Abstract
With its evident impact on the environment, and increasingly visible economic, social, and political effect on communities worldwide, climate change has skyrocketed to the top of everyone's political agenda. Nowhere will these effects be as dramatic and transformative as in the Arctic polar region.
The unexpectedly rapid melting of its ice cap is already opening up the Arctic Ocean to summer navigation and will soon permit the exploitation of seabed resources. In less than a generation, experts predict these barrens will become a hub of economic activity. This has led to debates over political and military control in the North Polar region, with overlapping claims of jurisdiction over resources and transit often accompanied by plans for increased military activity.
During the Cold War, U.S. and Soviet submarines stalked beneath the ice of the Arctic Ocean and its littoral as part of a strategic nuclear competition. In 1991, an agreement between President George H. W. Bush and Mikhail Gorbachev removed tactical nuclear weapons from patrol submarines and placed the weapons in storage. The Soviet Union's collapse followed, leaving its northern ballistic missile submarine fleet a collection of rusting radioactive hulks–and the Arctic Ocean almost free of nuclear weapons.
If Russian and U.S. plans for nuclear modernization move toward deployment, and nothing further is done to dismantle their still-bloated nuclear arsenals, the Arctic could once again become a nuclear front. To prevent this, Canadian Pugwash has called for the creation of an Arctic nuclear-weapon-free zone (NWZ), which, if negotiated, would break new ground in the history of such legal regimes. In sharp contrast with the Antarctic Treaty and the existing NWZ treaties, which aim to prevent the introduction of nuclear weapons into nuclear-free regions, an Arctic NWZ would require rolling back extensive nuclear-related military activities and deployments in the Arctic Ocean.
For the first time, the two largest nuclear weapons states would have to play a central role in regional denuclearization. An Arctic NWZ would require the Russians to forgo their long-term plans to rebuild the Northern Fleet. In exchange, they would likely demand U.S. concessions on matters that they see as a threat to this critical strategic objective. This would certainly include major changes to the U.S. ballistic missile defense program, a scrapping of the Reliable Replacement Warhead Program coupled with U.S. ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, and serious negotiations to reduce overall strategic warhead numbers from the Moscow Treaty totals of 2,250 down to 1,000 or less, along with full dismantlement of the surplus.
If Russian and U.S. plans for nuclear modernizafion move toward deploymenf, and nofhing furfher is done to dismanfle fheir still-bloated nuclear arsenals, the Arctic could once again become a nuclear front.
An Arctic NWZ might appear to be a tail wagging a very large dog. Since all of these issues are central to the progress of global nuclear disarmament, why not address them directly rather than as preconditions for a NWZ? The answer lies in the power of a nuclear-weapon-free zone to turn a vicious circle into a virtuous one. It repackages arms control from the arcane calculus of nuclear priesthood into a measure easily understood by the public–and likely to have considerable political appeal.
All of the states bordering the Arctic Ocean (as well as most of Northern Europe) understand that dramatic changes in the region are inevitable. Policy choices made now will determine whether these changes are beneficial or catastrophic. These conditions make an Arctic NWZ broadly attractive to those with interests in the region, and thus could put political energy behind reenergizing a moribund nuclear arms control agenda.
Supplementary Material
The Antarctic Treaty