Northern
Fleet: Vladimir Putin rides in a submersible vessel in the Baltic Sea
as Russia announces the resumption of its presence in the Arctic, a
project that had been abandoned by the military after the fall of the
USSR.
Sasha Mordovets/Getty
From Newsweek by Elisabeth Braw
In November, the Russian
K-550 nuclear ballistic submarine Alexander Nevsky, submerged in the
Barents Sea between Russia and the North Pole, successfully launched a
missile that travelled its prescribed course to Kamchatka in Russia’s
far east.
The Alexander Nevsky thus joins two other Russian nuclear
submarines, which have, in the course of the autumn, conducted
successful ballistic missile tests.
Russian
nuclear submarines have long been based in Arctic waters, just as the
United States keeps its fleet in the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.
Still,
the missile tests from the icy region sent a chilly message.
The
Alexander Nevsky and its brothers – the Vladimir Monomakh and the Yuri
Dolgorukiy – belong to Russia’s new Borei-class nuclear submarine fleet,
which can carry up to 20 of the country’s new Bulava nuclear missiles.
With its payload of 10 nuclear warheads capable of travelling up to
8,000 kilometres – the distance between, say, Moscow and Chicago – the
Bulava is a fearsome weapon.
“Because of the Ukrainian situation, the
West is reluctant to take into account that Russia is a nuclear power
that’s investing heavily in its nuclear arsenal,” says Pavel Baev, a
professor at the Peace Research Institute in Oslo and a former
researcher at the then-Soviet Ministry of Defence.
Mighty
though they may be, the Borei-class submarines aren’t much larger than
the ageing vessels they’re replacing.
“You could argue that a few new
nuclear submarines don’t make a difference,” says Baev.
“But Putin is
engaging in nuclear brinksmanship. It’s a dangerous game that the West
is reluctant to get involved in, and he seems to be betting that that
will give him the upper hand.”
Though all five official nuclear weapons
states – United States, Russia, France, Britain, China – are modernising
their arsenals, Russia’s overhaul of its vast Soviet-era range is
particularly ambitious.
Cape Schmidt with the Marine GeoGarage
Nuclear brinksmanship aside, the
military giant has embarked on a mission to leave footprints in the
Arctic.
In October, defence minister Sergei Shoigu announced that Russia
will deploy military units along its entire Arctic coast, “from
Murmansk to Chukotka” (a distance of 4,700 kilometres).
The armed forces
have begun building military facilities on Cape Schmidt in Russia’s far
east and on the country’s
Arctic Wrangel Island and Kotelny Island;
next year the country is scheduled to open an airport at Cape Schmidt.
Earlier this year it reopened its northern Alakurtti military base near
the Finnish border (featuring 3,000 soldiers), and on 1 December
president Vladimir Putin announced that Russia’s Arctic command has
become operational.
The concept of an Arctic
race memorably introduced itself when Russian explorers planted a flag
on the Arctic seabed in 2007.
Since then, cooperation has been taking
precedence.
“But now the Arctic race is heating up, primarily because of
Russia,” notes Baev.
“These sharply-increasing military activities
don’t make much sense considering that Ukraine is Russia’s military
priority right now, but the Arctic isn’t just Putin’s pet project. The
Arctic is the one neighbourhood in the world where Russia feels strong.”
(Russia’s Arctic command did not respond to an interview request.)
It’s
also the one neighbourhood in the world that has large untapped energy
resources: some 22% of the world’s undiscovered oil and natural gas,
according to the US Energy Information Administration.
With climate
change making the Arctic ocean’s resources more accessible, energy
giants from Statoil to Rosneft are testing the waters.
The melting ice
is also making regular shipping more realistic.
Last year 71 ships
carrying 1.4 million tonnes of cargo traversed the Arctic northern sea
route – which cuts the travelling time from Shanghai to Hamburg by 30% –
escorted by Russian icebreakers. “But most international shipping
companies don’t favour the Arctic, and China’s massive new container
ships can’t get through there,” explains Duncan Depledge, an associate
fellow specialising in Arctic geopolitics at the RUSI, a London think
tank. Indeed, the 71 Arctic transits pale compared to the 16,596
transits through the Suez canal last year.
But Sweden and Finland, home
to regions north of the Arctic circle, are sensing opportunities and
have opened Brussels offices promoting industrial development.
Even
Poland has launched a GoArctic campaign.
Near the North Pole, as in the Middle
East, oil and the military go hand in hand. “In the Arctic, Russia is
the undisputed number one,” observes Katarzyna Zysk, an associate
professor at the Norwegian Institute for Defence Studies.
“But Norway is
trying hard to assert its role, especially since the high north plays a
significant role in its economic and defence policy. Denmark and Canada
are active too, and interest is increasing in the United States as
well. These developments are closely followed by Russia, especially
given the current tensions with Nato.”
