When taking over the chairmanship of the Arctic Council, Russia signaled that it is interested in resuming military dialogue on the Arctic. In view of the increasing militarization of the region, an exchange on security policy issues would probably be in the interests of all Arctic states.
Russia is the new chair of the Arctic Council. The change in leadership took place on May 20 at the 12th ministerial meeting of the Council in the Icelandic capital Reykjavik. This marked the end of Iceland’s two-year chairmanship. Until now, the body, which was established in 1996 and has its secretariat in Tromsø, Norway, has received little public attention. There are reasons why Russia’s recent assumption of the chairmanship has attracted so much political and media attention: In recent years, Russia has visibly expanded its military presence in the Arctic. Images of three Russian nuclear-powered submarines simultaneously breaking through meters of ice in the far north made headlines. Shortly before the ministerial meeting, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov’s statement on Russia’s ownership claims in the region caused additional turmoil. “It has long been known that the Arctic is our territory, our soil,” said Lavrov. Many are therefore now asking themselves to what extent Moscow will use the chairmanship to assert its geopolitical interests. The Council’s central concern is environmental policy. Climate protection, environmental pollution, sustainable development, biodiversity conservation and disaster prevention, as well as economic and social issues, are the topics addressed by the Council’s six working groups. According to the Ottawa Declaration of 1996 – the founding document of the Arctic Council – military issues are expressly excluded from the Council’s work.
Its members – the so-called “Arctic 8” – include the five Arctic states Russia, USA, Canada, Norway and Denmark (due to Greenland), as well as Finland, Iceland and Sweden. Organizations of indigenous peoples of the Arctic, including the Inuit and the Sami, are represented as permanent participants with an advisory function. In addition, 13 countries have observer status: Germany, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Switzerland, Spain, the United Kingdom, as well as China, India, Japan, Singapore and South Korea. Intergovernmental organizations and international NGOs are also represented as observers. The decisions of the Arctic Council are not binding. Nevertheless, as the only intergovernmental forum on issues relating to the Arctic, it plays a decisive role in the joint implementation of measures that affect the lives of the indigenous population, such as the prevention of ecological disasters or the implementation of search and rescue operations. Instead of the usual mutual warnings and claims to power, the ceremonial handover of the baton from Icelandic Foreign Minister Gudlaugur Thór Thórdarson to his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov emphasized the willingness to cooperate on all sides. “The Arctic is an area of peace, stability and constructive cooperation. We can see that all our partners are of the same opinion. I am convinced that the prosperity of the Arctic can only be guaranteed through cooperation,” said Lavrov. The focus of the chairmanship will be on protecting and improving the living conditions of the Arctic population. As chair, Russia wants to work to ensure that they have better access to education and healthcare, that exchanges between people, especially young people, are expanded and that the independence and heritage of indigenous peoples are promoted. The thematic focus is not surprising. Improving the living conditions of the Arctic population in order to halt the steady population decline is also a goal set out in Moscow’s Arctic strategy from last year.
Revival of the military dialog?
However, Lavrov’s proposal to arrange multilateral cooperation in the Arctic in the military sphere also came as a surprise. Lavrov spoke of the resumption of talks between the Arctic countries’ armed forces’ general staffs. This referred to the Arctic Chiefs of Defense Forum founded in 2012 and/or the Arctic Security Forces Roundtable founded in 2011, and not the inclusion of military issues in the work of the Arctic Council, as numerous international media had erroneously reported. Meetings in both formats were suspended in 2014 due to the Russian annexation of Crimea. It is to be expected that Russia will use its chairmanship of the Arctic Council to promote the revival of the military dialog, which was put on hold in 2014. The Russian Arctic ambassador Nikolai Korchunov signaled at the beginning of the year in an interview for the Russian daily newspaper Kommersant that Russia was aiming for such a resumption of talks and would raise the issue in the Arctic Council. A first step towards reviving the military dialog could be rounds of talks between military experts from the Council’s member states, Korchunov suggested at the time. As possible topics for discussion, he mentioned the creation of mechanisms for operational cooperation with the aim of preventing possible incidents in waters outside the territorial zones of the littoral states. The strategic importance of the Arctic
As a result of global warming, the Arctic has gained in geopolitical importance in recent years. The melting polar ice is opening up new shipping routes and providing access to suspected raw material deposits. As a result, more and more Arctic states are laying claim to areas in the Arctic that lie beyond the 200 nautical miles (370 kilometers) off their coast. According to the Convention on the Law of the Sea, which came into force in 1994, a state can apply for an extension of its maritime territory if it can prove that its submerged land extends beyond the 200 nautical mile zone. If its application is recognized by the relevant United Nations Commission on the Continental Shelf, it is granted sovereign rights to exploit resources on the extended continental shelf.
