Arctic Security: A Global Challenge *

Abstract

Arctic security is a main security challenge—a global one, not only a regional one—not only for the Arctic countries, but for the whole international community, first of all Europe. With the Russian Federation and the People’s Republic of China expanding their role in the area, and the difficulty of finding an undisputed governance on maritime routes and economic exploitation of resources, there is the risk of militarization of the Arctic. After briefly summarizing current and future challenges in the Arctic, this article analyzes the limits due to a deficit of suitable instruments to maintain security in the region, especially in relation to the role of international intergovernmental organizations, and it suggests some remedies to overcome these deficiencies.

Keywords

Russia China Arctic Council European Union NATO

The Increasing Importance of the Arctic

The Arctic region has become an arena for power and for competition (Huebert and Lackenbauer 2021; Lanteigne 2019) and Arctic nations must adapt to this new future. The Arctic holds the greatest concentration of the world’s undiscovered oil and gas, uranium, gold, diamonds, rare earth minerals—phosphate, bauxite, iron ore, copper, and nickel (Soltvedt, Rottem, and Hønneland 2018; Westerlundand and Öhman 1992)—and last but not least, fish (Pompeo 2019a). Offshore resources, that are said to include over 90 billion barrels of oil and an estimated trillion dollars’ worth of rare earth metals (Todd Lopez 2020), are the subject of renewed competition; they should be considered common goods—international or global public goods¹.

Nowadays, environmental and economic issues are broadly considered to be threats to security and stability (OSCE 2003). Therefore, the protection of these resources is a security issue, which involves the use of force or military means. This is an issue that concerns the traditional domains of operations—land, sea, and air. The maritime domain—that is, the Arctic Ocean—is predominant, due to the allocation of resources and the operating environment. Sea routes are the ‘liquid’ highways along which goods travel across the world, and therefore play a strategic global economic role (Rodrigue 2017).

The Arctic Highways

There are several Arctic maritime (or shipping) routes: the Northeast Passage (NEP); the Northwest Passage (or NWP, going through the Canadian Arctic Archipelago and the coast of Alaska); the Transpolar Route (or TSR, going through the North Pole); the Arctic Bridge Route (or Arctic Sea Bridge). So far, because of permafrost, these routes were not accessible. Due to climate change and global warming the Polar ice cap is melting, and this opens up the possibility for an Arctic route to be accessible for at least part of the year. The Northeast Passage is the overall route on Russia’s side of the Arctic between North Cape and the Bering Strait; it traverses (from west to east) the Barents Sea, Kara Sea, Laptev Sea, East Siberian Sea, and Chukchi Sea, and it includes the Northern Sea Route (NSR). The Northern Sea Route is a portion of the NEP that lies in Arctic waters and within Russia’s Exclusive Economic Zone (Buixadé Farré et al. 2014). The Northern Sea Route Administration, a Federal state institution established in 2013, organizes navigation in the water area² that is under the legal regime of internal maritime waters, territorial sea and contiguous zone of the Russian Federation (RF).³ While the Northeast Passage includes all the East Arctic Seas and connects the Atlantic and Pacific ocean, the NSR does not include the Barents Sea, and it therefore does not reach the Atlantic (Ibid). The Northeast Passage is, from the European and northern Atlantic point of view, the shipping route to the Pacific Ocean, along the Arctic coasts of Norway and Russia (Ibid). The Arctic Bridge Route (ABR) is a seasonal route, enabled by the retreat of ice, from Murmansk to Churchill Manitoba, in Hudson Bay, linking Russia to Canada (Rodrigue 2017). Currently, the route is only easily navigable about four months a year. If developed (along with the NWP) it could serve as a major trade route between Eurasia and North America (Humpert and Raspotnik 2012).

The governance of the NEP is complex and is based on different pillars: the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS),⁴ the Arctic Council (AC), the International Maritime Organization (IMO) and the domestic legislation of the Russian Federation that follows a pragmatic line and pursues its territorial claims in compliance with international law (Huebert and Lackenbauer 2021).