Yet the
reopened military bases may be more peaceful than they seem.
“All
activities in the Arctic need some sort of security aspect,” says
Depledge.
“In much of the Arctic, the military is the only institution
that can perform that constabulary function.”
Here’s
the catch: if one country makes military moves, its competitors
respond.
Norway, Russia’s closest Arctic neighbour and home to Nato’s
first Arctic military operations centre, has been moving troops and
equipment north, and prime minister Erna Solberg recently announced that
Arctic concerns have caused the country to keep its fighter jets at
home rather than sending them on Isis-fighting missions.
In December,
Norway introduced an extremely advanced spy vessel that will patrol its
Arctic waters.
Indeed, if a second cold war
unfolded, the front line would be not just along the Baltic states but
right here in the Arctic, between Norway and Russia.
“Russia’s military
actions on the European side of the Arctic worry Denmark as well as
other Arctic nations,” reports Rear Admiral Nils Wang, commandant of the
Danish Defence College and one of the country’s leading Arctic experts
“Though its reopened military bases also have a coastguard function,
Russia is using them to send a strong message to the world and its own
citizens that it will defend its Arctic presence if necessary. But the
Arctic resources both off-shore and on-shore have already been allocated
to the five Arctic coastal nations, so a conflict in the Arctic would
more likely be a spillover from conflicts elsewhere, for example
Ukraine.”
Denmark, too, has a new Arctic command, while Canada – long an
aspiring Arctic superpower – makes its presence known by regularly
dispatching naval vessels carrying Canadian flags and sometimes
government ministers.
Area of the continental shelf of the Russian Federation in the Arctic Ocean
beyond 200-nautical-mile zone
One third of the Arctic
is land; one third icy international waters; and one third shallower
waters located on continental shelf.
While international law gives the
five Arctic nations exclusive economic zones in the waters off their
Arctic coasts, the resource-rich continental shelf has become
sought-after international real estate. Recently Russia’s natural
resources minister Sergey Donskoy announced that 1.2 square kilometres
of hydrocarbon-rich continental shelf should belong to Russia.
The
country, Donskoy said, will apply to the UN Commission on the Limits of
the Continental Shelf (CLCS) for a continental shelf extension next
spring.
(A Russian application submitted to the
CLCS in 2001 was
rejected due to insufficient evidence.) Last year, Canada filed a
similar application with the CLCS, claiming rights to 1.7 million square
kilometres of Arctic continental shelf.
And in early December, Denmark
submitted a CLCS application asserting that it owns the North Pole
itself.
Given that International Energy Agency
predicts a 35% rise in global energy demand between 2010 and 2035, the
quest for the Arctic makes perfect sense.
“Right now, with global energy
prices low, it’s not very profitable to invest in Arctic energy
exploration, but as far as Russia is concerned, it will remain
interested whatever happens,” explains Zysk.
“The Russians feel that
they have to move to the Arctic ocean to secure their energy future, and
their military presence protects the country’s economic interests.
They’re essentially saying, ‘we’re here’.”
That
economic potential could spell doom for the Arctic. According to
Greenpeace, “inevitable” oil spills would irreversibly harm the pristine
region’s polar bears, seals, whales and fish.
“And who would clean up
after an oil spill?” asks the environmental group’s Arctic campaigner
Charlie Kronick.
“In the Gulf of Mexico, BP was able to deploy hundreds
of ships and thousands of workers, and the Macondo well still released
around four million barrels of oil. Because the Arctic has none of the
infrastructure or facilities available in the Gulf of Mexico, an oil
spill would provoke an international incident when the oil starts
travelling underneath the ice.”
Indeed, in
spite of global warming, the northernmost continent on earth remains
immensely cold.
As Putin made his Arctic command announcement,
thermometers on Kotelny Island recorded -30 degrees Celsius.
“The
Russian military’s existing Arctic bases are built Soviet-style and are
not really appropriate to live in,” notes the Vladivostok-born Baev
“Even to reach them during the winter is extremely difficult. Arctic
threats to Russia by Nato are negligible; in fact, right now nobody is
threatening the troops except Mother Nature.”
That’s
the sticking point: there is no real enemy.
As the ice of the Arctic
ocean melts, its surrounding countries have a stronger interest in
cooperation – or in hydrocarbons and shipping – than in confrontation
that will feature sacrifice for uncertain rewards.
And for the time
being, the Arctic showdown is mostly a play to the gallery.
“Russia is
showing people at home that it’s still a major power, and the Canadian
government is playing at threat perceptions to show our power and
sovereignty in the Arctic,” says Frédéric Lasserre, a professor at the
Université Laval in Quebec who specialises in Arctic geopolitics.
“It’s
just a play to get votes.”
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