The North and especially the Arctic have been a priority in Russian foreign policy since the early 2000s. This is due to many factors, above all a stronger emphasis on the energy aspect of this policy. This includes building export pipelines and implementing transport projects in northern and northwestern Russia, ranging from the Baltic Pipeline System (BPS), launched in 2001, to the Nord Stream gas pipeline, which will be laid along the bottom of the Baltic Sea. Interest in the Arctic increased after the publication of reports about the enormous natural resource potential of the region. Those reports sparked an unprecedented interest in the region among the leading countries of the world, as well as among major oil and gas companies, and caused Moscow to increase the pace of delimiting the borders of its northern possessions.

Experts estimate oil and gas deposits in the Russian part of the Arctic at 25 percent of the world’s hydrocarbon reserves (approximately 15.5 billion tons of oil and 84.5 trillion cubic meters of gas). At present, Russia is already extracting up to 90 percent of the nickel and cobalt in the Arctic, 60 percent of the copper, 96 percent of platinoids and 100 percent of apatite concentrate.

ARCTIC FEVER

Expert estimates suggest that rapid climatic changes, which have affected the Arctic region as well, will make it possible to start geological prospecting and commercial development of some areas already in 2020. Simultaneously, it is becoming possible to further develop strategic transport routes, of which the most promising ones include the Northern Sea Route and cross-polar flights. Norway is more cautious in estimating the prospects for the economic development of the Arctic. According to Norwegian Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr St?re, the Arctic Ocean could be ice-free for a large part of the year by 2040, which would make it possible to open new transportation routes. At the same time, many questions will inevitably arise concerning sovereignty over these areas.

Yet the resumed demand for hydrocarbon resources has exacerbated the problem of the international legal status of the Arctic and the need to resolve long-standing territorial disputes and establish a multilateral political dialogue among all the Arctic states – Russia, the United States, Canada, Norway and Denmark.

The institutional and legal structure of the Arctic region is still taking shape. Back in 1996, Denmark, Iceland, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Russia, the U.S., Canada and several non-governmental organizations established the Arctic Council. The Council has proved to be an important platform for discussing key issues relating to the region and protecting the unique Arctic environment. But politically it was overshadowed for a long time by the Barents Euro-Arctic Council, as its activity was largely limited to environmental issues and the Arctic countries did not co-ordinate their policies.

Things changed in spring 2008 when the five countries that border the Arctic Ocean – Russia, Canada, the U.S., Norway and Denmark – met in Ilulissat, Greenland, for the first international Arctic Ocean Conference. Interestingly, Arctic Council members that do not have direct access to the Arctic were not invited to the conference.

The conference discussed Arctic climate change and its possible impact on the Arctic ecosystem in light of the forthcoming development of Arctic resources. The conference was held because of a Russian Arctic expedition in 2007 that made a strong impression on surrounding countries and which caused them to step up their own policies in the region. Thus, the outgoing George W. Bush administration unveiled its own Arctic doctrine in January 2009 and expressed a desire to join the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (1982).

The high conflict potential of the Arctic region is one of its main characteristics. Disputes between Russia and the U.S. over the delimitation of their Arctic possessions and economic zones in the Bering Sea have still not been settled (Russia has not recognized the U.S.-Soviet Maritime Boundary Agreement signed by Secretary of State James Baker and Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze, and the Russian parliament has not ratified it). Norway and some other states, including Russia, have different views concerning the Svalbard archipelago and the limits of an economic zone around it. There are also unsettled territorial disputes between Canada and Denmark, between Denmark and Russia, and between Russia and Canada. Meanwhile, Canada and Denmark are actively drilling deep water wells and mapping their Arctic sectors.

Against this background, the 2007 Russian Arctic expedition has had a political and propagandistic effect rather than a scientific and practical one, as Moscow has not yet started drilling wells in the claimed Arctic sector nor begun drafting detailed maps. The troubled political situation in the region has been exacerbated by Greenland’s plans to change its autonomous status within Denmark and seek political independence. Broader self-government by Greenlanders rests on a solid foundation as the government of Denmark has transferred to Greenland the ownership of oil and other resources that may be present in the Greenland shelf. Several Danish opposition parties have protested the move.

Meanwhile, an increasing number of countries have said that they have a right to participate in the division of the Arctic pie. In the early 2000s, Britain came out with a surprise statement that only two nations have the right to the Arctic – Canada and Russia. Many analysts took this statement as London’s desire to get a piece of the Arctic pie via Ottawa, which is an active member of the Commonwealth. Finally, several countries that do not have direct access to the Arctic can influence the course and results of the Arctic race via existing international structures. For example, Iceland, Sweden and Finland, as member states of the Arctic Council, participate in the discussion of long-term plans for the region’s development.

PREPARING FOR BATTLE

The division of the Arctic into national sectors began in 1909 when the Canadian government declared its sovereignty over the territory between the North Pole and mainland Canada. Soviet Russia followed suit and in 1926 it unilaterally demarcated the borders of its Arctic possessions, which extended from Norway’s Svalbard in the west to the Bering Sea in the east, and from the North Pole to the southern coasts of the Barents, Kara, Laptev, East Siberian and Chukchi Seas. But that delimitation of Arctic water areas did not apply to the continental shelf, as the bottom of the Arctic seas was declared indivisible. In 1997, Russia ratified the 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, which later became a tangible obstacle to its Arctic ambitions. From then on, Russia could claim only a 200-mile economic zone which, in exceptional cases, could be extended to 350 miles.