In the current state of the international law, no country possesses the North Pole and the region of the Arctic Ocean surrounding it. The five surrounding Arctic countries (Russia, US, Canada, Norway, and Denmark) are limited to an Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) of 200 nautical miles (370 km) adjacent to their coasts. However, the sovereignty of large parts of the Arctic region is contested and this could trigger conflicts (Gerhardt et al. 2010; Huebert and Lackenbauer 2021).

The Scramble for the Arctic

Upon ratification of the UNCLOS (United Nations, 2020), a country has a ten-year period to make claims to an extended continental shelf which, if validated, gives it exclusive rights to resources on or below the seabed of that extended shelf area. Norway (in 1996), Russia (in 1997), Canada (in 2003), and Denmark (in 2004) have ratified the Convention. The United States has signed it, but not yet ratified.The Convention serves as pretext for claiming a bigger slice of the frozen pie that is the Arctic region.

On December 20, 2001, the Russian Federation made an official submission into the UN Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf (CLCS), pursuant to Art. 76(8) of the UNCLOS, asking to set new outer limits of the continental shelf of Russia beyond the previous 200-mile zone, but within the Russian Arctic sector (CLCS/32). The territory claimed by Russia in the submission is a large portion of the Arctic, including the North Pole. One of the arguments was a statement that the Lomonosov Ridge, an underwater mountain ridge underneath the Pole, and the Mendeleev Ridge are extensions of the Eurasian continent. In 2002, the CLCS neither rejected nor accepted the Russian proposal, recommending additional research (see: CLCS/34).

On August 3, 2015, Russia resubmitted its application, fostered by new arguments based on ‘ample scientific data collected in years of Arctic research’ (CLCS/93). Through this request, Russia is claiming 1.2 million square kilometers (over 463,000 square miles) of Arctic Sea shelf extending more than 350 nautical miles (about 650 km) from the shore.

While the governance of both the Northwest Passage and the Northern Sea Route are disputed (Lanteigne 2019), the TSR, that is currently only navigable by heavy icebreakers, skirts the territorial waters of Arctic states and lies in international high seas. The passage outside the exclusive economic zones of Arctic coastal states makes the TSR of special geo-political importance and triggers disagreements relating to maritime boundaries beyond the exclusive economic zones of the littoral states (Ibid). Due the increasing decline of Arctic Sea ice extent, the TSR may emerge as a major Arctic shipping route (Rodrigue 2017). The Russian claim before the CLCS puts TSR also at risk.

In response to the geographic changes in the high north of the Arctic, alternative transportation routes become necessary and Arctic nations need to enhance their cooperation even further—for example, in fields like search and rescue. The Arctic territory is the backdoor to the American continent, with steady reductions in sea ice that are opening new passageways and new opportunities. The Arctic’s strategic importance, including its vast resources and shipping lanes, are of increasing interest to the entire world, especially to the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and to the Russian Federation.

Arctic Governance and International Cooperation

The Arctic Council is a high-level intergovernmental forum promoting cooperation, coordination and interaction among the Arctic States: Canada, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Russia, Sweden, and the United States⁵—the US became an Arctic nation after the purchase of Alaska from the Russian Empire on March 30, 1867 (Lawson and Seidman 2004). Among Arctic states, only UK is not an AC member. Thirteen non-Arctic states have observer status: France, Germany, Italy, Japan, The Netherlands, Poland, India, Korea, Singapore, Spain, Switzerland, UK, and China, the self-named ‘near-Arctic state’.

Seven AC members, out of eight, that are allies and partners of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), share the interest in maintaining the international rules-based order in the region (Cronk 2019). Five out of eight members are also founding members of the Alliance. Finland and Sweden are not NATO members but have joined the Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council (EAPC) and the Partnership for Peace (PfP) initiative, both promoted by the Atlantic Alliance (NATO 2020). The Russian Federation joined the North Atlantic Cooperation Council in 1991 and later (1994) joined the PfP program. This dialog was succeeded in 1997 by the EAPC, which brings together all Allies and partner countries in the Euro-Atlantic area to develop dialog and practical cooperation in areas of common interest. The cooperation was suspended and resumed by NATO two times, following the contested recognition of Abkhazia and South Ossetia as independent states by Moscow in 2008 and after the annexation of Crimea by the RF in 2014 (Marsili 2021).

