Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute video Drone footage posted on the institute’s website shows a group of around 20 people unveiling the flag on the floating Arctic sea ice at 83.31°N, 51.48°E, with two scientific icebreakers visible in the background: “Severny Polyus” and “Akademik Tryoshnikov”. “The polar researchers are separated from the mainland by 10 months of drifting in the most difficult climate ever, surrounded by ice and the coldest ocean in the world…. We want them to feel the support. That’s why the huge Russian tricolor flag has been unveiled”, Alexander Makarov, head of the Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute said. The dimensions of the flag are 48.1 m by 29.6 m, the Institute’s press release further states. “They are not just raising a flag. It’s a massive flag. It’s a sign of dominance. And I suspect it’s a sign of defiance”, The Arctic University of Norway (UiT) Professor on Security and Geopolitics Gunhild Hoogensen Gjørv told The Barents Observer. “The Arctic Council, including relations with Russia, are on pause. There are very few relations between Russia and the other seven Arctic states. The flag is a signal to indicate that they are still big boys on the block”. The professor is also concerned by the fact that Russian scientists are engaged in such political acts: “It says something about the scientific community in Russia – it’s whether a pressure they are put under to have to engage in such a symbolic act or whether the scientific community is very politically active as well. If you have a very highly politicized scientific community, that hinders the possibility for cooperation with Russia”, the professor said.

China, Russia are showing muscle in Arctic, US cannot compete

Roger Wicker, U. S. Senator from Mississippi, member, Armed Services Committee, member, U. S. Helsinmki Commission and author of the “Securing the Homeland by Increasing our Power on the Seas (SHIPS) Act, “China, Russia on Track to Eclipse U. S. Naval Power”, Weekly Report, August 21, 2023, https://www.wicker.senate.gov/2023/8/wicker-china-russia-on-track-to-eclipse-u-s-naval-power

This month, eleven Chinese and Russian ships paraded closer than ever to the edge of U.S. waters. When our two foremost foes conjured this show of force near the coast of Alaska, they sent a clear signal. They mean to strengthen their power in the Pacific and Arctic oceans. In response, four U.S. destroyers and a P-8 Poseidon maritime patrol aircraft converged on the scene and followed the enemy ships. This was the strongest response we could muster. The Arctic is crucial to our security, but China and Russia are outpacing U.S. capabilities in the Pacific. Their growing power is one example of a broader trend: Our enemies are boosting their military might. To deter them from attacking the United States, we need to increase our strength. We will need to move quickly. Russia and China have turned the Arctic into a contested zone. The area is the front line of America’s ballistic missile defense system, and its waters are among the world’s most efficient shipping lanes. The United States also relies on intelligence gathered in and around Alaska. Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin would like very much to control such a strategic area. This most recent joint exercise by China and Russia is their boldest statement about their Arctic intentions, but the message is nothing new. Chinese citizens have been accused of posing as tourists and intruding onto military installations in Alaska. Nearly a year ago, seven powerful Chinese ships sailed near our waters in the region. As Russia faces resistance in Ukraine, it flexes in the High North. It patrols farther and more often and is doing so with China’s blessing. Xi hopes to influence the region via Putin’s existing strength. Unfortunately, Russia’ Arctic naval power far exceeds our own. They have 36 polar icebreakers – ships built to navigate ice blockades – while the U.S. has just two. This power imbalance could change our ability to protect our interests in the Pacific and Arctic oceans. It also reflects wider changes that demand we update our national security priorities. We have entered a new era of Great Power competition. During the last one, the sheer power of Ronald Reagan’s 600-ship Navy deterred the Soviet Union from attacking us. We have lived off the remains of his buildup for decades, retiring Reagan-era ships but not replacing them.

Russian aggression means violence against women

TRINE JONASSEN, 8-21, 23, High North News, Believes Norway’s Cautiousness Toward Russia to Be Outdated, https://www.highnorthnews.com/en/believes-norways-cautiousness-toward-russia-be-outdated

“It is important to discuss base policy. Especially after (the war crimes, ed.note) in Bucha, when we have seen how Russia acts. Should we then be so scarcely defended in Finnmark? Perhaps we should have a NATO base in Finnmark or at least discuss the base policy?” asks Friis.

Ukraine is investigating almost 60 000 possible war crimes. It concerns everything from murder, kidnapping, random bombings to sexual assaults conducted by Russian soldiers.Friis believes that we must take a look at Russia with new eyes and remind them about what the base policy was really about.

Arctic oil spill risks increasing

Ethan Wong, 8-18, 23, The Arctic This Week Take Five: Week of 14 August, 2023, https://www.thearcticinstitute.org/arctic-week-take-five-week-14-august-2023/

Take 2: Once again, unexpected ice has disrupted vessels sailing through the Northern Sea Route (NSR). Despite warming temperatures and melting sea ice, shipping through the passage remains dangerous, as conditions can change rapidly.. This was starkly demonstrated in 2021 when an early freeze along the NSR left more than 20 ships stuck in sea ice. However, receding sea ice may also come with its own challenges. A recent study found that as ice disappears due to climate change, the Arctic Ocean has been getting foggier, reducing visibility and raising the potential for disastrous accidents, like oil spills. Therefore, with or without ice, the difficult operating conditions can lead to costly delays, undermining the NSR’s main advantage of being shorter than alternative routes. These continued issues, along with harsh weather, logistical challenges, the lack of infrastructure, and environmental concerns, all raise questions about the reliability, safety, and long-term economic viability of the passage. With Russia identifying the NSR as a critical state priority and investing heavily in transforming the route into a competitive maritime corridor, low demand for the passage could have serious consequences. As the Arctic continues to change, the situation of the Primorsky Prospect and NS Arctic serves as yet another warning of the dangers of Arctic shipping, which may further deter interest in the NSR. (Harvard International Review, High North News, Polar Journal)

Pollutants in the Arctic don’t break-down

Ethan Wong, 8-18, 23, The Arctic This Week Take Five: Week of 14 August, 2023, https://www.thearcticinstitute.org/arctic-week-take-five-week-14-august-2023/

Take 3: Despite its remoteness, pollution is a critical issue for the Arctic due to the long-range transport of pollutants from around the world, like persistent organic pollutants (POPs) and plastics. POPs, toxic chemicals which resist degradation, are especially dangerous to the Arctic ecosystem because they do not break down in the environment. As a result, POPs can persist for immense periods of time and travel vast distances through the wind, water, and food cycles to accumulate in the Arctic. These chemicals can have serious consequences for wildlife and human health, including adverse effects on reproduction, development, and the immune system. Despite these dangers, POPs are widely used in a variety of common products, from packaging to detergents. Similarly, large amounts of plastic debris have made their way to the Arctic, with the region recording some of the highest concentrations of microplastics globally. Scientists have observed plastic particles in numerous species, including seabirds, fish, and even algae, the foundation of the Arctic marine food chain. The Arctic also faces environmental threats from mercury, radioactivity, oil, acidification, and more. However, as the article highlights, AMAP’s research has successfully led to the development of vital regulations and agreements in the past. Drawing on this experience, countries should continue to support and utilize the organization’s scientific-based policy advice to combat the global sources of pollution threatening the Arctic. (Nature, Norwegian Polar Institute, The Arctic Council, The Arctic Institute)

NATO acting to deal with military threats in the Arctic now

Ethan Wong, 8-18, 23, The Arctic This Week Take Five: Week of 14 August, 2023, https://www.thearcticinstitute.org/arctic-week-take-five-week-14-august-2023/

Take 4: The announcement of a potential Arctic air operations center highlights NATO’s growing focus on the region. The proposal builds on a recent declaration by the Swedish, Norwegian, Finnish, and Danish air forces to establish a unified Nordic air defense. An Arctic air operations center could expand this joint initiative beyond the Nordic region, incorporating the air forces of other NATO members active in the Arctic to improve interoperability, training, and planning. These actions, aimed at enhancing NATO’s Arctic capabilities, also draw attention to the potential for a dedicated Arctic Command. Although there are no official plans to develop an Arctic Command, NATO has worked to bolster its presence in the region in recent years. In response to Russia’s increasing militarization and China’s expanding activity in the region, NATO has conducted several major Arctic exercises, including Cold Response 2022 and Arctic Challenge 2023. It has also identified the deepening partnership between Russia and China as a strategic challenge to the values and interests of the alliance.

Arctic is key to global great power competition

Bradley Arant Boult Cummings LLP, 8-15, 23, Melting Arctic to Open Up New Trade Routes and Geopolitical Flashpointsm, https://www.jdsupra.com/legalnews/melting-arctic-to-open-up-new-trade-2260059/

The Ukraine war has refashioned alliances, isolating Russia from the West and pushing Moscow and Beijing to closer cooperation. Citing national security, the U.S. and allies are securitizing trade policies with China, restricting access to key developing technologies and friend-shoring critical supply chains. In what some foreign policy experts are calling a new Cold War, geopolitical competition between western liberal democracies and the China-Russia authoritarian axis is super-charging a race to shape technology standards, economic rules of the road and political norms of the Fourth Industrial Revolution. The Arctic Circle, once the isolated habitat of polar bears, rich marine life and small indigenous communities, is now being drawn into the realm of geopolitics, with melting polar ice caps promising to open its waters to navigation and tensions. New Trade Routes, New Economic Opportunity The Arctic region has been warming four times faster than the rest of the world over the past four decades, according to a 2022 study by Finnish and Norwegian scientists. Scientists are projecting that by 2035, parts of the Arctic will be free of ice during summer months, opening up prospects for commercial shipping to ply these waters and shorten transit time between the U.S., Europe and Asia. Some studies project that Arctic routes could be 30% to 50% shorter than the Suez Canal and Panama Canal routes, with transit time reduced by an estimated 14 to 20 days. Beyond commercial shipping, the new routes could attract cruise ships and adventure tourists. Access not only creates opportunities for the maritime sector, but the region is rich in fossil fuels, critical minerals and marine life. Commercial industries potentially will gain access to billions of dollars of untapped resources. Unlike Antarctica, a land mass, there is no treaty protecting the Arctic from international development. This makes control over the waterways and natural resources ripe for dispute and potential conflict. The race to build infrastructure to support and control navigation has already begun. Northern Sea Route, Northwest Passage and Future Trans-Arctic Shipping Route The Northern Sea Route (NSR) was first opened by the Soviet Union in the 1930s but has not been a reliable transit route due to ice coverage. Climate change is changing that. Russia claims that the NSR lies within its territorial waters, giving it exclusive rights to develop the area and patrol ships. The U.S. and other countries dispute this claim, saying it runs through international waters. Seeing the emerging opportunity, Russia has been refurbishing more than 50 Soviet bases, providing them with strategic ports and sending a political message that the NSR is under Russian sovereignty. Canada claims the Northwest Passage (NWP) is located in internal Canadian waters and subject to Canadian law and sovereignty. The U.S. and Europe disagree, arguing it also is an international strait and subject to freedom of navigation under the Law of the Sea. To date, there are very few ports along the NWP, with Churchill being the only deep-water port with shelter and berthing facilities. There are no deep-water ports along the North Slope of Alaska or throughout the Canadian Archipelago. But this is changing. The U.S. has plans to build its first deep-water Arctic port in Nome, Alaska, and Canada is planning a deep-water port in Qikiqtarjuaq, Nanuvut, which is located at the entrance to the NWP. The Trans-Arctic Route, which cuts straight across the North Pole, avoids the territorial waters of Arctic states and lies in international high seas. Currently, and probably until mid-century, it is only navigable by nuclear icebreakers. But the possibilities are being discussed today, foreseeing thousands of ships a year passing between North America and Asia, with a hub at Alaska’s Dutch Harbor. The ships would not have size restrictions, as the Central Arctic Ocean’s depth is not as limiting as the NSR and NWP. National Security a Top Line Concern The Biden administration released its National Strategy for the Arctic Region in October 2022. It has four pillars: national security, economic development, infrastructure development, and environment. National security is the first priority. In light of Russia’s full invasion of Ukraine, the strategy cites the requirement to protect the homeland and ensure that the Arctic region is peaceful, with guardrails to manage competition and resolve disputes without force or coercion. The strategy also draws attention to China’s efforts to increase its influence in the Arctic, doubling its investments with a focus on critical mineral extraction and using scientific engagements to conduct dual-use research in military or intelligence applications in the Arctic. These worries are not purely theoretical. The military balance in the Arctic is heavily weighted towards Russia. It has more bases than NATO and is upgrading air strips to improve operability. Russia’s icebreaker fleet vastly outnumbers NATO states, even with the addition of Finland. Despite the Ukraine War, Russia is continuing to invest, maintain and exercise its forces in its Northern Region, which is home to many Russian strategic military assets (ballistic missile submarines, strategic test sites, advance radar systems, etc.). The shortest distances for a Russian missile or bomber attack against the U.S. is over the polar cap. China also seeks to become a polar great power. Beijing has declared itself a “near-Arctic state,” claiming rights to freedom of navigation and overflight, scientific research, fishing, and resource development. China’s intelligence-gathering activities became front page news this year with the detection and eventual downing of a Chinese balloon first detected near St. Matthew Island in the Bering Sea. Moscow has historically pushed back against Beijing’s interest in the Arctic to protect its sensitive military assets. However, the war in Ukraine has changed the strategic landscape. In June, Russian and Chinese vessels conducted a joint exercise near Alaska’s Aleutian Islands. The U.S. Coast Guard warned the ships off when they entered U.S.-regulated waters. The U.S. military views this as a test of U.S. readiness. Since then, there have been other Russian-Chinese patrols in the area, and the U.S. has made a show of tracking them.

Record North Atlantic warming now, further warming could collapse ocean currents

Elias Thorson, 8-14, 23, https://www.arctictoday.com/unprecedented-temperatures-in-the-north-atlantic-ocean/, Arctic Today, Unprecedented Temperatures in the North Atlantic Ocean,

A recent study by the EU’s Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S), claims that ocean temperatures in the North Atlantic have entered uncharted waters, with July being the warmest on record. According to the C3S, the North Atlantic was 1.05°C above average in July with unusually high temperatures developed in the northwestern Atlantic, with marine heatwaves developing south of Greenland and in the Labrador Sea. Scientists worry that temperature increases could lead to a collapse in ocean currents. Photo: The Copernicus Climate Change Service “We just witnessed global air temperatures and global ocean surface temperatures set new all-time records in July. These records have dire consequences for both people and the planet exposed to ever more frequent and intense extreme events,” said Samantha Burgess, Deputy Director of the Copernicus Climate Change Service. “Even if this is only temporary, it shows the urgency for ambitious efforts to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions, which are the main driver behind these records.” The unprecedented warming is creating serious concern in the scientific community. A study published earlier this month, by Danish scientists Peter and Susanne Ditlevsen estimated that a warming North Atlantic and Greenland ice melt could cause the collapse of the The Atlantic meridional overturning circulation around the middle of the 21st century.

No strong China-Russia alliance in the Arctic

Cameron Wood, 8-14, 23, , With Russia Weakened, China Sets its Sights on Vladivostok, https://intpolicydigest.org/with-russia-weakened-china-sets-its-sights-on-vladivostok/

However, while it is easy to view these developments as evidence of a robust Sino-Russian relationship, China’s actions should be viewed contextually. Despite the platitudes and assurances of mutual support, China has been reluctant to give Russia access to advanced missiles, drone technology superior to Iran’s (Russia’s primary supplier of drones), or further expansions of natural gas and pipeline agreements. China’s influence in the Russian Far East also consistently evokes unfavourable sentiments in Russia. According to a survey conducted in 2017 by the Russian Academy of Sciences, over 30% of Russians perceive China’s growing presence as “expansionist.” Additionally, 50% of respondents expressed concerns about China posing a threat to Russia’s territorial integrity, while 30% of participants believed China’s policies could jeopardize their nation’s economic progress. These adverse local perceptions have occasionally led to delays in proposed Chinese investment ventures like the Chinese-funded water bottling facility in the Irkutsk region, scheduled for development, which was halted following local protests in 2019 Additionally, China is stepping up its security and economic footprint in Central Asia in ways that may increasingly be perceived through a competitive lens by Moscow. In 2021, it was announced that China would construct an outpost for police special forces in Tajikistan which is home to Russia’s largest overseas military base and is a member of the Russia-led Collective Security Treaty Organization (comparable to NATO for former Soviet states). Economically, China has also replaced Russia as the largest trading partner for Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan, reducing Russia’s ability to wield its economic influence in the region. In May, China invited the presidents of these states to a grand foreign policy and diplomatic festival. The invitation specifically failed to include Russia and represented growing Chinese influence within former Soviet states which Russia considers within its sphere of influence. Such a blatant omission of Russian inclusion illuminates the relationship’s growing asymmetries and demonstrates the fragility of the broader friendship. Russia is also wary of China’s Arctic ambitions due to its own significant interests in the region. Around 20% of Russia’s land lies within the Arctic Circle, encompassing 24,000 km of coastline and 2.5 million people. Under Putin, Russia has revitalised its Arctic focus by increasing its military presence and renovating 50 Soviet-era military sites. China, though lacking Arctic territory, aims to be a “near-Arctic state” and in 2018 it proposed a “Polar Silk Road” aligned with its Belt and Road Initiative. Collaborations between China and Russia on Arctic energy and infrastructure projects have also faced challenges. Russia resisted China’s Arctic Council observer status and in 2020 charged a Russian Arctic expert with treason for sharing classified data with China. Considering this, what may seem on the surface to be cooperation between China and Russia in Vladivostok could be viewed more cynically. China has made no secret of wanting the far eastern region around Vladivostok back. Having only been in Russian hands since 1860, when the area was ceded by China to Russia as part of the Treaty of Peking, the region represents 20,000 square miles of previously Chinese territory, which China still calls by its original name ‘Haishenwai.’ The foundations for a realignment of the Russia-Chinese frontier are deep. China and Russia have both complained and occasionally come to blows, over their shared border for centuries. Prior to the Russian Revolution, ethnic Chinese residents constituted more than 40% of the labour force in the region. According to a 1907 census, around 62,000 Chinese residents lived in the far eastern region of Russia, highlighting their significant presence in the area. The actual number was probably higher as many Chinese did seasonal cross-border work as day laborers. At that time ethnic Russians were probably a minority, which helps explain why Stalin chose the inhumane but expedient policy of mass expulsions to China – to guarantee Russian numerical superiority within the region. Today, however, the demographics are shifting, with Russia degrading the region’s societal identity by resettling Ukrainians who have been forcibly removed from their homeland into the area. Additionally, Russia has been draining its eastern defences to replace men and material lost in Ukraine. This extensive border region has never been so lightly defended by either side and it won’t be long before the ethnic Russian population is once again outnumbered by ethnically Chinese Russians. Interstate ‘shared use agreements’ like the sort concerning Vladivostok, are difficult to revoke. If Russia wishes to limit or remove Chinese access to the port in the future, it may struggle to do so absent diplomatic consequences. Beijing certainly is aware of this and likely proposed the agreement with further entrenchment of its influence in the region as its long-term intention. With the official regional demarcation resolution, for a centuries-old border conflict that predates the official existence of both nations, only being signed by the two powers in 2008, it is not unforeseeable that China could move to nullify current agreements and seek that Russia return Vladivostok. Given the changing demographics, such a move could be framed as the simple absorption of ‘residents who speak and think like us,’ a logic that Putin has not been afraid to use in his justification for invading Ukraine. Such a territorial addition could further cement Xi Jinping’s position of strength at the head of the Chinese Communist Party and alleviate some of the pressure to capture Taiwan in the immediate future. In fact, the Chinese claims on Vladivostok and the surrounding area are more historically rooted than the CCP’s more recent claims over Taiwan. However, Vladimir Putin is an ‘expander of territory’ not a relinquisher. Any agreement for the wilful return of such a vital part of Russia’s eastern geopolitical structure is extremely unlikely. But Russia’s vast resources and lightly defended eastern border coupled with Russian military losses in Ukraine means Vladivostok should not be ignored as a potential flash point for future geopolitical tensions.

Western military posture in the Arctic is inadequate

Gray, 8-7, 2023, Alexander B. Gray is a senior fellow in national security affairs at the American Foreign Policy Council. He served as a deputy assistant to the president and as the chief of staff of the White House National Security Council from 2019 to 2021, NATO’s Northern Flank Has Too Many Weak Spots

While Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has revealed significant weaknesses in Moscow’s military capacity, it has also shone an unflattering light on aspects of NATO’s strategic posture. It is incumbent upon the United States and its NATO allies to take proactive measures to plug these gaps before they are exploited by Russian President Vladimir Putin’s regime. Finland’s recent NATO accession and the expected accession of Sweden have boosted the alliance’s capacity in critical competencies, including undersea warfare, signals intelligence, and artillery in the Baltic Sea region. Yet troubling deficiencies remain along NATO’s northern flank, particularly in the Arctic and near-Arctic, that reveal substantial failings by several key alliance members to uphold their obligations in the face of Moscow’s unflagging interest in the High North. Russia has successfully exploited several factors to gain maneuver space in the region. There are multiple Arctic and near-Arctic islands with power-sharing relationships that leave control of national defense to a larger entity—as in the case of Svalbard (Norway), the Faroe Islands (Denmark), and Greenland (Denmark)—while permitting local governments a high degree of autonomy. In each case, Moscow has expanded its influence with far too little resistance by Oslo or Copenhagen. The Faroe Islands, whose defense is Denmark’s responsibility, have remained host to numerous Russian fishing vessels throughout the Ukraine conflict, under a treaty between Russia and the Faroe Islands from the 1970s. Similar Russian vessels have been credibly accused of espionage and even sabotage, including of undersea cables in the North Sea. Copenhagen’s inability to intervene effectively in the matter has left its NATO partners across the alliance’s northern flank vulnerable to asymmetric Russian tactics. Recent Faroese efforts to restrict Russian fishing vessels in the islands’ waters have maintained considerable loopholes permitting Russians to retain access. While the Foreign Policy Act of 2005 permits the Faroese considerable autonomy in foreign affairs-related to issues solely within the jurisdiction of their government, a matter of this sensitivity should involve additional input from Copenhagen and coordination with larger Danish foreign-policy priorities. Greenland has long been a zone of contention between Denmark and both Moscow and Beijing, which prize its potential natural resource wealth and strategic location astride the Greenland-Iceland-United Kingdom Gap, the strategically critical body of water separating the North Atlantic Ocean from the North Sea and Norwegian Sea. As Greenland’s local autonomy has grown, so has its receptivity to outside influence. Copenhagen’s decreasing authority has provided ample opportunity for great-power competition on the world’s largest island. While Greenland’s progress toward increased autonomy seems all but inevitable, Copenhagen has an opportunity to set the parameters of the foreign-policy relationship for the coming decades by insisting on greater coordination in areas directly impacting its NATO obligations and defense prerogatives. As the relationship between Greenland and Denmark evolves, Copenhagen must draw clear lines in the international realm where its vital interests, and those of its NATO allies, are clearly at stake. The alliance’s northern flank also suffers from the strategic neglect by Canada under Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government, which is currently spending roughly 1.3 percent of GDP on defense—significantly below NATO’s 2 percent requirement. Ottawa’s aging icebreaker fleet has long been scheduled for replacement, but the government has repeatedly failed to deliver or even specify a date for such replacement. Despite repeated warnings from within the military that Canada lacks the capabilities to contest Moscow’s remilitarization of the Arctic, Ottawa has engaged in fanciful discussions of an Indo-Pacific strategy that leaves the United States and NATO vulnerable in the Western Hemisphere. These challenges require serious solutions across the alliance, beginning with an integrated NATO arctic strategy that builds upon the work done by individual members (such as in the United States’ recent Arctic Strategy) to generate a shared appreciation for the challenge of defending the High North and allocating sufficient resources to do so effectively. This would likely include a unified NATO Arctic Command to appropriately funnel resources across warfare domains; coordinate joint Arctic warfare training; and take appropriate advantage of the capabilities brought to the alliance by the accession of Helsinki and soon Stockholm, including icebreaking and Arctic warfare skills. Additionally, the United States must work with its partners in Copenhagen, Oslo, and Ottawa to encourage a more forward-leaning posture in the High North. Russia cannot be allowed to operate with near impunity in the Faroe Islands or threaten NATO’s strategic communications through its influence in Greenland or Svalbard. China, with its Polar Silk Road initiative, is deeply interested in growing its presence in the region and has preposterously declared itself a “Near Arctic State.” The United States should work both multilaterally through NATO and bilaterally with the Danes, Norwegians, and Canadians to provide the intelligence support necessary to prevent ambiguous legal statuses from threatening the alliance’s northern flank. Many on both sides of the Atlantic are rightly celebrating NATO’s success in rallying to resist Moscow’s aggression in Ukraine, as well as in the accession of Sweden and Finland. Yet there remains much work to be done in securing the alliance’s northern flank and providing the security umbrella envisioned by the North Atlantic Treaty. With NATO’s 75th anniversary approaching next year, now is an opportune moment to reorganize to meet today’s threats.

US trying to work with Russia through the Arctic Council

Patsy Widakuswara, 8-4, 23, VOA, US Wants Russia Iced Out Everywhere, Except the Arctic, US Wants Russia Iced Out Everywhere, Except the Arctic (voanews.com), https://www.voanews.com/a/us-wants-russia-iced-out-everywhere-except-the-arctic-/7212157.html

The Biden administration, which has sought to isolate Moscow diplomatically on the world stage, is supporting efforts to re-establish technical cooperation with Russia in one of the world’s most challenging geographical regions – the Arctic. Following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the United States has successfully lobbied to boot Moscow out of various international forums, including the U.N. human rights body and international aviation agency. Last year, President Joe Biden went so far as to call for Russia to be kicked out of the Group of 20 major economies, or G20, a proposal that fizzled due to a lack of support. But the polar region is the one place where Washington is not icing Russia out completely. Specifically in the Arctic Council, a forum for the eight Arctic states, including the U.S. and Russia, to address common challenges such as climate change, shipping routes and indigenous people’s rights. “The administration believes the Arctic Council should continue to serve as the premier forum for cooperation among Arctic states, including on sustainability, protecting the environment, addressing the impacts of climate change, scientific research, and on other issues of importance to member countries,” said a senior administration official, who spoke to VOA on condition of anonymity to discuss security issues. With no end in sight for the war in Ukraine, the administration is now working with other members of the council — Canada, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden — to re-establish some of the ties to Moscow that were fully suspended shortly after Russia’s invasion. As programs ground to a halt last year, Russia remained chair of the council until it handed the baton to Norway in May 2023. Morten Høglund, the council’s chair of the Senior Arctic Officials, said they are aiming to begin work on a technical level. “The Norwegian Chairship of the Arctic Council is in the process of consulting with all Arctic States and Indigenous Permanent Participants to develop guidelines for the resumption of Working Group-level work with all Arctic States, including the Russian Federation,” Høglund told VOA. Russia’s acceptance Russia has indicated it wants to remain in the council. During a press conference following the chairship handover, Nikolay Korchunov, Russia’s Arctic official, said Moscow wants “comprehensive security in the region” and is “absolutely not interested in escalating the tension in the Arctic.” “It can all be sorted out by dialogue, which would strengthen the trust,” Korchunov said. Trust is a tall order for the consensus-based council. With Finland joining NATO in April and Sweden soon to follow, Russian security interests are diametrically opposed to those of the transatlantic allies who now call themselves the Arctic Seven. Amid increasing challenges, though, such as rapidly melting icecaps, loss of biodiversity, and increased needs for disaster response, there’s little choice but to seek room to collaborate. The task is now to find the gaps in the current diplomatic freeze and identify areas where scientific cooperation and other forms of non-governmental dialogue are possible, and to prepare for a post-conflict period, said Pavel Devyatkin, a senior associate at the Arctic Institute. “Practical cooperation can build trust, especially between rivals,” he told VOA. “Though government-level science may be restricted, cooperation at the individual-level is still manageable but has many obstacles such as visa restrictions and closed consulates.” Rationale for cooperation The main rationale is Russia’s sheer size. With a land area of about 17 million square kilometers, it makes up 45% of the geographical Arctic, and its coastline accounts for 53% of the Arctic Ocean coastline. With climate change causing the ice to recede, international shipping is making increasing use of the Northern Sea Route, or NSR, which follows Russia’s coast from the Barents Sea to the Bering Strait. Ships sailing through the NSR need Moscow’s permission and an escort from Russia’s icebreaker fleet, the largest in the world. However, the “most serious loss would be the loss of Russian data,” said Patrick James, professor of International Relations at the University of Southern California. Without Moscow’s participation, he told VOA, climatological research will suffer. This includes research for the council’s Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Program that has proven instrumental for global policy. AMAP studies showing the buildup of toxic chemicals in the blood of polar species critical to Indigenous People’s diets helped shape the 2001 Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants.

China-Russia Arctic ties are strong

Continued Western sanctions have pushed Moscow to increasingly depend on Beijing as a source of financing for energy projects, such as the Yamal LNG Terminal, and infrastructure plans to develop the Arctic region. “Developing the Northern Sea Route was always a Russian goal,” said Stephanie Pezard, senior political scientist focusing on Arctic Security at RAND Corporation. “And right now, they don’t have any partners to do that, except China.” For Beijing, investing in Russian sea ports will help with access to the Northern Sea Route, she told VOA. China has no Arctic coastline but calls itself a “Near-Arctic Power.” The degree of Russian-Chinese strategic polar partnership is ambiguous, however, said the Arctic Institute’s Devyatkin. “Despite the hype around the Polar Silk Road, there has been no shipping from the Chinese Overseas Shipping Company, or COSCO, along the Northern Sea Route since February 2022,” he said. “It is also unlikely that Russia would allow a permanent Chinese military presence in the Arctic to rival its own defensive complex in the region.” From Beijing’s point of view there is a limit to how much alignment it should seek with Moscow as it tries to promote itself as a responsible stakeholder deserving a voice in Arctic affairs, said Matthew Funaiole, a China Power Project senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

China-US rivalry in the Arctic not inevitable now

And while the polar region is emerging as a space with plenty of structural tensions, Funaiole said it’s too early to conclude it has become another front for U.S.-China rivalry, the primary theater for which remains in the Indo Pacific. “The Arctic is not going to supplant that anytime in the near future,” he told VOA.

136-Russia is using the Northern Sea Route (NSR) to ship to China, which is the only way it can sell oil given the current sanctions

High North News, 8-3, 23, https://www.highnorthnews.com/en/russian-crude-oil-now-flowing-china-arctic-ocean#:~:text=With%20the%20onset%20of%20the,Arctic%20during%202023%20and%20beyond.

With the onset of the summer navigation season on the Northern Sea Route (NSR), Russia has begun sending crude oil shipments to China via the Arctic. After an initial trial voyage in November 2022, energy analysts expect Russia to send regular shipments through the Arctic during 2023 and beyond. With Europe completely out of the picture as a result of sanctions, Russia now diverts parts of its Arctic production to China. Additional shipments are destined for India. Two initial shipments departed from the Primorsk and Ust-Luga oil terminals near St Petersburg on 12 July and 13 July, passing through the Baltic Sea and up the Norwegian coast lines. The two Aframax oil tankers, NS Arctic and Primorsky Prospect, each carrying around 730,000 barrels of crude oil, traveled along the NSR throughout the second half of July and are expected to arrive in Rizhao, China in mid-August. Compared to the traditional route through the Suez Canal, the Arctic shortcut is around 30 percent faster. In November 2022 the Aframax tanker Vasily Dinkov traveled from near Murmansk also to Rizhao in around four weeks. The NSR will be key to diverting the flow of crude oil away from Europe and toward Asia. With the massive Vostok oil project slated to open next year, the amount of crude oil being shipped via the Arctic will increase rapidly. Until recently the NSR had seen less than a handful of oil shipments to Asia over the past decade. The pivot to the East in terms of the flow of exports of oil and liquefied natural gas (LNG) was always planned by the Russian government, says Matt Sagers who specializes in Russian energy at S&P Global, a research and analysis company. “This process is now being pushed harder with the loss of the European market for Russian oil and the re-orientation of oil exports to “East of Suez”. Use of the Northern [Sea] Route reduced the number of days at sea and therefore the number of tankers (and overall capacity) that is required to move oil eastward. Entire upstream developments, like Vostok Oil, are intended to be evacuated via the route,” explains Sagers. x “According to our records, Russian state-owned tanker company – Sovcomflot (SCF) alone owned over 35 ice class tankers above 70,000 dwt. There is more tonnage in operation, with varied ownership,” says Svetlana Lobaciova, Senior Market Analyst at E.A. Gibson, an international shipbroker.