The issue becomes conflict-ridden when several neighboring states lay claim to the same territory. This is the case with the North Pole, for example. The area of around 3.7 square kilometers, where huge oil and gas reserves are suspected, belongs to no one under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea. All five Arctic states are interested in the area. Russia has so far been the most vocal about its claim to the area. In 2007, two Russian submarines planted a Russian flag on the seabed at the North Pole. The action caused outrage among the other littoral states, which are themselves in the process of proving on the basis of geological documentation that their continental shelf also extends into the polar region. The perception of the Arctic as a strategically important region can be seen in the militarization of the region by the littoral states. In particular, Russia’s armament in the Arctic has gained momentum in recent years. This is reflected in the modernization of the Northern Fleet, including all submarines, and the construction of numerous bases where Russian S-400 air defence systems and MiG-31 fighter jets are stationed. At the beginning of 2021, Russia even created a separate military district for the region. This underlines the strategic importance of the Arctic for Moscow and suggests that the Russian leadership has ambitious plans for the region. The other littoral states are reacting to Russia’s increasingly assertive stance by arming themselves. In addition to large-scale NATO military maneuvers such as Trident Juncture, the United States in particular is seeking to expand its influence in the region. This is reflected, for example, in the reconstruction of the former US airbase in Keflavik in Iceland, the use of the Thule base in Greenland, which is important for its missile defense, and the opening of a consulate in the Greenlandic capital Nuuk. Not only the USA and Denmark, but also Norway, Sweden and Finland are once again heavily involving the far north in their own defense plans.
China’s increasing interest in the region due to the new trade routes and raw material deposits that the melting ice is opening up is a cause for concern for all neighboring countries. The designation as a “Near Arctic State”, which China has created for itself, as well as the billions of dollars in planned investments, illustrate Beijing’s intentions in the region. The elephant in the Arctic room is security policy
Even if environmental policy remains a key issue for the Arctic states due to climate change, it will hardly be possible to ignore security policy issues for much longer. The growing territorial claims and increasing militarization of the region certainly harbour a dangerous potential for conflict. The danger of environmental disasters as a result of a nuclear accident should not be underestimated. nuclear accidentwhich is a real possibility due to the nuclear arsenal stationed in the Russian Arctic. Such an incident would have serious consequences for the population in the entire region beyond the Russian part of the Arctic. An exchange on military issues therefore also makes sense from an environmental policy perspective. In view of Russia’s massive arms build-up in the High North, a resumption of dialog on security policy issues would also be in the strategic interests of all parties involved. The good news is that the Arctic states are not fundamentally averse to talks on military issues involving Russia. In a report of the U.S. Naval War College from 2020, for example, numerous representatives of the military of Arctic states call for a revival of the dialog. China’s increasing involvement in the Arctic, which represents a challenge for all Arctic states equally, is another reason to sit down at the table with Russia. A security policy dialog between the Arctic states could help to create more transparency and trust in order to ultimately prevent a possible escalation of tensions with the risk of escalation. Russia’s proposal to organize meetings between military experts from the Arctic states could be an important first step towards reviving the security policy dialogue on the Arctic.
