Prospect: Russia and NATO in the Arctic compete for new routes and resources
A series of crises is unfolding in the Arctic, writes Prospect-magazine. Climate change, Russian civil defense and the West's response to it are generating tension. As the ice melts, the struggle between the countries over control of new routes and resources escalates.
Two ships crossed the Baltic Sea on October 7 and 8, 2023. One was the Newnew Polar Bear cargo ship registered in Hong Kong with a length of 169 m, capable of carrying up to 1,638 standard containers. The second was the Russian Sevmorput, one of the few nuclear—powered merchant ships in history, and it served as an escort under the Chinese.
They were on a strange course. On October sixth, the ships docked in the city of Baltiysk in the Kaliningrad region, a Russian exclave where the headquarters of the country's Baltic Fleet is located. But at the same time, the Chinese container ship did not deliver or take any cargo from there. Instead, he walked back and forth across the Baltic Sea accompanied by the North Sea Route. After stopping in St. Petersburg, they passed by the southern tip of Sweden, then north along the coast of Norway and entered the Russian Arctic port of Arkhangelsk. Moored there at the end of October, the Chinese vessel received a special permit to pass through the Northern Sea Route (NSR) from the relevant administration controlled by the Russian nuclear power company Rosatom.
The 5,600 km long Northern Sea Route is related to the Canadian Northwest Passage. It stretches from the Kara Strait to the Bering Strait, passes through the exclusive economic zone of Russia and connects the Atlantic Ocean with the Pacific. The NSR is about 9650 km shorter than any non-Arctic route between Asia and Europe, and therefore is able to save shipping companies and their customers a lot of time and money.
Until recently, the route was of no practical interest due to the difficulties of navigation in the Arctic and the limited shipping season. Passage through it still requires specially adapted vessels and escorted by Russian icebreakers, which makes travel slow and expensive. However, today the Arctic ice is melting, and the Northern Sea Route is gaining new relevance.
Documents issued by Newnew Polar Bear while parked in Arkhangelsk state that while the ship was in the Baltic Sea, its registered owner changed. Upon arrival in St. Petersburg after a six-week return voyage that began in August in Shanghai, the Hainan company Xin Xin Yang Shipping (the name translates as “New Shipping Line") called this trip the first step in establishing regular container traffic through Russian Arctic waters. But soon after, it was replaced by the Russian-registered Chinese logistics company Torgmoll with offices in Moscow and Shanghai.
With a new registration and accompanied by the icebreaker Newnew Polar Bear crossed the Kara Sea and the Vilkitsky Strait, heading east along the northern coast of Siberia and exiting through the Bering Strait into the Pacific Ocean.
This trip could be seen as another sign of the growing interest of global shipping firms, in particular Chinese ones, in the potential of the open Arctic. Novaya Shipping Line is actively working in this direction: in the period from July to December 2023, the company made seven Arctic voyages and announced that it plans to expand its activities in the polar north. And yet, the Newnew Polar Bear's passage through the Baltic Sea — one of those seven — almost became notorious.
When the ship and its escort left the Baltic Sea, serious damage was discovered to two underwater telecommunications cables — one between Estonia and Finland and the second between Estonia and Sweden — as well as the Balticconnector gas pipeline connecting Finland with Estonia. While the latter is being repaired, Finland will have to rely on LNG imports. The authorities of both countries have initiated an urgent investigation into the incident.
The movements of Chinese and Russian vessels on October 7 and 8 immediately attracted attention, as they turned out to be at the same time just near the place of damage. Then, during the investigation, they found a long trace from the anchor, and deep-sea divers of the Finnish Navy eventually found it at the bottom of the Gulf of Finland next to a damaged gas pipeline. The Finnish police noted that the Newnew Polar Bear, upon arrival in Arkhangelsk, seemed to have no anchor on the port side, and paint from it was found on a damaged pipeline. The police tried to contact the vessel, but to no avail.
By the end of October, Finland's National Bureau of Investigation confirmed suspicions about the Chinese container ship, but said it was “too early to tell” whether the anchor had been torn off intentionally or as a result of errors in ship control. The representative of the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Mao Ning, responded by calling for an “objective, impartial and professional” investigation. A few months later, the Finnish authorities did not wait for the promised cooperation from China in this criminal case. As Estonian Defense Minister Hanno Pevkur stated in an interview with Swedish television, “if the anchor was hanging loose for more than 100 nautical miles between damaged cables and a pipeline, then it's hard to believe in a simple accident.”
