Survival: Global Politics and Strategy, vol. 52, no. 2, April–May 2010, pp. 141–156
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As the Arctic’s ice continues to retreat, the Kremlin’s military forces are threatening to advance. In August 2007, Russia drew strong international condemnation when the crews of two underwater vessels descended to the depths of the Arctic Ocean and, in a symbolic gesture, planted the Russian flag on the seabed near the North Pole. Since then, Russian armed forces have regularly tested NATO’s air and sea defences in the Arctic, despatching warships to disputed areas of the Barents Sea and even carrying out a mock bombing run against Norway’s northern command centre at Bodø. As of March 2010, Russian parachutists were expected to drop at the North Pole in April, commemorating the 60th anniversary of the first airborne landing there.
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has claimed that the Arctic represents Russia’s new ‘resource base’ for the twenty-first century, and in May 2009 the Kremlin argued, in a new national-security document, that ‘in a competition for resources, it can’t be ruled out that military force could be used for resolving emerging problems’. While the document’s full meaning was not entirely clear, it seemed to carry an alarming message: ‘the existing balance of forces near the borders of the Russian Federation and its allies can be violated’. The paper’s author, Nicholas Patrushev, has also reportedly listed the Barents Sea shelf and other parts of the Arctic as a potential battleground.
In light of these developments, the fears of Western observers hardly seem ungrounded. But it would be a mistake to assume that resource competition is the most likely, let alone the only, potential source of conflict in the Arctic. The Kremlin is primarily concerned not with the acquisition of territory for natural resources but in keeping foreign powers out of what it regards as a strategically vital region. If Russia cannot claim these areas for itself, Kremlin strategists fear that another power, most obviously the United States, might step in to fill the void. Failure by other Arctic nations to recognise this concern could lead to serious tension and even open conflict. Making implicit but unmistakable reference to Russia, General Sverre Diesen of the Norwegian armed forces recently warned of ‘the use of limited military operations in support of political demands’ in the Arctic by neighbouring governments, while Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper has pointed to the danger presented by ‘nations that have been paddling around up there and not necessarily acknowledging their obligations’.
Russia and the Arctic
The legal status of much of the Arctic is unclear and, because of this, the Kremlin has reason to fear that someone else could step into the void, just as some countries, notably the United States, Canada and Norway, fear that Russia will do. The area of legal uncertainty is not, on the whole, in the lower Arctic latitudes (where Russia has a considerable presence). A sizeable part of Siberia – an area that is home to around two million Russian nationals – lies north of the Arctic Circle at 66°66′N, the geographic boundary of the ...
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Roger Howard is author of The Arctic Gold Rush: The New Race for Tomorrow’s Natural Resources (Continuum, October 2009).
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