135-Slow response times means problems with Arctic oil spills linger, crushing local ecosystems

High North Times, 8-3, 23, https://www.highnorthnews.com/en/russian-crude-oil-now-flowing-china-arctic-ocean, Russian Crude Oil Now Flowing To China Via Arctic Ocean

In terms of cleaning up oil spills in ice-covered waters, burning the oil in place has been identified as the most effective and often only option, with serious environmental impacts. Environmental organizations also warn against further fossil fuel exploration in the region. “New fossil fuel production projects in the Arctic pose additional risks to Arctic ecosystems, species and communities that have been already impacted by rising temperatures,” explains Dr Sian Prior, Lead Advisor to the Clean Arctic Alliance, a coalition of 20 non-profit organizations working to protect the Arctic. The region’s remoteness and lack of infrastructure will also increase the response time, prolonging the time the oil remains in the water. “Remote and harsh Arctic conditions means long spill response clean-up times, with accidents ruining local ecosystems for decades,” cautions Prior.

134-China’s oil imports from Russia make its economic recovery possible

High North Times, 8-3, 23, https://www.highnorthnews.com/en/russian-crude-oil-now-flowing-china-arctic-ocean, Russian Crude Oil Now Flowing To China Via Arctic Ocean

Meanwhile, China stands to benefit from Russia’s pivot to the East as it continues to expand its energy imports, primarily LNG and crude from the Arctic. In 2022, Russia surpassed Saudi Arabia as China’s largest supplier of oil. In total, China spent $58bn on oil imports from Russia in 2022, a figure that is likely to grow larger this year. In addition, it purchased $8bn of LNG from Russia, primarily from Novatek’s Yamal LNG plant in the Arctic. Last year Russia sent around 35 percent of its oil exports to China, up from 31 percent in 2021. On average, China pays $7 less per barrel for Russian crude oil than it pays for products from other countries. Analysts say that Chinese refineries have been able to use the western ban on Russian crude oil to their advantage in price negotiations with Russian sellers. “As Moscow is no longer able to sell its fossil fuels in Europe, Asia has become a vital partner for Russian energy trade, with China at the head of the line,” explains Marc Lanteigne professor and researcher in politics, security and international relations at the University of Tromsø. “Beijing has also successfully been able to negotiate bargain prices for these shipments, helpful at a time when China is still recovering from its post-Covid economic disruptions,” he continues. While Chinese support of Russia’s energy ambitions has limits – in May President Xi Jinping did not publicly endorse the development of the Power of Siberia 2 pipeline – it appears committed to take receipt of fossil fuels delivered via the NSR. “It is highly likely that Beijing will continue to take advantage of a window of opportunity to import more oil and gas from Russia as European markets remain closed,” concludes Lanteigne.

133-China become a polar power and deploying monitoring devices at the top of the Arctic

Ritu Sharma -July 30, 2023, Eurasian Times, China To Deploy ‘Listening Devices’ In The Arctic Ocean To Exert Dominance, Track US, Rival Submarines, https://www.eurasiantimes.com/china-to-deploy-listening-devices-in-the-arctic-ocean-to/

China has unequivocally stated its intentions to become a “polar great power” by 2030. Despite being 900 miles away from the Arctic circle, Beijing has never shied away from asserting itself as a “near Arctic state,” and now it is gearing towards deploying a network of listening devices in the Arctic Ocean that would very well herald the militarization of the top of the world. The Arctic could see its first ice-free summer by 2030 if current projections hold. And this has made countries interested in the region increase the pace of their commercial, scientific, and military endeavors. A Hong Kong-based news organization South China Morning Post carried out the news about China seeking to deploy acoustic devices in the Arctic after successfully testing and evaluating its underwater listening device The report quotes a study published in the Chinese Journal of Polar Research that says: “The acoustic information collected by the planned large-scale listening network could be used in a wide range of applications, including “subglacial communication, navigation and positioning, target detection and the reconstruction of marine environmental parameters.” “They are for scientific purposes, but all such things have a dual purpose,” an Indian expert of the Arctic region told the EurAsian Times. However, observers of the Arctic region feel that acoustics devices play an important role in understanding climate change in the Arctic as the oceanographic data from the Arctic Ocean, especially from the deep ocean, are scarce. But the data can also be used to track the movement of submarines and understand the marine ecosystem to chart new routes – both under and over the surface. The Polar Research Institute of China is conducting the research: “The system carried several instruments, but the most important was a vector hydrophone with multiple sensors arranged in different orientations to measure both the pressure and particle motion of sound waves.” The world above 66 degrees latitude has remained intractable for most human existence, impeding large-scale commerce. Explorers, speculators, and scientists long believed a trove of rich resources and shipping routes lay hidden beneath the Arctic’s ice and snow. But deadly cold, debilitating darkness and enormous distances have hampered any exploitation of the resources. However, the unknown depths of the Arctic are soon being charted, making their navigation a possibility sooner than later The institute asserts that since the region is sensitive to climate change, sound pressure data can be used to track whales, seals, and other sound-emitting sources. The horizontal and vertical vibration of water particles can help scientists understand marine conditions such as currents, waves, and the sea floor. The Shanghai-based institute is a central government agency that plans and coordinates China’s polar activities. Chinese scientists and engineers installed the “polar subglacial shallow surface acoustic monitoring buoy system” on a chunk of floating ice in a remote area of the Arctic Ocean on August 9, 2021. During the test, the institute used an American communication satellite service. China’s polar listening network would likely shift to Chinese BeiDou satellites for communication. Militarization Of The Top Of The World Countries across the globe are scrambling to cement their foothold in the polar region as global warming is rapidly melting polar ice caps, drastically transforming the environment. Mutual distrust is pushing major world powers to enhance their civil and military engagements in the Arctic. “It is a complex situation. Militarization has increased, but it is by both sides, the West and Russia.” A 10-year Arctic strategy released by the White House in 2022 calls for deterring increased Russian and Chinese activity in the region. Russia makes no bones about its stake in the region. Since 2013, Russia has refurbished and activated hundreds of Soviet-era bases in the region. The US National Strategy for the Arctic Region notes that Moscow is “deploying new coastal and air defense missile systems and upgraded submarines, and increasing military exercises and training operations with a new combatant command equivalent for the Arctic.” The Russian military adventurism in Ukraine has also strained the cooperation between countries and Russia in the region. Russia is far ahead in its goals to make the Arctic navigational. Presently it has 51 icebreakers as compared to the US’ five functioning ones. China has also expressed an interest in building a ‘Polar Silk Road’ in the region. It has doubled its investments in the region ostensibly to focus on critical mineral extraction and expand its scientific activities. But the strategic value of being able to traverse the region year around is not lost on either China or Russia. The latest Chinese plan to do undersea acoustic modeling can also be used for naval navigation, oceanography, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR), submarine stealth and navigation, anti-submarine warfare, targeting, and weapons delivery. The data from the devices is directly transmitted to the command center in China via satellites. This can bring more tension to the region, which is fast becoming a contested place for global power plays owing to its strategic location, natural resources, and the potential for new shipping routes. The US maintains more than 22,000 active-duty troops in Alaska and also has a base in Greenland. China has invented the designation “near Arctic country” to seek a greater role in Arctic governance. With no direct access to the Arctic and the West apprehensive of its presence in the region, China has been pushed closer to Russia to ensure it has a seat at the table when the Arctic policy is decided. In December 2022, a US Coast Guard cutter spotted the ships during a routine patrol of the Bering Sea, north of Alaska: a guided missile cruiser and two smaller ships from China, traveling in formation with four ships from Russia. The cutter followed until they split up and dispersed. The ships broke no rules and violated no boundaries. But their appearance so close to the Arctic this past fall raised concern in Washington nonetheless.

132-The Russia Council is suspended

The Arctic Council, a governing body of Arctic States and indigenous nations, suspended its meetings last year, refusing to engage with Russia after it attacked Ukraine. A panel of experts that RAND convened for its study noted that Russia could seek to form its own Arctic governing council, with a more central role for its ally, China.

131-Protection of Arctic routes critical to reinforce Europe in a conflict

Military Times, 7-29, 23, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=myYF-bPfjvs

All the units operating here in the Arctic region. They need to be very, very robust to cope with this harsh environment. It just prevents any aid from the outside you need to bring everything yourself. The Arctic Region is the gateway to the North Atlantic for NATO and its allies maintaining a strong presence here is vital to protect trade, transport, and communication links between North America and Europe. Historically, this has been an area of low tension but that is changing. Climate change is causing the world’s ice caps to melt at an alarming rate. As this ancient landscape forever changes, what does the future hold for security at the region known as the High North? What’s that? I’ll be joining the Danish Armed Forces in Greenland at sea and in the air to find out the challenges of patrolling this vast area. The geo gap, Greenland, Iceland and UK is hugely important for NATO. It’s what ties the transatlantic bonds together. That’s the way we would get the reinforcement from North America in a conflict scenario in Europe. [Host] No one knows how to operate in the freezing waters off the coast of Greenland, better than the Royal Danish Navy who have been patrolling here for centuries. We’ll be boarding the HDMS Triton one of four Danish ocean frigates patrolling Greenland at any given time under the Joint Arctic Command. Safely onto the ship, I went up to the bridge to meet the commanding officer. Commander Senior Grade Peter Krogh is a veteran of these waters and a former commander of one of NATO’s Naval task forces. Can you give us some idea of just a vastness of this area? It’s extreme distances, so you need to think ahead about the ship’s performance, about the crew skills and about logistics. We start to feel and growing interests from other navies that also wish to explore the northern region. And of course, we want to keep the sovereignty and protect the interests of Denmark and also our allies up here. Therefore, we are very pleased to share our knowledge with others and especially allied navies. I mean, it’s the sea level that’s changing, and it’s the amount of ice that is changing. Let’s take an example here in the Bay of Disko where we are now. People on the shore side, they used to visit the island Disko, and they could go there, buy food, but they haven’t been able to do that for a very long time because the temperature is increasing. So it is very, very easy to see the changes of the climate. As the ice melts, it creates the opportunity for new shipping routes and with it potential risks and threats to Euro-Atlantic security. The availability of new Arctic routes while presenting potential commercial opportunities could also lead to competition between nations and jeopardize the security of the entire region. With Russia stating its intention to be a primary force in the Arctic region and China declaring itself as a near Arctic power, Arctic security has become a priority for the NATO alliance and its allies. Our area of responsibility will be more used by the whole world, trade, the ships, by research, by tourism, so there will be more people in our area and that, of course, gives us a challenge both in the surveillance part but also in the search and rescue part. We need to be capable to handle that so there will be challenges. [Host] The truth is that nobody knows exactly what will happen in the coming years and decades with regards to rising sea levels and the effects they could have on security in the High North, but what we do know is that Greenland’s ice caps are diminishing, and sea levels are rising year on year. In an age when global security is both unpredictable and volatile, it is vital NATO maintains a strong allied presence in a strategically important region.

130-Arctic key to protect Russian nuclear deterrence

Bekkeveld & Hilde, 7-28, 23, Jo Inge Bekkevold is a senior China fellow at the Norwegian Institute for Defence Studies and a former Norwegian diplomat, Foreign Policy, https://foreignpolicy.com/2023/07/28/arctic-nato-russia-china-finland-sweden-norway-northern-europe-defense-security-geopolitics-energy/ Paal Sigurd Hilde is a professor at the Norwegian Institute for Defence Studies. Twitter: @Paal_S_H

Second, Putin’s war in Ukraine has likely raised the importance of the European high north and the Arctic region in Moscow’s military strategy. For the foreseeable future, the decimation of Russia’s conventional forces in Ukraine makes Moscow even more reliant on its nuclear deterrence. The largest share of the sea leg of Russia’s strategic nuclear triad is made up of the submarines operating in the Arctic Ocean from their bases on the Kola Peninsula.

Moreover, with Finland and Sweden in NATO, the Baltic Sea has turned into a virtual NATO lake, constraining the operations of Russia’s Baltic Fleet while Putin’s war in Ukraine increases the vulnerability of its Black Sea Fleet. These new vulnerabilities suggest that Moscow will find its Kola Peninsula-based Northern Fleet increasingly important—particularly its bastion defense concept for protecting Russia’s second-strike nuclear capability in the Arctic region.

129-Russia already encircled by Finland’s militarization

Third, Europe’s northern flank is witnessing an increase in military activity. Russia stated that it expects a militarization of the region following Finland’s and Sweden’s NATO accession. Like Norway, Finland borders Russia’s Kola Peninsula, the strategic significance of which makes Russia sensitive to allied activity nearby. Unlike Norway, which has long put limits on NATO activity near its border with Russia, Finland might show less constraint. It has, for instance, opened its skies for U.S. intelligence flights along its eastern frontier, and the first sortie took place in March 2023. Furthermore, forces from NATO countries are increasingly visible conducting military exercises in Europe’s northern waters. For instance, in June, the U.S. Navy’s newest supercarrier, the USS Gerald R. Ford, participated with its air wing in Arctic Challenge, a major exercise across northern Norway, Sweden, and Finland.

128-Ukraine war makes Russia dependent on China and gives China influence in the Arctic

Fifth, Russia’s war in Ukraine has strengthened China’s relations with Russia and given Beijing more leverage over its junior partner—which, in turn, increases China’s potential influence in the Arctic. Beijing wants access to Arctic resources, and it could have a strategic interest in the region for early warning purposes and a potential naval presence.

127-Finland and Sweden joining NATO deters Russian aggression

126-Despite the June 2006-June 2003 comparison, there is a net decrease in Arctic ice, and it’s caused by CO2 emissions

Kate Peterson, 7-18, 23, USA Today, June 2006 v. June 2023 Arctic sea ice comparison doesn’t disprove global warming, https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2023/07/18/arctic-sea-ice-declining-despite-june-comparision-fact-check/70385012007/

A June 17 tweet (direct link, archive link) shows Arctic sea ice extent images from June 16, 2006, and June 16, 2023. The sea ice appears to cover roughly the same area in both images from the National Snow and Ice Data Center. “Not the narrative: June 2023 Arctic sea ice extent about the same as June 2006, despite ~800 billion tons of emissions representing a 41% increase in industrial era CO2,” reads the caption. “Emissions-driven warming is a hoax.” The tweet was shared to Facebook more than 100 times in less than a month, according to Crowdtangle, a social media analytics tool. It was also retweeted more than 6,000 times. Follow us on Facebook!Like our page to get updates throughout the day on our latest debunks Our rating: False While Arctic sea ice extent − the area covered by a certain amount of floating ice − was similar in June 2006 and 2023, Arctic sea ice is decreasing overall due to global warming. Multiple lines of evidence show that human CO2 emissions are causing global warming. Arctic sea ice decreasing overall despite variability Arctic sea ice is declining overall due to climate change, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. About half of the sea ice cover at the “minimum extent” − the time of year after the summer melt has concluded − has been lost, according to the United Nations Environment Programme. “We have over 43 years of data now, and the signal of decreasing sea ice is very clear,” Walt Meier, a senior research scientist at National Snow and Ice Data Center, previously told USA TODAY. Fact check: Humans are responsible for a significant amount of CO2 in the atmosphere However, seasonal weather and short-term climate variations also influence the size of extent, he told USA TODAY in an email. This means that even though sea ice is declining overall, it is still possible for a more recent year or month to roughly match the extent of past months or years. This is the case for June 2006 and June 2023, which had similar extent sizes throughout the month, according to the National Snow and Ice Data Center Charctic Interactive Sea Ice Graph. However, the extents in both June 2006 and June 2003 were both lower than June extents between 1979-2004 as well as some more recent years. Overall, June Arctic sea ice extent has decreased by 3.8% per decade since the late 1970s, according to National Snow and Ice Data Center. Other parts of the year, such as the September minimum extent, have sustained much greater losses. Global warming caused by human greenhouse gas emissions More than a trillion metric tons of CO2 have been released by fossil fuel burning and land use changes since 1850, according to the 2022 Global Carbon Budget. Multiple lines of evidence show this CO2 has warmed the planet, Josh Willis, a NASA climate scientist, previously told USA TODAY. For one, CO2 is a known greenhouse gas, which warms the lower atmosphere by slowing the escape of heat into space. “The amount of warming we see matches what we expect based on the increased CO2 we’ve added,” he said. “The timing of the warming matches the timing of the CO2 increase caused by people.” Additionally, the type of carbon found in fossil fuels can be detected in atmospheric CO2, which confirms the gas was introduced by human behavior. Fact check: Arctic sea ice declining overall, though level varies by year and season The post’s figures for CO2 emissions since 2006 are in the ballpark, but may be somewhat overstated. Carbon Brief reports that humans released around 660 billion metric tons of CO2 between 2006-2022 through fossil fuel burning and land use changes. However, the Carbon Brief data (which is from the Global Carbon Project) also subtracts some emissions that were absorbed by the concrete manufacturing process. The social media user who posted the claim did not immediately respond to questions about the source of the CO2 emissions estimate in the post or which types of emissions are included in the estimate.

125-Russian military advantage in the Arctic; US behind on icebreakers

J.J. Brannock, 7-18, 23, https://www.thecentersquare.com/national/article_08ba124a-2580-11ee-a528-7f90ab71117d.html The Center Square, Security concerns grow as the U.S. continues to be outmatched in arctic territory

(The Center Square) – The Committee of Homeland Security Subcommittee on Transportation and Maritime Security held a hearing on Tuesday concerning security threats in the Arctic Region. The U.S. is one of eight countries with territory above the arctic circle. Russia also has territory in the area. Historically, both Japan in World War II and the Soviet Union during the Cold War sought U.S. arctic territory for strategic purposes. The U.S. has cited the arctic region as a potential entry point for Russian nuclear missiles and therefore crucial to protect. “For the past decade the Russian military has been building up its capabilities in the arctic, including its fleet of heavy icebreakers,” Chair Carlos Gimenez, R-Fla., said at the hearing. Gimenez cited Putin’s continued push for using the Northern Sea Route as an alternative to the Suez Canal to allow faster trade between Europe and Asia. He also mentioned Putin’s progressive noncompliance with other arctic states after the invasion of Ukraine. “The arctic has never been more essential to America’s national security,” said Rep. Shri Thanedar, D-Mich. “Unfortunately, the Coast Guard’s icebreaking capabilities are outmatched by our enemies, and rising threats from China and Russia pose a serious risk to American prosperity and security.” The U.S. currently has only 2 polar ice breaker ships in their fleet. The Russian government has roughly 36 in their arsenal, with an extra 15 being owned by private entities.

124-US needs more icebreakers to compete with Russia

China has also expressed interest in the arctic area in recent years, writing out a 5,500-word arctic strategy in 2018, including entering the territory “for the common interests for all countries, law-based governance, climate change, and sustainable developments.” The Chinese have 2 polar ice breakers despite not owning any territory above the arctic circle. Gimenez said that one of the reasons for China’s interest in the arctic may be for fishing purposes. “They are raping the oceans,” Gimenez said about China’s overfishing activities. “My concern would be that they are trying to do the same in the arctic region.” Thanedar requested Congress to approve “robust funding” for new polar ice cutters and other budget increases for the Coast Guard to help maintain national security in the arctic. One of two large ships funded for the Coast Guard has been delayed repeatedly, from an expected 2024 delivery to a now estimated 2028 at the earliest before being fully operational. Witnesses on the hearing said that the U.S. would need about eight more ships compared to their current two to compete with China and Russia’s growing influence in the area.

123-Russia-US tensions high in the Norway Arctic region

Emily Rauhala, July 17, 2023, Washington Post, An Arctic ‘Great Game’ as NATO allies and Russia face off in far north, https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/07/17/an-arctic-great-game-nato-allies-russia-face-off-far-north/

For several years now, European and U.S. security and intelligence officials have been keeping a closer eye on the world above the Arctic Circle, knowing that melting polar ice will open new trade routes, propel a race for natural resources and reshape global security. Western officials watched as Russia revived Soviet-era military sites and while China planned a “Polar Silk Road.” Vardo, Norway, is home to the U.S.-funded Globus I, II and III radars. But the war in Ukraine and the dramatic deterioration of Western relations with Moscow have put the frostbitten borderlands between Norway and Russia on heightened alert, while increasing the geostrategic importance of the Arctic. The result is an uptick in military, diplomatic and intelligence interest that could usher in an iteration of the “Great Game,” the 19th-century rivalry between the British and Russian empires for influence in Asia. For Russia, because the war in Ukraine has diminished Moscow’s conventional military forces and hobbled the Russian economy, its Arctic assets have become more critical. “The Arctic has become more important because the nukes are more important,” said Maj. Gen. Lars Sivert Lervik, the chief of the Norwegian army.

122-Arctic Council not working now

The Arctic Council — an intergovernmental forum that promotes cooperation — is in disarray because seven of its members refuse to work at a political level with its eighth member, Russia, disrupting collaboration on critical issues such as climate change. In the past year, Norwegian media outlets have reported about drones buzzing airports and oil and gas installations, the expulsion of Russian diplomats as spies, and the case of a man accused of illegal intelligence gathering while posing as a Brazilian guest researcher at a Norwegian university. For NATO allies, “a flashing yellow light turned red, and we need to think more carefully,” said a senior U.S. official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss alliance thinking. “Countries need to be sharing more information on destabilizing actions, on things that look strange, and we need to be less naive and more aware.”.

121-Russia could block resupply ships

Western officials worry, too, that Russia could block commercial shipping lanes or U.S. Navy ships en route to Europe, particularly at a potential maritime chokepoint called the “Greenland, Iceland, U.K. gap” that separates the Norwegian and North seas from the open Atlantic Ocean. “Russia’s ability to disrupt reinforcement is a real challenge to the alliance,” said one senior Western intelligence official, also speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss security matters. There is also concern that Moscow has mapped critical undersea infrastructure and could engage in sabotage against Europe. Last month, NATO launched a center for protecting undersea pipelines and cables.

120-Collaboration in the Arctic needed to avoid great power war; increasing military presence undermines that

Batool, 7-14, 23, Ms Fizza Batool is a student of International Relations from Kinnaird College for Women. She is particularly interested in geo-economics, geopolitics, area studies, diplomacy, conflict and peace, strategic and defense studies, political economy, and global politics of the environment, Significance of the Arctic Region, https://www.paradigmshift.com.pk/the-arctic-region/

The phenomenon of the Arctic presents a chance for realism theory analysis. Realism is a wide notion that encompasses everything from classical realism as described by Hans J. Morgenthau (1948) to neorealism as developed by Kenneth N. Waltz (1979). It is believed that the global order is wholly and permanently chaotic. Neo-realists often assert that these influences do not change the vital role that conflict performs in global politics, even though conventions, laws and structures, opinions, and other variables are accepted to influence the conduct of states. Since climate change has presented the Arctic nations and other players with new opportunities and problems, the region has become a focal point of great power conflict. A neo-realist narrative can, hence, help in explaining the dynamics of this rivalry. Neo-realism holds that in an international system that lacks a central authority to enforce laws or norms, nations want to maximize their relative strength and security. State interests in accessing and using the region’s natural resources, supporting their maritime borders, and extending their military presence and influence will be pursued in the Arctic as a result. In the case of the US-China power confrontation in the Arctic, neorealism implies the fact that conflict is an undeniable phenomenon, whereby the developed strategies can supply a dimension to the persistence of conflict which is merely an economic one. Resource wars are an example of the implication of conflict in the region. Neorealism, however, also acknowledges that states may work together under specific circumstances. This implies that to resolve their issues and advance regional stability, governments in the Arctic will also take part in multilateral organizations like the Arctic Council and abide by international law like the UNCLOS (United Nations Convention on Law of the Sea). To understand the intricate and dynamic nature of great power conflict in the Arctic, a neo-realist story can be a helpful tool. Thucydides Trap: An Idea American political scientist Graham T. Allison coined the phrase “Thucydides trap” to characterize the propensity for conflict when a growing power poses a danger to replace an established great power as a regional or global hegemon. The phrase is based on a statement made by the ancient Greek historian Thucydides, who said that Sparta’s dread of Athens’ development made the Peloponnesian War between the two cities unavoidable. Allison contends that this pattern has appeared several times throughout history, with war breaking out in 12 of the 16 instances of great power conflict. A possible flashpoint for such a confrontation is the Arctic region because of its abundance of natural resources, strategic locations, and environmental significance. Exploration, exploitation, and navigation in the area now face new potential and problems due to the melting of the polar ice caps brought on by climate change. The eight Arctic Council nations – Canada, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Russia, Sweden, and the United States – are the key players in the region. Moreover, other nations have also expressed interest in the region, including China, India, Japan, and the European Union. Also Read: The Syrian Port of Tartus: A New Gateway for Russia According to The Thucydides trap, China’s desire to increase its presence and influence in the Arctic might lead to tension and war between the United States and China. China has referred to itself as a “near-Arctic state” and has undertaken several diplomatic, scientific, and commercial projects there. China has also made significant investments in the region to link Asia with Europe and Africa via land and water routes over the Arctic. Some Arctic nations, particularly the United States, which sees China as a strategic rival and a possible danger to its interests and allies, have serious concerns about China’s intentions. The Thucydides trap suggests that a conflict between China and the United States over the Arctic is not inescapable, but rather might result from their rivalry instead. Both parties must practice restraint, communication, collaboration, and respect for international law and standards to avert such a situation. All regional parties may benefit greatly from the calm and fruitful engagement promoted by the Arctic Council. The Thucydides trap also cautions that human initiative and creativity may sculpt many futures and that history is not destiny. To avoid being constrained by the past, it is crucial to learn from it. The “new Cold War” in the Arctic region has wide-ranging effects that are important for both local and global stability. On the one hand, the region’s growing competitiveness and collaboration have certain advantages. For instance, competition may encourage innovation and progress in fields like indigenous rights, environmental preservation, and renewable energy. Cooperation might encourage communication between Arctic governments on topics including fisheries management, scientific research, and security. However, there are many challenges to the increasing rivalry in the area. A nuclear exchange or conventional war between large countries, for instance, might result in conflict that has disastrous effects on ecosystems, human life, and the environment. Conflict may also weaken the institutions and laws now in place to manage the Arctic, including the Ilulissat Declaration, the UNCLOS, and the Arctic Council. Conflict could also take resources and focus away from tackling pressing issues like climate change adaptation and mitigation. Given the scenario of a power struggle and the urgency of climate change, the rise of China is inevitable. The implementation of climate preservation policies is used as a tool to invest in the Arctic region and collaborate for interdependence on geopolitical constraints. The Polar Silk Road, if completed, would directly pose an economic threat to the US, laying the foundation for the Thucydides trap. The strategic significance of the Arctic region, its abundance in resources, and the menace of global warming have dragged the attention of international players whereby, they tactically hold the notion of environmental preservation in the Arctic region. However, in reality, international actors are exploiting the region with the initiation of projects to enhance their economic status. The main concern over the Arctic theatre is the US-China power competition where China is the rising power, and the US is the ruling power. If, in the coming times, China overpowers the US, the presented idea of the Thucydides trap would be considered successful. In conclusion, the argument lies in the fact that there would be a “new Cold War” in the Arctic due to the region’s growing economic prospects and security threats. There are both positive and negative effects of this phenomenon on regional and global stability. To foster a peaceful and sustainable development of this crucial region, the international community must cooperate to prevent and manage possible disputes in the Arctic.

119-China-Russia collaboration checks US hegemony

Sino-Russian collaboration in the Arctic is a strategic alliance that is beneficial to both nations and helps the Global Arctic flourish peacefully. Exploiting natural resources, advancing scientific research, and fostering commerce and connectivity through the Northern Sea Route (NSR) are all things that China and Russia have in common. China and Russia have been able to make concessions and work together on several initiatives, including the Yamal LNG project, the Ice Silk Road plan, and the joint exploration of oil and gas reserves, despite certain legal and political disagreements. Cooperation between China and Russia in the Arctic region also acts as a check on the growing power and influence of Western nations, particularly the United States, which sees the region as a possible battleground for geostrategic rivalry. China has been actively collaborating with Russia for the implementation of its policy. Russia, being the nearest to the Arctic, provides China with a crucial sea route, and in turn, China provides Russia access to warm waterways with the prime ambition to conduct trade. Thus, Sino-Russian collaboration in the Arctic is not an imminent risk but rather a logical and practical reaction to the Arctic’s shifting geopolitical and environmental circumstances.

118-Growing risk of Arctic superpower conflict

Primarily, agreements are a natural part of the great power strategic approach if the Arctic holds a zone of geopolitical struggle. The Arctic Ocean and its natural riches are becoming more accessible due to increasing temperatures worldwide, and the United States, Russia, and China all strive for their mobility of passage and sovereign claims and aims to be preserved. Yet, the increasing influence of China and its novel claims over the Arctic, the Russian militarism in the Arctic sea lanes, the growing integration between China and Russia, the geopolitical disputes between Russia and the US, and international competition between the US and China are all entwining the Arctic in an emerging era of global power struggle. Due to climate change and human activity, the Arctic area is undergoing rapid and unprecedented changes. The countries that border the Arctic as well as those with interests in the region are currently confronting new opportunities and challenges because of these developments. Researchers have issued warnings that the Arctic region is becoming a new theater for geopolitical rivalry and possibly conflict, particularly between Russia, the United States, and China. According to the key characters, implications, and actors involved in the Arctic area, there would be a “new Cold War” taking place. The security situation in the region has also become more complicated and unclear because of China’s rising interest in and presence in the Arctic. China has branded itself as a “near-Arctic state” and made significant investments in the area’s scientific research, economic growth, and diplomatic involvement. Through Arctic maritime routes, China’s “Polar Silk Road” program looks to link Asia and Europe, posing a threat to the supremacy of the United States and its allies in the area. Researchers who foresaw the start of resource wars in the Arctic have been drawn in by the thirst for riches. Most of the resources in the Arctic are in contested areas like the Beaufort Sea, where the boundary between Canada and the US has been a cause of intense debate for some time. When the US government leased off oil and gas licenses in the contested territory in 2003, Ottawa lodged an official objection, heightening the possibility of protracted legal disputes and scaring off foreign energy businesses. It is understood that the possibility of a military conflict between the two members of NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) is unimaginable given the close relations that exist between Canada and the United States. The shifting dynamics of the balance of power and security in the area are another factor contributing to the “new Cold War” in the Arctic. Russia, which has the longest Arctic coastline and the greatest proportion of the region’s resources, is the most significant player in this respect. In the Arctic, Russia has been pursuing an assertive and ambitious strategy that includes building up its military capabilities, increasing patrols and exercises, modernizing its icebreakers and nuclear forces, and asserting its claims over sizable portions of the continental shelf. Other Arctic governments, particularly NATO allies, are concerned about Russia’s intentions and capabilities in the area because of its actions. Russia’s participation in the wars in Syria and Ukraine has further heightened tensions and antagonism between Moscow and Washington, which might spread into the Arctic.

117-Oil companies don’t want to drill in the Arctic for reasons that have nothing to do with security

Alex Kimani – Jul 14, 2023, Alex Kimani – Jul 14, 2023,, https://oilprice.com/Energy/Crude-Oil/3-Reasons-Big-Oil-Might-Turn-Down-Bidens-Arctic-Bonanza.html

One of the biggest reasons why Big Oil is largely disinterested in Arctic drilling is due to many potential backers backing off. Back in 2019, Goldman Sachs became the first big U.S. bank to rule out financing new oil exploration or drilling in the Arctic, as well as new thermal coal mines anywhere in the world. The bank’s environmental policy declares climate change as one of the “most significant environmental challenges of the 21st century” and has pledged to help its clients manage climate impacts more effectively, including through the sale of weather-related catastrophe bonds. The giant bank also committed to invest $750 billion over the next decade into areas that focus on climate transition. Others soon followed suit: All five major U.S. banks and hundreds of financial institutions across the globe have pledged to restrict or stop financing Arctic oil exploration. The second big reason why Big Oil does not find the Arctic an attractive proposition is due to high drilling costs. For instance, when former President-Alaska Production at Exxon Darlene Gates showed a chart comparing estimated returns on investment at oil fields such as the Gulf of Mexico, the North Sea, the North Slope and Angola, Alaska oil was by far the least profitable due to its high cost of production. It’s a big reason why BP Inc.(NYSE:BP) sold off all of its assets in Alaska, including leases on lands that lie within ANWR, after 60 years in the state. The situation is not helped by the thawing permafrost. The Arctic is warming twice as fast as the rest of the planet, turning the permafrost into a land of sinkholes, lakes and boggy peat in the summer. Three years ago, a giant diesel fuel tank in the Siberian city of Norilsk sank into the tundra and ruptured, spilling 21,000 metric tons (157,500 barrels) of fuel after weeks of record high temperatures that hit over 100 degrees Fahrenheit. That marked the largest spill in modern Russian history and nearly half the amount spilled by the Exxon Valdez tanker off Alaska in 1989. Finally, there’s a lot of speculation regarding how much oil actually resides beneath the ANWR. Results of the only test well ever drilled in the refuge back in the early 1980s remains one of the most tightly guarded secrets in the oil industry. Interestingly, a 2006 National Geographic investigation reported the well was a “dry hole.’’ The fact that BP executives who knew what was down that hole and were on the cusp of getting the greenlight to develop their leases for the first time in 40 years thanks to the Trump bonanza instead chose to walk away does not inspire a lot of confidence in the refuge’s potential. Neither does the fact that the British oil giant sold its Alaskan assets to Houston-based Hilcorp, Inc.,a privately held company specializing in squeezing the last drop out of dying oil fields. Meanwhile, oil companies have been cutting their workforce in Alaska, from 15,000 in 2015 to 6,900 in 2019 well before the pandemic hit, pushing 40,000 more Alaskans out of work. In the final analysis, the triple whammy of high production costs, lack of financial backing and hostile government policies might mean that ANWR continues to be the refuge’s “biological heart” and a breeding ground for polar bears, caribou and more than 200 other species for decades to come.