It is well known that it is not easy to unequivocally establish responsibility for sabotage on the underwater infrastructure. Both China and Russia insisted on their innocence. But NATO, which was on alert after the controversial sabotage of the Nord Stream gas pipeline in September 2023, did not seem convinced. The North Atlantic Alliance announced that it was strengthening patrols in the Baltic Sea, increasing the number of observation, reconnaissance and UAV flights, and also sending four minesweepers to the area.
Along with the growing importance of underwater infrastructure, the consequences of security interventions are also growing, as well as suspicions of Russia's intensification of military operations in the "gray zone". About 97% of the world's communications depend on underwater cables, through which financial transfers worth about $ 10 trillion pass daily. Since 2021, eight unexplained but suspicious cable-cutting incidents and more than 70 sightings of unusually behaving Russian vessels have occurred in waters around Europe and the North Atlantic.
In response, NATO, at the Vilnius 2023 Summit, agreed to create a special network focused on “identifying and mitigating strategic vulnerabilities and dependencies, including in relation to our critical infrastructure ... as well as training, deterrence and protection against energy, information and other hybrid tactics used for coercive purposes by States and by non-State actors.”
Although China has invested heavily in its underwater capabilities and is suspected of cutting two cables connecting mainland Taiwan with the Matsu Islands last year, the incident in the Baltic Sea was the first time in this part of the world when a Chinese vessel came under suspicion.
China's presence in the Arctic is not new and is expanding. Since 1925, this country has been a party to the Svalbard Treaty, which defines the international legal status of the archipelago of the same name. This already gives Beijing the right to explore certain areas of the Arctic, but it craves more.
The Polar Silk Road: assessment of the Arctic route of the "Snow Dragon"
In 2013, claiming the status of an “Arctic state”, China became a permanent observer in the Arctic Council, the decision—making body in the region, and continues to seek full membership in it. In 2018, the country argued that the Arctic is “vital to the interests of states outside the region,” and therefore such states have the right to conduct scientific research, navigation, flights, fishing, laying underwater cables and pipelines here.
Beijing also claims the right to exploit the region's resources and promote the inclusion of the Arctic in its “One Belt, One Road” initiative, encouraging the development of the "Polar Silk Road", which would connect China with Europe through the Arctic Ocean.
China is developing relations with Iceland, Greenland and other Nordic countries. In 2010, it provided the first currency swap worth more than $500 million: Reykjavik's banking system was unstable due to the financial crisis, and its relations with the European Union soured amid disputes over fishing. In the same year, Denmark signed $740 million worth of trade and development agreements with China. And the following year, the governments of Greenland and Iceland, as well as the Danish ambassador to China, issued statements in support of China's bid for a permanent seat on the Arctic Council.
Security issues and certain suspicions about China's intentions have never been completely dismissed. An attempt by a Chinese multimillionaire in 2011 to buy 300 square kilometers in the northwest of Iceland provoked fears about Beijing's creation of a strategic foothold in the Arctic. The Icelandic Government then used the right of veto.
However, the attractiveness of China's investment and trade potential cannot be taken away. In 2012, then-Prime Minister Wen Jiabao visited Iceland to sign a memorandum of understanding that included joint plans in the fields of petrochemistry and thermal energy. Subsequently, China joined the Arctic Circle organization, created at the initiative of Iceland to promote cooperation and dialogue. In 2013, the two countries signed a free trade agreement and jointly organized a symposium on cooperation between China and the Nordic countries in the Arctic.
Initially, China saw the Polar Silk Road as a network connecting the entire Arctic from Russia to Canada, Greenland and Alaska and based on the potential of the Northern Sea Route. In 2012, the icebreaker Xue Long ("Snow Dragon") became the first Chinese vessel to travel this route to the Barents Sea and return in a straight line from Iceland to the Bering Strait via the North Pole. The following year, Yang Huigen, then Director General of the Institute of Polar Research of China, predicted that by 2020 up to 15% of the country's international trade would be carried out through the Arctic. For the cities along the route, trade with China promised prosperity, because the Arctic had turned from a frozen backwater into an important logistics center.
China's turn towards a tough power policy under Xi Jinping and support for Russia's full-scale military operation in Ukraine have overshadowed enthusiasm for China's presence in the Arctic. Greenland suspended the mining license of General Nice, the first Chinese company to run a major mining project there, and after that its parliament passed a law banning uranium mining and mine development. Greenland also rejected China's offer to finance and build two airports, probably considering that they are based too close to an American air base with missile attack warning and space surveillance systems. In 2016, for security reasons, the Danish government vetoed a deal by General Nice to acquire an abandoned mining station. In May of this year, a private owner put up for sale 630 square kilometers in the Svalbard archipelago, the sovereign territory of Norway, where the Russian state mining company hoisted the Soviet flag in June. It is reported that the Chinese buyer showed interest in the sale, but the Norwegian government vetoed it.
