Standoff in the Arctic Corral

A recent Arctic game of cat-and-mouse between Canada and Russia highlights the politics behind the hunt for oil and who it belongs to, writes Andrew Thomson for ISN Security Watch.

As Canada prepared to welcome Barack Obama for his first trip abroad as US president, another bilateral meeting was underway thousands of kilometers to the north.

Two CF-18 Canadian fighter jets encountered a pair of Russian Tupolev 95 bombers over the Beaufort Sea just beyond Canada’s Arctic airspace on 18 February. They told the crews to "turn tail and head back to [Russian] airspace," according to Canadian Defense Minister Peter MacKay.

The controversy between the world’s two largest countries in terms of land mass was only beginning. Canadian leaders deemed the incident a strange coincidence within 24 hours of Obama’s arrival in Ottawa; Prime Minister Stephen Harper called Moscow's Arctic maneuvers "increasingly aggressive" and bellicose, and promised to “continue to respond.” 

A Russian military official said that Canada knew about the training missions over the Beaufort Sea, calling the response “perplexing” and a “farce." And this week, a Russian diplomat told Canadian parliamentarians that the seeming return to Cold War rhetoric was deplorable.

It sounds like an innocent spat. But tensions are often high where the Arctic is concerned, to the point where political leaders issued a promise in 2008 to reduce their heated language about the Far North.

One problem though: Despite talk of cooperation, the signs continually point to the Arctic’s potential as a geopolitical hotspot, according to Rob Huebert, an Arctic expert at the University of Calgary’s Centre for Military and Strategic Studies.

“It’s not rhetoric,” he told ISN Security Watch. “We’re heading into a new geopolitical reality there. This is the beginning of a transformation.”
 
Climate change forces hand

Fifty years ago, North American military planners considered the Arctic a potential Cold War battlefield. Global warming is today melting the region's ice cover at a terrific pace, unveiling the potential for lucrative resource deposits and shipping lanes. Several countries are working to determine future boundaries through negotiations and the United Nations.

The five Arctic states - Canada, Russia, the US, Denmark and Norway - control the area's resources within 200 miles of its continental shelf. But those boundaries remain in dispute. Under the 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, member states can claim more territory based on scientific evidence.

Holding special value is the Lomonosov Ridge, a 2,000-mile underwater mountain chain in the Arctic Ocean believed to hold vast oil and natural gas deposits. Russia submitted a Law of the Sea claim in 2001 that deemed the Ridge (and 730,000 square kilometers of ocean floor) an extension of its continental shelf. Canada, the US and Denmark (the latter which oversees Greenland) filed objections.

The Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf, a body with only the power to make recommendations and not change international boundaries, suggested that Moscow return with additional research. Canada, which ratified the Law of the Sea in 2003, has 10 years to make its own submission. Canada and Denmark both believe the Lomonosov Ridge is an extension of North America.

The question flared up again in August 2007 when a Russian submarine planted a rustproof titanium flag on the ocean floor underneath the North Pole in 2007- four kilometers below the surface. For some it was a simple display of scientific achievement: Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov would later make comparisons to the 1969 US moon landing.

Critics still claimed the Russian expedition aimed to strengthen claims to the Lomonosov Ridge.

The Canadian response came one week later, with plans for a deep-water, Arctic port, northern army training center and funding for new ships. The first principle of Arctic sovereignty was “use it or lose it,” Harper proclaimed at the time.

Canada has now made its northern frontier a central aspect of national security policy and military spending. Even Santa Claus can’t escape Ottawa’s geopolitical jockeying: The federal citizenship minister declared the North Pole denizen an official citizen last December.

Russia's show of strength

Russia has recently increased its military presence as part of President Dmitry Medvedev’s stated goal to make the Arctic his country’s resource base for the 21st century. Moscow resumed long-distance bomber flights in 2007 after a 15-year hiatus, including over the Arctic.

In September 2008, the National Security Council met in the “Russian North,” which comprises 64 percent of the country’s territory and is richly endowed with oil, natural gas, iron ore, platinum and titanium. The military now plans to improve Arctic army combat readiness and the operational scope of its northern submarine fleet (as part of general naval rearmament).

And when Moscow sent troops into Georgia in August 2008, Canada’s leaders pledged to keep a closer eye on Russia’s Arctic movements. Hence the airborne encounter between the Canadian jets and the Russian Tu-95MS Bears in February, about 200 kilometers from Alaska and the Yukon Territory.

Canada and Russia continue to dispute whether the latter should provide notification before Arctic training flights. Canadian officials claim Moscow only gave advance notice on three out of 74 flights during 2007 and 2008. MacKay reportedly told Lavrov on 20-21 March that “each time you send planes, we’ll send planes too.” 

Dmitry Trofinov, a Russian diplomat in Ottawa, criticized Canada’s “deplorable” Cold War mentality before a parliamentary defense committee on Monday. He said the flights were routine training missions scheduled six months earlier - and that Moscow never complains when NATO aircraft approach Russian airspace.

“They should fly and they should swim, otherwise they will simply kick the bucket,” Trofinov explained to Canadian MPs when asked about bomber flights and submarine patrols. “From the point of view of international law, nothing happened.” 
And no Russian planes have entered Canadian airspace, Trofinov told ISN Security Watch and other journalists after his testimony.

Other observers are less sanguine. Russia has offered no tangible proof of similar North American flights near its polar airspace, Huebert said.

Opposition parties, meanwhile, accused the Canadian government of needlessly promoting fear over the Russian flights. One journalist deemed MacKay’s provocative statements a “Dr Strangelove moment.”

Signs of cooperation

Michael Byers, a University of British Columbia political scientist and Arctic expert, also called Canada’s reaction an irresponsible display of domestic politicking.

Canada and Russia/the Soviet Union have collaborated on Arctic issues since the early 1970s and signed a formal agreement in 1992. A bilateral economic commission features a special Arctic and Northern working group. Harper and former president Vladimir Putin issued a 2006 joint statement pledging cooperation on Afghanistan, the opium trade and controlling Russia’s stocks of weapons of mass destruction.

Canada and Russia also signed an agreement in 2007 to cooperate on aboriginal and northern development. And Canadian Foreign Minister Lawrence Cannon recently extended a hand to work on common Arctic interests. The two countries also held joint military staff talks in January.

“The future of the Arctic involves cooperation rather than conflict,” Byers told ISN Security Watch this week. He also pointed to behind-the-scenes work between the two countries, Moscow’s clearance for NATO supply lines into Afghanistan and western efforts to secure Russian membership in the World Trade Organization.

This contrast of competition and collaboration extends to other Arctic states. Russian flights and surface naval maneuvers near Norwegian territory prompted the latter to invest in 48 F-35 fighters from the US and five new anti-submarine warfare frigates, Huebert said.

Canada has other Arctic disputes with Denmark (tiny Hans Island off the coast of Greenland) and the US (Beaufort Sea and the Northwest Passage). But Canadians and Danes recently launched a joint aerial mapping mission - complete with a borrowed Russian icebreaker.

The next opportunity for this quieter brand of diplomacy comes on 29 April, when the Arctic Council’s foreign ministers meet in Tromsø, Norway. 

Unless, of course, another aerial summit occurs high above frozen waters before then.

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