119-Their cards are old – Sweden and Finland kill Russia’s Arctic threat

Stavridis, 7-13, 23, James Stavridis is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist. A retired U.S. Navy admiral, former supreme allied commander of NATO, and dean emeritus of the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University, he is vice chairman of global affairs at the Carlyle Group. He is on the boards of American Water Works, Fortinet, PreVeil, NFP, Ankura Consulting Group, Titan Holdings, Michael Baker and Neuberger Berman, and has advised Shield Capital, a firm that invests in the cybersecurity sector, Washington Post, Sweden and Finland Give NATO an Arctic Opportunity

In the wake of Finland’s and Sweden’s accession to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, the alliance can take a well-deserved victory lap. I commanded troops from both nations in Afghanistan, and Swedish forces in the Libyan campaign of 2011. The countries have professional and motivated personnel equipped with superb technology systems, from advanced fighter jets to stealthy naval corvettes. This spells trouble for Russian President Vladimir Putin’s military, already much depleted by its misadventure in Ukraine. Both new members have painful historical experiences with Russia. Finland comes with 800 miles of NATO border the Russians will have to plan to defend. If Putin were to invade Estonia, for example, he would now be vulnerable to being flanked through previously neutral Finland, seriously complicating his military calculus. One aspect of the Sweden-Finland accession gaining little geopolitical attention — when all is focused on Ukraine — is how they will add to NATO’s strength in the Arctic. When I visited the Nordic states a decade ago as the alliance’s supreme allied commander, their defense chiefs gave me a demonstration of their winter capabilities — their mastery at operating in what our Canadian allies call the High North, above the Arctic circle. I came away deeply impressed. So, given the new members, what would a coherent NATO strategy for the increasingly important Arctic look like? Step back and look at the geography. The top of the world is a geopolitical Thunderdome, with the prize of the Arctic Ocean at the center. As global warming removes more and more of the ice cover, access to vital shipping routes and hydrocarbons — oil and gas — will be increasingly crucial for the nations on the front porch of the Arctic Sea. (My Bloomberg Opinion colleague Liam Denning, newly returned from the region, is doing an excellent series of articles and videos on all this.) Before Sweden and Finland, five such countries were already NATO allies: Canada, Denmark (by virtue of Greenland), Iceland, Norway and the US. The two new allies, despite lacking ocean coastlines, are considered Arctic nations. About 15% of Sweden and a third of Finland are within the Arctic Circle: the region known as Lapland. Seven NATO allies now face Russia across the Arctic Ocean.

118-NATO needs table top defense exercises for the Arctic

Before his invasion of Ukraine, Putin was increasing the Arctic capability of Russia’s military. More troops, bases and ships were added within the Arctic circle. Given the immense losses he has suffered in Ukraine, this effort will likely slow, giving NATO leverage and an opportunity. The alliance should form a smaller “Arctic Coalition” within NATO to focus in increasing its defensive capability to the north. This coalition should include a well-staffed center devoted to study and analysis of defensive activities in the harsh conditions. Logically and symbolically, this should be based in the territory of one of the two new allies. The alliance should also develop a detailed defensive plan for responding to Russian activities in the north. NATO has elaborate defensive plans for dealing with attacks by Russia against the Baltic nations, Turkey and Black Sea countries — it needs a similar war plan for the High North, to be rigorously tested in tabletop exercises and real-world operations. NATO can also increase its routine surveillance and patrol activities in the region. This should include regular under-ice nuclear submarine patrols by the US and UK; more satellite time devoted to surveilling the polar region; increased overflight by long-range maritime patrol aircraft operating out of Iceland, Canada and Sweden; and ground-based, long-dwell radar systems on Greenland and other northern locations. Finally, NATO should conduct regular, large-scale combat exercises under realistic conditions. Warfighting is very different at 50 F below freezing. Every relevant NATO combat system — from missiles to rifles to radars to warships — should be evaluated for its efficacy Arctic conditions.

117-Multilateral Arctic Council can solve conflict

There is a diplomatic aspect to NATO’s role in the region as well. The international organization known as the Arctic Council includes all seven NATO members and Russia, as well as observer nations including China. It has provided a forum for planning for shared use of international waters and airspace — a forum where disputes can be heard and compromises reached. Despite immense differences over Ukraine, NATO and Russia must seek to avoid a war at the top of the world. The Arctic Council, like the effective Cold War arms-control agreements, can be part of a diplomatic track to address non-Ukrainian issues.

116-China and Russia set to dominate the Arctic, the US is not prepared

Kenneth Rosen, 7-6, 23, https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/07/06/arctic-cold-war-rivalry/, Washington Post, A growing rivalry in the Arctic? Talk about a cold war.

Strategic rivals are moving quickly to dominate the region. Over the past decade, Russia has reopened and modernized upward of 50 Cold War-era bases along the necklace of its Arctic coastline of roughly 15,000 miles. China has invested in liquefied natural gas projects in the Russian north. India has also invested in energy and mineral resources in the Arctic as its economy rapidly expands. One researcher who frequents the Arctic aboard U.S. Coast Guard icebreakers for scientific missions expressed shock “we weren’t paying more attention” to the region. An updated National Strategy for the Arctic Region, released by the White House last autumn, was disappointing. Like its predecessor from the Obama era, the strategy lacked concrete steps and actionable plans, while once again painting the Arctic as a remote and peculiar afterthought for the nation, home to poor infrastructure and lacking access to health care. And yet there are signs of progress that might point the way to an effective, though belated, future strategy. In 2020, the State Department opened a consulate in Nuuk, Greenland; the same year, a U.S. coordinator for the Arctic region was appointed. In the past year, a diplomatic mission in Tromso, Norway, has opened, and two positions have been created to focus on the region: an ambassador at large for the Arctic region at the State Department and a deputy assistant secretary of defense for Arctic and global resilience working at the Pentagon. The Northern Warfare Training Center in Alaska prepares twice as many troops than in years past. A $600 million-plus project will create Alaska’s first deep-water port in Nome There is much more to be done. “I’ve been making the case for years on the need to establish greater American presence in the Arctic — vessels, personnel and ports — as America’s strategic rivals lay claim to this important region,” Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska) said last year. The United States must also update its northernmost military facility, in Qaanaaq, Greenland, to take account of rising temperatures and thawing permafrost, which are damaging aircraft runways. It’s time to expand the U.S. fleet of icebreaker ships instead of relying on other nations’ fleets. Ratifying the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea would put the United States on equal footing with Russia and other nations staking claims to resources extending to the North Pole Further, the United States should shoulder the burden of integrated Arctic defense by filling gaps in surveillance, specifically in the North Atlantic between Greenland and Iceland and the United Kingdom. U.S. drones can keep an eye on remote Arctic regions, while imagery from surveillance satellites is more widely shared with Arctic allies, rather than relying on infrastructure and equipment owned and operated by those allies that are already turning their defense strategies homeward. American forces should participate more regularly in NATO Arctic exercises. (American B-1 bombers and F-35s joined an exercise in the Nordic region for the first time in June.) The long-running dispute between the United States and Canada over the boundary of the Beaufort Sea — north of Alaska and Yukon — should be resolved in a display of good faith to enhance cooperation with Canada (another state whose Arctic policy is turning more inward) in modernizing the NORAD network of air defense systems. Such steps would illustrate a previously unseen U.S. commitment to being a cooperative, not passive, regional partner while expanding the vision of a more global Arctic. Competition among great powers cannot be avoided, but it can be ignored. Despite the actions of our rivals, Washington has made only modest efforts to increase its Arctic footprint, both in Alaska and beyond. A longer and wider vision is required to meet overt and covert threats. That starts with the United States coming to understand that the Arctic is not just Alaska plus ice; it reaches across the northern flank and is a key to national security, global stability and climate resilience.

115-China and Russia set to dominate the Arctic, the US is not prepared

Kenneth Rosen, 7-6, 23, https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/07/06/arctic-cold-war-rivalry/, Washington Post, A growing rivalry in the Arctic? Talk about a cold war.

Strategic rivals are moving quickly to dominate the region. Over the past decade, Russia has reopened and modernized upward of 50 Cold War-era bases along the necklace of its Arctic coastline of roughly 15,000 miles. China has invested in liquefied natural gas projects in the Russian north. India has also invested in energy and mineral resources in the Arctic as its economy rapidly expands. One researcher who frequents the Arctic aboard U.S. Coast Guard icebreakers for scientific missions expressed shock “we weren’t paying more attention” to the region. An updated National Strategy for the Arctic Region, released by the White House last autumn, was disappointing. Like its predecessor from the Obama era, the strategy lacked concrete steps and actionable plans, while once again painting the Arctic as a remote and peculiar afterthought for the nation, home to poor infrastructure and lacking access to health care. And yet there are signs of progress that might point the way to an effective, though belated, future strategy. In 2020, the State Department opened a consulate in Nuuk, Greenland; the same year, a U.S. coordinator for the Arctic region was appointed. In the past year, a diplomatic mission in Tromso, Norway, has opened, and two positions have been created to focus on the region: an ambassador at large for the Arctic region at the State Department and a deputy assistant secretary of defense for Arctic and global resilience working at the Pentagon. The Northern Warfare Training Center in Alaska prepares twice as many troops than in years past. A $600 million-plus project will create Alaska’s first deep-water port in Nome There is much more to be done. “I’ve been making the case for years on the need to establish greater American presence in the Arctic — vessels, personnel and ports — as America’s strategic rivals lay claim to this important region,” Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska) said last year. The United States must also update its northernmost military facility, in Qaanaaq, Greenland, to take account of rising temperatures and thawing permafrost, which are damaging aircraft runways. It’s time to expand the U.S. fleet of icebreaker ships instead of relying on other nations’ fleets. Ratifying the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea would put the United States on equal footing with Russia and other nations staking claims to resources extending to the North Pole Further, the United States should shoulder the burden of integrated Arctic defense by filling gaps in surveillance, specifically in the North Atlantic between Greenland and Iceland and the United Kingdom. U.S. drones can keep an eye on remote Arctic regions, while imagery from surveillance satellites is more widely shared with Arctic allies, rather than relying on infrastructure and equipment owned and operated by those allies that are already turning their defense strategies homeward. American forces should participate more regularly in NATO Arctic exercises. (American B-1 bombers and F-35s joined an exercise in the Nordic region for the first time in June.) The long-running dispute between the United States and Canada over the boundary of the Beaufort Sea — north of Alaska and Yukon — should be resolved in a display of good faith to enhance cooperation with Canada (another state whose Arctic policy is turning more inward) in modernizing the NORAD network of air defense systems. Such steps would illustrate a previously unseen U.S. commitment to being a cooperative, not passive, regional partner while expanding the vision of a more global Arctic. Competition among great powers cannot be avoided, but it can be ignored. Despite the actions of our rivals, Washington has made only modest efforts to increase its Arctic footprint, both in Alaska and beyond. A longer and wider vision is required to meet overt and covert threats. That starts with the United States coming to understand that the Arctic is not just Alaska plus ice; it reaches across the northern flank and is a key to national security, global stability and climate resilience.

114-The US shouldn’t act alone, it should act through NATO

Heather Conley & Sophia Arts, 7-5, 23, https://www.gmfus.org/news/natos-policy-and-posture-arctic-revisiting-allied-capabilities-and-command-plans, NATO’s Policy and Posture in the Arctic: Revisiting Allied Capabilities and Command Plans,

On July 11–12, NATO heads of state—including the president of the alliance’s newest member, Finland—will convene in Vilnius, Lithuania, where they will take steps to align and enhance their defense posture in the Arctic. The allies are expected to approve updated regional defense plans, including one for the High North and the Atlantic. In outlining specific needs for troops, capabilities, and equipment to defend against evolving Russia-China cooperation in the region, the plan presents an opportunity to create greater Arctic defense coherence and capacity At the upcoming NATO summit in Vilnius on July 11–12, the war in Ukraine and internal turmoil in Russia will rightfully take center stage. But as Finland participates in its first leaders’ meeting as NATO’s 31st member, and the alliance continues to pave the way for Sweden’s accession, it will be important to assess how NATO can best leverage its enlarged Northern flank to boost capacity and enhance the allies’ defense and deterrence posture in the Arctic Finland’s accession constitutes a significant force multiplier for capabilities, structures, and readiness in the Baltic Sea and the Arctic. Nordic efforts to expand interoperability, readiness, and resilience, as well as the formal integration of highly capable Nordic Air Forces under NATO’s Integrated Air and Missile Defense (IAMD), will strengthen NATO defense planning and operations. NATO’s Nordic enlargement and the strengthening of its Arctic posture will require strategic decision-making. The alliance’s planned revisions to its regional plans under the concept for Deterrence and Defense of the Euro-Atlantic Area (DDA), which are part of the package of deliverables expected to come out of the summit, will provide an opportunity for the United States and its allies to lay the foundations to align and enhance their defense posture and readiness. Chair of the Military Committee Admiral Rob Bauer announced on July 3 that NATO will approve three regional plans in Vilnius, including one led by Joint Force Command (JFC) Norfolk for the High North and the Atlantic. This will be an important step toward updating the alliance’s threat analysis, streamlining the command structure, and creating a more robust NATO posture in the Arctic.

CONTINUES

Allies will also need to adjust their planning and posture to expanding Sino-Russian cooperation in the Arctic. A series of groundbreaking bilateral agreements this spring have signaled Russia’s growing willingness to provide Beijing greater access to the Northern Sea Route as it finds itself increasingly politically and economically isolated. NATO leaders will have to watch these developments closely and consider their implications for Russian sovereignty over its territorial waters and Chinese influence in the region. Ultimately, Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine and changing Sino-Russian relations have exacerbated a dynamic of heightened tension and rising instability that started in the mid-2000s, and that most policymakers in Arctic capitals chose to ignore in the face of competing priorities. In turn, these developments have increased the urgency to address existing gaps in Arctic strategy, posture, and capabilities for NATO. But the war in Ukraine has also provided insights into Russian tactics and military capabilities that NATO should assess closely to prepare for future conflict scenarios. Russia’s use of hypersonic missiles and Ukrainian efforts to intercept attacks through missile defense systems hold important lessons for Arctic air defense. This warrants a detailed evaluation of the performance of the US Patriot and German IRIS-T systems, as well as the Iranian drones and ballistic missiles Russia uses. Moreover, the United States and NATO should monitor military and industry innovation driven by battlefield requirements in Ukraine that could shape the future of conflict and assess the implications for the North Atlantic and Arctic region. This review should include a closer look at the use of unmanned underwater vehicles (UUVs) and aerial drones in the North, Baltic, Black, and Azov Seas.

Forging the Path Forward

Russian aggression and NATO’s response highlight new pathways for NATO cooperation and provide an opportunity to build a stronger deterrence posture and an enhanced presence in the Arctic to meet existing and future challenges from Russia in the near term and China in the medium to long term. This will require a recalibration of the threat perceptions of the United States, whose Arctic priorities are shaped by longer-term views toward environmental changes, US-China relations, and strategic competition, and (Northern) European allies, whose priority is to defend against Russia’s aggressive behavior and violations of their sovereignty.

Moreover, the United States and Canada must collaborate closely to further integrate and upgrade NORAD’s capabilities and operations to address severe gaps in coverage and prepare for high-stake scenarios that demand rapid responses, including those involving drones or hypersonic missiles. Over-the-horizon radar (OTHR), upgrades to the North Warning System, and improvements in integration of information networks will be essential to the ability of the United States and Canada, and by extension other NATO allies, to detect and defend against threats from the North.

Using NATO’s Comparative Advantage

NATO’s revisions to its regional plans will allow the United States and its allies to align and enhance their defense posture and readiness. A key feature of these updates will be new force structure plans that outline specific needs for troops, capabilities, and equipment to defend against Russia and other threats across the Euro-Atlantic region. A regional defense plan for the High North that streamlines NATO’s force posture to support Arctic operations, accompanied by greater defense integration and planning with the UK, the Baltic States, Poland, and Germany, will provide greater Arctic defense coherence.

NATO will also have to think innovatively about capability development and application and take stock of existing efforts to avoid duplication. A comprehensive assessment of existing government and private-sector Arctic-ready capabilities across the alliance would help highlight pathways to adapt military assets such as UUVs for new applications, while simplifying future military and commercial procurement choices. Beyond this, the Arctic 7 (Arctic allies, not including Russia), the UK, and Baltic states should continue to develop and upgrade joint deterrence and defense capabilities. An Arctic Security Initiative (ASI), modelled after the European Deterrence Initiative (EDI), could provide an avenue to further strengthen public-private cooperation and drive a collaborative approach to R&D and procurement of capabilities designed for unique Arctic conditions.

Bolstering Posture

A stronger Arctic posture will require enhanced presence. NATO should use its resources strategically to maximize outputs within budgetary restraints. Exercises including multinational efforts serve to demonstrate presence, test equipment, and optimize processes. US forces and NATO already routinely exercise in the Arctic region. However, unity of effort on operational coordination should be increased to create a persistent NATO presence that will ensure a more credible deterrence posture.

At the same time, enhanced presence will demand greater integration of joint intelligence, reconnaissance, and surveillance (ISR) activities and domain awareness capabilities. Stronger intelligence coordination will not only provide the Arctic 7 a better understanding of Moscow’s regional intentions, but also potentially deter malign Russian activities. These capabilities will, in addition, support joint operations in the air, sea, and land domains—for example through improved maritime surveillance of the GIUK gap and the North Atlantic.

Moreover, NATO allies should continue to utilize, revive, and upgrade existing infrastructure and increase efforts to improve interoperability, including through defense cooperation agreements. Investments beyond this should prioritize mobility and agile basing to enable rapid deployment.

Conclusion

Given the volatile threat landscape and NATO’s strengthened Northern capacity, allies should use the Vilnius meeting to set in motion ambitious processes that streamline and strengthen NATO’s deterrence posture and strengthen defenses in the Arctic against security challenges posed by Russia and Sino-Russian cooperation. Existing resources must be strategically allocated. Others will require further investment and research and development. The most important step will be for North American and European NATO allies to bridge threat assessments, share information, and coordinate activities. Around these efforts, NATO should initiate a coordinated strategic communications plan to optimize communications with allies and partners and signal its unity and resolve to secure and protect international legal norms in the Arctic.

113-The Ukraine has not reduced Russia’s Arctic threat

Assessing the Threat Landscape

Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 has irrevocably altered security dynamics in the Euro-Atlantic region. Although the war has drained conventional Russian land forces and degraded the country’s ability to pose a land threat to the Nordic countries (primarily Finland and Norway), for the time being, Russia’s Arctic air and maritime forces and assets remain largely intact. Despite their preoccupation with Ukraine, the Kremlin and its military leadership remain focused on the Arctic region, and its military capabilities there continue to pose a challenge to NATO. Because the Arctic remains central to Russia’s economic development and national interest, and given that key assets of Russia’s second-strike nuclear capability are located on the Kola Peninsula, the Arctic is existentially important to the Kremlin’s security calculations. Domestic instability in Russia and setbacks affecting its war aims may further raise the Kremlin’s risk tolerance as it seeks to demonstrate its military strength externally. This includes saber-rattling with its Arctic-based nuclear capabilities, which heightens instability in the region. In addition, Russia will likely rely even more on hybrid warfare tactics as its conventional capabilities are further degraded by economic limitations and sanctions affecting electronics and other hardware. This tracks with a recent uptick in sub-threshold attacks and economic and intelligence activities in Arctic countries, to include Norway, Finland, and Sweden. It will be important for present and future NATO members to gain a common understanding of this threat and to agree on appropriate response scenarios. The North American Arctic (the United States and Canada), and the European and Eurasian Arctic must agree on appropriate responses to deliberate escalation by Russia and reach a consensus on the strategic implications of China’s increased presence in the Arctic (both North Pacific and North Atlantic). The Vilnius summit can provide the necessary impetus to begin a long overdue discussion around a NATO Arctic policy that bridges threat assessments and establishes strategic foundations on which the allies can build. Along the way, they will need to address capabilities gaps and command and control inefficiencies. Streamlining the Arctic Command Structure To strengthen NATO’s posture in the Arctic and manage the risk of horizontal escalation, NATO allies must streamline the multi-layered national and allied command structure for the European and North American Arctic. This involves determining the best way to integrate new Nordic Allies. For the time being, Finland has been integrated via NATO Joint Force Command (JFC) Brunssum. But with an eye to integrating and enhancing NATO’s Nordic operations and readiness, there are strong arguments for integration via JFC Norfolk, which oversees Norway and the UK. As the alliance sets out to reform command and control (C2), NATO staff and military leadership will have to work closely with individual allies, including the United States and Canada, to further integrate command plans across the US Total Force, NORAD, and NATO. In parallel, the United States will need to streamline its national command structure and update the Unified Command Plan (UCP) for the Arctic to address overlaps in areas of operation—including among the 6th Fleet based in Naples, the 2nd Fleet operating out of Norfolk, and US Joint Forces Command—and also to account for growing Sino-Russian alignment and greater Chinese engagement in the region.

112-Ice melting freeing-up resources and Russia is aiming for them

Author: Eyck Freymann | July 06, 2023, Eyck Freyman, Former Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Arctic Initiative, https://www.belfercenter.org/publication/geopolitics-climate-change-scenarios-and-pathways-arctic-2050, The Geopolitics of Climate Change: Scenarios and Pathways for Arctic 2050

Climate change is already transforming the Arctic. Temperatures in the region are rising 3-4 times faster than the global average. Sea ice is trending down by every relevant metric, especially between April and September, opening new navigation routes and expanding access to marine resources. Permafrost thaw is impacting infrastructure across the region, increasing the risk of environmental accidents. Extreme weather events are on the rise. Sea level rise is accelerating, though its impacts will be global and longer-term in nature.

Under all plausible scenarios, global warming will continue, and the Arctic will keep warming faster than the global average. By mid-century, the frequency and severity of heatwaves, extreme precipitation and flooding, wildfires, disruption of marine food webs and fisheries, sea level rise and coastal inundation, droughts, and potentially climate-refugee flows are all likely to increase. The impacts on Arctic communities will be especially severe. Some will have to relocate. Others will have to adapt, at great cost and inconvenience. The rate of change for many impacts is forecast to increase in roughly linear fashion through mid-century—and to accelerate thereafter in the higher-emissions scenarios. In short, it is impossible to plan for the Arctic in 2050 without anticipating a future of dramatic climatic and geographic transformation.

However, our ability to forecast the future of climate change is also limited by several kinds of uncertainty. Uncertainty about the future pathway of global emissions means that there is no single baseline forecast for the extent of climate change by 2050 or any other year. The UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)’s scenarios range from extremely optimistic to extremely pessimistic. Within each emissions scenario, models yield different median estimates and levels of uncertainty. The IPCC’s middle emissions scenarios currently appear most likely, though it is impossible to have certainty. There is no single “tipping point” of warming for Arctic climate change. In short, the extent of long-term Arctic climate impacts depends largely on actions we take today, but climate change mitigation and adaptation are both essential and complementary strategies. The United States can and must invest in both. To build resilience, policymakers also need an organized framework for thinking about how climate change, and the steps they take in response to climate change, will interact with geopolitical and economic trends in the region.

Climate change is already affecting geopolitics, and countries are adapting their geopolitical strategies to take account of anticipated future climate change. Russia is leading in this regard, explicitly integrating climate change forecasts into its economic and national security strategies. Vladimir Putin has signaled that he sees the Arctic as an essential resource base and military stronghold for Russia in the decades ahead. Putin also seems to believe that unexploited hydrocarbon resources in the Arctic will be crucial for Russia’s economic future post-Ukraine. Scientists and industry participants are skeptical that this plan will succeed, but the exit of Western firms has removed pressure on Russian policymakers and firms to guard against Arctic environmental risks. Russian activity is increasing the probability of Arctic environmental disasters in the years ahead, including oil spills and radiological leakage.

The United States and its Arctic allies and partners cannot ignore Russia’s actions. As the war in Ukraine still rages, a future military confrontation between Russia and NATO in the Arctic cannot be ruled out. NATO faces the challenge of how to strengthen its defense structures and increase the frequency and scope of Arctic exercises without risking misperceptions and accidents that lead to conflict with Russia. Moscow’s diplomatic isolation and economic weakness may also force it to grant China a greater role in the development of the Northern Sea Route. A Chinese military presence in the Arctic is unlikely ever to serve Russian interests, but a prolonged Ukraine war, in which the Putin regime remains in power, likely points to deeper and broader Sino-Russian collaboration.

The Chinese Communist Party has its own view of the climate-geopolitics nexus. Chinese experts discuss direct impacts of climate change as a multi-dimensional national security threat. Across China, climate-induced natural disasters could potentially produce financial stress, migration, and even social unrest. Overseas, however, Chinese academic and policy literature hints that climate change is indirectly producing economic and geopolitical opportunities that China could exploit. The Arctic is seen as the region where climate-related opportunities are most obvious. China’s end-state vision for the Arctic is unclear—but commentary by Chinese politicians and scholars about the Arctic as a “new strategic frontier” imply that Beijing’s long-term aspiration is to play a role in rewriting and reshaping the Arctic’s existing governance rules and institutions.

Climate science is an essential early step in China’s longer-term strategy to become a “polar great power” (极地强国). In the short term, China has attempted to play Russia and the United States against each other as it expands its Arctic presence, but it has met resistance. China sees scientific collaboration as a pathway to establish a physical presence in the region without arousing suspicion from Arctic states. China also cites climate change as the legitimizing reason for its Arctic aspirations. To achieve China’s long-term aspirations, it needs a “strategic pivot point” (战略支点)—a port in the in the region that it substantially controls, in a country that would not abandon China in a crisis. Greenland, for several reasons, is the ideal candidate. The fact that prominent Chinese commentators have explicitly articulated this strategy poses a dilemma for the United States. China has a legitimate right to pursue peaceful scientific research in the Arctic, and scientific cooperation on climate-related issues benefits the entire international community. However, it would not serve U.S. interests if China manifested the rest of its strategy, using Russia or other regional proxies to insert itself into regional governance and asserting its own interests over those of circumpolar states and communities.

111-Ukraine tensions increase Arctic escalation risks

Yvonne Murray, 7-2, 23, https://www.rte.ie/news/world/2023/0701/1392214-melting-ice-leads-to-new-cold-war-in-the-arctic-circle/, Melting ice leads to new cold war in the Arctic Circle

But, with Russia, China and the US increasing their activity in the high north, experts fear that the great power rivalry could spill over. Scientists predict that the Arctic Sea will see its first ice-free summer by 2034 “The tensions resulting from the war in Ukraine has led to increased military air and naval activity and alertness in the Arctic,” Prof Moe said. “In the present situation there is a growing risk that unintended incidents, for example a collision between warships could escalate into a bigger conflict.”

110-AI protects Arctic indigenous knowledge and the environment

Arctic Economic Council, no date, https://arcticeconomiccouncil.com/news/understanding-climate-change-through-a-digital-twin-of-the-arctic-ocean/, Understanding Climate Change Through a Digital Twin of the Arctic Ocean

The PolArctic’s digital twin will integrate unique multiscale information in a novel and unprecedented way. It will combine traditional indigenous knowledge, data science, ocean modelling, and advanced artificial intelligence to create individuals with unique behaviours in simulated ocean habitats. “The project explores various data sources that highlight the value of including artificial intelligence and traditional knowledge from indigenous people, who have a deep understanding of their environment. Often positioned as if artificial intelligence and indigenous culture were in conflict with each other, the project achieves a level of success that would not be possible without the benefit of both,” explains Leslie Canavera, CEO of PolArctic. The virtual simulations will enable PolArctic to concretely visualise the ecosystem characteristics and the fish stocks in different ocean areas. It will indicate the emergence of new phenomena such as acidification, temperature changes, illegal fishing, and predator-prey interactions. The model will support precision-fishing techniques, increasing industry profits while simultaneously raising the total fish biomass by allocating fishing in regions of abundance and regeneration for schools and regions suffering overfishing or climate change impacts.

109-Attempted coup proves Russia’s military is a wreck

McFaul, former US ambassador to Russia, 6-24, 23, NPR, Former U.S. ambassador to Russia says aborted Moscow march signals Putin’s weakness, Former U.S. ambassador to Russia says aborted Moscow march signals Putin’s weakness : NPR

DETROW: So you think, in your mind, there’s no question that whatever this possible resolution is, Putin is weaker than he was before it began. MCFAUL: Yes. I mean, how else can one describe this? These are two Russian armies that, instead of fighting the Ukrainian army, were gearing up to fight each other. Mr. Prigozhin was at least doing a mutiny and maybe a coup, and Putin did not look like he was in control of this situation at all. He talked a really tough game several hours ago when he spoke to the people, but he was rather feckless in his response to this mutiny, this coup. That suggests that he’s much weaker today than he was just 24 hours ago. DETROW: You have been predicting for a long time, along with many others, that that the Ukraine war could endanger Putin’s regime, as it’s gone so poorly for Russia. Did the specifics of what has happened here – as far as we know what they are right now – did the specifics of this particular threat surprise you? MCFAUL: Not the specifics in terms of who the actors were. I’ve been talking about this for a long time, like you said. But I was surprised by how fast Prigozhin could get his forces to seize one of the largest cities in all of Russia… DETROW: Yeah. MCFAUL: …Without a fight. That surprised me. DETROW: What do you think this means for the war in Ukraine going forward? The Wagner group has played such a big role in it for Russia. I mean, the Kremlin has said that all will be forgiven for the soldiers who participated. But it just seems hard to me to envision marching on your own country, then turning around and rejoining the lines with Russian soldiers fighting in Ukraine. MCFAUL: I agree with you entirely. I think for morale purposes, this is a disaster for both the Wagner forces that allegedly are now going to join the conventional Russian army but also for the Russian army that are fighting there. I think it’s an opportunity, I hope, for the Ukrainians to succeed faster with their counteroffensive. And here I agree with Prigozhin. At one point in one of his missives last night, he described and explained why this war was a mistake and a disaster. And they’ve been lying to you from the Kremlin. I hope that message gets out to Russian soldiers and to Russian people as well. DETROW: Does Prigozhin represent a continued threat to Putin at this point? MCFAUL: Yes. I will be surprised if he just goes to Belarus and retires for the rest of his time. He has become a populist figure. His soldiers were cheered as they left Rostov, and I just cannot imagine that he just fades away. I think he presents a real problem for Putin for the future. DETROW: And I just want to go back to this point of Putin saying he will not be charged or the Kremlin, rather, announcing he will not be charged – because without speculating too much, there is a clear, very long trend of how Putin responds to political threats. And this does not seem to fit in them. MCFAUL: You’re exactly right. I mean, think about the paradox here. Mr. Kara-Murza, who was just sentenced for 25 years in jail for mildly criticizing the war, yet Prigozhin threatens to overthrow the Russian military, and he doesn’t face any charges and goes to Belarus – that is something we have not seen ever in Putin’s Russia. And I think it underscores just how weak he is right now. DETROW: And what are you going to be looking for in the next day or so in terms of getting a sense of this crisis has immediately calmed or it might flare up again? What do you think the key things to keep an eye out are? MCFAUL: Two or three things. First, it’s been alleged that as part of the deal, Prigozhin forced out Gerasimov, General Gerasimov, who’s the commander of the Russian armed forces. That has not been confirmed, but that will be very interesting to see if that was true. And second, does Prigozhin, from his new post in Belarus, continue to criticize the Russian armed forces? He’s got a big social media presence. Or does he now go silent? And was that part of the deal for him to remain alive and in exile? We don’t know the answers to those questions… DETROW: Do you think he’s at risk physically, personally at risk in Belarus? MCFAUL: Oh, absolutely. I would be very concerned, if I were him, for his health and his safety. DETROW: How does the – how does what happened over the past 24 hours stack up to you to, you know, the coup attempts of the ’90s, the other unrest we’ve seen over the years. In about 30 seconds, is this going to be a major moment in Putin’s presidency? MCFAUL: Without question, it’s the weakest moment of his presidency. It’s the strongest threat to him. And it undercuts the image of Putin the great, Putin the powerful, Putin supported by everyone. He’s not supported by everyone inside Russia.