When we talk about security in Europe, we necessarily talk about NATO. The European defense and security are enhanced and guaranteed under the NATO umbrella. The NATO-EU partnership is complementary and mutual and is based on common values and strategic interests (Marsili 2020). NATO and the EU have twenty-two member countries in common—most of the EU Member States, except the ‘neutral counties’ Austria, Cyprus, Finland, Ireland, Malta, and Sweden (Ibid). After all, Arctic security is a global issue, but it is, to a greater extent, for the European Union—the EU itself is not an AC observer, but three EU nations (Denmark, Finland, and Sweden) are also Arctic countries, while Iceland and Norway are EFTA Member States. The Union’s application to become a permanent observer in the Arctic Council was blocked in 2009 by Canada in response to the EU ban on the importation of seal products (Conley & Kraut 2010)—sealing continues as a traditional activity in Greenland, which is part of Denmark but not of the EU.⁶ At the Kiruna Ministerial Meeting in 2013, the AC received the application of the EU for observer status, but deferred a final decision (Arctic Council 2022).

The EU Arctic policy drafted in 2016 by the European Commission (EC) and the High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy (HR/VP) (European Commission and High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy 2016) shares the concerns on global issues (e.g. energy, climate change, environment, natural resources) and acknowledges that the opening of the NEP poses threats to maritime security but fails to address security in the strict sense. In this context, the EU Council emphasizes the strategic importance of the Arctic, which is an ‘area of active cooperation between major regional and global actors’ and it underlines the importance of the region from a foreign and security policy point of view. The Council of the European Union (2016) considers that many of the issues affecting the Arctic can be more effectively addressed through regional or multilateral cooperation. The European Parliament resolution on an integrated EU policy for the Arctic (Arctic Council Secretariat 2017; European Parliament 2017) recalls the Common Security and Defence Policy but mentions security challenges in a broad sense (i.e. civilian, food, energy, environment, and human security).

By establishing the position of Special Representative for Arctic Issues in 2015, the Parliamentary Assembly (PA) of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE)⁷ highlights the importance of the region. The OSCE PA (2015) believes that the environmental, economic, social, geo-political, and security challenges faced by Arctic states should be addressed by the international community. These warnings are confirmed by the reports delivered by the Special Representative for Arctic Issues (Eidsheim 2019; Elvestuen 2017).

Speaking at the Marshall Center’s 2020 Security Seminar North, the OSCE PA Special Representative on Arctic Issues, Torill Eidsheim, focused on the increased geostrategic importance of the Arctic and its security challenges. In her keynote address at the seminar on ‘The Arctic: Risks and Opportunities’ held in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany, the Norwegian politician emphasized that climate change is increasing the geostrategic importance of the Arctic, with melting sea ice opening new trade routes that unleash international competition, which can trigger tensions. She highlighted that this is ‘a global security matter’. Eidsheim noted that strong aspects of parliamentary engagement are: proposing legislation, holding governments to account for the implementation of laws and international commitments, and she called to foster international cooperation on Arctic matters.

A Global Security Challenge

After having celebrated its first two decades, the Arctic Council entered a new age of strategic engagement, complete with new threats; the Arctic Ocean is rapidly taking on new strategic significance. The Arctic Council is concerned about the security threats that China and Russia pose in the Arctic region (although the latter is a member of the same Council), and the increasing risk that Beijing and Moscow will choose to militarize this place and use it for their own national security advantage (Pompeo 2019b).

The Arctic Council’s mandate, as articulated in the Ottawa Declaration of 1996 explicitly excludes military security (see: footnote to Art. 1(a)). While the term ‘security’ leaves the door open for a broad interpretation, the wording ‘military security’ seems to rule out the use of force, but does not exclude, ‘police operations’. Some authors find that sometimes it could be difficult to realize whether the events can be set within a legal context of war or within that of a police operation (Lupi 1998).

