Four kilometers under the Arctic Sea, a new “Cold War” is slowly unfolding. Beginning in August 2007, when a Russian minisubmarine expedition called Arktika 2007 symbolically planted a Russian flag on the Arctic seabed, the Arctic land grab has become a major battle between Russia and other Arctic circumpolar countries, namely Canada, the United States, Greenland (an autonomous Danish dependency) and Norway.
Reactions to Russia’s 2007 flag stunt were vitriolic: “This isn’t the 15th century. You can’t go around the world and just plant flags and say, ‘We’re claiming this territory’” fumed then Canadian minister of foreign affairs Peter MacKay. But why the sudden interest in the Arctic?
According to the U.S. Geological Survey, up to 90 billion barrels of oil, 1,669 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, and 44 million barrels of natural gas liquids could be located in the Arctic. These figures, if accurate, they represent approximately 25 percent of current global oil reserves. And with geoscientists’ warnings about melting ice caps and the possibility of an ice-free Arctic in the summer, the Arctic could emerge as a key global transport hub in upcoming decades.
Anticipating international territorial conflict, the Russian Geographical Society held a two-day International Arctic Forum under the motto “The Arctic: Territory of Dialogue” on the 22nd and 23rd of September, 2010. More than 300 participants representing 15 countries attended the Moscow Forum to discuss the effects of climate change and anthropogenic activity, the supply of natural resources, and the challenges and prospects of sustainable development in the region.
Despite the forum’s emphasis on open dialogue and negotiated settlements (including Prime Minister Putin’s call for the region to be “a zone of peace and cooperation”) , a race for the Arctic is still on. A team of Russian scientists recently began a year-long expedition on an ice floe in the high arctic, their main objective to determine the extent of the Russian continental shelf. The Russians are planning to spend approximately $64 million on such arctic research in the next three years.
In response to Russia’s ongoing expeditions, the U.S. and Canada have agreed to put aside their conflict over navigation rights off the Canadian coast to stand up against Russia. In fact, NATO (of which the U.S., Canada, the Netherlands and Norway are all members) recently claimed a role in the Arctic when Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer announced at a seminar in Reykjavik, Iceland in January 2009 that “Clearly, the High North is a region that is of strategic interest to the Alliance.” Since the seminar, NATO has conducted several fictitious war games focusing on the Arctic region, such as “Cold Response 2010.” Additionally, Canada hosted its largest security drill in the Arctic, Operation Nanoon, in August 2010, in which the U.S. and Denmark took part.
Under intense scrutiny are the Lomonosov and Mendeleev Ridges, two extensive undersea mountain chains stretching across the Arctic Ocean from Siberia to Ellesmere Island and from Greenland to the central Arctic Ocean respectively.
Russia claims that the ridges are an extension of the Eurasian continent, while the Canadians and Danish insist that they are natural extensions of the North American continent.
What prevents the territorial conflict in the Arctic from becoming the next Cold War? Thus far, the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) has kept competing nations at bay. This convention, signed in 1982, established as a diplomatic framework for solving questions concerning navigation, archipelagic status and transit regimes, exclusive economic zones, continental shelf jurisdiction, deep seabed mining, the exploitation regime and more,. Under UNCLOS, coastal states are given the rights to “exploit, develop, manage and conserve all resources…to be found in the waters, on the ocean floor and in the subsoil of an area extending 200 nautical miles from its shore.” Thus, the establishment of exclusive economic zones (EEZ) creates an incentive for countries to claim offshore islets and even underwater mountain ranges. Furthermore, countries with continental shelves longer than 200 nautical miles can petition the Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf (CLCS) to gain the rights to exploit their shelf beyond the limit of their formal EEZs. This provision is at the heart of the Arctic dispute: what is the limit of Russia’s continental shelf?
Also limiting overt conflict is the Ilulissat Declaration, signed in May 2008 by the five circumpolar nations during the Arctic Ocean Conference. One of the central goals of the Declaration was the blockage of any “new comprehensive international legal regime to govern the Arctic Ocean.” Signatory countries also pledged to respect the “orderly settlement of any possible overlapping claims.”
Yet, if the Russians manage to convince the CLCS that the Lomonosov and Mendeleev Ridges are extensions of the Eurasian continent, they will have claim to the non-living resources of the “seabed and subsoil,” including petroleum. If the Russian claim is legitimated, secondary issues will emerge, including fishery management, environmental regulation, and control over trade route access. Success with the CLCS would expand Russia’s effective economic territory by 1.2 million square kilometers and would allow for the development of huge oil and gas fields in the triangle between Chukotka Peninsula, Murmansk and the North Pole.
The Russian government made a previous submission to the CLCS in 2001, which was rejected because of insufficient scientific evidence. However, with the recent surge in scientific exploration funds, the adjusted Russian claim, expected by 2013, has a much better chance of success. If Russia does gain access to much of the Arctic seabed, its clout in global energy markets could be significantly enhanced.
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