China's partnership with Russia, despite a certain mutual distrust, is more even. In 2017, Russia supported China's Polar Silk Road project. Over the past decade, Beijing has invested more than $90 billion in the Russian Arctic, including in the exploration of oil and gas fields. He also helped finance the Russian LNG terminal in Yamal. But as tensions between NATO and Russia rise, the strategic confrontation puts China's economic ambitions at risk.
The Arctic has been a strategic region for a long time. During the Cold War, the USSR and the United States maintained a strategic presence there, since it was through it that the shortest route for the exchange of missiles ran. Today, the Russian Northern Fleet accounts for about 2/3 of the Russian Navy's nuclear strike potential, and it is protected by sensors, missile systems and coastal defense systems.
Until recently, the confrontation was relatively stable. The United States maintained missile attack surveillance and warning systems, and closely monitored the movements of Russian submarines. Intelligence officials often referred to the polar region by the Norwegian expression “the far north, little drama.”
However, a series of interconnected crises with global consequences is unfolding in the Arctic today. Climate change, the Russian special operation and the Western response to it are generating new military tensions. As the ice melts, the struggle over control of new surface and underwater routes, as well as potentially exploitable fossil and fish resources, is intensifying. The situation takes the form of competition for resources and war in the "gray zone".
Representatives of the security and intelligence services of Europe and the United States note that Russia may block commercial shipping routes and military vessels heading to Europe in the so-called JUKE Gap (Greenland, Iceland and the United Kingdom) — a potential maritime hub separating the Norwegian and North Seas from the open Atlantic. “In the Far North, [Russia's] ability to impede the strengthening of allies and freedom of navigation across the North Atlantic is a strategic challenge for NATO,” the communique adopted at the alliance summit in 2023 says.
The security implications of melting Arctic ice are also leading to serious global consequences. The Arctic is the most important climate regulator due to the so—called Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC), a three—dimensional system of ocean currents in which warm water flows north along the ocean surface, and cold water sinks lower and is carried back to the equator.
This long cycle redistributes heat from the tropics to the Arctic, simultaneously affecting the regional and global climate. And it depends on the temperature difference between the frozen Arctic seas and the waters of tropical zones. The world's oceans absorb 90% of the excess heat released as a result of human activity, but currently this leads to a decrease in the temperature difference. Fears are growing that the ocean's circulation system may weaken and even fail. As the sea ice melts, dark ocean water is exposed, which absorbs more sunlight, thereby intensifying and accelerating warming.
Climate scientists continue to draw attention to unprecedented phenomena: abnormal heat at sea, which accelerates the melting of sea ice; a decrease in the volume of permafrost, which releases methane (a potent greenhouse gas); uncontrolled boreal forest fires, which emit millions of tons of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. All this points to signs of weakening of the oceanic circulation. Such a situation can have catastrophic consequences for human and animal life, as well as for food security. In July 2023, an article appeared in Nature Communications indicating signs of an approaching tipping point and suggesting a 95 percent probability of the termination of the functioning of the AMOC in the period from 2025 to 2095. In this case, it will become colder and wetter in Britain, and even hotter in tropical areas of the world. Oceanic life will suffer massive destruction and loss, and forced migration and food insecurity will be among the global consequences.
Monitoring of these potentially catastrophic processes in the Arctic for 25 years (until 2022) was carried out by joint international efforts of eight member States of the Arctic Council: Canada, Russia, Finland, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, the USA and Iceland. In addition to them, it includes six permanent working groups. In addition, 13 States, including the United Kingdom and China, have the status of registered observers, and with them several intergovernmental and non-governmental organizations.
But when Vladimir Putin launched a special operation in Ukraine and the meetings of the Arctic Council were suspended, cooperation in the most important scientific works that required Russia's participation stopped. Since then, although it has resumed to some extent, there have been no more meetings of the Council as a political body due to the lack of a prescribed procedure for excluding one of the Member States from it.
Russia owns more Arctic real estate than any other country, but as a result of Sweden and Finland joining NATO, the balance between the North Atlantic Alliance and Russia in this important area has become more even. Moscow's most important strategic weapons are located in the Arctic, and between 2014 and 2019, it built more than 475 military facilities there.