The term ‘armed forces’ usually indicates the regular armed forces of a state as per Geneva Convention.⁸ The Geneva Conventions apply at times of war and armed conflict to governments who have ratified them. The details of applicability are spelled out in Common Articles 2 and 3. Article 2 relating to international armed conflicts states that the Conventions apply to all cases of declared war between signatory nations.⁹ This is the original sense of applicability, which predates the 1949 version. The Conventions also apply to all cases of armed conflict between two or more signatory nations. This language was added in 1949 to accommodate situations in which a state commits a hostile act against another state, pretending that it is not at war; instead it could be a police action or legitimate self-defense.

Another limitation, related to the possibility for the Arctic Council to take decisions against the RF, is that in this intergovernmental organization, decisions are taken by consensus (Arctic Council Secretariat 2017) rather than by majority, which may lead to stalemate situations such as those within the UN Security Council due to the ‘veto power’ of the five permanent members (White 2005)—in 2009 Canada vetoed the EU’s application to gain permanent observer status.

As a member of the AC, the United States understands the geostrategic challenges that exist in the Arctic, the risks that are there (Pompeo 2019c). The US warns that Moscow has begun to deploy assets in the region in a way that the RF can achieve a strategic advantage; Washington cannot afford to remain on the backfoot and is planning to conduct space operations from the Arctic, making good use of its geographic proximity (Todd Lopez 2020).

The Emerging China–Russia Axis

Since gaining ‘Non-Arctic State’ observer status in the Arctic Council in 2013 (Arctic Council 2022) the PRC has increased activities and engagement in the Arctic region (Office of the Secretary of Defense 2019); between 2012 and 2017 Beijing invested in the Arctic nearly US$90 billion (Pompeo 2019a). In January 2018, the PRC published its first Arctic strategy that promoted a ‘Polar Silk Road’ (PSR), also known as the the ‘Ice Silk Road’ (ISR), and claimed to be a ‘Near-Arctic State’ (State Council Information Office of the People’s Republic of China 2018), yet the shortest distance between China and the Arctic is 900 miles (about 1,500 kilometers). The US contested this claim (Vergun 2020). The Russian government (2019) announced plans to connect the Northern Sea Route with China’s Maritime Silk Road (MRS), which would develop a new shipping channel from Asia to Northern Europe (National Development and Reform Commission 2015; 2017), and the two counties are cooperating in developing hydrocarbon resources in the Arctic. Meanwhile, China is already developing shipping lanes in the Arctic Ocean (Pompeo 2019a). China’s strategic defense thinking evolved its maritime security concerns from a regional to a global scale (Duchâtel and Sheldon Duplaix 2018).

Icebreakers will be a game-changer in the scramble for the Arctic. With an estimate fleet of more than fifty icebreakers (US Coast Guard Office of Waterways and Ocean Policy [CG-WWM] 2017) Russia dominates the frozen seas. The Russian State Atomic Energy Corporation Rosatom operates six nuclear icebreakers (one of them is a lighter aboard cargo ship) with three more under construction according to Project 22220, with the declared purpose of facilitating the trasportation of European and Asiatic goods through the NSR’s shipping lane, and in connection with the further development of hydrocarbon projects in the Arctic (Rosatom 2020). The new class of icebreakers built under Project 22220 are the most powerful icebreaking ships ever built in the world.

China, which currently operates two icebreakers, launched in 2018 its first homemade nuclear icebreaker Xuelong 2, or Snow Dragon 2, which was put into service in the first half of 2019—Xuelong, bought from a Ukrainian company in 1993, was the only in service—and plans to build more icebreaking vessels to support its ambitions (State Council Information Office of the People’s Republic of China 2018; Xinhua 2018). So far, the Chinese icebreakers, which someone consider to be ‘combat ships’ (Huebert & Lackenbauer 2021), have been officially deployed on research missions. Nevertheless, the Pentagon warned that China could use its civilian research presence in the Arctic to strengthen its military presence—including deployment of submarines to the region as a deterrent against nuclear attack (Office of the Secretary of Defense 2019).

