This year’s frenzy of oil and gas exploration in newly accessible Arctic waters could be the harbinger of even starker changes to come. If, as many scientists predict, currently inaccessible sea lanes across the top of the world become navigable in the coming decades, they could redraw global trading routes – and perhaps geopolitics.
This summer will see more human activity in the Arctic than ever before, with oil giant Shell engaged in major exploration and an expected further rise in fishing, tourism and regional shipping.
But that, experts warn, brings with it a rising risk of environmental disaster not to mention criminal activity from illegal fishing to smuggling and terrorism.
“By bringing more human activity into the Arctic you bring both the good and the bad,” Lieutenant-General Walter Semianiw, the head of Canada Command and one of Ottawa’s most senior military officers responsible for the Arctic, told the Centre for Strategic and International Studies in Washington DC last week.
“You will see the change whether you wish to or not.”
With indigenous populations, researchers and military forces reporting the ice receding faster than many had expected, some estimates suggest the polar ice cap might disappear completely during the summer season as soon as 2040, perhaps even earlier.
That could slash the journey time from Europe to Chinese and Japanese ports by well over a week, possibly taking traffic from the southern Suez Canal route.
But with many of those key sea routes passing through already disputed waters believed to contain much of the world’s untapped energy reserves, some say they already fear a rising risk of confrontation.
There are fledging signs of growing co-operation – the first ever meeting of Arctic defence chiefs in Canada later this month, joint tabletop exercises on polar search and rescue operations organised through the Arctic Council.
But growing unease is also clear.
Norway and Canada, for example, have spent recent years quietly re-equipping its military and moving troops and other forces to new or enlarged bases further north.
Having largely withdrawn most of its forces from the region in the aftermath of the Cold War, officials and experts say the US is only now rediscovering its significance.
But for now, Washington has no concrete plans to build even a single new icebreaker – in part because experts estimate that the price tag for a single ship could be as high as $1 billion (R8bn).
For the first time, some officers worry the US is losing its foothold as new rivals such as China prepare to muscle in.
“We are in many ways an Arctic nation without an Arctic strategy,” US Coast Guard Vice-Admiral Brian M Salerno told the same Washington DC event.
Arctic battalions
The US has yet to ratify the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), which most countries use as the basis formdiscussing thorny Arctic territorial issues.
Arctic experts point to at least nine separate disputes within the region, from disagreements between the US and Canada over parts of the northwest passage to fishing conflicts that also drag in China, Russia, South Korea, Japan and others.
Russia, in particular, is seen to be keen to assert its presence in a region in which it has long been the dominant power.
It operates almost all of the world’s 34 or so icebreakers – albeit many of them are ageing Cold War-era vessels, some powered by nuclear reactors that Western experts say could present a major danger in their own right.
Perhaps just as importantly, its navy continues to view the Arctic as its backyard, vital not just for natural resources essential to maintaining Moscow’s economic clout but also the hiding ground for its ballistic missile-carrying nuclear submarine fleet.
But its greatest advantages may be simply demographic.
“They have cities in the Arctic, we only have villages,” says Melissa Bert, a US Coast Guard captain and currently a military fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York.
“We simply need more of a presence there.”
Western military strategists have been long worried that if economic woes or civil unrest at home prompted Russia towards a more bellicose foreign policy, it could seriously escalate tensions in the region for quite some time to come.
Confront or co-exist?
Some of the most awkward choices, however, will be faced by the Arctic’s least powerful states.
Nato member Iceland raised eyebrows after its 2008 financial implosion when it approached Russia for a bailout, prompting suggestions it might be willing to offer use of a former US airbase and port facilities to Moscow.
Ultimately, it turned instead to the International Monetary Fund and EU.
But similar questions were raised again last year after a Chinese businessman offered to buy a large area of rural Iceland for what he said was a leisure project and golf course.
While the businessman always denied any links to the Chinese government, the sale was ultimately blocked by Icelandic officials citing security concerns.
Greenland, one of Europe’s largest countries but with one of its smallest populations – less than 57 000 people – could face challenges particular to its position.
As its territory opens up more for exploration and mineral extraction, it could find its population swelling rapidly, driven by an influx from Asian investor-countries, notably China.
Nevertheless, some experts believe that if handled properly, the opening of the Arctic could benefit many, if not all, countries in the northern hemisphere.
“I see the Arctic as ultimately more of a venue for co-operation than confrontation,” says Christian le Miere, the senior fellow for maritime affairs at London’s International Institute for Strategic Studies.
“China, northern Europe, Russia will all benefit in particular from the new sea routes. The only real losers will be countries much further south that cannot take advantage.”
For US Coast Guard Captain Bert, having spent much of her career in the north, the greatest real enemies remain the vast distances, harsh climate and lack of resources.
Even with the icecaps gone for some of the year, icebergs will still drift through shipping lanes and harsh storms and poor maps provide ever-present danger. Danger with as yet unknown elements and, therefore, for which there currently exist no simple solutions.
“I don’t worry about a war in the Arctic,” she says.
“But I do worry that we’re not prepared to deal with a major disaster there.” – Reuters