108-Russia could use nuclear weapons in the Ukraine

John Cleave, 6-21, 23, The Sun, DEFCON ONE Vladimir Putin vows to deploy world’s most powerful nuke ‘Satan 2’ to ‘combat duty’ in chilling new threat to West, https://www.the-sun.com/news/8421543/putin-worlds-most-powerful-nuke-satan-battle-threat/

In February, Putin reportedly tested his hypersonic Sarmat missile while US President Joe Biden was visiting Ukraine and meeting with President Volodymyr Zelensky. However, its deployment has proceeded slower than planned, as Russia had claimed they would be in place last autumn. Dmitry Rogozin, former head of Russia’s space agency, hailed the new “super-weapon” as an historic event that would guarantee the security of Russia’s children and grandchildren for the next 30-40 years. It comes as Biden warned that the threat of the Russian President using tactical nuclear weapons is “real”. He referred to Putin’s decision to deploy tactical nuclear weapons in neighbouring Belarus as “absolutely irresponsible”. Putin has repeatedly said since the start of the Ukraine conflict that Russia is ready to use all means, including nuclear weapons, to defend its “territorial integrity”. Last week, the city-killer nuclear weapons arrived on Belarusian soil and puppet President Alexander Lukashenko claimed he “won’t hesitate” to use them. The addition of nuclear weapons to Belarus provides Russia with an advantage, as they can now strike within NATO territories. READ MORE ON THE US SUN CEO of missing Titanic sub never hid the dangers, expedition divers reveal DARK WARNING CEO of missing Titanic sub never hid the dangers, expedition divers reveal TikToker Britney Joy and mom die in horror car crash as sister shares details STAR GONE TikToker Britney Joy and mom die in horror car crash as sister shares details Last year, Putin claimed to be placing territories illegally seized

107-China control of the Arctic critical to its Belt & Road Initiative (BRI)

Peiqing & Huiwen, 6-20, 23, Guo Peiqing is a Professor at the School of International Affairs and Public Administration, Ocean University of China. Chen Huiwen is a Ph.D. candidate of the College of Foreign Languages, Ocean University of China, Chinese Perspective on the Arctic and its Implication for Nordic Countries, https://www.thearcticinstitute.org/chinese-perspective-arctic-implication-nordic-countries/

The U.S.-China global competition is spilling over into the Arctic, which has been heating up in recent years, especially in the Arctic-Atlantic linkage zone where the five Nordic countries are located. This region connects the Arctic Ocean with the Atlantic Ocean north-south, overlooks the North American and European continents east-west, and is closely connected to the security of the U.S. homeland. The U.S. can’t afford to have China gain a foothold or grow strong there, and will therefore do its utmost to exclude China from this region. But at the same time, China regards the Nordic countries as the western end of the Chinese “Polar Silk Road,” where China has important shipping, scientific and strategic interests. The “Polar Silk Road” is of great significance to China’s “Belt and Road” initiative and connectivity between Asia and Europe.2).

106-China is not a threat to the Arctic, it wants collaboration

To achieve mutual development through win-win cooperation is the first aim of Chinese Arctic policy. China and the Nordic countries are highly complementary in terms of economic structure. China is an important manufacturing country with strong infrastructure capacity and is the world’s largest consumer market. As for the Nordic countries, the pillar industries are animal husbandry, fisheries, shipping, resource extraction, high-tech manufacturing, and tourism. China and Nordic countries are complementary in the international industrial and supply chains and there is no competition. In China’s Arctic Policy published in 2018, China systematically elaborates the objectives, principles and policy propositions of China’s participation in Arctic affairs. Cooperation and mutual benefits are the basic position of China. Unlike the U.S. dichotomy of “friend or foe” and the confrontational mindset of “lose or win,” China bases its policy on its long-history of Confucian culture and peace-harmony gene and does not force Nordic countries to take sides between China and the United States, but advocates the concept of “making friends with the world” and aims for win-win results.4) China advocates solidarity, mutual assistance and sharing the same boat, likes working together with other countries on Arctic climate, scientific research and trade issues, and hopes to extend China’s concept of “community with a shared future for mankind” to the Arctic region.

US already increasing its military presence in the Arctic

AP, 6-19, 23, https://www.militarytimes.com/news/your-military/2023/06/19/first-us-deep-water-port-for-the-arctic-to-host-military-cruise-ships/, Military Times, First US deep water port for the Arctic to host military, cruise ships

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — As the Arctic sea ice relents under the pressures of global warming and opens shipping lanes across the top of the world, more tourists are venturing to Nome — a northwest Alaska destination known better for the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race and its 1898 gold rush than luxury travel. And so are U.S. military vessels, to counter the presence of Russian and Chinese ships in the Arctic. The problem? There’s no place to park the big boats. While smaller cruise ships are able to dock, officials say that of the dozen arriving this year, half will anchor offshore. That’s expected to change as a $600 million-plus expansion makes Nome, population 3,500, the nation’s first deep-water Arctic port. The expansion, expected to be operational by the end of the decade, will accommodate not just larger cruise ships of up to 4,000 passengers, but cargo ships to deliver additional goods for the 60 Alaska Native villages in the region, as well as military vessels. U.S. Sen. Dan Sullivan, an Alaska Republican, said the expanded port will become the centerpiece of U.S. strategic infrastructure in the Arctic. The military is building up resources in Alaska, placing fighter jets at bases in Anchorage and Fairbanks, establishing a new Army airborne division in Alaska, training soldiers for future cold-weather conflicts and has missile defense capabilities. “The way you have a presence in the Arctic is to be able to have military assets and the infrastructure that supports those assets,” Sullivan said. The northern seas near Alaska are getting more crowded. A U.S. Coast Guard patrol board encountered seven Chinese and Russian naval vessels cooperating in an exercise last year about 86 miles (138 kilometers) north of Alaska’s Kiska Island. Coast guard vessels in 2021 also encountered Chinese ships 50 miles (80 km) off Alaska’s Aleutian Islands.

105-China-Russia Arctic cooperation now

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg last year warned that Russia and China have pledged to cooperate in the Arctic, “a deepening strategic partnership that challenges our values and interests.”

104-Rapid ice melting in the Arctic now, Russia securing its interests

Barry Gardiner is the Labour MP for Brent Nort, 6-13, 23, The Guardian, s the ice melts, a perilous Russian threat is emerging in the Arctic, https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/jun/13/arctic-russia-nato-putin-climate

To understand why this matters, we must first understand the climate emergency taking place in the region. Summer sea ice has declined by 30% in the past 30 years; 90% of old ice, which is classified as five years old or more, has gone. That ice used to act as the great heat shield for the planet, reflecting back the sun’s rays. But the loss of ice is producing a vicious spiral of heating. The Arctic is now warming three times faster than the global average. This process is called Arctic amplification. It means that scientists now project an Arctic free from summer ice by 2040–45. As the ice cover is lost, a trans-polar route is opening to connect east Asia to Europe and the eastern coast of North America. And the ice barrier that once protected Russia’s northern shore will be exposed as never before. Russia represents 53% of the Arctic coastline and the need to protect its northern border as the ice barrier melts is a key national security concern. Vladimir Putin already had ambitious plans for the northern sea route, seeking to more than double the cargo traffic. But over the past six years, Russia has also built 475 military sites along its northern border. The port of Severomorsk, on the Kola peninsula, is the base of the country’s northern fleet. In recent years, the Russians have reactivated 50 Soviet outposts in the Arctic and equipped its northern fleet with nuclear and conventional missiles.

103-No Arctic science cooperation now

On a recent visit to the Ny-Ålesund international research station on Svalbard, it was depressing to hear that scientific cooperation with Russia on climate matters has effectively ceased. The Arctic is an environment where cooperation is essential. Arctic science must be done over the long term, and the relationships and trust built up between partners offer predictability and greater stability. In a region that is becoming over-securitised, every opportunity to minimise accidental misunderstandings and avoid a military response should be seized.

102-Militarized Arctic undermines scientific cooperation

A militarised Arctic would undermine scientific cooperation and pose an existential threat. Somehow, we need a diplomatic effort to separate the politics of war from the imperatives of climate research. During the cold war, the USSR and the west had cultural and scientific exchanges that kept back-channels of communication open when political temperatures were running high. Now, more than ever, we need similar initiatives to thaw the permafrost between Russian and western research efforts.

101-China wants to expand the BRI to the Arctic

Zero Hedge, 6-19,23, China And Russia’s Ice-Breaking Ambitions In The Arctic, https://oilprice.com/Geopolitics/International/China-And-Russias-Ice-Breaking-Ambitions-In-The-Arctic.html

In 2018, Beijing released a white paper on how China could extend its Belt and Road Initiative to the Arctic region, suggesting that polar stakeholders could work together on connectivity and economic and social development, including the exploration and exploitation of resources such as oil, gas and minerals, as well as on scientific research into the effects of climate change on the region. According to Deutsche Welle, the United States is worried about what this means, while Russia “smells business.”

100-Increasing the number of outsiders threatens indigenous people

Dunkel, 6-7, 23, https://www.workers.org/2023/06/71470/m Militarizing the Arctic

The Arctic Council is an intergovernmental body headquartered in Tromsø, Norway, a small Norwegian city about 200 miles above the Arctic Circle. This council was first established in 1996 to provide a forum for Arctic countries, including Sweden, to work on common problems.

It also includes organizations of Arctic Indigenous people who first settled the region several thousand years ago: the Aleut International Association (AIA); the Arctic Athabaskan Council (AAC); the Gwich’in Council International (GCI); the Inuit Circumpolar Council (ICC); the Russian Association of Indigenous Peoples of the North (RAIPON); and the Saami Council.

Four million people, many Indigenous, live in the Arctic. The machinations of the United States and its allies like Canada are threatening their existence, their cultural integrity, their livelihoods. They deserve our solidarity and support. The Council has worked on environmental and development issues, facing large and difficult problems relating to climate change, high latitude pollution, conflicting territorial claims, maritime transportation, infrastructure needs and resource exploitation. These discussions are now taking place in an increasingly tense political setting.

99-Russia now rebuilding in the Arctic

Dunkel, 6-7, 23, https://www.workers.org/2023/06/71470/m Militarizing the Arctic

There is now “a significant Russian military buildup in the High North,” according to NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg. NATO forces monitor the Baltic and North Seas, while projecting a presence in the Arctic. This comes after Russia withdrew “as much as three-quarters of its land forces from the High North region near the Arctic” to send them to fight in Ukraine. (CNN, Dec. 22, 2022)

98-The US has increased its Arctic presence

Dunkel, 6-7, 23, https://www.workers.org/2023/06/71470/m Militarizing the Arctic

The U.S./NATO forces have been matching the Russian efforts with a buildup of their own, doubling NATO’s presence with ships, submarines and patrol aircraft. War games were held in March 2022, within days of the Russian entry into Ukraine. Known as Cold Response, these games are held every two years enabling the NATO forces to rehearse coordinating and commanding personnel and supplies from 27 different countries, with no common language, under Arctic conditions.

The U.S. announced last week that it will open a consular office in Tromsø later this year to monitor Russian moves in the region. The U.S. has expanded its military presence and training to enhance its Arctic preparedness. The USS Gerald R. Ford, the largest aircraft carrier in the world, is operating in Norway’s Arctic waters under NATO command. There are currently 150 jets from 14 NATO nations training in the region, more above the Arctic Circle than at any time since the breakup of the Soviet Union. Other U.S. destroyers, aircraft carriers and submarines are in the area as well. Some are part of Arctic Challenge 2023, a biannual large-force, live-fly field training exercise to advance Arctic security initiatives and enhance interoperability of the NATO forces. (Air National Guard website, June 2)

97-China and Russia moving into the Arctic to control resources

Liam Denning, 6-4, 23, Bloomberg, An Army at the Top of the World, https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2023-opinion-arctic-geopolitics-resources/army-training.html

Now, as geopolitical tension encroaches on the Arctic, the US is once again experiencing a Sputnik moment in its far north. More effective and relentless than any artillery, climate change is crumbling the Arctic’s walls of ice, raising hopes of access to its resources and new sea routes to project power and influence. A 2008 report from the US Geological Survey teased the “largest unexplored prospective area for petroleum remaining on Earth.” Old World riches like gold and the building blocks of new technologies like rare earth metals and graphite are also scattered around up there. Russia is campaigning to carve out a large zone of economic exclusivity in the Arctic and has invested heavily in rebuilding its military capabilities there, fueling angst that the US is being left behind (after the missile gap comes the icebreaker gap). Meanwhile, China has artfully declared itself a “near Arctic nation,” underlining its intention to muscle into the region as a “polar great power” and establish a presence in an echo of the South China Sea.

96-The US has reactivated the 11^th Airborne Division in the Arctic

Liam Denning, 6-4, 23, Bloomberg, An Army at the Top of the World, https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2023-opinion-arctic-geopolitics-resources/army-training.html

As a result, Washington’s gaze has been drawn northward with an intensity not seen in decades. In 2019, then-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo discomfited his audience at the collegial Arctic Council by branding the region “an arena of global power and competition.” Then, the US Army published a new strategy titled, plainly enough, “Regaining Arctic Dominance.” It followed that up last summer by reactivating the 11th Airborne Division, headquartered at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson outside Anchorage, as a dedicated force of “Arctic Angels.”

95-US increasing military support and exercises in the Arctic

Zhang Chi, 6-5, 23, NATO’s large-scale military exercises intensify Arctic game,

https://eng.chinamil.com.cn/WORLD_209198/WorldMilitaryAnalysis/16228909.html

On the other hand, NATO has pressed the “accelerate button” of the Arctic game. The Arctic region has become a hot spot for major military powers to compete against each other in recent years. The Biden administration’s Arctic policy emphasizes “military deterrence” against Russia, and the US military has rebuilt the 11th Airborne Division to carry out combat missions in the Arctic. As a response, Russia has introduced the latest Arctic policy and fine-tuned the previous version to highlight national and territorial security. Russia has also built and renovated hundreds of military facilities in the Arctic including six military bases, 19 airports, and 16 deep-water ports. Next, the U.S. and its NATO allies will rely on exercises such as Cold Response, Arctic Edge, Polar Bear and Arctic Challenge to continuously improve Arctic combat and integrated deterrence capabilities.

94-The US must expand its military presence in Alaska

Liam Denning, 6-4, 23, Bloomberg, An Army at the Top of the World, https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2023-opinion-arctic-geopolitics-resources/army-training.html

Rather than necessarily regaining a “dominance“ it never really had — the Cold War Arctic was always quietly contested — the Army must instead reaffirm its presence there. Besides the external environment, the US confronts its own propensity to blow hot and cold on the region. To most Americans, Alaska remains an exotic territory of the mind, associated variously with motifs like polar bears, oil, ice. The Army was in the vanguard of the state’s absorption; it ran the Department of Alaska for the first 10 years after its purchase in 1867 from Russia. It must now also lead in reestablishing the state’s strategic importance if it is to build a credible deterrent. The recent establishment of a Department of Defense Regional Center — essentially a think tank, and the first such one in over two decades — outside Anchorage was an important step. The next one should be a commitment to longer deployments. In a sense, the Army must replant its flag in already-sovereign US territory. Planting flags, even metaphorical ones on your own land, can nonetheless be a provocative act in this part of the world. After all, Russia’s literal planting of a flag on the polar seabed and subsequent reopening of Arctic bases on its own soil is part of the justification for the US pivot northward. This is the geopolitical feedback loop that can spur narratives of potential conflict writing themselves like some manic AI. Thankfully, national borders in the Arctic are mostly well-defined. The biggest ongoing dispute, concerning claims to the seabed, has thus far played out under the auspices of the United Nations’ Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf. For all the talk of a scramble for resources, echoing the jingoism of 19th-century empires, the word “scramble” doesn’t really fit a place seemingly constructed of only obstacles. If anything, though, this makes the Army’s presence here more vital. Speak to any military expert about the Arctic, and the phrase “domain awareness” crops up quickly. Think of that as erasing all those “UNSURVEYEDs.” Blank space has been birthing dragons on maps for centuries. And while Alaska’s Cold War legacy makes it no stranger to sophisticated surveillance technology, boots on the ground come with lots of eyes attached, too. A fully acclimated 11th Airborne should deter any foreign adventurousness while also easing Washington’s more paranoid tendencies. The Arctic’s brief age of innocence is reverting to something more fraught. Just as the carbon emissions now warming the region didn’t originate there but do their insidious work regardless, preventing the wider world’s tensions from crossing 66.5 degrees north is highly improbable. When Russia launched its opening fusillade against Ukraine, for instance, the other Arctic Council members swiftly, and correctly, suspended their cooperation. Russia’s long-standing Arctic ambitions are justifiable on their own geographic merits. But they cannot be isolated from Moscow’s wider anti-Western posture — realized, they would support Putin’s aggression elsewhere. Meanwhile, China’s designation by Washington as the country’s “pacing threat,” as well as growing alignment between Moscow and Beijing, makes the notion of any Chinese involvement in the Arctic inherently fraught for the US today. The week before our visit to their turf, members of the 11th Airborne flew across the pole to train alongside a force that wrote the book on winter warfare, the Finns. “They were born in the snow and it’s just the way they roll,” Decker admires. Yet Finland’s abrupt turn from nonaligned to formal NATO ally captures the Arctic’s transformation into an extension of our other theaters of confrontation. Finland was compelled by a conflict raging far from the High North to prepare for the possibility of it spreading that way nonetheless. The same heightened, if still inchoate, sense of alert informs the methodical hardships of Black Rapids. There, in a landscape imperiously indifferent to humanity’s squabbles, the wider world’s rivalries are suddenly naked to the eye.

93-Russia building up its military, developing ties with China

Norimitsu Onishi, 6-4, 23, New York Times, Caribou Meat and Moon Signs: Inuit Lessons for Soldiers in the Arctic, https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/04/world/canada/canada-military-arctic-climate.html

Russia is rapidly building up its military and partnering on commercial ventures with China, as thawing ice provides access to vast natural resources below the Arctic sea floor and unlocks new shipping lanes. Even Canada’s closest ally, the United States, disputes Canadian claims of sovereignty over the Northwest Passage.

92-Russia and China threaten US Arctic interests

Whitfield, 6-3, 23, Ian Whitfield is a graduate student at Georgetown University, in the Security Studies Program focusing on Energy Security and climate-related security risks. Ian is also an active duty officer in the U.S. Army, Glacial Gambit: Advancing the Army’s Arctic Strategy, https://www.realcleardefense.com/articles/2023/06/03/glacial_gambit_advancing_the_armys_arctic_strategy_903402.html

The United States faces significant questions regarding the Arctic Circle and its commitments to northern security. Just as the Arctic has experienced rapidly rising temperatures, regional competition will intensify because of the region’s strategic importance. The buildup of Russian military assets along the country’s Northern coast, China’s polar trade investments, and the alliance between these nations threaten America’s Arctic interests. The security of the Arctic is inextricably linked to the safety of the United States and its allies.

91-Three ways the army should increase its presence in the Arctic

Historically, the nations with claims to the Arctic have utilized collaboration and cooperation to solve competing interests in the region. However, Russia’s recent military actions have changed the dynamic of international dialogue and have forced American leaders to reevaluate their future strategy. The United States Army has taken specific steps in identifying the foundations of its Arctic Strategy and continues to revise its lines of effort. However, the organization must continue adapting its strategic approach to ensure the safety of the nation and its allies. First, the United States Army should develop an Arctic-specific doctrine to increase survivability and lethality for its land forces. The U.S. Army has primarily focused on counterinsurgency operations and training for the past twenty years in our efforts to establish security in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Army’s doctrine and training should reflect our recent shift from the Middle East region toward great power competition. Modifying existing training doctrine for future competition will increase overall unit readiness. This Army should seek input from the Army’s 11th Airborne Division, Mountain Warfare School, Marine Rotational Forces-Europe, and the Air Force’s Arctic Survival School. These organizations and institutions have operational experience in cold-weather environments and can provide lessons learned for doctrinal publications. Utilizing the experiences of other branches offers Army leaders an operational and strategic view of how their units can integrate with broader defense systems and capabilities. United States Army Training Command, commonly called TRADOC, should first analyze which doctrinal publication requires inputs for cold-weather adaptability or modification. Next, TRADOC should gather key personnel from the identified resources to develop policies and procedures to make Army units more capable in cold-weather environments. Second, the Army should prioritize the Joint Pacific Multinational Readiness Center-Alaska (JPMRC-AK) as a military training center. Currently, rotational training events are conducted at Fort Polk or Fort Irwin, both of which offer hot and humid training conditions not representative of the Arctic environment. The Army should consider exchanging one of these sites for the JPMRC-AK. The Department of Defense (DoD) should work with and develop rotations with U.S. Army and Air Force National Guard units to avoid additional strain and overstretch on active duty units. The Army National Guard already utilizes the eXportable Combat Training Capability (XCTC) program, allowing teams to replicate combat training center environments in alternative locations. Partnering with JPMRC-AK and U.S. Army Alaska would create opportunities for National Guard. This would also incentivize Guard members to pursue additional training opportunities like Mountain Warfare School as cold-weather training becomes more frequent. Using XCTC’s capabilities in conjunction with the terrain offered in the U.S. Army Alaksa’s training areas will provide a more robust training experience for Soldiers and Airmen in the National Guard, giving the DoD greater force projection. With this expansion of JPMRC-AK, the Army and other military branches should work on hosting joint training operations with its NATO partners. In 2022, the U.S. Army took part in NATO’s Exercise Cold Response with 27 countries hosted in Norway. Next March, U.S. Forces will take part in the largest joint-cold weather training exercise called Nordic Response 2024. American soldiers from across all grades and ranks share the desire to work with NATO allies. However, the Army and broader DoD can provide more training opportunities in the United States. Creating more multi-national combined arms training programs hosted in the Alaskan winters would benefit NATO military members. Potential Russian-Chinese expansion into the Arctic affects all NATO members due to the region’s economic and military importance. The Army should take more of a prominent role in hosting cold-weather training events for its allies while also sending military units abroad to represent our nation in similar training events. Finally, the Army should continue evolving its Search and Rescue (SAR) in coordination with the Personnel Recovery (PR) capabilities of other branches. According to the U.S. Army’s Arctic Strategy, Russia has invested an estimated $1 Billion to refurbish airfields, enhance search and rescue capabilities, and upgrade radar technology. NATO members have recognized the importance of SAR/PR capabilities and have hosted training exercises like Exercise Dynamic Mercy to promote collaboration in these sectors. However, the Army should consider implementing innovative technologies and mission-specific training to reinforce its capabilities for these operations. Using the RQ-11Raven drone to aid in SAR/PR operations and providing cold-weather SAR training for Army Special Operation units would increase unit readiness and streamline these intense missions.

90-No Arctic territorial disputes

Andreas Østhagen, Arctic Institute, 6-1, 23, Five Misconceptions in Arctic Security and Geopolitics, https://www.thearcticinstitute.org/five-misconceptions-arctic-security-geopolitics/

Let us start with the most obvious. No territorial disputes remain in the Arctic region. No land border between any of the eight Arctic states is in dispute. No Arctic state is currently claiming another Arctic state’s territory for historic reasons or to protect an ethnic minority. Furthermore, no island is in dispute (the last minor island dispute was settled between Canada and the Kingdom of Denmark in 2022). The closest situations to a dispute over sovereignty concern the legal status of shipping through Canadian and Russian territorial waters and domestic discussions in some Arctic countries about indigenous/local rights and land ownership. At sea, 7 out of 8 maritime boundaries are agreed. Of these, only one remains: between Canada and the United States in the Beaufort Sea. This is in stark contrast to other maritime domains around the world encircled by states (the Mediterranean, the South China Sea and the Caribbean).

89-The number of ice breakers does not matter

Andreas Østhagen, Arctic Institute, 6-1, 23, Five Misconceptions in Arctic Security and Geopolitics, https://www.thearcticinstitute.org/five-misconceptions-arctic-security-geopolitics/

Arctic-related stories love to count how many icebreakers the Arctic countries have. This is often done to showcase how Russia is dominating in the Arctic and the USA is a laggard. The main problem here is that icebreakers are contextual. A range of different factors explain why Russia has the number of icebreakers it has: the size of its Arctic coastline, economic activity in that area, and ice conditions (which is why you have a breaker-of-ice in the first place). This is beside the intra-institutional set-ups of each Arctic coastal state concerning coast guard / navy tasks and whether icebreakers are even useful for the latter.Do not get me wrong. There is no doubt that the USA is in need of more icebreakers. It currently has only two operational ones: the USCGC Healy from 1999 and the USCGC Polar Star from 1976. Moreover, icebreakers are important for a number of reasons, including their ability to support ship traffic, keep harbours open in wintertime, and conduct research at high latitudes.However, icebreakers are not the ultimate sign of strength or military power in the Arctic. Other parameters, such as military expenditure, presence and capabilities (beyond breaking ice), are better suited. In most instances, icebreakers are not even operated by the various Arctic countries’ armed forces. Why does Finland have four times as many as the USA when it is not even an Arctic coastal state? Because the country needs to break ice in the Gulf of Bothnia and is attempting to reap commercial benefits from icebreaking services. As such, the numbers of icebreakers do not demonstrate the Russian Arctic threat—there are other things that are more relevant for that, ranging from military capacities (like subsea or surface naval vessels, or airborne capabilities) to patterns of behaviour (like military exercises, troop posture, statements).

88-China is not a military threat to the Arctic

Jiminez, 5-25, 23, María Milagros Martín Jiménez is a Law and International Relations graduate with a Master’s Degree in the EU and China. Through her involvement with the ESThink Tank and other European organizations she has specialised and published research on EU External Relations Law and Foreign and Security Policy as well as on China and the Indo-Pacific region, Modern Diplomacy, China’s Game in the Arctic: A Tale of Deception?, https://moderndiplomacy.eu/2023/05/25/chinas-game-in-the-arctic-a-tale-of-deception/

At this point, the question of whether Chinese ulterior motives for accessing the Arctic are realistic and attainable might come up. In this regard, everything seems to suggest that Beijing’s interests in the region are likely long-term. It is important to bear in mind that the Arctic is not the South China Sea, its number one priority together with Taiwan, with which the PCR has historic ties and is exercising a more aggressive policy

87-US and allies increasing military presence in the Arctic now

As a matter of fact, the best example of the seriousness with which major players in the region are reacting to China’s advance in the Arctic is found in the shift of the US Arctic policy. The new strategy released in October 2022, which complements NATOS’s, calls for the enhancement of military exercises, the expansion of the US’ military presence in Alaska and NATO States and the compromise to rebuild its icebreaking fleet (Grady, 2022). Few months later, in February 2023, US-led military exercises in the Arctic, hosted by Norway and Finland, brought together more than 10,000 military personnel from the UK, US, Germany, Denmark, the Netherlands, Norway and Finland (Bridenthal, 2023). Likewise, Denmark, owing to what the country’s Foreign Policy has described as “a new geopolitical battlefield”, has reviewed its security policy, increasing its military budget with the “Arctic capacity package” aimed at intensifying surveillance with radar, drones and satellites (Grady, 2022).

86-Russia wants cooperation in the Arctic, not conflict

Lipunov, 5-30-23, Nikita Lipunov is an analyst at the Institute for International Studies at the Moscow State Institute of International Relations (MGIMO-University)., https://www.thearcticinstitute.org/arctic-2023-russian-foreign-policy-concept/

Russian foreign policy doctrines and strategies are official texts that outline Russia’s goals and objectives internationally, how and under what conditions it intends to achieve them, and most importantly, what it expects from other states’ foreign policies. Their language is some kind of foreign policy Latin: it is almost legal, without accidental words and phrases. They are straightforward, devoid of literary imagery and hidden agendas – they convey what really matters. For the Russian foreign policy community, it is a guidebook, a step-by-step instruction; for the rest of the world, it is a clear signal and a declaration of intent. The 2023 document replaces the previous version of the Concept from 2016.2) Like its previous editions, the document captures the trends in Russian foreign policy that have emerged and taken shape earlier, and in this sense is the product of the Russian leadership’s reflection on international developments in recent years. For the first time, the new Concept clearly identifies regional foreign policy directions, a style more characteristic of Western states’ strategic documents. This is probably done to make the new hierarchy of regional foreign policy priorities clearer. The Arctic region stands out as one of top regions of priority. It is noteworthy that the update has affected not only the list of directions and their hierarchy, but also the content of the policy itself, including in northern latitudes. Previously, the Arctic was perceived as part of western policy. The relevant paragraph was located between the Euro-Atlantic and the Asia-Pacific regions and followed mentions of the United States and Canada. In light of recent developments in international Arctic policy and a reassessment of regional priorities, the Arctic now occupies an honorable second place after the ‘near abroad’ (i.e., the Commonwealth of Independent States – CIS). The focus of Russia’s Arctic policy is shifting to the development of the Russian Arctic, and international cooperation now serves this goal. For Russia, as the largest regional power, Arctic policy has always had both internal and external dimensions. In the new Concept, Russia’s foreign policy in the Arctic is an organic extension of its domestic Arctic development policy. The reassessment of the Arctic’s position in relation to other regional priorities should be seen in the light of one of the leitmotifs of Russia’s new Foreign Policy Concept. From now on, Moscow does not seek integration into the Western community of states, and its institutions are not perceived as a value per se or a status marker. This trend emerged in Russian foreign policy several years ago, but has now been formalized. However, this does not mean that Russia is closing its doors and rejecting established institutions as such. Its approach is becoming more utilitarian and pragmatic: it is only prepared to use them if it corresponds with its national interest and if other actors are eager to take them into account. The paragraph on the Arctic has doubled in size, becoming more detailed and structured, with subparagraphs outlining foreign policy priorities in the Arctic. The main goal is still the preservation of peace and stability. Instead of ‘constructive international cooperation’, there are now domestic objectives: increasing environmental sustainability; reducing threats to national security in the Arctic; and, crucially, ensuring favorable international conditions for the socio-economic development of the Arctic zone of the Russian Federation. It is the first time that indigenous peoples are mentioned in the document: the protection of the ancestral habitat and traditional way of life of the small-numbered indigenous peoples of the Russian Arctic is considered an integral part of its socio-economic development. One of Russia’s key objectives in the Arctic remains ‘the development of the Northern Sea Route (NSR) as a competitive national transport artery with the possibility of its international use for transportation between Europe and Asia’. It is in relation to the NSR that one of the new priorities of Russian foreign policy in the Arctic should be considered: ‘ensuring the invariability of the historically established international legal regime of the internal sea waters of the Russian Federation’. The policy point on the ‘special responsibility of the Arctic states for the sustainable development of the region’ remained constant, but all the regional formats with the participation of Western states — the Arctic Council, the ‘Arctic Five’ and the Barents Euro-Arctic Council — have disappeared. Just a month prior, Russia’s Fundamentals of State policy in the Arctic for the Period up to 2035, Russia’s official Arctic strategy, was amended.3) The changes included removal of all the mentioned multilateral formats from the paragraph on international cooperation. The strategy was updated to emphasize the ‘development of relations with foreign states on a bilateral basis, within the framework of relevant multilateral structures and mechanisms.’ However, despite some media alleging Russia removed all mentions of the Arctic Council, Russia’s Arctic strategy retained the point of ‘the Arctic Council as the key regional platform coordinating international activities in the region’.4) This shows that Russia has no intention of creating alternative platforms and remains committed for the time being to constructive international cooperation within the framework of established and proven regional mechanisms. In the aftermath of the 2022 Arctic Council pause, some experts feared Russia or the seven other Arctic states would create its own regional institution without the participation of the party, but this is not likely to materialise in the near future. Nevertheless, it must be noted that this commitment endures until Russia is treated as an equal party whose interests are taken into consideration seriously. After Norway had taken on the chairship of the Council, the Russian Arctic ambassador Nikolay Korchunov expressed that Moscow could leave the Council if its rights were violated.5) Russia still remains committed to international law in the Arctic. The Concept reaffirms the sufficiency of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) to regulate interstate relations in the Arctic Ocean. The new Concept clarifies the areas of UNCLOS that are relevant to Russia: protection of the marine environment, which is important in light of the recently adopted UN agreement on protecting marine biodiversity in international waters, as well as maritime delimitation, which replaced the ‘establishment of the outer limits of the continental shelf’ in the previous Concept. Moscow has long opposed ‘attempts to bring elements of confrontation, including a military one, to the Arctic and to politicize international interaction in the region’. The 2023 Concept redefines this thesis as ‘neutralizing the policy of unfriendly states to militarize the region and limit Russia’s opportunities to exercise its sovereign rights in the Arctic Zone of the Russian Federation’. Russia is rethinking the geography of international cooperation in the Arctic — now the document mentions ‘mutually beneficial cooperation with non-Arctic states that pursue a constructive policy towards Russia and are interested in international activities in the Arctic, including infrastructure development of the Northern Sea Route’. This wording suggests an inclination to work with states outside the Arctic region, such as China. This echoes another February 2023 amendment to the State Policy Framework, which now includes ‘foreign’ instead of ‘Arctic’ states. The key message of the new Concept is that Russia is self-sufficient and open to cooperation with all those eager to respect its interests, but will not tolerate their neglect. The same applies to the Arctic, where international policy now serves the national interest, so Russian policy in the region should be seen through this prism.