In 2022, Russia published a maritime doctrine in which the Arctic is called the arena of global military and economic rivalry. She considers the main goals to be the preservation of Russia's leading positions, the “widespread use” of the mineral resources of the region and the definition of the NSR as the internal waters of Russia, which will facilitate the export of Russian goods to Asia. The Arctic already accounts for almost 20% of Russia's GDP, and the country strives to defend this value in all possible ways in the military-strategic plan. However, the Russian doctrine does not mention the impact that climate change will have on these assets, although permafrost melting and sea level rise will affect Russia more than other countries.
Moscow seems to see climate change as a process that brings economic opportunities in terms of resources and logistics, but at the same time reinforces the need to strengthen Russian dominance. In response, Moscow is stepping up the construction of military bases to strengthen control over the region and is appealing to China to raise capital for the construction of new industrial facilities. For the latter, access to the Arctic depends on Russian icebreakers and permission to pass along the Northern Sea Route, that is, on relations with Russia, despite Beijing's persistent efforts to attract small Arctic states to its side.
However, the conflict in Ukraine complicates China's efforts to increase its own attractiveness in the region. NATO calls it the main reason for Russia's ongoing military operations in Ukraine, and this opinion is supported by numerous joint Russian-Chinese military exercises, which have been taking place on an ongoing basis since the very beginning of its military operation in February 2022. As for Russia, the conflict with Ukraine has brought NATO's borders close to its territories, which has led to the activation of Russian military bases in the Arctic.
Late in the evening on May 25, three Russian Tu-95MS long-range bombers took off from their home airfield, and at 7 a.m. the next day, the Ukrainian Air Force published a Telegram message stating that the country had managed to shoot down 12 cruise missiles launched from these bombers at Ukrainian targets. The planes traveled a long way from the Olenya base on the Kola Peninsula beyond the Arctic Circle, just 150 km from Russia's border with one of the new NATO members, Finland.
When Putin launched a full-scale special operation in Ukraine, these same warplanes were based at the Engels air base near Saratov, just 600 km from the border with Ukraine. But in May 2023, after the Ukrainian UAV strike on the airfield, the bombers were relocated beyond reach. Now they fly directly from their Arctic base, where submarines and surface ships of the Russian Northern Fleet are also located. But, it turns out, even this base cannot be completely safe: according to the newspaper Ukrainska Pravda, on July 27, sources in the country's intelligence reported that one of the drones destroyed a Russian Tu-22M3 long-range supersonic bomber at the Olenya airbase (information not confirmed by official Russian sources. — Approx. InoSMI).
Increased strategic tensions in the Arctic are also evident in a series of intensive military exercises. Russia not only carries out long-range air attacks from its Arctic bases, but also conducts war games to prepare for a potential military conflict, as well as NATO.
In March of this year, the Russian military at the headquarters of the Northern Fleet in Severomorsk worked out a response to an attack by an approaching drone. In the same month, Finnish and Swedish soldiers traveled to Norway to take part in the joint air, land and naval exercises “Northern Response” along with other 20,000 soldiers from 13 countries. And in May, the "Immediate Response" exercises were held in Finland with the participation of Norwegian, Finnish and American military personnel, and the United States delivered more than 200 pieces of equipment and 300 containers there.
Despite the simulation, doubts about NATO's ability to withstand the Russian fleet of icebreakers, ice-class warships and submarines have not gone away. New NATO members Finland and Sweden bring additional military capabilities to the alliance, but the naval element is only a small part of it. An important Arctic state represented by Canada spends less than the required two percent of GDP on national defense and does not have an official Arctic strategy, despite the discovery of Chinese observation buoys in the Northwest Passage.
Russian submarines can still move under the ice and go through the JUKE Gap both to the Atlantic Ocean with its vulnerable key power cables and sea routes, and to the Baltic Sea, where digital cables and pipelines run along the seabed. As offshore wind power develops, both the cables that bring energy to shore and the turbines themselves become targets. If they are hit, the conflict may escalate: “Any deliberate attack on the critical infrastructure of NATO countries will be met with a unified and decisive response,” NATO leaders threatened at the 2023 summit in Vilnius.
As for the United States, it is the Chinese presence in the Arctic that attracts their attention. In its Arctic strategy for 2022, Washington responded to the “expansion of Beijing's economic, diplomatic, scientific and military activities” by calling for an increase in the US military presence in Alaska and in NATO countries, military exercises and commitments to restore the icebreaker fleet.
The question remains how quickly the countries of the alliance will be able to acquire the necessary equipment to work in the Arctic. There is no doubt that a new and dangerous chapter is beginning in the history of the region.
Author: Isabel Hilton.