China’s rising power, along with its growing geo-political and geo-economic ambitions, raises serious concerns among the transatlantic community, and is considered a main security threat (Barnes et al. 2021; Martin 2021). A report released by the German Council on Foreign Relations in cooperation with the Norwegian Institute for Defence Studies (Allers, Rácz, and Sæther 2021) concludes that due to climate change and great-power rivalry, the Arctic is no longer a remote and exceptional place, but part of a complex security environment where geo-political tension leads to militarization. There are warnings about a new Cold War (Martin 2021) with the Arctic Ocean to be transformed into ‘a new South China Sea’, militarized and with territorial claims (Huebert and Lackenbauer 2021; Huxley and Choong 2016; Krumm and Nicholson 2021). Notwithstanding the PRC seems to have no interest in changing the status for the Arctic Ocean rather than being bound by the current legal framework (Barnes et al. 2021; Huebert and Lackenbauer 2021). Beijing officially states that it is committed to maintaining peace and stability in the region and that it prefers international cooperation to competition or conflict (Barnes et al. 2021; Heininen et al. 2020). The Arctic as the potential battleground of a new Cold War seems the result of excessive alarmism (Allers, Rácz, and Sæther 2021).

The US Coast Guard Arctic Strategic Outlook published in 2019 highlights the changes in regional geopolitical competition, economic drivers, and the physical environment (US Coast Guard [USCG] 2019). The report warns that US strategic competitors China and Russia are gaining advantage of the current situation and expanding their influence in the region. The 2019 US Defense Arctic Strategy reiterates the challenges that Beijing and Moscow present to security in the region, including concerns that the PRC may seek to influence Arctic governance via its economic power (Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy 2019).

The Russian Federation claims over the international waters of the Northern Sea Route, including its newly announced plans to connect it with China’s Maritime Silk Road (Pompeo 2019a). The US has a long-contested feud with Canada over sovereign claims through the Northwest Passage. Adm. James G. Foggo, the commander of the US Naval Forces Europe and Africa and Allied Joint Forces Command Naples (JFC Naples),¹⁰ characterized the Arctic region as ‘nobody’s lake’ and called to limiting Russian sovereignty over that ‘international domain’ (US Naval Forces Europe-Africa/US 6th Fleet Public Affairs 2019). His remarks were particularly aimed at the Northern Sea Route.

The new version of Russia’s Socioeconomic Development of the Arctic Zone program aims to ensure its strategic interests and national security in the Arctic up to 2025 (Russian Government 2017). Approved by the Kremlin in February 2013, the program is the main mechanism for the implementation of the strategy for the development of the Arctic zone of the Russian Federation and National Security up to 2020 (President of the Russian Federation 2013). Its development was guided by national interests and security concerns and also by the implementation of the national policy, and correspondingly, national interests of the RF—it is estimated that almost 25% of Russia’s gross domestic product comes from the north of the Arctic Circle, mostly from hydrocarbons—that explains the growing Russian military initiatives in the region (Todd Lopez 2020).

The RF formally announced its intent to increase its military presence in the region in 2014, when it re-opened a Cold War Arctic military base (Pompeo 2019a). The Arctic outposts were abandoned following the dissolution of the Soviet Union, but Russia had returned to those bases and built new military facilities above the Arctic Circle (Garamone 2020). Moscow has been reported to have built 475 new military sites, including bases north of the Arctic Circle, as well as sixteen new deep-water ports (Pompeo 2019a). The Kremlin secures this presence through sophisticated new air defense systems and anti-ship missiles (Ibid). Currently, the RF is deemed having the largest permanent military presence in the Arctic, that includes a network of offensive air assets and coastal missile system and a new icebreaker, the Ivan Papanin, that can carry Kalibr cruise missiles (Garamone 2020).

The main national interest of the Russian Federation in the Arctic are the use of the Arctic Zone as a strategic resource base and the use of the Northern Sea Route as an international shipping and a national unified transportation line in the Arctic, under the jurisdiction of Moscow (Arctic Council 2020).

The Arctic is becoming more navigable over the period of time, as the sea ice diminishes, therefore resulting in increased interest and activity in the region. The door is open to increase activity in the Arctic by the United States, its allies, partners, but also its strategic competitors Russia and China (Cronk 2019). Alaska has a strategic importance to US, thus making the largest State of the Union ‘unique’ to national defense (Dounglomchan 2019)—Alaska is nicknamed ‘The Last Frontier’ (State of Alaska Official Website 2019).

