Evidence Against a Cooperative Regime

While polar experts such as Oran Young have begun to embrace the concept of a cooperative Arctic governance regime within the past decade, there are many real-world challenges to creating such a regime. Competing national interests, legitimate claims of territorial sovereignty, the opportunity for economic gain and an unbalanced distribution of power on an international as well as regional scale all diminish the Arctic nations’ incentives to form a regional regime. Basic geographic, legal and strategic considerations can also help to explain why a cooperative regime would be difficult to negotiate and implement. The Arctic is a strategically critical region that, unlike Antarctica, falls largely under domestic legal regimes as outlined by the United Nations Convention on the Limits of the Continental Shelf. The Arctic is also the largest operative arena for nuclear submarines in the world and the site of nearly a quarter of the world’s oil and natural gas reserves, which have the potential to generate substantial revenues for corporations and sovereign governments alike.

There is a risk that a negotiated cooperative regime would be dominated by the interests of the most powerful regional players, namely Russia and the United States. Russia aside, there has been a widespread lack of national fiscal commitment to the Arctic region. Other nations’ disinvestment has left Russia in a particularly strong bargaining position. Coupled with the geographic scope of the region, the existing overall poor physical infrastructure base would make Arctic policy difficult to enforce on the ground without significant Russian vessel support. Though not specifically intended for Arctic use, United States Navy and Coast Guard units could also contribute to policy enforcement efforts and add to the United States’ regional bargaining power. The United States and Russia are in a position to impose their interests on an Arctic treaty rather than use the treaty to provide public goods to other nations.

Past events indicate that such a realist perspective is well founded. The United States, for instance, has long coveted the right of innocent passage through the Northwest Passage. In any bargain that involved new United States commitment, particularly in the form of icebreaking or search and rescue services along the Northwest Passage, the United States would be likely to request a guarantee of innocent passage along the Northwest Passage in return. Meanwhile, Russia has already invested heavily in Arctic infrastructure including icebreakers and deepwater drilling equipment and would be unlikely to consent to any agreement that significantly limited natural resource extraction. Major exporters and importers would benefit if navigational aids and other safety measures, such as search and rescue capability and integrated ship monitoring, were put in place. Coastal states such as Iceland, however, would bear new risks as increasing number of ships sailed through their waters without putting into port and contributing to the local economy.

The Arctic nations do not have a history of military or economic cooperation that indicates they are ready to work together to form a cooperative regional governance regime. They belong to competing military and strategic alliances – four of the Arctic nations are NATO members – and the strongest non-geographic tie binding seven of the eight nations appears to be that they all recently lag Russia when it comes to efficiently implementing Arctic policy.  Russia and the United States led opposing blocs during the Cold War, in which the Arctic became a central military arena. Finland and Sweden are proximate to Russia and understandably wary of increased Russian power as well as uneasy taking a hard-line negotiating stance with Russia. The Nordic countries have committed to increased strategic Nordic defense cooperation but this is largely to protect them from the threat that is Russia. Combined, the United States and Canada operate only seven icebreakers, none of which approaches the size of Russia’s 50 LET Pobedy, which provides Russia outsized regional bargaining power. Indeed, neither the United States nor Canada has launched an icebreaker since 1997, when the United States launched the USCG Healy. Russia is the only Arctic nation with nuclear icebreakers (it currently operates eight such vessels) and as such enjoys a significant operational advantage in addition to bargaining power: Russian icebreakers, unlike conventional icebreakers, can put to sea for months at a time unlimited by range concerns.  In short, the operational capabilities and strategic interests of the eight Arctic nations are poorly aligned in many respects.

Who would lead the push for a regional agreement? One country, Russia, controls the majority of natural resources in the region as well as two important strategic resources: the Northern Sea Route and the strongest icebreaker fleet, by far, in the world. Russia, though, has proven willing to operate unilaterally in the region, monetizing the Northern Sea Route and antagonizing foreign powers by planting a symbolic flag on the ocean floor at the North Pole. Statements from the Kremlin indicate that Russia plans to make the Arctic its main resource base by 2020. Atomflot, the state-sponsored Russian nuclear energy company, has plans to unveil new icebreakers in the near future, including a behemoth in 2017 capable of carving sea lanes through three to three and a half meters of ice.  In addition, Russia has recently resumed Soviet-era overflights near Alaska and exacerbated Norway by operating naval vessels and aircraft near the Svalbard Archipelago. While Russia has participated in regional agreements protecting polar bears and outfitted the icebreaker 50 LET Pobedy with advanced environmental systems, secrecy shrouds its Arctic past and, to some extent, future. Based on this and a variety of other factors, including the spent nuclear fuel in its aging nuclear submarine fleet which it has improperly disposed of in the past, Russia is at once the most powerful Arctic actor and the greatest threat to regional military and environmental security of the eight nations. This is not a position from which Russia is likely to lead.

Canada has demonstrated an inability to effectively respond to its own national challenges in the Arctic and as such does not possess the political resources necessary to mount a campaign for a comprehensive Arctic Treaty. With a population of just thirty-three million citizens - smaller than California – simple economics pose a challenge to defending Canadian sovereignty.  Canada has the second-longest Arctic coastline and claims (disputed) sovereignty over the Northwest Passage. This coastline exposes it to great risk should an environmental disaster occur in the Northwest Passage, where vessels are not currently required to transit accompanied by an icebreaker. However, Canadian Arctic policy commitments, such as the Mulroney government’s mid-1980s promise of a Polar Class 8 icebreaker, have long lacked fiscal backing.

The United States’ attention is clearly focused in other areas than the Arctic. Partisanship in Washington, D.C. as well as budgetary concerns, wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the aftermath of a financial meltdown are all indications that the United States government is overextended. Washington has also refused to ratify the Kyoto Convention and participated in only under much pressure and in a limited fashion at the 2009 Copenhagen Climate Conference. Washington politicians’ interests in the Arctic are more likely to relate to economic development in the region and securing clearance for United States shipping through the Northwest Passage and Northern Sea Routes than to forging a comprehensive regional agreement dedicated to environmental protection and demilitarization. Indeed, the United States views the Arctic as a strategically important region and continues to maintain submarine patrols in the Arctic Ocean even though the Soviet submarine fleet is in disrepair and presently incapable of projecting a sustained military presence. Confrontations with Canada over United States use of Arctic waters, including the passages of the US Manhattan and US Polar Sea and unannounced submarine voyages, do not point to a national preoccupation with creating a cooperative Arctic management regime.

The other five Arctic nations – Norway, Finland, Iceland, Sweden and Denmark – do not have the leverage to independently force Canada, the United States or Russia to enter into regional regime negotiations. While these five nations have recently paid increased attention to the region, their new commitments have largely involved an increase in Arctic military force projection to counteract Russia’s regional assertiveness.

Iceland in particular could not lead a treaty effort, as it has no new Arctic territory to claim, is handcuffed by a recent national bankruptcy, has traditionally maintained neutrality and does not maintain a standing army, navy or air force. Finland and Sweden are subject to significant environmental risks but can do little more than call for other nations to increase coordination and environmental protection measures. For instance, Finland is worried about environmental hazards stemming from dated nearby Russian nuclear power plants but has relatively little bargaining power with which to work. Denmark is interested in the economic potential of the region as a source of oil and natural gas but has no driving incentive to build icebreakers or lead the rest of the nations in an environmental protection agreement. Finally, Norway has committed itself to an increased presence in the Arctic, including organizing the Stoltenberg Report and calling for increased Nordic military cooperation, but has ongoing territorial disputes with Russia and has been questioned for its fisheries management practices in the Barents Sea.