85-Arctic contains key second strike capabilities

Alendar, May 11, 2023, Minna Ålander is a research fellow at the Finnish Institute of International Affairs (FIIA) in Helsinki. Her research topics are Northern European security and Nordic defense cooperation, as well as German and Finnish foreign and security policy. Previously, she worked at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP) in Berlin, High North, High Tension: Th End of Arctic Illusions, https://www.fpri.org/article/2023/05/high-north-high-tension-the-end-of-arctic-illusions/

A closer look reveals, however, that tensions had been growing in the Arctic well before 2022 due to Russia’s military build-up and increasing “show-of-force” exercises. Russia’s latest military drill in and around the Kola Peninsula, including extensive submarine action that worries NATO most, took place in mid-April 2023. In the past decade, Russia has rebuilt almost all of its Soviet-era Arctic military bases close to its Western border. According to Reuters and the International Institute of Strategic Studies, Russia outnumbers NATO in terms of military bases in the Arctic region by one-third. The nuclear-capable submarines in the Northern Fleet constitute Russia’s main second-strike capability, around which it has built the Soviet-inspired “Bastion defense.” To underline the significance of the Northern Fleet, it was made its own military district in 2021.

84-Arctic key to Russia’s Poiseden subs

Apart from the eight ballistic missile submarines, the capabilities located in the Northern Fleet Military District also include nineteen attack submarines, two cruisers, seven destroyers and frigates, sixteen patrol boats, eight mine countermeasure ships, eight landing ships, and an aircraft carrier currently under repair. The 45th air and air defense army, 14th army corps, and coastal forces are also located in the Northern Fleet Military District. Russia has been investing heavily in its submarine capabilities in the Arctic. In the summer of 2022, it introduced a new Belgorod-type submarine that can carry Poseidon torpedoes with nuclear warheads and can sneak past coastal defenses close to the seabed.

83-Arctic key to Russia’s energy needs

lendar, May 11, 2023, Minna Ålander is a research fellow at the Finnish Institute of International Affairs (FIIA) in Helsinki. Her research topics are Northern European security and Nordic defense cooperation, as well as German and Finnish foreign and security policy. Previously, she worked at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP) in Berlin, High North, High Tension: Th End of Arctic Illusions, https://www.fpri.org/article/2023/05/high-north-high-tension-the-end-of-arctic-illusions/

For Russia, the Arctic is an essential area of interest not only in terms of national security but also for economic reasons. Russia’s hydrocarbon sector depends on Arctic resources: they account for 80 percent of Russia’s natural gas and 17 percent of its oil production. Safeguarding its interests along the Northern Sea Route (NSR)—now more accessible due to climate change—is a high priority for Russia. The route is particularly important for Russia’s energy exports—such as liquified natural gas (comprising 64 percent of total cargo volume in 2020 and currently growing, as it is not subject to Western sanctions yet), oil and petroleum products, coal, and iron—to both Europe and Asia. However, Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine halted traffic on the NSR for a while. Likewise, prospects of major energy infrastructure projects (e.g., Rosneft’s plans to construct one of the world’s largest oil loading terminals) are currently uncertain due to Russia’s increasing international isolation.

Russia needs to secure year-round navigability of the NSR to access markets in the East, which are now more important given Western sanctions. As a result, the country is investing in an increasing number of nuclear-powered icebreakers. The future of Russia’s Arctic resource exploitation will depend to a large extent on how the nation’s relationship with China develops and whether Russia can secure India as a customer. The current prospects look promising on both accounts.

No possibility of peaceful cooperation with Russia

While the Northern European Arctic states—Norway, Sweden, and Finland—have been eager to cooperate with Russia in the Arctic in good faith, Russia has used the narrative of “Arctic exceptionalism” and framing the region as a zone of low tensions as a screen for its military build-up. Russia has also been able to get away with actions directly threatening the safety of the wider region, while its Nordic neighbors have kept extending a helping hand. In 2021, the European Union offered to bear half of the cost of an operation to lift the two nuclear submarines that Russia has sunk in the Barents and Kara Sea. Previously, Sweden and Norway had provided substantive financial support for equipping the Russian ship Serebryanka to tackle the nuclear waste issue. Russia, however, ended up using the vessel in a nuclear testing and developing program.

With the European security order in pieces, there is no reason to expect the Arctic to remain a zone of peace, safely secluded from growing geopolitical tensions elsewhere. A recent Finnish government-commissioned study assesses the security outlook in the European Arctic as bleak, with Putin’s regime survival directly linked to the military-strategic value and energy resources of the region. The trust basis for cooperation with Russia has eroded, even if Russia’s stated strategic objectives for the Arctic do not necessarily change in the future. Its smaller Nordic neighbors must become increasingly cautious about resuming cooperation with Russia, as Russia could use such frameworks against their interests.

82-Russia’s Arctic orientation is not defensive

So far, the Arctic has been kept largely out of NATO’s reach, as the regional allies Norway and Canada considered it the best approach. But with Finland now NATO’s thirty-first member, and Sweden hopefully following suit soon, the Arctic inevitably becomes a relevant sphere for NATO. From the alliance’s perspective, the North Atlantic and Arctic waters are crucial for delivering reinforcements from North America to the European Arctic. In a conflict, securing allied freedom of navigation in the Greenland-Iceland-United Kingdom (GIUK) gap would be key for NATO—and cutting off Northern American allies from Europe by disrupting the GIUK line would be equally important for Russia.

The Finnish-Swedish NATO accession changes the situation fundamentally for founding member Norway, which has hitherto been the sole gatekeeper of the High North within NATO. To manage relations with Russia, Norway—which shares a short border with Russia in the Arctic—has followed a dual-track approach: deterrence and reassurance, or “calibrated deterrence.” Deterrence has been provided by Norway’s NATO membership, while reassurance measures have included self-restraint in conducting NATO military drills in the northern parts of the country close to the border with Russia. Norway, however, started to increase its own military presence in its northernmost region Finnmark already in 2017, as a response to Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014. Russia’s 2022 full-scale war against Ukraine has triggered further recalibration of Norway’s deterrence: American troops were exercising demonstratively in northern Norway in November 2022. Russia has been framing its military posture in the Arctic as defensive. However, it has invested heavily in dual-capable weapons and carried out simulated attacks on neighbors during exercises, such as against Sweden in 2013, which was a simulated nuclear attack according to a NATO report. Russia’s “deterrence by intimidation” strategy and zero-sum understanding of security require its Western neighbors—and NATO—to increase their military presence in the Arctic as well, “to maintain the Arctic balance,” as Norway’s Chief of Navy Rune Andersen told Finnish media during the recent Joint Viking exercise with NATO partners. Now that the alliance is reconfiguring its deterrence posture on the northeastern flank, it is vital to view the wider Baltic Sea-North Atlantic-Arctic region as a coherent area and make sure no ambiguity is left that can be exploited—or misunderstood—by Russia.

81-Russia doesn’t need to use force to accomplish its goals in the Arctic

Buchanan, 5-4-23, Dr. Elizabeth Buchanan is a non-resident fellow of the Modern War Institute at West Point and a First Sea Lord Five Eyes fellow with the Royal Navy Strategic Studies Centre. Her book Red Arctic was published on March 24, 2023, with The Brookings Press, https://warontherocks.com/2023/05/russias-gains-in-the-great-arctic-race/, RUSSIA’S GAINS IN THE GREAT ARCTIC RACE

To date, Moscow has adhered closely to the rules of game in the “race” to claim the seabed (and the riches) of the North Pole. The race refers to the converging strategic interests from Arctic-rim states: Russia, the United States, Denmark, Canada, and Norway. These interests include access to and use of emerging global transportation corridors, the future of data routes via submarine cables, preeminent satellite basing opportunities for both military and scientific purposes, as well as access to (and potentially control of) Arctic resources (living and non-living). Russia has cleared the scientific burden of proof required to have its extended continental shelf claim legitimized. Decades of scientific research, Arctic missions, and information exchanges with Denmark and Canada have resulted in the U.N. Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf dubbing the majority of Moscow’s claim to an extended Arctic continental shelf to be “valid.”

80-Russia and China Arctic presence put them at the US back-door and provide a huge advantage in a conflict

The extraction of resources also presents emerging opportunities to draw states that are also at odds with the United States into the Arctic picture. Of course, states like China do much more than invest in resource projects — they have the domestic legislation and capability to protect state investments as strategic interests with military deployments. A situation in which Russia facilitates an increased footprint of Beijing in the Arctic, right at America’s back door, is at best concerning given that China could legitimize an active military presence in the Arctic arena. In the event of a conflict scenario, Russia is unmatched when it comes to Arctic capability. Moscow operates some 40-plus icebreakers — with more on the way — should it require polar muscle to push the other North Pole seabed claimants out. The United States has only two Arctic-capable icebreakers (Polar Star and Healy), both of which are increasingly prone to breakdowns and fires.

79-Russia wants to cooperate in the Arctic now. Pushing against Russia risks war

Putin’s Russia appears interested (not least given the aforenoted Arctic strategy revisions) in maintaining dialogue with Denmark and Canada as overlapping Arctic seabed claimants. Further, as the Arctic Council chairmanship rotates from Moscow to Norway, Oslo’s agenda appears rather focused on the survival of the council as the premier forum for circumpolar diplomacy. Norway has so far avoided calls to keep Moscow out in the cold — with Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre recently stating: “people are cutting Russia out of the map as if it is no longer there. It is.” Evidently, Western unity in the Arctic is facing a precarious future state of cohesion. Of course, the region’s “known unknown” is whether Russia will return to the Arctic Council table at all.

Against the backdrop of the shattering of European peace, Russia’s next steps in the Arctic could very well sink indefinitely the notion of “high north, low tension.” This specific Arctic saga has no clear end point, and this also underscores the complexities of international law in action: Russia is at once a rule-breaker in one theater and rule-abiding and rule-centric (for now) in another. Navigating this duality will require agile diplomatic abilities and at least a baseline of circumpolar dialogue. Let’s hope that Moscow plans to pick up the phone.

78-No Arctic cooperation now

Stefan Hedlund, a professor of Russian Studies at Uppsala University, April 17, 2023, https://www.gisreportsonline.com/r/the-arctic/, The Arctic in Russia’s crosshairs

Global warming and the melting Arctic ice cap were once associated with visions of a new era of international cooperation on initiatives like hydrocarbon exploitation and speeding up east-west transport via the Northern Sea Route. Now, those phenomena have triggered another type of heating – in the militarization race between Russia and the NATO alliance. As Western governments resolved to stand by Ukraine after Russia’s full-scale invasion, cooperation was replaced by open conflict, and there likely can be no going back any time soon. The danger of a military confrontation in the Arctic is the highest since the peak of the Cold War. A harbinger of coming trouble was the 2014 launch of the first stage of the Russian invasion, the Crimea takeover.

77-Russia’s military stinks

Stefan Hedlund, a professor of Russian Studies at Uppsala University, April 17, 2023, https://www.gisreportsonline.com/r/the-arctic/, The Arctic in Russia’s crosshairs

Discounting the danger of a ground war in the Arctic, the question that remains concerns just how combat-capable the Russian naval and air assets are. Military analysts have already been proven fundamentally wrong in their assessments of the capability of the Russian ground forces. The fact that the Russian air force failed to achieve air superiority in Ukraine, and has since been mainly withheld from combat, does say something meaningful about its capability.

76-Russia’s missile technology is terrible

Stefan Hedlund, a professor of Russian Studies at Uppsala University, April 17, 2023, https://www.gisreportsonline.com/r/the-arctic/, The Arctic in Russia’s crosshairs

The prior media hype about advanced Russian missile technology has taken an even bigger hit. It is not enough that the stocks of some of the more advanced missiles have been seriously depleted. Their accuracy has already proven to be poor, and as planners dig deeper into old stockpiles, reliability will deteriorate even further. If the Russian military command were to contemplate getting into a shooting war with NATO, it would have to consider that indiscriminate bombing of civilian targets in Ukraine offers a very different challenge from engaging technologically advanced NATO forces that possess effective countermeasures, including long-range precision strike capabilities that have been denied the Ukrainian defenders.

75-Russia will increase sabotage operations that could escalate

Stefan Hedlund, a professor of Russian Studies at Uppsala University, April 17, 2023, https://www.gisreportsonline.com/r/the-arctic/, The Arctic in Russia’s crosshairs

While the danger of Russia deliberately initiating a large-scale armed conflict in the Arctic may, in consequence, be viewed as slim to nonexistent, there remains a danger of close encounters that may result in serious escalation. The incident with a Russian fighter jet downing a U.S. reconnaissance drone over the Black Sea in March brings that message home.

The leading cause for concern is that as Russia realizes it is losing the war in Ukraine, it will likely seek to save face by engaging in brinkmanship elsewhere. Given its location and its increasingly important role as a supplier of gas to the European Union, Norway offers a tempting target for deniable Russian intelligence and sabotage actions.

The waters off its long coastline offer soft targets that range from drilling platforms to pipelines and assorted underwater cables. The sabotage against the Nord Stream pipelines illustrates vulnerability, and there have been mounting indications of Russian ambitions to scout and chart such assets. Following numerous incidents of drones flying close to critical installations on land, members of the Norwegian Home Guard have also been called up to patrol and protect such potential targets.

74-Russia threat to the Arctic

Vazquez, April 2023, Gonzalo Vázquez is a Spanish senior-year student of International Relations and senior research analyst at the Center for Global Affairs & Strategic Studies of the University of Navarre, 2022 Russian Maritime Doctrine: Implications for NATO & the Future of Great Power Competition in the Arctic, https://www.thearcticinstitute.org/2022-russian-maritime-doctrine-implications-nato-future-great-power-competition-arctic/

The new Maritime Doctrine of the Russian Federation, published in July 2022, provides a clear picture of Moscow’s ambitions at sea. Despite the Russian Navy is currently going through difficult times, its military activity around the Arctic must nevertheless be carefully watched. The Arctic has grown in geostrategic importance during the last several decades and has considerable potential to become a theater for strategic competition1) between Russia, NATO nations and other external actors. The amount of energy resources and oil reserves lying under its seabed have drawn non-Arctic states to the game as well. China and India have long been interested in taking part in Arctic affairs, being both observers at the Arctic Council, and with the former now focused on developing its Polar Silk Road along the Arctic coast.2) With such a project, Beijing intends to develop emerging maritime shipping corridors, local economic partnerships and the necessary infrastructure to support all its activity in the region; looking to make it an Arctic wing of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). Russia has an advantageous position in the region, holding more than 50% of the Arctic coastline, and has been modernizing its Soviet-era military infrastructure for more than a decade now. Considering the Arctic as its northern backyard, Moscow has resumed its activity in some 50 bases,3) which provides a significant edge over the rest of regional actors that are now aiming to establish their presence. The region’s geostrategic features and current situation make it imperative for NATO to pay close attention to what the 2022 Russian Maritime Doctrine develops regarding this region and Russian objectives for it; as it will lead to a higher political and military involvement in the region by other Arctic nations (Canada, the United States and Norway), as well as from their allies from afar. This article reviews the most predominant features of the new doctrine, particularly the ones related to the Arctic. Then, it is followed with its most relevant implications for the rest of NATO allies involved in the region and the future of Arctic security. As will be seen, Russian growing ambitions and capabilities in the High North will require NATO to reformulate its political strategy towards Moscow, as well as strengthening their deterrence capabilities and military assets to enjoy higher strategic awareness.

Russia 2022 Maritime Doctrine

The new Maritime Doctrine is straightforward when addressing Russian interests and objectives at sea, all of which add up to the main aspiration to become “a great maritime power”. At least, that is the goal. It also provides a clear definition of what Moscow understands as threats, challenges and risks to its maritime activity.In this sense, it comes as no surprise that after NATO’s definition of Russia as its main existential threat in its latest Strategic Concept earlier in the summer of 2022,4) the Alliance and the United States are now presented as the main threats to Russia’s security.5) Thus, it could be argued we are now at the initial stages of a time of increased military activity throughout the High North, as well as an extension of great power competition at sea. The new doctrine is a clear reflection of this last element and its recognition by Russia: “the development of maritime activities and maritime potential is one of the decisive conditions for the sustainable social-economic development of the Russian Federation in the XXI century”.6) The document establishes five “functional areas” where the government aims to develop its activity: development of maritime transport, development and conservation of resources in the world’s oceans, development of offshore pipeline systems, scientific marine research, and naval activity.7) After them, it defines the “regional directions” of its maritime policy, providing the most fundamental objectives for each region, which includes the Atlantic (which encompasses the Mediterranean, Baltic, Black and Azov Seas as well), the Pacific, the Caspian Sea, the Indian, the Arctic and the Antarctic. From all the aforementioned important regions established in the document, the Arctic appears as the most important for Moscow, with aspirations to establish “a given operational regime in the Arctic Zone of the Russian Federation by reinforcing combat capabilities of the forces of the Northern and Pacific Fleets”.8) Driven by “significant mineral and hydrocarbon resources, which abound in the exclusive economic zone and continental shelf of the Russian Federation”, it also recognizes the ongoing transition the region is experiencing as it turns “into a region of global competition in economic and military domains.”9) Such abundance of natural resources lying under the seabed (which remains, however, yet to be fully studied and explored) has been acknowledged by many nations, including China, the US and many NATO allies. Thus, Russia has also underlined as a priority the development of its Arctic zone “as a strategic resource base, and its sustainable use” in the coming decades. To this end, there are 21 objectives established for this region, more than any of the other regions defined in the document. Among the most interesting ones, “enforcing control over activities of foreign navies in the waters of the Northern Sea Route,” which has been a concern for them for a long time, clearly reflects the Russian mindset towards its position in the region.10) The importance of such route is considerable for Russia, as it traverses through the entirety of its Arctic coast and will be critical for future oil and gas extractions there; and the proof for this can be found in the eighth threat listed in the strategy: “efforts by a number of states to weaken Russian control over the Northern Sea Route [and] an expansion of foreign naval presence in the Arctic.”11)

73-Russia doesn’t have the economic means to project military power in the Arctic

Yet, the main shadow over the newest doctrine remains whether or not Russia has the capacity to carry out its objectives. Essentially, as Flanagan pointed out back in 2018 when discussing the importance of North Atlantic security for Europe, “Russia’s capacity to realize these goals remains a subject of considerable debate and uncertainty among Western military experts.”12) Taking into account the economic difficulties and strains Moscow is already facing with the war in Ukraine, the aspirations depicted in the new document, which include “developing and ensuring the construction of warships, naval auxiliary ships, transport, fishing, research and other civilian vessels”13) and becoming a global maritime power, appear to be unrealistic and hard to be achieved in the medium term.

72-Russia increasing military power in the region, need to increase US presence to deter

Evidence of this is the expansion of the Northern Fleet, based in Severomorsk, which has seen a growth of its assets over the last three years. The first units of the fourth generation Borei-class submarines (SSBN) were incorporated into service in June 2020, with a stealthier capacity than previous designs.15) Its icebreaker fleet, largest by far in the world and still growing, provides Russia further capacity and strategic autonomy in the region, especially against the smaller and fewer vessels operated by Canada, Norway or the US. With two already deployed, the remaining three vessels of the new Arktika-class (biggest icebreakers in the world) are expected to be finished by 2024.16)

Implications for NATO

The nature of Russian activity and the growing presence of its military make it imperative, as said, for NATO and its allies to take action. Increasing current levels of military presence throughout the region to act as a deterrent against Russian expansion would be more than welcome by nations such as Norway, which has experienced firsthand the expansion of Russian activity throughout the region.17)

71-Russia currently has the military advantage in the Arctic

Secondly, adding to this, the limited presence of the US, Canadian and Norwegian Navies, together with the low level of sensors required to detect and follow Russian units, is also a significant impediment. Furthermore, as pointed out by Breitenbauch, Soby and Groemeyer, “the new strength and breadth of Russia’s access-denial strategy increasingly enables Moscow to threaten distant targets without deploying traditional power projection.”20) As discussed, developing and securing the Northern Sea Route is a priority for Moscow, and, as Mathieu Boulege argues, “operations have led to a complete reconstruction of forward bases and outposts in the AZRF [Arctic Zone of the Russian Federation], partly to increase search and rescue (SAR) capabilities and partly to meet Russia’s ambition there.”21) Thus, allied navies find themselves in a situation of considerable disadvantage, without even getting close to Moscow’s capacity to deploy and support vessels into the Arctic waters. Norway, having long been the advocate for further involvement of the alliance in the region, is expected to keep “a combination of deterrence and deténte” as its security policy towards the region.22) Andreas Østhagen argues Norway should strive to keep cooperation with Russia in certain aspects of Arctic affairs, such as nuclear security or fisheries. This way, it is more likely Russia will change its approach to regional security.23) Yet, as Rolf Folland points out, the main weakness Russia could attempt to take advantage of is the great military inequality between both nations’ military forces.24) And with the increase in exercises and joint training with both the US and the UK, Russia did warn about possible negative consequences back in 2020.25) Thus, increased presence by allied powers in the Barents Sea and the GIUK Gap (critical for NATO’s North Atlantic defense but highly consuming in terms of operational resources)26) will be an essential element of the Alliance´s defense and deterrence in the High North.

70-The US needs to increase its military presence in the Arctic to deter Russia

Canada is also turning to the Arctic with clear intentions of strengthening its role in preserving regional security. Despite Trudeau’s government has shown interest in having more NATO presence across the region27) it must be remembered the Harper government blocked a NATO move to include the Arctic in an alliance-level strategic text back in 2007.28) Although that desire to restrain NATO’s involvement in Arctic affairs was aligned with Canada’s official position at the time, in the longer run it has translated into a lack of sufficient NATO presence to deter Russian ambitions. In the words of Charles Burton, from the MacDonald-Laurier Institute, “Canada has long paid lip service to the importance of Canadian Arctic sovereignty, but the defense of the Arctic has long been a low priority for Canadian military expenditures.”29) To this end, the development of the Harry DeWolf-class of Arctic/Offshore Patrol Vessels (AOPVs) intended to strengthen their regional awareness and maritime control, as well as NATO’s. With three already built, the last one was delivered to the Royal Canadian Navy in early September 2022,30) and three more are on their way. Yet, the program has faced strong criticism, with detractors arguing they are not well suited to fulfill their mission, and that Canada would be better off with icebreakers for the Arctic, and AOPVs for other regions.31) Certainly, they can’t be compared to Russia’s Arktika class of nuclear-powered heavy icebreakers; which currently stand as the world’s most capable cutters.32) Aware of the current situation, other members of the Alliance are increasingly investing more and turning their sights to the High North, including the United Kingdom and Germany. The former expressed in its latest UK’s Defence Contribution to the High North its intent to “maintain a coherent defense posture, presence, and profile in the region, including training, partnering, and operating from and in the Arctic.”33) The latter, who also published its Germany’s Arctic Policy Guidelines back in 2018, expressed its concerns on the importance of safeguarding peace and ensuring a secure exploitation of natural resources. In sum, most national Arctic strategies of NATO allies acknowledge the importance of maritime routes and natural resources in the region, and support military presence in order to protect allied interests. It is unlikely, however, any of them will lead an expansion of military presence in the region; that role will most certainly be for the US. The recent US National Strategy for the Arctic Region identifies four main pillars of work in its Arctic activity: Security, Climate Change and Environmental Protection, Sustainable Economic Development, and International Cooperation and Governance. Regarding the security dimension, the strategy clearly states their intentions to “enhance and exercise both our military and civilian capabilities in the Arctic as required to deter threats…”34) The emphasis placed on geopolitical tensions was barely mentioned in the previous strategy from 2013; evidencing the evolution of the region.

The Way Forward. The End of Exceptionalism In the words of Tyler Cross, “security in the Arctic Ocean will grow in importance as the polar ice caps shrink. Therefore, the United States, in conjunction with NATO allies, must develop appropriate security doctrine and measures that confront the dangers of the High North and Russian militarization in order to provide freedom of navigation in this often-neglected theater.”35) With the most recent publication of the 2022 National Strategy for the Arctic it appears there will be an increased US military presence. Moreover, the expressed intentions to “enhance and exercise both our military and civilian capabilities in the Arctic as required to deter threats and to anticipate, prevent, and respond to both natural and human-made incidents”,36) suggests Arctic exceptionalism is coming to an end. Russia’s new Maritime Doctrine constitutes another statement of Russia’s unmistakable intentions towards the Arctic region and its natural resources. The Arctic holds a central position among the maritime interests of Russia, and will undoubtedly see an increased presence by both Russia and NATO. Although the doctrine seems to have set some of its ambitions and objectives somewhat high given how they are performing in Ukraine, Russia’s military posture and activity along its Arctic coasts and beyond must not be underestimated. The allies have increased their activity in the region as well, with Norway as the leading ambassador of the Alliance in the region, and growing presence with bases and military exercises should be expected. But with Beijing strengthening its position in the region alongside Moscow and the increase of military activity from both sides, achieving an adequate level of strategic awareness will become a crucial goal. Such awareness could be enhanced by Finland and Sweden, given their proximity to the Kola Peninsula and the Northern Fleet base in Severomorsk. Even if it is unlikely that Russia will have the capacity to achieve the goals established in the new doctrine, its ambitions and current Russian activity must warn the allies and drive them to increase their presence and strengthen their infrastructures around the High North in order to secure their interests. Thus, more involvement in the Arctic region by the NATO allies will be necessary to counter Russian ambitions and have an enhanced strategic awareness in the region, but such involvement must increase in a way that doesn’t lead to a rise in geostrategic tensions. The new Russian Maritime Doctrine depicts in a clear way Moscow’s objectives and aspirations of control, and together with the likely involvement of China to search for commercial revenues through a “Polar Silk Route”, not only will presence rise in general terms, but especially in terms of military assets to secure each own’s territorial waters. For now, it remains to be seen how realistic Russia’s new doctrine is, and how much energy is NATO willing to devote to the stability of the High North.

69-China wants military dominance of the Arctic

Matthew P. Funaiole, Brian Hart, Joseph S. Bermudez Jr., and Aidan Powers-Riggs Center for Strategic and International Studies, April 2023, https://features.csis.org/hiddenreach/china-polar-research-facility/, Frozen Frontiers China’s Great Power Ambitions in the Polar Regions

China’s own strategic writings make clear that the PLA has its sights on the region. The 2020 edition of Science of Military Strategy—the most recent edition of an influential textbook on military thinking published by China’s National Defense University—states bluntly that “military-civilian mixing is the main way for great powers to achieve a polar military presence.” It adds that China should “give full play to the role of military forces in supporting polar scientific research and other operations.” The dual-use nature of Arctic research epitomizes China’s military-civil fusion (MCF) strategy, which aims to marshal civilian resources to support the PLA, and ultimately to fuse together China’s various national strategies to simultaneously advance security and development goals. President Xi Jinping has significantly elevated the importance of MCF, and it is unsurprising that this thinking is being applied to the Arctic.

68-China-Russia Arctic cooperation

Concerns about the potential military applications of Chinese scientific research are not new, but recent events have brought them into sharper focus. The conflict in Ukraine has deepened political fault lines, leaving many European governments viewing Beijing and Moscow as increasingly aligned against democratic states. Finland’s recent accession to NATO and Sweden’s push for membership have further strained their relationship with China. In this emerging geopolitical landscape, China’s prospects of expanding its presence in the Arctic via Nordic states look increasingly dim and its partnership with Russia appears to be taking center stage. China has long viewed Russia as a gateway to the Arctic. The two countries began holding official dialogues on the Arctic more than a decade ago, but Russia has historically bristled at China’s push into its far north. Russia initially opposed China’s campaign to become an observer state of the Arctic Council, and in 2012, it blocked Chinese research vessels from conducting surveys along the Northern Sea Route. Part of Moscow’s concern likely stems from the fact that the Russian military operates some of its most sensitive strategic assets there, including ballistic missile submarines, strategic test sites, missile defense systems, and advanced radar arrays. This dynamic may now be changing. The war in Ukraine has left Russia increasingly isolated and reliant on China for crucial investments in technology and infrastructure. The conflict has also left the Arctic Council in flux, as Russia has been shunned by the remaining member states, and China has said it will refuse to recognize the body without Russia’s participation. Chinese scholars have previously analyzed how best to gain a foothold in the Russian Arctic. In 2019, prominent academics from the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Fuzhou University conducted a study to identify which Russian ports along the strategic Northern Sea Route hold the greatest potential for facilitating Chinese access to the region. The report ranked 13 Russian ports based on five primary factors: natural conditions, infrastructure, port operation, interior environment, and geographic location. It also assessed 17 secondary factors, including “strategic value.” Major Chinese firms have already homed in on several of the key ports identified in the study. Over the last seven years, a subsidiary of the state-owned defense industry giant China Poly Group has poured $300 million into a coal terminal in Murmansk and agreed to develop a deepwater port at Arkhangelsk. Chinese financers also provided up to 60 percent of the capital for Russia’s Yamal liquefied natural gas project terminating in the port city of Sabetta. The project is considered the “crown jewel” of Russia’s investments in the Northern Sea Route and there are hopes it could produce up to 926 billion cubic meters of liquefied natural gas from the South Tambey field.

67-US should focus on diplomacy and international cooperation

China’s expanding presence in both the Arctic and Antarctic is part of its broader pursuit of global great power status. Its contributions to polar science have given it a voice and a presence in polar affairs, while opening the door to advance military and strategic goals. China is by no means the only great power to use science for strategic ends, yet mounting geopolitical competition is raising the stakes for China’s polar pursuits.International cooperation will be necessary for the responsible management and stewardship of the poles, and China can play a positive role in those efforts. Still, the United States and its allies should carefully monitor China’s evolving activities and push for greater transparency. Washington should also focus on crafting stronger diplomatic and economic partnerships with like-minded countries and strengthening international governance mechanisms. Through these efforts, the United States can help ensure the world’s frozen frontiers do not become the next hot spots of geopolitical competition.