To mitigate perceived strategic threats, the US is increasing its diplomatic presence in the area, hosting military exercises, strengthening its force presence, rebuilding its icebreaker fleet, expanding Coast Guard funding and creating a new senior military post for Arctic affairs inside of its own military (Pompeo 2019a). From early July to September 2017, the RF conducted Vostok 2018, one of its four annual strategic exercises that involved about 300,000 servicemen that included operations throughout Siberia and the Russian Far East (Russian Federation Defence Ministry 2019). NATO responded with the Trident Juncture 2018 exercise, the largest Arctic military exercise since the Cold War, with around 50,000 participants from more than thirty countries from October 25 to November 7 (NATO 2018). In May 2020, the US Navy and the British Royal Navy conducted an exercise in the Barents Sea to highlight the importance of the Arctic region in a time of climate change (Garamone 2020). This was the first US exercise in the Barents Sea since the mid-1990s. In 2021 the US Army Alaska conducted, alongside the Canadian Air Force, the Arctic Warrior exercise, with the declared purpose of safeguarding the US interests (Arctic Alaskan Command Public Affairs 2021). The Russian Federations replied with the massive military exercise Zapad 2021—Zapad is the Russian word for ‘West’—which took place between September 9 and September 16, 2021 and included more than 200,000 military personnel (Russian Federation Defence Ministry 2021). After the multinational Arctic Challenge Exercise 2021, in June 2021 joined the Air Forces of Sweden, Finland, and Norway (Swedish Armed Forces 2021), the latter hosted Cold Response 2022, the largest military exercise inside the Arctic Circle in Norway since the 1980s (Norwegian Armed Forces 2022) that followed NATO’s Brilliant Jump 2022—BRJU 22 (Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe [SHAPE] 2022). These exercises were preceded between February and March by the Arctic Edge 2022, a US Northern Command exercise scheduled every two years, first taking place in 2018, and conducted by the Alaskan Command along with the joint exercise Arctic Eagle-Patriot 2022 that involved the Alaska National Guard (Alaska National Guard Public Affairs 2022; Alaskan Command Public Affairs 2022). In this way the confrontation between adversaries escalates, and the fear of the militarization of the Arctic is rationalized, even if the US Assistant Secretary of Defense for Strategy, Victorino Mercado, believes that an immediate conflict in the Arctic is unlikely (Cronk 2019).

Conclusions and Recommendations

In the folds of repeated references to ‘security’ in a broad sense, lies the hazard of the use of force, that is, of an armed conflict. The Arctic Council lacks legal means to effectively address the security challenges posed by the Russian Federation and the People’s Republic of China, nor it can rely on the UN Security Council because of the veto right of these two member states. The AC should adopt governance rules to overcome vetoes that can block majority decisions, such as the accession of the EU as observer.

The EU should adopt a new Arctic policy that highlights the security and military challenges, and that opens to a more effective cooperation with the NATO. A step like this would open the door to discussions and debates within the five ‘neutral’ members of the European Union, especially the Arctic countries Finland and Sweden.

The Arctic security governance is fragmented and complex, and relies on multilateral cooperation, that involves only a handful of countries geographically linked, rather than on international cooperation. Global change issues today can only be mastered through international cooperation that involves all states to resolve major global challenges such as the Arctic security issues. The Arctic region is at risk of conflicts over the dispute of its resources, and it cannot be left without a governance preferably by the international community. It is not a regional issue, but a global one, and should be treated as such. A fragmented and disputed governance can be overcome by a governance entrusted to the United Nations or to an international intergovernmental organization founded and operated under the supervision of the UN. Collective security may be easier achieved through an international cooperation, rather than through a multilateral one. It’s about switching from nobody’s lake to everybody’s lake.

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: The author gratefully acknowledges the European Social Fund (ESF) and the Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT), Portugal, for supporting this work through grant SFRH/BD/136170/2018.

Notes

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