Climate change is raising the stakes. The Arctic is warming three to four times faster than the global average. Minimum sea-ice cover in 2020 was almost 2.6m square kilometres smaller than the average minimum between 1981 and 2010. The environmental consequences are grave. But there are geopolitical ramifications too. Polar sea routes are becoming more easily navigable, natural resources newly accessible and northern frontiers increasingly vulnerable. Countries outside the region are turning their attention north. China has plans for a “polar silk road” and has invested more than $90bn in Arctic infrastructure and assets.
War in Ukraine has drawn attention to the military threat Russia poses in the far north. Severomorsk, a port on the Barents Sea within the Arctic Circle, is the main base of the country’s Northern fleet, which includes nuclear-capable submarines. Remilitarisation was well under way before the war because Russia’s natural polar defence, ice, is melting away. It has built at least 475 military sites along its northern border in the past six years. War is unlikely to break out in the Arctic: the terrain is too hazardous and the rewards too slight. But it could be drawn into a wider conflict. Heeding the threat, NATO has turned its attention northwards too. In March Norway hosted NATO’s biggest Arctic military exercise in more than three decades. America is considering revamping its armed forces in Alaska. When Finland and Sweden join the alliance, all Arctic countries but Russia will be NATO members.
Co-operation between Western and Russian scientists in the region has broken down. Research on climate change is the obvious victim. Business partnerships have also soured. Russia has invested heavily in oil and gas in the Arctic, announcing $300bn of incentives for new projects in 2020. But Western companies, including BP, ExxonMobil and Shell, are pulling out. Italy has frozen its $21bn of financing for the Arctic LNG 2, an extraction project in northern Siberia. This makes way for Chinese capital. China is already pumping money into Arctic extraction. It has a 30-year contract with Russia to import gas from the Yamal fields, in the Siberian Arctic, via Power of Siberia 2, a pipeline due to be constructed between the countries. State-owned China National Petroleum Corporation has a 20% stake in Yamal LNG, a gas-extraction project; the country’s Silk Road Fund owns 10%. Other state-owned companies have also invested in Arctic LNG 2. And Russia will increasingly rely on Chinese technology to build Arctic liquefied natural gas tankers and other equipment, in place of Western firms.
Russia is wary of China’s interest in the region, where it sees itself as pre-eminent. China has no Arctic territory but its growing influence is shifting the balance of power there. The pretence that the region could stay above geopolitics has broken down, says Andreas Osthagen, of the Fridtjof Nansen Institute, near Oslo. Norway will take over the chairmanship of the Arctic Council in 2023 and Western countries will need to decide whether to proceed without Russia. The new Arctic, much like the new world order, looks set to pit NATO members against China and Russia. ■
