The global warming without a doubt is rapidly becoming a serious threat to both environmental and global security. Its impact primarily focuses on the Arctic area though intertwined with it high temperatures as well as gradual melting of the ice will consequently affect all of the world – that however will not occur solely in this very dimension, for the slowly disappearing ice turns the attention of regional states and non-state actors towards - what used to remain underneath it for centuries and now slowly being revealed.
In 2004, United States Geological Survey indicated a vast amount (around 1/3) of the world’s total resources of oil and gas to be located under the icy waters of the Arctic Ocean. In the era of consequently rising oil prices that affect every single economy in the world, this opens a broad margin of possibilities towards diversifying energy resources, which if successful, will lead to decreasing the dependency on Middle Eastern oil resources and thereby boosting the investment and economic growth of any country to diversify its energy sources. Recent statistics highlight a potential existence of an estimated 400 billion oil barrels in the seabed, while 233 billion have already been discovered – a number constantly increasing since the first calculation several years ago.
The international law is a system of regulations, which in this case provides a set of measures defining state’s sovereignty over varying sectors of waters that surround its coast. According to the Law of the Sea, each state apart from 12 nautical mines of its territorial waters has a right to undertake expeditions, drilling and generally to acquire benefits from areas as far as 200 nautical miles, which are referred to as Exclusive Economic zone of a state. This implies several consequences. The most important relates to the variety of contenders, which as of today includes Russia, Canada, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Finland and the United States.
The race for resource primacy has already begun. There are certain facts that prove tensions are gradually rising to the dangerous tipping point:
• In Norway and Denmark coastal regions experience unprecedented rate of investment and both internal (young population migrating from other parts of the state) and external interest that focuses on that region.
• Last year Russian submarine dived into Arctic seabed to symbolically plant a Russian flag after already claiming 460,000 square miles – an indication that Russia will be a tough player in this competition.
• In response to Russia’s actions, Canada launched a series of maneuvers in the Arctic involving vessels equipped with icebreakers, submarines and 700 soldiers.
• In May 2008, U.S. Army engaged in the series of exercises under a codename “Northern Edge” in Alaska.
• In August, a U.S. ship launched its journey to the Arctic to determine the extent of continental shelf north of Alaska and examine the seabed.
• In September Russian President Dmitri Medvedev delivered a speech at the Security Council stating his willingness to define seabed borders in the Arctic (his alleged unilateral position on this matter was later denied by Russian authorities.
Prudent analysis of the facts may indicate a certain level of disturbance for those facts certainly do not assure peaceful trend of developments in future. The principal threat that could emerge from analyzing the aforementioned is the position of Russia in contrast with the aspirations of the United States. Russian government has profoundly stated its insistence on claiming vast areas that include the North Pole, and previously demonstrated urgency as well as symbolic flag planting does not allow a positive prognosis in terms of a possible reluctance of Russian authorities to resign from some of the postulates. Russia’s new government as well as its predecessors with same respect have delivered many messages reminding the international community that Russia is capable and willing to act assertively in defense of its national interests with little regard to international law and overall reaction of the international community (as Georgian conflict also indicates). How the situation will develop on Russia’s behalf is unknown, however history provides empirical evidence that its position may be firm.
The situation seems to be even more alerting, when we examine capabilities of Russia and the U.S. – the two nations to most probably divide spoils of the North Pole. At first glance, Russia seems to be in a better position. Russia’s military potential is definitely in decline, United States spends a half o the worlds military spending, therefore in terms of military capability, it cannot be equivalent to America’s power. However, what we are experiencing right now is a race for potential resources, which does not imply ordinary military rivalry, and therefore provides Russia with relative advantage. How? This can be asserted from simple estimation and comparison of the number of icebreaker vessels, which currently are essential to undertake expeditions to investigate the seabed. Russia as of now is in possession of 19 of such vessels, 8 with nuclear engines, while the U.S. Navy can operate only on 4 such vessels with conventional power supply – to be more specific Finland and Canada own 6 and 7 icebreakers respectively. The U.S. government identified this issue as disturbing, a couple of years ago, pressing for more funds to reform its capability to conduct research in the Arctic, though the developments of 9/11 and further President Bush’s war against terror, not to mention Iraq, financially undermined any possibility to gradually to match Russia’s potential in this field. This implies the advantage Russian navy has over the U.S. in investigating currently melting ‘frozen treasure chest’. Other important factor that affects current U.S. position is the problem with ratification by the U.S. Senate of the Convention of the Law of the Sea. The international law provides time to countries interested in claims in the Arctic Ocean who ratified the treaty until 2009 to estimate their claims; the U.S. without ratifying the treaty is a worse position.
As tensions rise among the countries with Arctic coastlines, the U.N. tries to control gradually rising ‘oil rush’ within the area. Countries with vital interest in this field held a summit at Greenland in May this year and agreed that it should be the United Nations and above all, the international law to determine who governs what. A conference covering that issue however is scheduled to be held in 2020, which provided recent developments as well as emerging interest of oil-hungry nations (China and India particularly) might be too late before the contenders lose their temper and turn into violence.
What could be done? Analysts point out the obvious – diplomacy. United States as the principal world leader and foremost due to its disadvantage in the region should engage in diplomatic talks with contending states to find a common ground, which will not be an easy feat, Especially with respect to assertive Russia. The conflict in the region however is not a lucrative option for any of the sides, due to emerging trade outposts along the coastlines, which pump development into areas that were scarcely inhabited a decade ago – primarily in Norway and Canada. American diplomats could turn to their European counterparts, especially those with Arctic coastlines but also to other European oil-importing nations for support to incline Russia into creating an organization that would resemble current-day OPEC – of course with different external policy aspects. However, this as of now is pure futurology. The situation and its symptoms are not yet severe, though require prudent actions - Current events indicate that the emergence of any serious confrontation is unlikely, especially after reconsideration of Medvedev’s statements and the Greenland conference resulting in shifting decisions towards the United Nations. Nevertheless, this particular détente without precarious diplomacy and engaging all contenders collectively to find a solution may be easily dissolved and turn into new dangerous conflict that will no doubt affect the entire northern hemisphere.