66-Potential for Russia-US Arctic cooperation

Lunday & Fields, 2023, Kevin Lunday Vice Admiral, U.S. Coast Guard Kevin Lunday, Vice Admiral, U.S. Coast Guard, assumed the duties as Commander, Atlantic Area in May 2022 and is responsible for directing all Coast Guard operations in the inland navigable waters east of the Rocky Mountains, the Great Lakes, Gulf of Mexico, Caribbean Sea, and Atlantic Ocean, including the eastern Arctic, Atlantic basin, and the Middle East. He previously commanded Coast Guard operations in Oceania and the South Pacific as well as Coast Guard Cyber Command. He is a former Special Advisor to the Standing Committee on Law and National Security. He is licensed to practice in the Commonwealth of Virginia and State of Arizona. Stanley Field Commander, U.S. Coast GuarStanley Fields, Commander, U.S. Coast Guard, serves as the Staff Judge Advocate at Joint Interagency Task Force-South, Naval Air Station Key West, Florida. His previous assignment locations include Alaska, Rhode Island, Afghanistan, Virginia, and Georgia. He is a graduate of Western New Mexico University, Eastern New Mexico University, the University of New Mexico School of Law, the U.S. Army Judge Advocate General’s Legal Center and School, and Air War College, The Arctic: Shrinking Ice, Growing Importance, https://www.americanbar.org/groups/law_national_security/publications/aba-standing-committee-on-law-and-national-security-60-th-anniversary-an-anthology/the-arctic-shrinking-ice-growing-importance/

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has significantly disrupted the geopolitical environment. It is unclear how the Arctic will be impacted as established international norms and governance are being challenged. In theory, the Arctic could be one area where Russia, China, and the United States find opportunities for communication and dialogue over shared interests, despite tensions elsewhere. The Arctic presents a unique opportunity for constructive dialogue and cooperation between Russia, the United States, and the other Arctic nations. Russia seeks to establish the Northern Sea Route as a globally recognized transportation corridor that significantly reduces the distance, travel time, and fuel costs between European and Asian markets, thereby allowing goods to be transported faster and cheaper. Ahmad and Zafar, supra; James Kraska, International Security and International Law in the Northwest Passage, 42 Vanderbilt J. of Transnational L. 1109, 1124 (2021). Moreover, Russia’s economic viability and energy independence hinges on the Arctic because 75% of its oil reserves and 95% of its natural gas reserves are in the region. U.S. Dep’t of the Army, 10, supra. To serve its own interests, Russia could choose a more collaborative approach to establishing or reinforcing norms for maritime law in the Arctic. Ahmad and Zafar, supra.

65-Arctic cooperation will fail

However, the Arctic is more likely to turn into another theater of strategic competition with increasing risk of conflict as Russia and China aggressively challenge established international norms. Given the recent disruptions to diplomatic efforts with Russia across a range of issues, and China’s apparent diplomatic alignment with Russia, and with no apparent near-term end to the conflict in Ukraine, it seems prospects for international cooperation in the Arctic are beyond the horizon. Zachary Basu, China Lays Out 5-point Position on Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine, Axios, Feb. 25, 2022.

64-Control of the NSR is key to Russia’s economy

Luca Cinciripini is a Ph.D. candidate at Catholic University of Milan and Research Fellow at ITSTIME, March 1, 2023, https://turkishpolicy.com/article/1186/from-east-to-north-new-frontiers-for-the-eu-nato-arctic-defense, From East to North: New Frontiers for the EU-NATO Arctic Defense, https://turkishpolicy.com/article/1186/from-east-to-north-new-frontiers-for-the-eu-nato-arctic-defense

In addition, the disappearance of the fields also allows for the opening of invaluable new maritime trade routes, such as the Northwest Passage (NWP) and the Northern Sea Route (NSR).16 In fact, according to data from the U.S. Geological Survey, the Arctic region would contain an estimated $20 trillion in wealth, the result of 40 percent of global hydrocarbon reserves, and 30 percent of all global resources. It would also be one of the global areas of greatest economic growth, with GDP growing at an average rate of around 10-11 percent per year over the past few years.17 The Arctic represents an essential building block for Russian expansionist aims, especially in the wake of economic sanctions imposed by the West. Control of the NSR, in particular, is crucial to guarantee Moscow an outlet to China and India that will allow it to continue exporting oil from Russia’s Arctic fields, which alone is worth 10 percent of the national GDP

63-Russia’s Artic position is the bedrock of its deterrent posture; control of the Arctic is key to hide its submarines, which provide essential second strike capabilities

Steven E. Miller, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, March 2023, The Return of the Strategic Artic, https://arcticyearbook.com/images/yearbook/2022/Commentaries/6C_AY2022_Miller.pdf

Fourth, nuclear modernization is likely to exacerbate these trends. Both Russia and the United States are engaged in expensive, comprehensive, long-term modernization programs that will replenish and upgrade their nuclear capabilities. This modernization process is having and in the future will continue to have an impact on the strategic contours of the Arctic. Advances in surveillance, accuracy, and lethality, for example, are reinforcing the vulnerability of ground-based forces, which in turn will heighten the importance of sea-based nuclear assets as the bedrock of Russia’s deterrent posture. (Lieber and Press, 2017). Russia is investing in new, more advanced ballistic missile submarines and in new submarine-launched ballistic missiles, which will make its sea-based nuclear forces more capable and hence more valuable as targets even as advances in anti-submarine warfare may make them more vulnerable. Barring an unforeseen breakthrough, anti-submarine warfare will remain a challenging mission but there can be little doubt that Arctic waters will witness an intense cat and mouse competition in which Russia seeks to hide and protect its ballistic missile submarines while the US Navy seeks to find them and render them vulnerable. This is, in effect, a replay of the Cold War dynamic in northern waters, but in modern technological conditions with more advanced capabilities

62-Arms control fails; deterrence essential

Fifth, all of this is playing out in a strategic context in which arms control has largely collapsed. There are today fewer constraints in place to mitigate the intensity of the nuclear rivalry than at any point in several decades. The only remaining major strategic arms control agreement, the New START agreement of 2010, expires in 2026. Even now, however, New START is sputtering. In February 2023, after a period in which Russia was not fully compliant with the treaty’s verification provisions, President Putin announced that Russia is suspending its participation in the agreement. (Sanger, 2023). While it remains possible that the agreement could eventually be extended or replaced with a follow-on agreement, there is presently no negotiation underway (worrisome because it usually takes years to negotiate nuclear arms agreements) and the severe breakdown of US-Russian relations caused by the Ukraine war makes a resumption of diplomacy seem unlikely anytime soon. There is a real possibility that there will be no strategic arms control in place after New START’s expiration in 2026, meaning a return to the unconstrained nuclear competition of the early Cold War years. History suggests that in such an environment, intense arms racing may ensue. Antagonism will motivate vigorous competition, fears will intensify, vulnerability scares will multiply, defense budgets will expand, forces will grow, modernization will accelerate, and nuclear concerns and risks might again occupy center stage. Because the Arctic will play a critical role in the strategic nuclear balance as the arena in which the heart of Russia’s nuclear deterrent force is deployed, operated, and defended, it is unlikely to be exempt from the effect of intense and unregulated strategic competition. Further, arms control did little to restrain the naval competition in the northern waters during the Cold War and is unlikely to do so in the future even if some arms control measures remain in place.

61-Russia’s deterrent force is deployed in the Arctic

Because the Arctic will play a critical role in the strategic nuclear balance as the arena in which the heart of Russia’s nuclear deterrent force is deployed, operated, and defended, it is unlikely to be exempt from the effect of intense and unregulated strategic competition. Further, arms control did little to restrain the naval competition in the northern waters during the Cold War and is unlikely to do so in the future even if some arms control measures remain in place.

60-NATO expansion already encircles Russia in the Arctic

Second, the Ukraine war has remade the geostrategic map of northern Europe. The impending membership of Sweden and Finland in NATO means that NATO’s longest and most direct border with Russia lies in the Nordic region, along the Russo-Finnish border – a line some 1400 kilometers long. (Alander and Alburque, 2022.) Northern Europe is now entirely a NATO region – a development that is due to the belligerence and aggression of an increasingly unfriendly Russia led by an increasingly assertive and autocratic leader. As Kendall-Taylor and Kofman have written, “Finland’s and Sweden’s entry into NATO – a direct result of Russia’s attack on Ukraine – will increase security tensions with Russia in the Baltic and Arctic regions….Their membership also brings new borders for NATO to defend and contingency plans to develop.” (Kendall-Taylor & Kofman, 2022). Indeed, the accession of Finland and Sweden to NATO will complete the picture of the Arctic as a region marked by a divide between NATO members (the United States, Canada, Denmark Norway, Iceland, Sweden, and Finland), on the one hand, and Russia on the other. Given the importance of the Arctic to Russia and the fractured relationship between NATO and Moscow, this fault line could increasingly important and potentially contentious in the future.

59-US increasing its military presence in the Arctic now

The effect of the evolving strategic realities in the Arctic can already be seen in the military policies and investments of key regional actors. The United States now feels challenged by the growth of Russian capability in the Arctic, a region described by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in 2019 as “an arena of global power and competition.” (Conley and Melino, 2020, p. 2; Baker 2022). Indeed, fears that Russia has achieved military superiority in the region and has a head start measured in years now animate discussions of US and western policy in the Arctic. (Gronholt-Pedersen and Fouche, 2022). Accordingly, Washington is investing in enhanced reconnaissance and command and control capabilities in the Arctic, intends to put more emphasis on cold weather assets and to train and exercise more frequently in the north, and has plans to develop additional infrastructure in the Arctic, including a strategic port. (US Department of Defense, 2019; Madeira, 2019). It is also bringing decommissioned facilities back into military service, including restoration of activities based in Iceland, formerly the lynchpin of NATO maritime power in the North Atlantic. (Sterkeby and Hole, 2022; McLeary 2017). Operationally, as one report noted, the US Navy “continues to prioritize re-learning how to operate in the Arctic.” (Eckstein, 2019).

58-No cooperation with Russia on the Arctic now

Russia has used the international rules for over two decades to secure rights in the North Pole seabed. In February 2023, Moscow quietly secured a major win in the Arctic seabed legal battle. Yet, this significant legal gain comes in the midst of an international security context that is quite different from when Moscow planted its flag at the bottom of the ocean. The Arctic was a place of few avenues for cooperation and coordination between Russia and the West, and this ceased to be the case following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Without guardrails to facilitate dialogue and engagement, and perhaps incentives for Moscow to continue to adhere to the international legal regime of the Arctic, it is possible that the region is set to face its most challenging era yet.

57-Russia increasing Arctic militarization

Similarly, in its new 2022 naval doctrine, announced in Decree No. 512 on July 31, 2022, Russia emphasizes defense of the Arctic as an important national interest. As one account of the new doctrine explained, “The transformation of the Arctic into a region of ‘global competition not only from an economic, but also from a military point of view’ is especially stressed.” (Tebin, 2022) Consistent with this strategic priority, in recent years Russia has put emphasis on “rebuilding” its Arctic military capabilities. (For a concise overview of Moscow’s military improvements in the Arctic, see Lozier, 2022, pp. 19-21). It has created a new Northern Fleet Joint Strategic Command and an Arctic Land Forces Brigade. It is upgrading its military infrastructure in the region. In military terms, the Arctic is above all a maritime theater, so it is particularly important that Russia has embarked on an ambitious, comprehensive naval modernization program involving all classes of naval vessels – and as in the past, the bulk of the Russian Navy is based on the Kola Peninsula and inevitably must operate in northern waters. (Naval Technology, 2022). It conducts air and naval exercises in the northern region. (See, for example, Episkopos, 2021). In general, the Russian government is committed to strengthening its military capabilities in the Arctic. (Staalesen, 2021). It is hardly surprising, then, that a survey of Arctic experts found “concerns that the Arctic may be torn apart as a result of geopolitical forces.” (Thomasen, 2022, p. 6)

56-No Arctic cooperation now

Wall & Wegge, 2023, hird, given the state of Russia’s conventional armed forces, Russian aggression toward Arctic European states may continue to lean heavily on hybrid tools. There have been encouraging signs of a Western response to this, such as Norway’s deployment of the Home Guard to protect critical infrastructure, and NATO allies’ assistance to help them do so via increased allied ship patrols in the North Sea.[154] Norway also recently adopted its annual Flotex naval exercise to include a component focused on protecting oil and gas installations.[155] Even the U.S. Arctic strategy recognizes the challenge, promising to focus on “building the resilience of critical infrastructure,” including against cyberattacks.[156] This is a welcome recognition from the Biden administration of Russia’s penchant for using hybrid tactics in the High North—however, the administration may not yet have fully recognized that this tool is likely becoming more attractive to Russia in the Arctic, relative to conventional force. NATO allies like Norway, and future members like Sweden and Finland, may need to further impress this probability on the United States and other allies at the NATO level, The Russian Arctic Threat: Consequences of the Ukraine War. https://www.csis.org/analysis/russian-arctic-threat-consequences-ukraine-war

Russia’s unprovoked and brutal invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 disrupted the European security architecture and altered the risk calculus underpinning the foreign and security policies of its neighbors. This shift was also stark in the Arctic, which had for a long time been hailed by many as a highly cooperative and unusually peaceful part of international affairs.[1] First, the Arctic Council ceased to function when its seven members other than Russia suspended participation in official meetings.[2] This left the region without its main intergovernmental venue for cooperation.

55-Russia defensive in the Arctic now but could turn offensive if a war with NATO starts

Wall & Wegge, CSIS, 2023, The Russian Arctic Threat: Consequences of the Ukraine War. https://www.csis.org/analysis/russian-arctic-threat-consequences-ukraine-war

Russia’s military interests in the Arctic are ostensibly defensive: to defend its second-strike, sea-based nuclear deterrent capability operating out of the Kola Peninsula; to defend the homeland; and to protect its regional economic endeavors, especially oil and gas megaprojects like the Yamal LNG and Vostok Oil ventures, and the Northern Sea Route (NSR), which Russia views ambitiously as a future global trade thoroughfare. [9]

Russia also has offensive goals.[10] First, it seeks to use the Arctic as a staging ground for power projection, especially into the North Atlantic Ocean via the Greenland-Iceland-UK (GIUK) Gap.[11] Second, it may consider hybrid activities to intimidate or coerce European Arctic countries. Finally, in an unlikely—but not unthinkable—wider NATO-Russia conflict, having escalated to a war, one can imagine Moscow risking a limited incursion into Norway or Finland in a bid to protect its critical nuclear assets in the Kola Peninsula by creating greater defensive depth through, for example, the establishment of more western anti-access/area denial system systems at relatively easily defended sites west of its border.

54-Ukraine war wiped-out Russia’s Arctic military threat

Wall & Wegge, CSIS, 2023, The Russian Arctic Threat: Consequences of the Ukraine War. https://www.csis.org/analysis/russian-arctic-threat-consequences-ukraine-war

To summarize, Russia’s conventional land forces in the Kola Peninsula, including naval infantry and possibly special forces, are today depleted and substantially weakened. Russia’s ability to successfully conduct a rapid conventional ground incursion toward its western neighbors in the Arctic is in the short term even more minimal than before the war. Its ability to do so in the medium and long term will depend on its ability to recruit new conscripts and train them for Arctic operations. There is also reason to think that the same issues relating to “low morale, poor execution of combined arms, subpar training, deficient logistics, [and] corruption” may bedevil Russian forces in the Arctic, as they have in Ukraine—though one should not underestimate Russia’s potential to learn from its failures.[129]

53-Increasing presence in the Arctic trades-off with military deployments in East Asia

Wall & Wegge, CSIS, 2023, The Russian Arctic Threat: Consequences of the Ukraine War. https://www.csis.org/analysis/russian-arctic-threat-consequences-ukraine-war

Second, Russia’s relative incapacity to threaten a conventional military land incursion into European Arctic allies will be welcome news to the Biden administration, whose recent strategic documents do not indicate a high prioritization of the region in terms of defense. Most notably, the NSS lists the Arctic last in its overview of regional policies.[148] The strategy is cautious about promising U.S. presence in the Arctic, saying it will only be exercised “as required, while reducing risk and preventing unnecessary escalation.”[149] The U.S. National Defense Strategy mentions the Arctic fleetingly and is also cautious: “U.S. activities and posture in the Arctic should be calibrated, as the Department preserves its focus on the Indo-Pacific region.”[150] Its emphasis is on stability, homeland defense, and maritime domain awareness, and there is no language in the Arctic section about deterring threats to Arctic allies and partners. This language does appear in the U.S. Arctic strategy, which states, “We will deter threats to the U.S. homeland and our allies by enhancing the capabilities required to defend our interests in the Arctic.”[151] The document promises needed investments in domain awareness capabilities and icebreakers.[152] Still, it also emphasizes avoiding escalation and notably states that it “may be possible to resume cooperation under certain conditions.”[153]

52-West is defended against Arctic cyber attacks now

Wall & Wegge, CSIS, 2023, The Russian Arctic Threat: Consequences of the Ukraine War. https://www.csis.org/analysis/russian-arctic-threat-consequences-ukraine-war

Third, given the state of Russia’s conventional armed forces, Russian aggression toward Arctic European states may continue to lean heavily on hybrid tools. There have been encouraging signs of a Western response to this, such as Norway’s deployment of the Home Guard to protect critical infrastructure, and NATO allies’ assistance to help them do so via increased allied ship patrols in the North Sea.[154] Norway also recently adopted its annual Flotex naval exercise to include a component focused on protecting oil and gas installations.[155] Even the U.S. Arctic strategy recognizes the challenge, promising to focus on “building the resilience of critical infrastructure,” including against cyberattacks.[156] This is a welcome recognition from the Biden administration of Russia’s penchant for using hybrid tactics in the High North—however, the administration may not yet have fully recognized that this tool is likely becoming more attractive to Russia in the Arctic, relative to conventional force. NATO allies like Norway, and future members like Sweden and Finland, may need to further impress this probability on the United States and other allies at the NATO level.

51-Ukraine won’t drain Russia’s military capabilities

Greenwood, 2023 (January/February, Cmdr. Jeremy Greenwood is an officer in the U.S. Coast Guard with more than 20 years of experience at-sea and ashore throughout various policy offices, including serving as a Coast Guard liaison officer at the U.S. State Department’s Office of Ocean and Polar Affairs. He was a Brookings Foreign Policy federal executive fellow from 2021-22, GREAT POWER COMPETITION AND OVERSEAS BASING IN THE ARCTIC, https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/FP_20230207_arctic_basing_greenwood.pdf

To be sure, the war in Ukraine remains a drain on Russian military assets, but the Arctic will continue to be a priority region for the Russian military. It should not be assumed that significant capability will be lost there in the near term. As Rebecca Pincus of the Wilson Center stated, “While the war in Ukraine has impacted Russia’s low-end military capabilities and capacity, in the Arctic, it retains a seriously formidable set of high-end capabilities.

50-Russian Arctic dominance is key to protect its second strike capabilities

Much has been made about Russia’s “military buildup” in the Arctic region and its renewal of old military bases along its northern coastline.2 It is estimated that Russia has nearly 30 military or dual-use facilities in active use or under construction north of the Arctic Circle, including air bases, naval ports, radio/communications facilities, and military nuclear facilities.3 Some of these facilities are quite elaborate and are militarily capable, given that Russia has made significant investments in military power well into the central Arctic Ocean.4 Russia’s bases inside the Arctic Circle outnumber NATO’s by about a third, according to data compiled by Reuters and the International Institute for Strategic Studies.5 Of course, Russia has always been an Arctic nation and has prioritized the Arctic since the 16th century and the conquest of Siberia.6 Today, the Arctic is an essential access point for Russian naval assets in and around the Kola Peninsula and is critical to Russia’s ability to maintain a second-strike capability in the unlikely event of nuclear conflict with the West.7 Moscow views the Arctic as one of the largest fronts in its competition with Europe and NATO forces, and the likely accession of Sweden and Finland to NATO will only intensify that view Isolationism Nuke Ukraine
Baltic and North Seas

49-China not building significant military capabilities in the Arctic

China likely has no plans to build traditional military bases or outposts in the Arctic, but it will seek occasional access rights to existing Russian bases for its ships and aircraft operating in support of research missions or possible joint exercises with Russia in the NSR. These missions will demonstrate Beijing’s ability to project power into the Arctic, but in a limited way — primarily to protect China’s research and commercial interests. Chinese military presence in the Arctic will most likely remain in the form of dual-purpose facilities operating as research stations or economic investments

48-Arctic oil access critical to Russia’s economy

Former Commandant of the U.S. Coast Guard, Admiral Karl Schultz, was fond of saying that in the Arctic, “presence equals influence. If we don’t have a presence there, our competitors will.”27 With China’s annual deployment of icebreakers and other research vessels to the Arctic and its increased scientific and economic investments in the region, it is in a position to have more operational presence in the Arctic than the United States does — for some time.28 And Russia has made it very clear that its future depends on the extraction and sale of fossil fuels, which makes the Arctic an essential part of its foreign policy.

47-Examples of policies

The United States is awakening to this reality, and though its progress toward an increased presence is slow, the trajectory is sound. The United States’ elevation of the Arctic in the 2022 National Security Strategy as a strategic priority is a positive development, and the release of an updated National Strategy for the Arctic only confirms the importance of the region. The effective implementation of these strategies, however, will be essential to supporting U.S. Arctic policy and having a more solid footing in the strategic competition for Arctic influence. Movement in the following areas would help with implementation:

Foreign policy begins at home, and nowhere is that as true as it is in the Arctic.29 Targeted and expedited sustainable investments in Alaska are the first steps toward a sound U.S. Arctic policy. There is a desperate need for deep-water ports, roads, and communications infrastructure; airfields need to be upgraded; and infrastructure threatened by the ravages of climate change need to be relocated.30 With proper engagement and planning, all of these investments would benefit the Indigenous communities of Alaska, while providing a dual-use capability for U.S. forces operating in the region.
Maintaining a peaceful Arctic does not necessarily require the construction of new military bases in Alaska or throughout NATO countries, but it does require the constant maintenance of existing infrastructure, upgrades to accommodate new assets, and the proper economic infrastructure to support temporary deployments of ships and aircraft to the region. The United States will require significant investment in polar satellite coverage and other long-range communications facilities in Alaska and allied countries to sustain any future deployments and to ensure that the region remains attractive for private economic development that can benefit from similar communications infrastructure.
Polar ice is melting at a rapid pace, but there will still be a significant amount of ice in the Arctic Ocean for the foreseeable future. Importantly, normal ships, including naval assets, cannot sustain contact with any substantial ice. This makes the U.S. Coast Guard’s Polar Security Cutters even more critical to operations. Icebreakers will provide more than just military access; they will drive economic growth by providing much-needed sea lane access. They will also enable search and rescue efforts, as well as scientific research that is vital to gaining civilian and military knowledge of a changing planet.
In addition to its commitment to Alaska and overall infrastructure development, the continued expansion of access rights and partnerships with NATO Arctic nations will enhance U.S. military capabilities. The accession of Sweden and Finland to the NATO alliance presents an opportunity for NATO to revamp its High North strategy, while ensuring that the Arctic does not become a zone of constant military exercises.31 Demonstrating Arctic military capabilities in a measured fashion, while fostering a commitment to the military support of logistically difficult and expensive Arctic research, will pay dividends for the alliance.

While strategic competition with Russia and China may not be the primary reason to implement a sound U.S. Arctic strategy, engagements and investments should be designed to reinforce the rules-based international order. This may require a gradual, working-level reengagement with Russia on Arctic Council matters that benefit all Arctic States and their citizens. Doing so with clear, tangible nonsecurity policy goals will provide the best hedge against Chinese disruption in the Arctic, while demonstrating to Russia the benefits that they reap from the current order. This approach will not stop Russia from being an unpredictable global spoiler, nor will it single-handedly prevent China from dominating trade and investment in the Arctic, but it could reinforce the distance between the two competitors and strengthen U.S. leadership in the region at the same time.

The United States’ ability to have a consistent and committed presence in the Arctic will be essential to its stated objective of seeking “an Arctic region that is peaceful, stable, prosperous, and cooperative.”

46-Arctic rare earths can be used to challenge China’s dominance

Gabriel Black, January 30, 2023, Sweden discovers major rare earth deposits in Arctic region, Sweden discovers major rare earth deposits in Arctic region – World Socialist Web Site (wsws.org), Sweden discovers major rare earth deposits in Arctic region – World Socialist Web Site (wsws.org)

A Swedish mining company reported earlier this month that it has discovered a large deposit of rare earth minerals in the far north of the country. Rare earths are a series of 17 minerals commonly found together that are used in most high-tech electronics, military systems and batteries. While widely distributed throughout the world, they are hard to find in sufficient concentrations to be economic to extract. The deposit was found by Luossavaara-Kiirunavaara Aktiebolag (LKAB), a state-owned mining company that operates two major iron mines in the far north of the country, just inside the Arctic Circle. The discovery was made at LKAB’s Kiruna mine, which is about 130 kilometers from the Finnish border and 300 kilometers from the Russian border. Like many critical minerals, rare earths are found in relatively lower quantities, often near or interspersed with other, more common metals, like copper or iron. In this case, the minerals were found interspersed with phosphorous in an iron-oxide apatite deposit a few kilometers from the Kiruna mine. The discovery was heralded in the mainstream press throughout Europe and the US as a significant geopolitical development that would wrestle control over the rare earth supply chain away from China. NPR’s Paddy Hirsch described it as “a very big deal for the West.” He continued, “We have seen in the last 10 years that the U.S. in particular has been very, very worried about the fact that China has such a lock hold on the production of rare earths. … So this find in Sweden is a very big deal for the West and for Western nations and NATO…” According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), about 60 percent of the world’s rare earths come from China. The vast majority of that—more than a third of the world’s total production—comes from a single location, the Bayan Odo deposit in the Inner Mongolia region of Northern China. The United States is the second largest producer of rare earths, accounting for a little more than 10 percent of the supply.

45-Current US Arctic efforts are insufficient, Arctic war draws in the whole world and goes nuclear

Rosen, 2022, Kenneth R. Rosen is an independent journalist based in Italy and the author, most recently, of Troubled: The Failed Promise of America’s Behavioral Treatment Programs, Politico Magazine, A Battle for the Arctic Is Underway. And the U.S. Is Already Behind., A Battle for the Arctic Is Underway. And the U.S. Is Already Behind. – POLITICO, https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2022/12/17/climate-change-arctic-00071169

Even as the U.S. says it has developed stronger Arctic policies, five prominent Arctic watchers I spoke with say that the U.S. government and military are taking too narrow a view, seeing the Arctic as primarily Alaska and an area for natural resource extraction, but not as a key geopolitical and national security battleground beyond U.S. borders. They say the U.S. is both poorly resourced in the Arctic and unprepared to deal with the rising climate threat, which will require new kinds of technology, training and infrastructure the U.S. has little experience with. Several U.S. government officials involved in Arctic planning told me in private they also fear a nuclear escalation in the Arctic, which would threaten to engulf Europe and its allies in a larger conflict.

44-Russia is an acute Arctic threat

“The [Defense] Department views the Arctic as a potential avenue of approach to the homeland, and as a potential venue for great power competition,” America’s new deputy assistant secretary of defense for Arctic and Global Resilience, Iris A. Ferguson, wrote me in an email. Ferguson described Russia as an “acute threat” and also outlined fears that China, a “pacing threat” was seeking “to normalize its presence and pursue a larger role in shaping Arctic regional governance and security affairs.” (China has contributed to liquid natural gas projects and funded a biodiesel plant in Finland as part of its Belt and Road Initiative now reaching the Arctic.)

There have been moments of tensions in the Arctic over the past few decades, but Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February has sent the competition to new highs. Right after the invasion, the seven other Arctic Council members said they would boycott upcoming talks in Russia. Norway, considered NATO’s northern listening post, curbed access to its ports for Russian fishing trawlers, but still allowed for Russian fishing in the Barents Sea. In May, Russia declared a militarization of its fishing fleet and maritime vessels. Norway moved to heighten alertness at military installations and critical liquid gas and energy infrastructure across the country, much of which sits in the Arctic and sub-Arctic. Europe, which severed ties with Russian gas exports, has come to rely on that Arctic energy.

43-Russia using the Artic to offset losses and isolation in the Ukraine

That pursuit takes on a new urgency today. Russia remains existentially threatened by thawing permafrost, atop which some 60 percent of its civilian and energy sector infrastructure sits unstable, so Russia is trying to find new ways to reshape the region in its favor before it reshapes the country. And the Kremlin’s losses in Ukraine (together with the sanctions pressuring its economy) are forcing it to look for dominance and control elsewhere, according to Andreas Osthagen, a senior research fellow at the Fridtjof Nansen Institute in Oslo. Barentsburg is a Russian settlement and coal mining town in Svalbard, Norway with about 455 residents. Here you could find the northernmost Orthodox chapel in the world and a school that is still in use.

As much as Russia admires the region, its approach to developing and maintaining the Arctic has been aggressive, if not disastrous. Russia has been mining and drilling in the Siberian stretches of the Arctic for years. In 2020, Putin declared a state of emergency in a region of northern Siberia where a river was turned crimson after what the Kremlin called the “world’s largest” Arctic oil spill. Lack of regulations and an emphasis on profit over safety and environmental protection have led to a handful of similar disasters in recent years. Each year about 18,000 residents leave the Russian Arctic while three quarters of the Russian defense budget (about $1.9 billion) went to expansion in the same region. Cities like Murmansk offer military employees in the country’s north twice the annual median income. Military personnel are now the region’s main taxpayers. In August, Moscow pledged 1.5 billion rubles (about $23,986,500) for Barentsburg and the nearby Soviet-era settlement of Pyramiden to rebuild public infrastructure. According to Alexei Chekunkov, the minister of the Russian Federation for the Development of the Far East and the Arctic, the raised funds will be used not to maintain coal production but to develop and encourage tourism and facilitate the transition to renewable energy. Timofey Rogozin, the former top Russian tourism official in Barentsburg, who now lives in nearby Longyearbyen, told me this is an attempt to maintain Russia’s realm of influence on Svalbard. Where other countries have only recently begun seeing the Arctic as a new front in Russia’s war on the West, Russia has seen it that way for decades. Over the past eight years, Moscow has reopened and modernized upwards of 50 Cold War-era bases along the necklace of its 15,000 miles of Arctic coastline. Russian forces patrol the country’s Northern Sea Route off the southeastern coast of Svalbard, conducting sporadic military testing which inconveniences Norwegian fishing vessels. Russian forces also taunt American maritime vessels off Alaska’s coast. In 2018, during the Trident Juncture NATO exercises, Russia was accused of jamming GPS signals in and above the waters off the Kola Peninsula in the Barents Sea. Its use of asymmetric warfare in gray-zone battlegrounds — from military GPS jamming to embedding spies in research institutes — in the Arctic is well-documented.

42-Russia won’t initiate war in the Arctic, they are overextended in the Ukraine

“This idea about hybrid threats has really risen,” Marisol Maddox, an Arctic analyst at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington told me by phone days before Yakunin’s arrest for piloting a drone around critical infrastructure. “That’s where the Arctic comes in, where we’re concerned about certain types of infrastructure. Russia’s not wanting to engage in another theater. They’re already overextended in Ukraine, but they then are more likely to utilize these tactics that fall just below the threshold of kinetic warfare.”

41-US lacks Arctic military readiness

Across the seas, the Arctic remains a vexatious place for American military planners. America’s Arctic territory mainly lies in Alaska, which has more than 34,000 miles of coastline and houses five U.S. military bases. The U.S. only has one other Arctic base, Thule Air Base in Greenland. The experts I spoke with told me that America’s basic Arctic military and commercial readiness can use a lot of improvement. America has only two icebreakers, the boats that make it possible for military and commercial vessels to navigate frozen waterways. The U.S. has plans to build six more, while Canada has 18 and Russia has more than 50. The U.S. does not operate any Arctic deep-water ports — necessary for stationing larger military and logistics vessels — in Alaska; the only one is at Thule Air Base in Greenland. And the six Arctic military bases — all “contingency bases,” meant to be staging grounds for expeditions into the Arctic — are consistently needing repair and intervention because of the effects of climate change.

40-US not committed to a regular Arctic presence now

The reaction to the report from some Arctic analysts I spoke to was underwhelming, though. The new strategy, which prioritizes security, lists Russia and China as primary threats and emphasizes the importance of cooperation with Arctic countries such as Finland and Sweden. At the same time, several critics told me, the report was vague and lacked a commitment to real action. The first subpoint under the security pillar was to “improve our understanding of the Arctic operating environment,” placing the U.S. far behind its stated competition, who are already building more icebreakers and military bases and planning out ice routes. The report said nothing about ice breakers or the importance of broadening U.S. reach within the greater Arctic region. And while it did broadly address climate change and increased regional competition, it didn’t say anything about how those issues would be addressed. Futhermore, the report said an American presence in the Arctic region will only be “as required,” a designation that many Arctic experts think is shortsighted.

Heather Conley, the president of the German Marshall Fund, told me the nation’s new policy remained amnesiac and reminiscent of years past. She said it did not reflect the changing geopolitical and commercial importance of the region. “I see policy that in its isolation is fine,” Conley said. “It’s just fragmented and doesn’t necessarily have an overarching policy objective that everyone understands. … And they’re not reflecting these really important geostrategic, whether they’re economic, security shifts, and how are we adjusting policy.” Conley still thinks the U.S. sees the Arctic more of a domestic issue — an arena to focus on natural resource extraction in Alaska and policy toward indigenous populations — than an international one.

