Warming Arctic, Heated Competition
2 Dec 2009
By Sara Kuepfer Thakkar for ISN
The polar ice cap is melting – and fast: it has lost half its thickness in the past six years; experts external pagepredict that by 2013 the entire Arctic could be ice-free during the summer months. Well-publicized consequences of this development include rising sea levels and drowning polar bears.
The geopolitical consequences of an ice-free Arctic, however, are less discussed. The melting of the polar ice cap will in fact constitute a geopolitical watershed, with newly created shipping lanes suddenly accessible and long-hidden natural resources revealed. Countries with Arctic coastlines will be the most immediately affected: Russia, the United States, Canada, Norway and Denmark (via Greenland). But the Arctic opening will have geopolitical repercussions across the world – possibly transforming global geopolitics forever.
Crossing the Arctic by ship
For centuries, people have fantasized about the existence of a 'Northwest Passage,' a sea route through the Arctic Ocean along the northern coast of North America that connects the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. In the 18th and 19th centuries, great seafarer nations with overseas colonial possessions like Spain and England undertook numerous expeditions to find a shipping route across the Arctic. In 1743, the British Admiralty even promised a external page£20,000 prize for whoever discovered the Northwest Passage. The fabled shipping lane, buried beneath layers of thick ice, has never been found. Yet climate change is making access to the Northwest Passage a navigable reality.
What the British crown knew back then continues to be of great economic relevance today: Arctic passages shorten the distance between Europe and Southeast Asia and between the west coast of the US and Europe by several thousand nautical miles. Even more navigable than the Northwest Passage is the Northern Sea Route, which passes along the northern coast of Russia and constitutes the shortest link between Western Europe and Eastern Asia. Trips between the Asian and European continents can be shortened by up to 5,000 miles, cutting some key Asian-European routes by up to two-thirds. The opening up of shipping lanes across the Arctic Sea will help save the shipping industry billions of dollars in fuel and personnel costs, as well as canal fees, every year.
New shipping lanes across the Arctic means crucial geopolitical choke points like the Suez and Panama Canals would be partially relieved. By avoiding the two canals, the shipping industry would no longer be bound by cargo ship size restrictions – another cost-saving benefit. Ships would also be able to avoid the overburdened Strait of Malacca, a narrow waterway connecting the Indian and Pacific oceans that has become a bonanza for pirates in recent years. Ships could further avoid the South China Sea, an equally dangerous pirate-ridden passage. These Arctic shipping route advantages convinced experts that up to 80 percent of the global transportation market will pass through the Arctic Sea during the ice-free summer months.
Vying for control
Whoever will control the Arctic shipping lanes will wield enormous political and economic leverage.
Canada has already declared sections of the Northwest Passage part of Canadian territorial waters, which would mean that no ship could pass without Canada's consent. Canada's sovereignty claim, however, is being challenged by the US, which considers the passage an international waterway in which ships should be allowed to navigate freely.
Meanwhile, Russia has stated that it would levy fees on commercial ships passing through its waters when navigating the Northern Sea Route. Yet unlike Canada, Russia has the capacity to assert its claims to Arctic waters (and thus control of the Northern Sea Route) given its large fleet of icebreakers, which can escort convoys of commercial ships – like those that external pagecleared the way for the two German cargo ships crossing the Northern Sea Route for the first time in September 2009. As one Canadian expert external pageexplains, an escort service could support Russia's sovereignty claim over the Northern Sea Route under international law "since ships relying on Russian icebreakers are self-evidently asking permission to sail through." Canada now fears that Russia may one day start escorting commercial vessels through Canadian waters despite its objections.
The onset of commercial shipping through the Arctic Sea will lead to new security challenges, especially with unregulated shipping. Policing of the shipping lanes would need to be coordinated between the Arctic powers and stepped-up once the shipping routes open in the summers. The smuggling of drugs, weapons or illegal immigrants, possible terrorist activity and piracy would need to be kept in check. Search-and-rescue operations and pollution control would need to be coordinated.
An Hobbesian free-for-all?