39-US has limited ice breaking ability

The situation on Thule Air Base is a good example of the problems the U.S. is facing. The center of any visible U.S. Arctic strategy would be Thule, located in western Greenland and America’s northernmost military installation. To the west of Svalbard, 947 miles south of the North Pole, Thule (pronounced too-lee) is home to reindeer and Arctic temperatures so cold that Fahrenheit and Celsius often meet as equals (at -40 degrees). The base, whose tenants are contingents from the U.S. Space Force and visitors researching Arctic region conditions, serves as a major space surveillance and satellite command logistics hub and plays a key defense role in providing early warnings against nuclear attack For now, the base, used for passive monitoring, is virtually defenseless and relies on partner nations for ice breaking. “It is an issue,” Mark Cancian, a senior adviser with the Center for Strategic and International Studies’ International Security Program, told me when I asked about the U.S. ice-breaking capability. Cancian said that capability “is limited and deteriorating.”

38-Thule Plan

If the U.S. wants to project power abroad and compete with Russia and China, one way would be to make Thule, based on NATO soil, a linchpin in a strategy that seeks to establish air and sea superiority along the NATO bases nearest a new sea route which climate scientists, military planners and regional governors say will be fully opened to transit in the next few decades, as sea ice melts and more icebreakers are introduced to the region. Thule, once a Cold War hub, could again host strategic bomber operations and fighter pilot squadrons, as well as static anti-aircraft and anti-ballistic defenses. It could also serve as a launch point for more surface ship missions above the Arctic Circle, which the U.S. has rarely done since the end of the Cold War. None of this was mentioned in the Arctic plan explicitly.

37-US lacks ice breaking abilities needed for ground force movements

“NATO capabilities are reasonably strong for surveillance both undersea and in the air,” James Stavridis, a retired four-star Navy admiral who was the supreme allied commander at NATO from 2009 to 2013, told me recently, “but not strong in terms of ice-breaking, which is of course crucial, or response to ground force movements.”

36-US needs to totally reassess the Arctic

Experts I spoke with say a shift to the Arctic must mean a fundamental shift in strategy and execution. For years, the U.S. has relied on quick-response expeditionary forces to fight the Global War on Terror; less emphasis has been placed on homeland defense. Robust Arctic infrastructure will mean exactly that, accompanied by capacity building at once-abandoned facilities, addressing issues of military superiority and climate change at once. “I think U.S. policy preference has been to exclusively focus on one, try not to concentrate on the other, and the fact is you have to do both,” said Conley, the German Marshall Fund president. This is something other countries are doing. Denmark, for example, allocated $245 million toward improving drone surveillance in the Arctic and modernizing air surveillance radar in the Faroe Islands while emphasizing domestic production of renewable energies over gas and oil production. Meanwhile, other non-Arctic nations are vying for a foothold in the Arctic. Turkey has sought to ascended to the Svalbard Treaty, which grants Norway sovereignty over the archipelago but allows for equal access to signatories. Saudi Arabia is investing in Russian liquid natural gas projects. China and Moscow have also inked deals to build satellite relays in the Arctic to compete with U.S.-owned GPS systems. “Beijing is talking about opening up more globalized international governance and moving away from the Arctic 5 and the Arctic 8 dominating the region,” said Trym Eiterjord, a research associate at the Arctic Institute with a focus on China and Asia in the Arctic. “Whether it comes to liquid natural gas ventures or ship building, the main variable when it comes to China as a threat in the Arctic is its cooperation with Russia in general.” So far, though, Eiterjord said Russia has remained leery about opening up the Arctic to Chinese investment and opportunity, hoping to limit further competition.

35-Russia expanding Arctic capabilities

Nick Paton Walsh,, 12-22, 22, Ahmed, 2022, Shaheer Ahmad,. Research Scholar, Department of International Relations, Faculty of Contemporary Studies, National Defence University, Journal of Indo-Pacific Affairs, Russia’s Reimagined Arctic in the Age of Geopolitical Competition, https://www.airuniversity.af.edu/JIPA/Display/Article/2959221/russias-reimagined-arctic-in-the-age-of-geopolitical-competition/, Russia’s militarization of the Arctic shows no sign of slowing down

Russia has continued expanding its military bases in the Arctic region despite significant losses in its war on Ukraine, according to a new series of satellite images obtained by CNN. NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg also told CNN in an exclusive interview on Friday there is now “a significant Russian military build-up in the high north,” with recent tensions causing the alliance to “double its presence” in response. The findings also come as a senior Western intelligence official told CNN Russia has withdrawn as much as three quarters of its land forces from the High North region near the Arctic, sending them to bolster its faltering invasion of its neighbor, Ukraine. The satellite pictures, obtained by CNN from Maxar Technologies, show a series of Russian radar bases and runways undergoing improvements over the past year. The images do not show dramatic development, but rather the continued progress of fortifying and expanding an area analysts say is of vital importance to Russia’s defensive strategy, at a time of great strain on Moscow’s resources. According to Maxar, the images demonstrate continued work on the radar stations at the Olenegorsk site, on the Kola Peninsula in northwest Russia, and at Vorkuta, just north of the Arctic circle. They also appear to show work moving ahead to complete one of five Rezonans-N radar systems at Ostrovnoy, a site located by the Barents Sea, near Norway and Finland in Russia’s west. The Rezonans-N are claimed by Russian officials to be able to detect stealth aircraft and objects. At Tiksi air defense site, towards the East of Russia’s arctic region, satellite imagery shows three radomes (which protect radar systems) have been built up between this October and last. The remote Russian military Arctic base is located on the coast of the Laptev Sea. Three new radomes, the weatherproof enclosures used to protect radar antennas, were completed this year at the Tiksi air defense site, in the far northeast, according to Maxar’s images and analysis. There are also improvements to a runway and parking apron at Nagurskoye air base – Russia’s northernmost military facility – and runway improvements at ‘Temp’ air base, on Kotelny Island, in the northeast of the country. Russia has been bolstering its defenses in the far north for years, refurbishing a series of old Soviet bases with modern designs and equipment. Its Arctic region has long been key to its oil and gas sector, but also to its nuclear defenses, with a significant proportion of its sophisticated nuclear weaponry and submarine facilities in that area. On the arctic Kola Peninsula in northwest Russia, change is visible at the Olenegorsk Radar Station, including a new building compared to the imagery from June last year. “That deterrence has always been ready,” said a senior Western intelligence official. “It’s never down to low readiness; it’s a high status all the time,” the official said. At the start of the war with Ukraine in February some submarines were repositioned to signal “this is a real capability,” the official added, but they soon returned to standard high readiness. NATO chief Stoltenberg reasoned: “The shortest way from Russia to North America is over the Arctic North Pole. So the strategic importance of these areas has not changed because of the war in Ukraine.” “We see Russia reopening old Soviet bases, military sites,” he said, noting that it is also “testing novel weapons in the Arctic and the high north.” Build-up continued between August this year and last at the Ostrovnoy site located by the Barents Sea, near Norway and Finland in Russia’s west. One of five new Rezonans-N radars, which Russia claim can find stealth jets, is located here. SATELLITE IMAGE ©2022 MAXAR TECHNOLOGIES “It is significant that they have managed to shelter this area from the impact of the Ukrainian war”, said Malte Humpert of the Arctic Institute, who has written extensively on the development of the Arctic. “They are prioritising energy resources in the Arctic, but another aspect is to project power. Yet this is also economic. About 20% of Russia’s GDP comes from the Arctic area, and that may be more in the future. There is a lot of money involved in the area for them.” The war in Ukraine has led to a major adjustment in Russia’s troop strengths in the region, the senior Western intelligence official said. “They’re down to somewhere between 20 and 25% of their original land forces up there. But then the naval component is totally untouched by the war,” they noted. Following strikes earlier this month on two key airfields deep inside Russia in Ryazan and Saratov, Russian military jets and bombers have been dispersed across the country and the Arctic north, the official added. Moscow has blamed the strikes on Ukraine, while Kyiv has offered no comment on the explosions at the Russian bases.

34-Any encirclement arguments are made non-unique by NATO expansion

The Arctic is also vital to Russia because its melting ice is rapidly opening up new shipping routes from Asia’s southeast to Europe, using a much shorter path along the Russian coast. The Northern Sea Route could cut around two weeks off the current journey time across the Suez Canal. Russian state TV has reveled in the launch of several atomic-powered icebreakers, designed to boost Russian influence and power in the region. Critics say Moscow is seeking to exert outsized control over a route that should be equally accessible to all nations. Speaking via videolink at the launch of a new nuclear-powered icebreaker in St. Petersburg last month (November 22), Russian President Vladimir Putin said the development of the “most important” Northern Sea Route “will allow Russia to fully reveal its export potential and to establish effective logistics routes, including to southeast Asia.” At the same time, the war in Ukraine has boosted NATO’s presence in the region. Once Finland and Sweden join the block, as is widely expected, seven out of eight Arctic states will be NATO members. The alliance has also ramped up its military clout in the region. In August, Norway released the first images of US B52 bombers flying over its territory escorted by Norwegian F35 jets and 2 Swedish JAS Gripen. Increased signaling by NATO included a recent test of the new weapons system, the Rapid Dragon Palletized Munition Deployment, involving a complex drop by US special forces of a normal supply pallet from the back of a C130 cargo craft. The pallet contains a cruise missile, which launches as the pallet falls by parachute. The display was designed to show the United States can launch these powerful weapons systems from the back of an ordinary cargo plane. The test took place in Norway, not far from the Russian border. NATO has also become increasingly concerned about the potential sabotage of Norway’s oil and gas infrastructure. Now Russian energy is subject to sanctions, Norway’s natural gas makes up more than 20% of Europe’s supply, according to some analysis. “Since the sabotage in the Baltic Sea,” Stoltenberg said, “we have doubled our presence, with ships, with submarines, with maritime patrol aircrafts in the Baltic and North Seas, partly to monitor, to have better situational awareness, but also to send a message of deterrence and readiness to protect this critical infrastructure.” The NATO head was referring to the blasts at the Nord Stream pipeline in September, which were caused by an act of sabotage, according to Swedish prosecutors, after evidence of explosives was discovered at the sites. The senior intelligence official said, however, that a recent Norwegian review of its infrastructure security concluded no major attempts to attack it had occurred and that “the oil infrastructure is well secured now.”

33-Arctic full of rare earth minerals

Mark Rowe, August 14, 2022, https://geographical.co.uk/geopolitics/the-world-is-gearing-up-to-mine-the-arctic, Geographical, Arctic nations are squaring up to exploit the region’s rich natural resources

Large deposits of rare earth metals and other minerals are believed to be present in the Arctic

For now, however, oil and gas aren’t at the top of the international wishlist. ‘If you want to get oil and gas out of the Arctic, it’s going to cost you a lot – setting up the infrastructure, transporting it,’ says Nima Khorrami, a research associate at the Washington DC-based Arctic Institute. ‘Why do that when there’s still so much available in the Middle East?’ Instead, the main drivers of the Arctic resource rush are minerals, in particular rare earth metals such as neodymium, praseodymium, terbium and dysprosium. These minerals are key to the world’s electric-vehicle and renewable-energy revolutions, underpinning battery technology and wind turbines among other things. However, it’s worth noting that lead, iron, nickel, zinc, gold, silver, coal, mica, precious stones and construction minerals such as sand, gravel and crushed rock are also believed to be present in significant quantities.

32-War in the Arctic kills the environment

Perez, 2022, February 25, Christian Perez is a Senior Policy & Quantitative Analyst with FP Analytics, Foreign Policy’s independent research and analysis division. His work focuses on trade and investment, emerging technologies, sustainability, and impact analysis. He is a graduate of the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies., Foreign Policy, ow Russia’s Future With NATO Will Impact the Arctic, How Russia’s Future With NATO Will Impact the Arctic https://foreignpolicy.com/2022/02/25/arctic-ukraine-russia-china-eu-invasion-nato/

The Arctic region is set to play a key role in each of these considerations. Abundant natural gas and energy reserves are concentrated in Russian Arctic territory, which European countries are highly dependent on for their energy supply. Meanwhile, Russia has made the Arctic a focal point of its military modernization efforts, leading to a steady buildup of Russian and NATO forces throughout the region. The widespread military buildup since 2007 amplifies the potential for a conflict between Russia and NATO-allied states to spill over into the region. Armed conflict in the Arctic could permanently damage regional cooperation, compromising coordinated efforts, dating back to 1996, among the Arctic states (Canada, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Russia, Sweden, and the U.S.) in search-and-rescue operations, environmental protection, and prevention of illegal fishing, among other issues

31-Russia has military supremacy in the Arctic, conflict could escalate

Today, the Arctic is the only region where Russia has military and strategic supremacy, and as the ongoing crisis in Ukraine escalates, it brings with it increased risk for conflict in the Arctic. Since 2014, Russia has built over 475 new structures across its Arctic military strongholds and has conducted extensive military exercises, most recently in January 2022. Both Russian and NATO troops are currently stationed in close proximity throughout the region and have conducted war games in the same geographic vicinities, such as the Norwegian Sea. As the situation along the Ukrainian border escalates tensions between NATO allies and Russia, the fallout from a miscalculation across a militarized Arctic could become severe.

30-Russia-China military cooperation in the Arctic

Closer cooperation with Russia grants China the chance to expand its role in the Arctic, where it has been steadily ramping up its activity over the past decade, further transforming the region into a future arena of great power competition. In 2013, China became an Arctic Observer state on the Arctic Council, and from 2012 to 2017 it invested over $435 billion across Arctic states in a range of sectors, including research, infrastructure, and resource extraction. In 2018, China published its Arctic Strategy and outlined its plan for a “Polar Silk Road” as part of its Belt and Road Initiative. China’s interest in the Arctic to date has centered on ensuring access to the rapidly opening Northern Sea Route—an Arctic shipping lane connecting Europe and Asia along Russia’s Northern ocean—and securing a share of the region’s energy and critical mineral reserves. Pursuing these interests has led to major economic agreements with Russia, including a $400 billion natural gas deal signed in 2014 and, most recently, a 30-year natural gas deal finalized this month.

China and Russia’s cooperation in the Arctic is sparking further security concerns from the U.S. and EU and is generating speculation that China is using the Arctic as an arena to expand its global ambitions. While Russia can supply China with energy resources, China provides a lucrative market for energy exports, access to capital, and financial services to counteract NATO sanctions on Russia. Additionally, China’s participation in Russian military drills, conducted in the Arctic in 2018 and 2019, raises concerns that future agreements between the two nations in the region could include military cooperation. As the ongoing crisis in Ukraine leads to new sanctions on Russia from both the U.S. and EU, it is likely that Russia will increasingly turn to China for economic support. While that bilateral relationship is nuanced, this dynamic could create an opening for China to further pursue and cement its long-term presence in the Arctic region. An expansion of China’s role in the Arctic would increase tensions with the U.S. and other Arctic nations already wary of China’s intentions, and potentially catalyze a transformation of the Arctic’s future role in geopolitics.

29-Russia views competition win the US in the Arctic as Zero-Sum: Increased US presence will crowd them out

Ahmed, 2022, Shaheer Ahmad,. Research Scholar, Department of International Relations, Faculty of Contemporary Studies, National Defence University, Journal of Indo-Pacific Affairs, Russia’s Reimagined Arctic in the Age of Geopolitical Competition, https://www.airuniversity.af.edu/JIPA/Display/Article/2959221/russias-reimagined-arctic-in-the-age-of-geopolitical-competition/

Russian Arctic strategy aims to develop untapped energy reservoirs to elevate its economy.3 This includes the interrelated projects of Yamal LNG (liquified natural gas) and the Northern Sea Route (NSR), which are strengthening the Russian economy, reducing maritime routes, and assisting Russia to become a dominant power in the region. Besides this, Russian attempts to develop and utilize the NSR as a global shipping artery raise the value of the Arctic in the Kremlin’s geopolitical calculus. Moreover, Russia perceives the United States as a geopolitical competitor in the Arctic. Thus, Moscow is undergoing an overhaul of the Soviet-era bases to counter threats to its oil and gas terminals and reinforce its position as a maritime power.4 Russia’s declining energy assets and its status of an energy superpower as its foreign policy tool are the motives to maintain its hold on the untapped energy reservoirs in the region.5 Therefore, the interplay of economics and geopolitics has transformed the region into a hotspot for a renewed geopolitical competition among the great powers.

28-Russia currently using its strength in the Arctic to contain NATO

The Kremlin has recently upgraded the status of the Northern Fleet amid the growing significance of the Arctic in its policy circles. The presidential decree signed by Putin41 granted the Northern Fleet the status equivalent to the existing four military districts of East, West, and South.42 Rob Huebert analyzed this move as “…a recognition that offensive and defensive capabilities of the Northern Fleet represent one of the most important elements of the Russian military.”43 The Kremlin’s modernization of the Northern Fleet aims to protect its oil and gas terminals, which are strategic assets for the Kremlin. This development includes the stationing of the S-400, which strengthens the Russian air defense capabilities. Moreover, the Kremlin has increased its offensive capabilities by equipping the MIG-31 of the Northern Fleet with Kh-47M2 Kinzhal missile, which will project the military prowess of the Kremlin in the Arctic.44

The security concerns linked with the NSR revolve around preserving Russian territorial integrity and denying foreign incursions. The Northern Fleet remains at the center when it comes to the regulation of shipping in the NSR. Moreover, the Kremlin is also intensifying its presence to intercept the actions of the foreign military forces in the region, which includes the joint exercises of the United States, Norway, and NATO above the Arctic Circle in 2018.45 The access of the Northern Fleet to the High Seas will provide it an offensive capability, while the functioning of the NSR will put Russia in a position to control the traffic in the region. Hence, the Kremlin’s aggressive military buildup in the Arctic is to contain NATO and respond to the US maneuvers.

27-Increasing US Arctic presence includes working with NATO

The US strategy in the Arctic will be moving on the three lines of action. First, it will aim to enhance the capabilities of the US Coast Guard in the Arctic.57 Therefore, the United States will be using the International Maritime Organization to adopt international code for ships operating in polar water and to question Russian maneuvers in the region.58 Second, to strengthen the rules-based order, the United States will be eager to cooperate with NATO allies in the region.59 It is evident from Biden’s faith in the alliance and the most recent discussion over US-Canadian defense cooperation.60 Yet, it will be based on adding strategic and operational depth to the regional position of Arctic allies. The Trump administration debated Greenland’s sovereignty, Denmark’s role as a strategic enabler for US interests in the region, and surveillance of Russian actions.61 Third, the United States will aim to promote resilience and prosperity in the region. Hence, US promotion of Arctic values is evident from Trump’s approach toward the Arctic Council. Despite the reluctance of Trump’s government toward multilateralism, he was vocal about promoting cooperation among Arctic states through the Arctic Council.62 However, while conceptualizing Biden’s climate policy and his approach toward multilateralism, his actions will be aiming to use the “Arctic Council to strengthen US relations with allies.”63

26-Russia has a military advantage in the Arctic

Despite the military superiority that Russia enjoys in terms of icebreakers, US military actions cannot be sidelined. In October 2018, the USS Harry S. Truman and its associated escort sailed above the Arctic Circle, the first such strike group to do so since the Cold War.73 This operation in the Norwegian Sea means that Washington is raising its game in the Arctic. Moreover, VADM Linda L. Fagan, who oversees Coast Guard operations in the Arctic and Pacific, states that “we’re obviously watching both the Russians and the Chinese quite closely.” Despite the vitality of the geopolitical competition, the difference in military power might hurt the United States.74

The weak US naval presence can be observed from statement offered by Coast Guard Capt. Gregory Tlapa, who commands the lone USS military icebreaker traveling to the Arctic each year. He stated that, “The nation doesn’t have deep-bench strength in terms of capabilities to operate up here and project power and protect our national interests.”75 This is why the US Navy, like the other branches of the US armed forces, has introduced a new Arctic strategy.76 The United States has maintained its military presence in the northern base of Thule, Greenland, which is 750 miles north of the Arctic, hosting radar systems that will scan for any nuclear missiles launched against the United States.77 Although the United States lacks the deep-bench strength in the Arctic, recent steps are raising its influence in the region.

25-INCREASING U.S. presence will trigger a backlash

Strategically, the United States might deploy a nuclear submarine fleet due to the rising tensions and disparity in the military capability. The deployment of the large surface warships and sea-based ballistic missile defense systems in the Arctic is due to the periodic visits of US submarines.79 Furthermore, the United States will enhance its capabilities to intercept Russian intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) launches at the initial phase and making a preventive strike by ICBMs, submarine-launched ballistic missiles, and cruise missiles, irrespective of their nuclear or nonnuclear nature.80 However, the execution of these plans will create a hard security threat in the region, which can be observed from the negative response of Russia over joint UK-US naval exercises in the Norwegian and Barents seas in May 2020.81

24-China does not want to challenge the US in the Arctic

However, there exist several divergences in Sino-Russian cooperation. Despite the strategic reproachment, China neither shares Russian ambitions to confront the United States directly, nor is it willing to harm its relationship with the United States for the sake of the Russian Arctic agenda. Aglaya Snetkov has termed Russia as a “loud dissenter” and China as a “cautious partner.”103 It is evident in the statement of Chinese diplomat Fu Ying who stressed that “China has no interest in a formal alliance with Russia, nor in forming anti-US or anti-Western bloc of any kind.”104 Similarly, despite China’s growing bilateral engagement with Russia, it is still cautious and has sought ways to steer itself out from the international security crisis with Russian involvement, notably in Ukraine and Syria.

23-Currently no Russia-China military alliance in the Arctic

Despite the optimism regarding Sino-Russian cooperation, there exist various limitations to Sino-Russian cooperation. The grievances and mistrust rooted in the history and differences in the strategic culture, particularly on the Russian side regarding the shift in relative power.105 Similarly, China’s priority regarding its economic growth compels her to align with the United States, which is Beijing’s trading partner. Bobo Lo has argued that China and Russia “share neither a long-term vision of the world nor a common understanding of their respective places in it.”106 Hence it can be argued that Sino-Russian cooperation is more like a flexible strategic partnership in which both states are pursuing a pragmatic approach of cooperation on mutual strategic interests. Nevertheless, there exists no long-term strategy to assist or defend each other.

22-Russia currently has an incentive to engage in peaceful action and maintain access

Despite of the growing ante over military competition and the unprecedented naval prowess of Russia in the region, the Kremlin must have an offensive-defensive policy action in the region. Maximization of power is important, yet it is also important to maintain Russia’s leading status quo in the Arctic.114 Hence, it is important to keep the area free of conflict to reap the benefits from the NSR and allow maximum cooperation in the region.

The NSR provides the Kremlin with an opportunity for economic gains and indicates the Kremlin’s commitment to the multipolar world. The crisis in Ukraine hurt Russia’s global reputation. Therefore, the opening of the NSR, its commitment to build projects in the High North, and the creation of opportunities for international businesses must be utilized to improve its global standing. To achieve these interests Russia must avoid military confrontation of any length with regional players, specifically the United States, which will increase the trust deficit that exists between the Kremlin and the world. Russia plays a vital role in the Arctic115 by providing icebreaker and navigation support as well as energy production. This will allow regional actors to increase their trust in the Kremlin’s position which is plausible only through trade, in the region.

China does not want military conflict with the US in the Arctic

Similarly, while joint military exercises can act as a counterweight to US pressure, the Kremlin must keep Chinese military presence out of the region.116 This doesn’t mean that China’s desire to hold a military base in the region must meet a green signal from the Kremlin. The maintenance of security in case of confrontation with the United States depends on Russia; China has no interest in being drawn into military conflict with the United States in the region. The Kremlin must assure China that any cooperation in the sphere of maritime security will be to protect mutual economic activities.

21-NSR key to Russia

The policy posture adopted by Moscow as its Arctic strategy 2020 includes the utilization of the Arctic as a strategic resource base to fulfill the country’s socioeconomic needs.10 It also centers on using the NSR as a national transport route for Russia in the Arctic. The strategic priorities of the Russian Federation can be seen in the expansion of the resource base region to fulfill its energy needs.11 It is not surprising that the Arctic accounts for 10 percent of Russia’s GDP and 20 percent of its exports. Therefore, the region is crucial in the strategic designs of the Kremlin. While dealing with military and security, the Russian government favors an auspicious operating regime, including the army and other military formations. Therefore, the deployment of the Northern Fleet demonstrates the Russian intent to protect the NSR. Meanwhile, the policy posture of 2035 shows the Kremlin’s urge to access the naval chokepoints in Greenland, Iceland, and the UK to demonstrate the significance of Russia’s sea power. Hence, the opening of the NSR and the revival of the Northern Fleet is transforming Russia from a continental to maritime power in the region. The parallels in the policy postures of 2020 and 2035 exist in the Russian national interest in naming the Arctic as a strategic resource base. Moscow is aiming to utilize the opportunity to develop energy reserves, including 85.1 trillion cubic meters of natural gas and 17.3 billion metric tons of crude and condensate oil. Moreover, it is also trying to intensify its LNG production to 91 million tons by 2035. Furthermore, it is planning to increase the role of the Arctic in crude and condensate oil production to 20 percent in 2024, 23 percent in 2030, and eventually 26 percent in 2035. However, these economic gains are highly dependent on the successful functioning of the NSR. The strategic plan to develop the NSR as a global shipping route will allow the Kremlin to play a dominant role in Arctic geopolitics. While referring to the security interests linked to the NSR, the role of the Northern Fleet cannot be overlooked to intercept the aggressive actions by NATO countries in Norway.13 Therefore, the intensified activities of the Northern Fleet to establish an effective monitoring system for surface and underwater activities show how regulation and control of shipping along the NSR is a priority for the military as an effective stakeholder.The development of the NSR is crucial for the Kremlin’s strategic designs and the Arctic’s future geopolitical course. The NSR remains closed for eastbound shipping for half of the year due to Arctic ice. The change in the climate patterns unlocked the NSR much earlier during the past year, which significantly reduced the time for Yamal LNG cargoes to reach East Asian markets.15 The success of Yamal LNG endeavors on developing the Arctic infrastructure depends upon the functioning of the NSR because it can assist the Kremlin in extending its influence to the Asia-Pacific.16 Yamal LNG will allow the Kremlin to attract potential customers by offering them the Arctic LNG at a low cost. Moreover, Novatek’s smooth price enhances the company’s portfolio in global market positioning.17 James Henderson has argued that the NSR not only provides a shortcut from Yamal to Asia, but also provides an alternative to the US-controlled maritime routes. He further asserts that the Russian military modernization along the NSR has made it a “potential leverage point” amid growing geopolitical competition. The Northern Fleet remains a focal point when it comes to maritime shipping in the NSR. The Kremlin has elevated the significance of the Northern Fleet by upgrading its status to a military district. According to Matthew Melino and Heather A. Conley, Moscow’s ambitions to project Russian power in the Arctic is an “avenue of approaches” for United States.19 The Murmansk-based fleet is crucial for safeguarding maritime shipping in the NSR. Moreover, the addition of offensive and defensive capabilities to the Northern Fleet includes the equipment of S-400 and hypersonic missiles, which shows the Kremlin’s concern regarding the security of the route. Moreover, the induction of the Knyaz Vladimir, a Borei-A strategic missile submarine armed with Bulava ICBMs and 667BDRM Delfin submarines equipped with Sineva ICBMs, is a powerful signal to other actors regarding the Russian defense planning of the Arctic and the NSR.20 The growing Russian military presence along the NSR is due to the evolving security concerns revolving around the defense of Russian national security and the denial of US maneuvers. The Kremlin’s Northern Fleet is crucial to deny the US claims of freedom of navigation and maintaining Russian status quo in the region. Although the NSR is a strategic enabler for the Kremlin, it however requires the Northern Fleet to deter the United States, a geopolitical challenge for Russia. 21 Thus, the success of the Kremlin’s policy is dependent upon the successful functioning of the NSR.

20-Ukraine war means China cannot be completely aligned with Russia

Greenwood & Luo, 2022, Jeremy Greenwood is a federal executive fellow with the Brookings Institution in Washington D.C. and a U.S. Coast Guard officer with more than 20 years of military service. Shuxian Luo is a post-doctoral research fellow in foreign policy at the Brookings Institution. Her research focuses on Chinese foreign policy, maritime security in the Indo-Pacific, and America’s relations with Asia, COULD THE ARCTIC BE A WEDGE BETWEEN RUSSIA AND CHINA?, https://warontherocks.com/2022/04/could-the-arctic-be-a-wedge-between-russia-and-china/

The Arctic Council proved to be an early casualty of the war in Ukraine. All of the Arctic states except for Russia released a joint statement on March 3, announcing their intention to temporarily suspend participation in all meetings of the Arctic Council and its subsidiary bodies. The premier forum for Arctic governance, which tended to be immune from geopolitical tensions, can no longer function in its consensus-based format with the ongoing war. China, though not an Arctic state, has been an official observer on the Arctic Council since 2013 and harbors growing Arctic ambitions. What does the suspension of the Arctic Council — at least for the near future — mean for China? The continuing conflict in Ukraine casts a cloud over China’s Arctic aspirations. Beijing may still want to have it both ways, i.e., to continue its cooperation with Russia without spoiling ties with other Arctic states. But with the ramifications of the war spreading northward, China may find itself more constrained in pursuing its Arctic interests Beijing knows it cannot put all its eggs in the Russian basket, and this could be explored by the West as an opportunity to distance China from Russia. But reducing China’s dependence on Russia for advancing its Arctic interests requires keeping China in the game in the first place.

19-Russia does not trust China in the Arctic

Despite these Arctic project collaborations, Moscow views China’s growing presence in the Arctic with distrust. With vast territory and a more-than-20,000-mile coastline in the Arctic circle, Russia has a strong interest in preventing external powers from influencing Arctic affairs, and thus sees China’s claim to “near-Arctic state” status and advocacy for non-Arctic states to have a greater say in Arctic affairs as an unwelcome push for “internationalization” of the region. Tensions between the two nations surface at times. In 2012, for instance, Russia blocked Chinese research vessels from conducting surveys along the Northern Sea Route during China’s fifth Arctic expedition. Up to 2013, Moscow persistently opposed granting China observer status on the Arctic Council. Even after the 2014 Crimea crisis, when Russia began to demonstrate a warmer posture toward China’s role in the Arctic, Moscow’s suspicions remained in place. In 2020, Russia arrested the head of the Arctic Civic Academy of Sciences in St. Petersburg on the charge of passing classified information to China. Beijing clearly knows Russian distrust.

18-China trying to avoid Western-China disputes

Over the past decade, while pursuing its Arctic interests through omnidirectional diplomacy, Beijing has in general managed to stay clear of the geopolitical rivalry between Russia and the western Arctic states, especially the NATO countries. Even shortly before the eruption of the war in Ukraine, Chinese experts were voicing cautious optimism on China’s continued engagement with the Arctic. But the war and the latest moves taken by the Arctic Council cast a cloud over the outlook of China’s Arctic aspirations, at least in the short run.

17-Economic pressures means China will not fully align with Russia

However, it remains questionable how far China is willing to risk its economic ties with Europe and the United States, especially at a time when China is grappling with a slowing economy at home and internationally facing a more unified West that has shown its resolve to impose significant costs. China may see the imperative to tread with extra caution. Indeed, China’s state-owned Sinopec’s decision on March 25 to suspend projects in Russia suggests that Beijing is heeding Washington’s warning despite the foreign ministry’s insistence that China has the “right to carry out normal economic and trade exchanges” with other countries. As China’s National Petroleum Corporation and China National Offshore Oil Corporation are reportedly also assessing the potential ramifications of the sanctions, Beijing may watch other international investors that have not yet decided to exit or freeze their projects in Russia, including India’s state-owned energy company Oil and Natural Gas Corp, and Japanese investors in liquefied natural gas projects in Sakhalin and Arctic LNG 2, Mitsui, Mitsubishi, and Sakhalin Oil and Gas Development Co.

16-A NATO presence in the Arctic alienates China

Finland and Sweden, currently non-NATO Arctic states, have begun reconsidering their stance on the alliance. Should they join NATO, shifting the Arctic state balance from five NATO members to seven would send a strong signal to Moscow on the feasibility of future Arctic cooperation as well as to Beijing on the sustainability of its omnidirectional Arctic diplomacy. It may also embolden NATO as a new forum for Arctic cooperation and increase non-Arctic NATO members’ interest in Arctic matters. In the long run, this may lead to a more militaristic view of Arctic cooperation and one that bodes ill for climate and economic cooperation. For China, having been declared a strategic challenge for NATO, an enhanced NATO presence throughout the Arctic would not be in its interest.

15-Militarizing the Arctic undermines climate cooperation

Finland and Sweden, currently non-NATO Arctic states, have begun reconsidering their stance on the alliance. Should they join NATO, shifting the Arctic state balance from five NATO members to seven would send a strong signal to Moscow on the feasibility of future Arctic cooperation as well as to Beijing on the sustainability of its omnidirectional Arctic diplomacy. It may also embolden NATO as a new forum for Arctic cooperation and increase non-Arctic NATO members’ interest in Arctic matters. In the long run, this may lead to a more militaristic view of Arctic cooperation and one that bodes ill for climate and economic cooperation.

14-China does not trust Russia in the Arctic

China is likely still in the process of assessing the ramifications of the war in Ukraine for its Arctic interests. It would be ideal for China to continue its Arctic engagement as usual. But Russia’s isolation as well as tough sanctions have cast much uncertainty on the sustainability of China’s omnidirectional Arctic engagement. Even if a divided Arctic becomes an inevitable reality in the near future, Beijing may live with it and strive to walk a fine line between Russia and other Arctic countries. Beijing knows that Russia does not want China to have a growing role in the Arctic and that their Arctic partnership is and will likely remain a marriage of convenience. Therefore, China may see a more cautious approach toward its cooperation with Russia in the Arctic best serve its own interests as it navigates through great uncertainty in the region.

13-US should increase allied cooperation in the Arctic

Abbie Tingstad is associate director of the Engineering and Applied Sciences Department, codirector of the Climate Resilience Center, and a senior physical scientist at the nonprofit, nonpartisan RAND Corporation. Scott Savitz is a senior engineer at RAND, 2022, U.S. Military May Need to Invest More in Arctic Capabilities, U.S. Military May Need to Invest More in Arctic Capabilities | RAND, https://www.rand.org/blog/2022/02/us-military-may-need-to-invest-more-in-arctic-capabilities.html

Moscow and Washington turned to diplomacy this week amid intensifying Russian military activity in the vicinity of its near abroad. The buildup of troops along the Ukrainian border and sending of “peacekeeping” forces to support the Tokayev regime’s violent crackdown on protests in Kazakhstan are not comparable except in their timing. However, they serve as a double reminder of Russia’s political stature and military might.

The Barents Sea region of the Arctic, where Russia meets Norway, is becoming another seam of tension between NATO and Russia. The region features the headquarters of the Russian Navy’s Northern Fleet in Severomorsk, as well as valuable technology and mining hubs and Indigenous and other communities. Russia has been intensifying the frequency and scale of exercises in the area. NATO has also conducted exercises close by in recent years, prompting Russian responses. Moscow also disputes the maritime limits of Oslo’s jurisdiction in the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard, based on its interpretation of a 1920 treaty.

Despite continued diplomacy to resolve NATO-Russia points of contention within and beyond the Arctic (including the alliance’s relationships with Ukraine and Georgia), Russia’s recent military activity in the Arctic raises questions for the United States as to what types of Arctic military capabilities it needs as part of an overarching strategy to ensure credibility at the negotiating table and an ability to deal with crises.

Russia’s recent military activity in the Arctic raises questions for the United States as to what types of Arctic military capabilities it needs.

Part of the challenge is the Arctic’s uniqueness. In a crisis, redeployment of forces from other regions to the Arctic would be hampered by the region’s extreme climate, its remoteness, the vast distances within it, its sparse infrastructure, its limited transportation and medical services, and scarce satellite coverage. Equipment needs to be tailored for the harsh Arctic environment; similarly, personnel need prior training within it to be able to operate effectively despite nights that last for months, ionospheric effects that impede communications, the need to wear bulky clothing that hampers movement, and manual dexterity and a host of other challenges.

The last decade has seen numerous U.S. national and service-specific Arctic strategy documents aimed at spurring plans for new capabilities and capacity. The most important recent investment decision has been to recapitalize the U.S. Coast Guard’s icebreaker fleet. However, two important factors critical to effective U.S. preparations for countering Russia in the Arctic (and perhaps China, which in recent years has become increasingly involved in the region) are often overlooked.

The first is the need for a capability-based, portfolio approach to Arctic investments. The United States may need to ensure access, mobility, support infrastructure, domain awareness, and communications across multiple domains in the region. To achieve this, the United States could invest in many other areas besides icebreakers.

Second, the United States might do well to focus more on U.S. ally and partner capabilities in the region. The United States relies on alliances, often espousing the benefits of partnership, and indeed the United States has “friends in high places” in the Arctic, including NATO allies Canada, Denmark, and Norway, as well as healthy relationships with Sweden and Finland. Other non-Arctic allies, such as Britain and the Netherlands, also have Arctic military capabilities. It could be critical to expand joint training and exercises with these nations, as well as to increase emulation of some of their exquisite Arctic capabilities. Furthermore, being a good partner also requires investment. For the United States in the Arctic, this could include gaining interoperability and ability to share more in areas where the United States is historically strong, such as air and subsurface naval power, as well as intelligence.

The United States might do well to focus more on U.S. ally and partner capabilities in the region.

Operating in the Arctic is inherently expensive: Equipment needs to be designed or modified to withstand harsh conditions, and the costs associated with building or maintaining infrastructure are high. Deploying assets, equipment, and personnel there to train also is expensive and discomfiting. Despite this, it could be critical that the United States make the necessary investments—including in partnerships—to ensure a robust ability to operate in the Arctic to withstand Russian challenges in a forbidding region. Making the right investments at the right scale (i.e., averting the possibility of a new Cold War) could aid in diplomacy, as well as in military preparedness.

12-Increased US presence deters greater China involvement in the Arctic

Pezard, Rand, 2022, STEPHANIE PEZARD, STEPHEN J. FLANAGAN, SCOTT W. HAROLD, IRINA A. CHINDEA, BENJAMIN J. SACKS, ABBIE TINGSTAD, TRISTAN FINAZZO, SOO KIM, China’s Strategy and Activities in the Arctic, https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RRA1282-1-v2.html

In addition to monitoring Arctic developments for these red flags, the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD), working in collaboration with interagency and international partners, can take steps to maintain and reinforce current factors of resilience, and to address some of the gaps and uncertainties that remain. We present five specific recommendations. A first recommendation is to not only maintain solidarity among U.S. allies and partners in the Arctic, but also to strengthen it wherever possible. There is a strong consensus among Arctic states to maintain the governance of Arctic affairs among themselves, and this remains a powerful obstacle to undesirable Chinese involvement in the region. This recommendation calls for sustaining active multilateral and bilateral diplomatic activities with these countries and in the Arctic Council and other international fora. In addition, DoD and the U.S. Coast Guard have important roles in maintaining, and in some cases enhancing, engagement with other Arctic states—minus Russia—through security cooperation activities, which range from high-level exchanges to exercises, to joint training, to maritime domain awareness and safety activities (particularly with counterparts in Canada, Norway, and Denmark and in the context of certain North American Aerospace Defense Command [NORAD] and North Atlantic Treaty Organization [NATO] activities).

11-China will use Arctic assess to strengthen One Belt, One Road

Separately, scholars from Tsinghua University published an article in 2018 that introduced the concept of the Northeast Passage as the third component of a “One Belt, One Road, One Channel” plan (italics added for emphasis), illustrating some ways in which China might conceptualize the strategic advantages of a developed Arctic Passage. The article suggests that a developed Arctic Passage could bring numerous advantages, although the One Belt One Road initiative by itself faces risks associated with geopolitical factors, regional instability, cultural and religious differences, and energy security vulnerabilities. There are few countries along the Arctic Passage and little threat of piracy, making terrorist attacks on overseas investments relatively easy to guard against. They also note that, compared with the One Belt One Road plan, the Arctic One Channel is “less troubled by illegal immigration and refugee influx.”20 Other Chinese scholars of maritime transportation have argued that the Arctic Passage is important to improving China’s energy security and that China can have greater influence over the construction of the Passage as a “near-Arctic country.” Consequently, these experts concluded, “The earlier the construction of the Arctic Passage begins, the earlier the future of China’s energy security will be determined.”21 The Arctic Passage could present a strategic benefit by reducing congestion in the Strait of Malacca and the Suez Canal and lowering the possibility of China’s energy lifeline being choked off, something former Chinese leader Hu Jintao called “the Malacca dilemma.”22 A developed Arctic Passage also offers efficiency advantages for the BRI. Chinese maritime experts estimate that, compared with the traditional China-European Union (EU) maritime shipping route that passes through the Suez Canal, the Northeast Passage reduces the distance between Chinese and European ports by 18 percent to 26 percent, favoring China’s northern ports. Additionally, though icy conditions can slow ship speeds, Arctic container ships need not call at multiple ports like their counterparts on traditional shipping routes. According to Chinese experts, this reduces Arctic shipping times by eight to 11 days on average, saving both time and fuel cost as compared with the traditional route.23 Shorter trans portation times reduce energy expenditure costs, and the Arctic route also provides a new connection between China and the wealthy nations of northern Europe, meaning China can more easily export midlevel products and import advanced products. Opening the Arctic Passage could also reduce costs and thereby increase the competitiveness of certain industries. These generally optimistic Chinese assessments of the viability of Arctic shipping diverge from other international scholarly and commercial assessments that cite hazardous conditions and limited support infrastructure as limiting factors and reflect a degree of “boosterism” present in some Chinese thinking about the Arctic.24

10-China cares more about its own regional security issues

Because such goals are less openly discussed, in the next section we identify possible dimensions of China’s military ambitions in the North American Arctic, recognizing that, for now at least, the country’s core areas of focus on security and defense policy are much closer to its own shores. Therefore, the assessments in the next section should be treated somewhat speculatively and are derived from the overall military strategy, capabilities, and direction of development of the PLA, which regards global commons and transnational spaces, such as the poles, the deep sea, outer space, and cyberspace, as “new strategic frontiers” (战略新疆域) where great-power strategic competition is expected to be intense.30

9-China’s navy cannot project in the short-term

Because many dimensions of China’s military strategy and capabilities specifically related to the Arctic are not publicly discussed in any detail in official PRC documents, analysis of this question necessarily requires a degree of reasoning from broader categories of knowledge about the PLA to more discrete, if caveated, conclusions. As the 2020 DoD report on Chinese military developments noted, the PLA’s current approach to armed conflict is focused on being prepared to fight and win “informatized local wars,” that is, regional conflicts under conditions where advanced militaries employ systems that link sensors, platforms, weapons, and command and control.37 In addition, the PLA assesses that such conflicts are likely to be defined by “systems confrontation and system destruction warfare” centered on “information systems-based systems of systems,” to include neutralizing the interdependent command and control and surveillance systems of any adversary forces to destroy their operational capability.38 Below the level of military grand strategy and concepts of operating, previous RAND research has tracked how, at the service level, the PLA Navy (PLAN) and PLA Air Force (PLAAF) have only begun to assume the profile of more expeditionary forces that can operate in distant waters and air spaces in the past decade and half-decade, respectively.39 Other U.S. analyses have similarly confirmed the logistical challenges the PLA faces as it seeks to develop into a joint force capable of operating far from China’s shores, including the lack of bases, at-sea replenishment ships, organic air defenses, icebreakers, and experience.

8-Long-term PLA threat

The PLA’s primary military aims today are to hold the U.S. military at bay in potential conflicts near China’s coasts via counter-intervention capabilities (反侵入), often described by U.S. analysts as “anti-access/area denial” capabilities.42 On a longer time horizon, it is conceivable that a reformed, more joint and expeditionary PLA with greater sustainment an power projection capabilities, if it entered into a large-scale or all-out conflict, might aim to threaten the U.S. access to, or threaten the United States via, the Arctic. To prepare for the possibility that the Arctic will once more be a site of great power military competition, China would logically seek to lay the groundwork now for a supporting infrastructure that it would need in the Arctic should conflict occur there.43 In that case, China’s ambitions for access to the North American Arctic could include

using any ostensibly scientific research base or facility it constructs in the Arctic to collect intelligence or compromise the operations of U.S., Canadian, or broader North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) forces
holding at risk U.S. forces, bases and facilities in Alaska or Greenland that would support power projection in the event of a crisis or conflict, possibly through the use of PLA joint forces, including PLAN vessels or ostensibly commercial vessels, operating in Arctic waters
targeting assets of the binational North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) network and the U.S. Air Force (USAF), including intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) facilities, ballistic missile early warning systems (BMEWS), and ballistic missile defenses and support architecture based across the region
potentially inserting its own submarines into the Arctic Ocean, either to contest the U.S. ability to use those waters as a bastion for American nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarines (SSBNs) or to enhance the survivability of the PLAN’s own at-sea strategic nuclear assets.44

Recent efforts by Chinese firms to undertake sensitive infrastructure projects in Greenland suggest some of these concerns have merit. As discussed further in Chapter Three, one private mining company made a bid to the Greenlandic government in 2016 to acquire an abandoned Danish naval base at Grønnedal (Kanilinnguit). The Danish government intervened, reportedly over security concerns, and decided to reactivate the base for logistical support and personnel training.45 In 2018, a Chinese state-owned enterprise (SOE) was a finalist in a $560 million solicitation by the Greenlandic government to develop three civilian airports. The Danish government again intervened, offering substantial financing for the project, which Greenland accepted, and the Chinese firm withdrew its bid.46 Media reports indicated that Copenhagen acted because of concerns that a sustained Chinese presence in Greenland could compromise the security of certain operations at the USAF’s Thule Air Base, which hosts missile warning and space surveillance systems, a 10,000-foot runway, and a deepwater port.47

In its quest to gain influence in the Arctic, China has sought to leverage eight distinct pathways:

through access, especially in the form of military presence in the Arctic and commercial shipping operations in international waters, supported by its right to use the Arctic based on the United Nations (UN) Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS)
by establishing research station on land in Svalbard, Norway (2003), which it has a right to set up as a signatory of the 1920 Spitsbergen (Svalbard) Treaty; and the aforementioned CIAO in Kárhóll, Iceland (2018). China attempted to establish a third site in Finland, but the local government terminated negotiations, reportedly due to concerns expressed by the Finnish armed forces48
through investment in Arctic states (However, as outlined in Chapter Three and in Almén and Weidacher Hsiung, 2022, Chinese investments have been quite limited in both the North American Arctic and Nordic regions. Many planned investments have not been realized, and these countries have strengthened their legal mechanisms to limit foreign investments in sensitive sectors.)
via bilateral diplomatic relationships with Arctic states that can be incentivized to cooperate with China or disincentivized to support the United States or other Arctic states in the event of a dispute
through outreach and influence operations (often supported by or in support of China’s investments), directed at national but also subnational government bodies, such. as states, provinces, tribal nations, and autonomous territories; universities; nongovernmental organizations (NGOs); and private-sector commercial actors, aiming to play these disparate forces off each other to China’s benefit49
by building and deploying relevant capabilities and supporting infrastructure that will enable Chinese access and activities in the future
through soft power diplomacy and normative statements that seek to characterize the Arctic as the common heritage of all mankind and frame China’s approach as if it “privileges cooperation over competition”50
by participating in the Arctic Council and other regional and international organizations.

Although China’s overarching approach to the Arctic is publicly framed around scientific inquiry, commercial access, and international cooperation; in practice, Chinese policy treats the region as a site of geostrategic competition.

7-China has no significant presence in the US Arctic

This chapter examines in detail China’s current and, in some cases, projected presence and activities in the North American Arctic. We searched for four different types of presence and activities: shipping investments, infrastructure development, resource exploitation, and scientific research installations. Figure 3.1 further details what types of activities we searched for under each of these four headings. Overall, we found that China’s presence is fairly limited in the North American Arctic. Some key aspects of Chinese presence in other regions, such as the development and operation of ports and airports, the building of pipelines, or the devel opment of connected public services and surveillance technology, are not present at this time in the North American Arctic. As a result, this chapter examines seven areas that have been found to be of relevance for the region: mining, hydrocarbons, other infrastructure, fisheries, communications, access enablers, and tourism. The first section provides an overview of broad similarities and country-by-country differences in Chinese presence. The second section details specific investments and activities in each of these seven domains.

6-China cooperating with Arctic countries

Although a particularly aggressive style of Chinese diplomacy—dubbed the Wolf Warrior diplomacy after a successful Chinese movie franchise—has not played out particularly well in the Arctic, as evidenced by China’s checkered bilateral relations with several Arctic states, China might change its approach to make its presence and influence more palatable, if given sufficient incentives to do so.109 To some extent, it has already started doing so, showing a clear ability to “step back” when its efforts in the Arctic met with suspicion or hostility, particularly with those countries that are also U.S. allies.110 China has also been careful not to appear to directly threaten the strategic interests of various Arctic states. During the controversy over a Chinese company’s bid over the airport renovation contract in Greenland, a high-ranking Chinese general asserted that “China has a one-Denmark policy,” possibly to reassure Copenhagen that China’s ambition is not to help Greenland on its path to independence.111 This relative “tactical retreat,” in the words of Camilla T. N. Sørensen, comes at a small cost for China, because the Arctic is not currently a top strategic priority in comparison to other more pressing matters.112 Tactical retreat, however, might also be part of a longerterm approach of “non-contention” that emphasizes instead cooperation to reach more effectively one’s strategic objectives.11

5-China would view US gains in the Arctic as zero-sum

China’s overall foreign policy focuses on the realization of the “China Dream” of national rejuvenation, the recouping of supposedly “lost territories,” such as Taiwan, various uninhabited maritime features in the East and South China seas, and sometimes territory in the presentday Russian Far East lost to Imperial Russia during the Qing Dynasty, as well as the establishment of a position of preeminence, first regionally, and then eventually globally.31 In the course of China’s quest for greater regional influence, PRC officials and authors tend to treat the United States and its network of alliances and partners, as well as the liberal international order they are embedded in and generally supportive of, as key obstacles to the accomplishment of China’s ambitions.32 Because Chinese foreign and military policies regard the United States as the most capable actor that could frustrate China’s ambitions, Chinese officials also treat it as the one country against which they benchmark their own country’s progress. China competes with the United States and other adversaries to advance and deter challenges to the CCP’s policy goals. The PLA is tasked with advancing those goals by competing with and being capable of defeating the U.S. military, if necessary, it in any direct confrontation.33 For this reason, many of the more strategic aspects of the PRC’s interest in the Arctic, especially the North American Arctic, relate to its geostrategic competition with the United States

4=Deterrence/Plan

In addition to monitoring Arctic developments for these red flags, the U.S. government and DoD, in particular, can take some specific steps to maintain and reinforce current factors of resilience, and to address some of the gaps and uncertainties that remain. Next, we highlight five specific recommendations for DoD, working in collaboration with interagency and international partners. A first recommendation is to not only maintain solidarity among U.S. allies and partners in the Arctic, but also to strengthen it wherever possible. There is a strong consensus among Arctic states to maintain the governance of Arctic affairs among themselves, and this remains a powerful obstacle to undesirable Chinese involvement in the region. This recommendation calls for sustaining active multilateral and bilateral diplomatic activities with Arctic allies and partners. In addition, DoD and the USCG have important roles to play in maintaining, and in some cases enhancing, engagement with other Arctic states— minus Russia—through security cooperation activities that range from high-level exchanges to exercises to joint training to maritime domain awareness and safety activities. DoD and USCG cooperation with Canadian counterparts, including in the context of NORAD maritime domain awareness activities, can ensure timely intelligence-sharing on developments in the Arctic and near Arctic and enhance both government’s Arctic infrastructure, communications, and operational capabilities.2 So too, security cooperation with Norway—which has played a leading role in shaping NATO’s policy and strategy concerning the Arctic for many years—and Denmark—given its enduring security responsibilities in Greenland and military presence in the Arctic—remain critical. The closer defense and security cooperation that has been taking place since 2016 with Finland and Sweden, in accordance with two bilateral Statements of Intent and the 2018 Trilateral Statement of Intent, shows that creating a closer relationship is viable also for countries that are not yet members of NATO.3 Norway, Finland, and Sweden are also deepening their defense cooperation in their Arctic regions (North Calotte) under a 2020 Statement of Intent on Enhanced Operational Cooperation.4 These governments have welcomed U.S. and UK engagement in various consultations and exercises, including the annual Arctic Challenge. ..A fourth recommendation is for the United States to continue to elevate its engagement in the Arctic. Our TTX participants highlighted the importance of making it clear both to other Arctic and non-Arctic states that the U.S. commitment to the region is solid. This commitment should not be solely based on the role that the Arctic plays in strategic competition with Russia and China, but rather is the continuation, at an ever more sustained level, of the long history of U.S. diplomacy, stewardship, and scientific research in the region. A fifth recommendation is to curtail some of China’s appeal and elevate U.S. commitment to those living in the Arctic by working more closely with indigenous populations. An example that could be replicated is the cooperation between the Alaska Federation of Natives with DoD, which has resulted in more information-sharing and a closer partnership overall.15 This could be done through working with the Arctic Council’s Permanent Participants, four of which (the Aleut International Association, the Arctic Athabaskan Council, Gwich’in Council International, the Inuit Circumpolar Council) represent populations living in Alaska. Such initiatives could be undertaken as a joint U.S.-Canada effort (with the Arctic Athabaskan Council and Gwich’in Council International) or as a joint U.S.-CanadaGreenlandic effort, with the Inuit Circumpolar Council, because indigenous populations live across national boundaries. This would require identifying issues of overlap between the national security interests of the United States and its Canadian and Danish allies, and the human security interests of indigenous people living in these states. Working with indigenous communities to develop secure telecommunications infrastructure in the Arctic, or to develop sustainable local renewable energy sources, might be some areas where overlap could be found.

3-More sexual assault prosecutions now

Rachel Coen 2022, June 30, Air Force Times, New rules make it easier to kick out airmen, guardians guilty of sexual assault, New rules make it easier to kick out airmen, guardians guilty of sexual assault (airforcetimes.com)

Airmen and guardians who commit sexual assault will automatically face military discharge unless they qualify for an exception to that rule, the Air Force said in a recent update to its department-wide guidance. “Sexual assault is incompatible with our core values, the ‘guardian ideal’ and military service,” Air Force Undersecretary Gina Ortiz Jones said in a news release. “These revisions will significantly improve our ability to discharge those unworthy of calling themselves airmen and guardians.” The new policy, revised June 24, reflects the work underway at the federal level to reform the Uniform Code of Military Justice and how the Pentagon handles sexual assault cases. While the Department of the Air Force argues it has “zero tolerance” for those crimes, critics say the system often falls short of meaningful investigation or punishment.

2-Second strike capabilities critical to reassure and protect deterrence and strategic stability

Rose Gottemoeller, Fall 2021, Texas National Security Review, The Standstill Conundrum: The Advent of Second-Strike Vulnerability and Options to Address It, The Standstill Conundrum: The Advent of Second-Strike Vulnerability and Options to Address It – Texas National Security Review (tnsr.org) https://tnsr.org/2021/10/the-standstill-conundrum-the-advent-of-second-strike-vulnerability-and-options-to-address-it/

The theory of nuclear retaliation goes as follows: The United States and Soviet Union, now Russia, maintain ground-launched intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) on high alert in a more or less equivalent way. These are the first-strike deterrent forces: Each side knows that the other does not have the capability to get away with a disarming first strike, because both countries maintain these missiles on such high alert that if one side should launch, the other side would launch too, as nuclear missiles began to detonate on that country’s territory. The weapons would launch under attack. Both sides know it and thus remain deterred from trying to launch a first strike. Second-strike retaliatory forces are a kind of insurance policy — the submarines that are concealed in the deep ocean would be available to retaliate no matter what happened. Even if Russia somehow brought off a first strike on the United States, its leaders know that they would face a devastating retaliatory nuclear blow — again, at least, that is, the theory. The bombers that each country maintains offer an additional retaliatory capability. They have the advantage of also being available for other missions, such as strategic signaling during crises, because they are recallable. Once launched, they can be recalled to base, but missiles cannot. Russia and China have also sought second-strike retaliatory capabilities, partially by building submarines, but mostly by building mobile missiles that are difficult to target because they keep moving, and because they deploy in areas — such as the heavily forested taiga of Russia — where they can be hidden. Both these countries are land powers and have invested less in the naval tradition than has the United States. Thus, their continued emphasis on ground-based systems for second-strike retaliation is natural — they look for concealment above ground, not below the ocean surface. There are certain advantages to this approach. Communications with submerged submarines have always been difficult, and communications for something so important as nuclear launch orders are many times more so. The United States has worked hard to overcome these difficulties. But nevertheless, Moscow and Beijing can take advantage of the greater simplicity of communicating with above-ground nuclear units, despite the need to maintain operational security at a high level. All of this is a vast simplification, of course: U.S. submarine-based missiles are highly accurate and could, in theory, be part of a first-strike targeting package. Likewise, for the Russian mobile ICBM force: It is highly accurate and could participate in a first strike. But no matter what, their concealment means that some portion of them, both U.S. submarine-based missiles and Russian ground-based missiles, would be reserved for assured retaliation — a second strike. The ability to successfully retaliate even after a devastating first nuclear strike has long been seen as that vital insurance policy and a cornerstone of strategic stability. Because of this, each side suspects the other of being on a long quest to undo the second-strike retaliatory capability of the other side. It would be one way to gain a decisive strategic advantage.

1-Second-strike capability is the cornerstone of deterrence

Dr Beyza Unal, Former Deputy Director, International Security Programme, 2021, https://www.chathamhouse.org/2020/04/perspectives-nuclear-deterrence-21st-century-0/nuclear-deterrence-destabilized, Perspectives on Nuclear Deterrence in the 21st Century

Nuclear deterrence is heavily reliant on second-strike capability – the ability of a state to launch a devastating (nuclear) response to a nuclear attack. Otherwise, a nuclear first strike could be a knock-out blow, and states would have strong incentives for first use. However, technological advances, particularly in cyberwarfare, have the potential to destabilize the assurance of second-strike capability, particularly for countries with smaller arsenals. Known as ‘left-of-launch’ tactics, because they pre-empt an opponent’s ability to launch missiles, these cyber and electronic techniques can ‘sabotage missile components, impair command and control systems, or jam communication signals’.40 Left of launch is likely to encourage, rather than deter, nuclear use. For example, the leader of state Y fears that their ability to launch a second strike could be compromised by left-of-launch cyber tactics by state X. In this scenario, leader Y has a greater incentive to launch nuclear weapons before the start of a conflict, for fear they will not be able to do so later.

Arctic threat is geoeconomic not military

Tim Reilly is based at the Scott Polar Research Institute at Cambridge and specialises in Sino-Russian Arctic relations. He regularly writes in the papers on Russian/Sino-Russian and Arctic matters, including The Times, Financial Times, Wall Street Journal, La Tribune, etc. Tim was educated at Cambridge, Durham, and the Moscow State Institute of International Relations, Policy Brief: Consequences of Arctic Militarization in the Baltic Region, Latvian Transatlantic Organisation, 2023, https://www.lato.lv/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/LATO_Broshura_4_2023-WEB.pdf

ABSTRACT The ongoing events in Ukraine will entirely change the strategic and political dynamics in the Baltic nations. Neighbouring Sweden and Finland’s solution to Russian aggression has been to apply for NATO membership; this single move has meant that for Russia, the Baltics can no longer be viewed as a separate, and regionally confined consideration. Moscow now includes the Baltics as part of their Arctic territorial area of responsibility (TAOR), as will NATO planners. This means that any European Arctic event will now impinge upon the decision-making process of the Baltic’s own regional governance. Concurrently the emerging threat to the Arctic region may well be more geoeconomic in nature than military/strategic, which is in line with the postcold war Unipolar world order (Acharya, 2007) being challenged in the broader Eurasian Arctic not by the emergence of multilateral political institutions (i.e. multipolarity), but rather a geo-economic process of Multiregionalism. The rising great power ambitions of Russia and China – with substantial economic spheres of overlapping regional interests in their territories, has led to their adoption of a geo-economic strategy to steadily alter the present international system. It is taking advantage in the Arctic of significant alterations in the International Political Economy (IPE), including the steady downturn in globalization – and with that an associated loss in US-led influence. Two new geopolitically crucial regional geoeconomic “spaces” are being created in line with this (alternative) regionalization framework: a broader Eurasian Arctic space and via the geo-economic instrumentalization of dual-use technologies, the non-terrestrial cislunar domain over the Arctic.

Arctic Daily

US can get REMs from Africa

Arctic has 30% of undiscovered oil and natural gas

Arctic key to China’s energy security

Arctic resource development encourages China-Russia ties

Russia militarizing the Arctic

Ukraine war killed Arctic cooperation

Russian aggression means violence against women

Arctic oil spill risks increasing

Pollutants in the Arctic don’t break-down

NATO acting to deal with military threats in the Arctic now

Arctic is key to global great power competition

Record North Atlantic warming now, further warming could collapse ocean currents

No strong China-Russia alliance in the Arctic

Western military posture in the Arctic is inadequate

US trying to work with Russia through the Arctic Council

China-Russia Arctic ties are strong

China-US rivalry in the Arctic not inevitable now

136-Russia is using the Northern Sea Route (NSR) to ship to China, which is the only way it can sell oil given the current sanctions

135-Slow response times means problems with Arctic oil spills linger, crushing local ecosystems

134-China’s oil imports from Russia make its economic recovery possible

133-China become a polar power and deploying monitoring devices at the top of the Arctic

132-The Russia Council is suspended

Military Times, 7-29, 23, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=myYF-bPfjvs

130-Arctic key to protect Russian nuclear deterrence

129-Russia already encircled by Finland’s militarization

128-Ukraine war makes Russia dependent on China and gives China influence in the Arctic

127-Finland and Sweden joining NATO deters Russian aggression

126-Despite the June 2006-June 2003 comparison, there is a net decrease in Arctic ice, and it’s caused by CO2 emissions

125-Russian military advantage in the Arctic; US behind on icebreakers

124-US needs more icebreakers to compete with Russia

123-Russia-US tensions high in the Norway Arctic region

122-Arctic Council not working now

121-Russia could block resupply ships

120-Collaboration in the Arctic needed to avoid great power war; increasing military presence undermines that

119-China-Russia collaboration checks US hegemony

118-Growing risk of Arctic superpower conflict

117-Oil companies don’t want to drill in the Arctic for reasons that have nothing to do with security

119-Their cards are old – Sweden and Finland kill Russia’s Arctic threat

118-NATO needs table top defense exercises for the Arctic

117-Multilateral Arctic Council can solve conflict

116-China and Russia set to dominate the Arctic, the US is not prepared

115-China and Russia set to dominate the Arctic, the US is not prepared

114-The US shouldn’t act alone, it should act through NATO

113-The Ukraine has not reduced Russia’s Arctic threat

112-Ice melting freeing-up resources and Russia is aiming for them

111-Ukraine tensions increase Arctic escalation risks

110-AI protects Arctic indigenous knowledge and the environment

109-Attempted coup proves Russia’s military is a wreck

108-Russia could use nuclear weapons in the Ukraine

107-China control of the Arctic critical to its Belt & Road Initiative (BRI)

106-China is not a threat to the Arctic, it wants collaboration

US already increasing its military presence in the Arctic

105-China-Russia Arctic cooperation now

104-Rapid ice melting in the Arctic now, Russia securing its interests

103-No Arctic science cooperation now

102-Militarized Arctic undermines scientific cooperation

101-China wants to expand the BRI to the Arctic

100-Increasing the number of outsiders threatens indigenous people

99-Russia now rebuilding in the Arctic

98-The US has increased its Arctic presence

97-China and Russia moving into the Arctic to control resources

96-The US has reactivated the 11th Airborne Division in the Arctic

95-US increasing military support and exercises in the Arctic

94-The US must expand its military presence in Alaska

93-Russia building up its military, developing ties with China

92-Russia and China threaten US Arctic interests

91-Three ways the army should increase its presence in the Arctic

90-No Arctic territorial disputes

89-The number of ice breakers does not matter

88-China is not a military threat to the Arctic

87-US and allies increasing military presence in the Arctic now

86-Russia wants cooperation in the Arctic, not conflict

85-Arctic contains key second strike capabilities

84-Arctic key to Russia’s Poiseden subs

81-Russia doesn’t need to use force to accomplish its goals in the Arctic

80-Russia and China Arctic presence put them at the US back-door and provide a huge advantage in a conflict

79-Russia wants to cooperate in the Arctic now. Pushing against Russia risks war

78-No Arctic cooperation now

77-Russia’s military stinks

96-The US has reactivated the 11^th Airborne Division in the Arctic