Concerns over regulating trans-Arctic shipping are just the tip of the melting iceberg. A whole new set of challenges are posed by the sudden accessibility of resource treasures that have up to now been hidden beneath the thick ice sheets. The Arctic seabed is believed to be rich in natural resources, especially oil and gas. The US Geological Survey external pageestimates that the area contains about 22 percent of the earth's remaining hydrocarbon reserves. Granted, some of these resources lie deep beneath the Arctic Sea. But if oil prices rise again, offshore drilling of these deposits will become commercially viable.
New external pageresource rivalries are bound to develop, with Arctic powers making competing territorial claims. Russia's highly publicized flag planting on the North Pole seabed in August 2007 – by which the country tried to extend its territory nearly to the Pole itself – was perhaps the most dramatic demonstration yet of what may come. According to international law, a country can extend its continental border (and thus claim exclusive economic rights for the territory) if it can prove that the underwater sea shelf is a continuation of its continental land mass. All five Arctic powers have hired geologists to provide scientific evidence for their respective ownership of a part of the Arctic seafloor.
Meanwhile, Russia is making the melting Arctic a central part of its security policy. A recent document by the Russian national security council is based on the assumption that the Arctic will become Russia's main resource base by 2020. Hence, Russia is external pageplanningto build the relevant military capability to defend these northern resources and has already resumed long-range bomber flights and naval patrols in the region. external pageAccording to Russia specialists, Moscow intends to station more troops in the north by 2020 and has plans to build new floating nuclear power plants.
Russia's bold actions have compelled Canada to start building new Arctic patrol vessels. Canada also plans to build a deepwater naval port in Nanisivik to defend its claims in the Arctic. These claims have long been challenged by the US, which considers the Northwest Passage an international waterway. Canada meanwhile has a dispute with Denmark over the Hans Island off Greenland, while Russia and Norway are on a collision course over competing claims in the Barents Sea.
The aging US icebreaker fleet leaves the world's foremost military power lagging far behind its Arctic competitors; in fact, two of the country's three icebreakers have reached their 30-year life expectancy. Russia, by contrast, external pageboasts 20 icebreakers, a third of which are nuclear-powered. Since it takes between seven-to-ten years to build an icebreaker, the US will not be able to catch up soon, even if the billions of dollars needed to build a new fleet were approved by the US Congress soon.
Even China now operates an icebreaker despite the absence of frozen waters around it. The 'Snow Dragon' has already conducted three Arctic expeditions. Although they were conducted for research purposes, China still harbors tremendous external pageeconomic interests in the region. For one, China's economy is extremely dependent on overseas trade and thus international shipping – about half of China's GDP is believed to be shipping dependent. For another, China does not want to be left out of possible natural resource exploitation opportunities.
A legal vacuum
Amid conflicting claims and counterclaims, muscle flexing and quarrels among geologists, there are no clear international rules that specify how the Arctic should be governed. A political framework to mediate future resource exploration disputes or shipping lane governance does not exist. There is the Arctic Council, set up to address environmental issues. However, it has no mandate to deal with security-related problems in the Arctic.
The UN Convention of the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) governs maritime rights and outlines rules for how countries can claim maritime resources beyond their exclusive economic zones. The treaty also lays out procedures for resolving boundary disputes. Yet it fails to provide clear guidelines as to how this geologically complex, uncharted continental shelf can be divided up among bordering states. The legal status of the opening Arctic passages remains unclear.
Furthermore, not all states are parties to UNCLOS. The US has never ratified the treaty and is not bound by its provisions. Nor can it evoke the treaty to make a claim to the extended continental shelf.
The most ideal solution for regulating the Arctic would be the 'Antarctica option.' The 1959 Antarctica Treaty declared the South Pole an international zone that was to remain de-militarized and free of any territorial claims made by surrounding states and seafaring nations. An Antarctica-type treaty would external pageensure that the Arctic's pristine waters and delicate ecosystem can be protected and international research promoted.
However, little time remains for an Antarctica Treaty-type solution: The more Arctic nations assert their territorial claims, the more difficult it will become to convince states to abandon their regional ambitions. This may not be easy considering the vast economic potential of the North Pole region. Arctic nations and the international community need to move fast to prevent Arctic warming from turning into heated competition.