Russia opened a new chapter in its Arctic policy in 2001, when Moscow made an official submission to the UN Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf, asking that its continental shelf be expanded to include 1.2 million square kilometers of Arctic territory. Russia argued that the underwater Lomonosov and Mendeleev ridges are extensions of the Eurasian continent (the Siberian Shelf). If Russia proves its claim, it could raise before UN experts the issue of extending its influence to a Murmansk-Chukotka-North Pole triangle, which contains enormous oil and natural gas deposits.

To substantiate its position, Moscow launched an Arctic expedition in 2007, during which two bathyscaphes, Mir-1 and Mir-2, took soil samples. In a symbolic gesture, Russian explorers planted the Russian national flag on the seabed below the North Pole. It was the symbolism of this move that sparked angry reactions from other Arctic countries. Particularly harsh criticism came from the Canadian foreign minister. An outraged Peter MacKay said: “This isn’t the 15th century. You can’t go around the world and just plant flags and say ‘We’re claiming this territory.’”

Overall, the reaction of Western countries to Russia’s activity in the Arctic ranged from indignant and alarmist (the U.S., Canada and Denmark) to restrained and pragmatic (Norway). In response to the Russian polar expedition, the government of Canada made several harsh statements and decided to establish a permanent army reserve of about 100 soldiers in Yellowknife, in northern Canada. The Canadian defense minister said the reserve unit would “cover an enormous amount of land mass and they will also work closely with the Canadian Arctic Rangers.”

The U.S. expressed surprise at the Russian expedition and announced plans to build new icebreakers. A nervous reaction came from Brussels. The EU High Representative for the Common Foreign and Security Policy, Javier Solana, said in a March 2008 report that European countries should prepare for conflicts with Russia over Arctic energy resources. Norway was the only country that, in the person of its military experts, expressed understanding of Russia’s motives and agreed to a permanent deployment of an Arctic military force by Russia.

However, Norway’s former foreign minister, Thorvald Stoltenberg, struck a somewhat different tone at a Nordic Council meeting in February 2009, where he proposed setting up a joint Nordic deployment force within the framework of the Nordic Council’s foreign and defense policies. This force would ensure security in the Arctic region. Nordic foreign ministers supported the Stoltenberg plan. The deployment group is expected to include well-trained and well-equipped Air Force and Naval forces from Norway, Sweden and Denmark, which will permanently patrol air and sea borders and monitor the Arctic. Judging by this plan, Nordic Europe, along with the U.S. and Canada, seems to see itself and Russia on different sides of the barricades in the struggle for the Arctic. Thus, it calls into question prospects for interaction between Russia and Nordic countries within the framework of a renewed Northern Dimension policy. This project, launched by Finland in the late 1990s, was conceived as a way to harmonize the interests of countries in the region, with the European Union playing the leading role.

The contraposition of rivalry for the Arctic versus cooperation within the Northern Dimension frameworks only seems far-fetched at first glance. The outwardly spontaneous nature of the Russian Arctic expedition raises the inevitable question about the coherence and integrity of the “northern vector” of Russian foreign policy, if it should imply a combination of three aspects – Baltic and Northern European ones and the Arctic aspect proper. The Northern Dimension, a recently renewed regional format for interaction, intended to harmonize the interests of the partners in this program – the EU, Russia, Norway and Iceland, can unite these three aspects. The territorial frameworks of the Northern Dimension go beyond the borders of the participating countries and cover a large Arctic sector.

In fact, the interests of only two Arctic countries – Canada and the United States – remain outside the Northern Dimension initiative; however, NATO’s enlargement and the extension of its military and political infrastructure to Nordic countries and the Baltics gives these countries an additional opportunity to control political processes in the Arctic region. For example, Reykjavik, Iceland, hosted a seminar in January 2009 that was attended by NATO officials and which discussed security prospects in the Arctic, the exploration of Arctic resources, and the need for a proactive Arctic policy aimed at protecting the national interests of Arctic states.

A NATO summit in Bucharest raised the issue of turning the Alliance into an energy security instrument, which would reinforce the potential role of the North Atlantic bloc in solving the Arctic puzzle. The U.S. traditionally displayed the toughest approach among NATO members as it made it clear that it would not remain an impartial observer to Russia’s actions, which Washington views as a seizure. However, the U.S. has limited possibilities for opposing Russia’s plans at the state level, as the United States is the only Arctic country that has not signed and has not ratified the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea.

RUSSIA’S INTERESTS AND OBSTACLES IN THE WAY

The consolidation of Russia’s claims to a large part of the Arctic shelf may cause strife in Russia’s bilateral relations with other Arctic nations and fuel a revision of some projects that are being implemented within the frameworks of the Barents Euro-Arctic Council. For example, the idea of joint development of the Northern Sea Route, codified in documents of this sub-regional forum, may result in the loss by Russia of part of its sovereignty over this transport route. This refers, above all, to Moscow’s ability to regulate legislatively the navigation regime in the Arctic zone of Russian interests and in the immediate vicinity of Russia’s state borders.

Obviously, the internationalization of Arctic areas located outside the 200-mile zone north of the Russian borders does not meet Russia’s interests. The ratification by Russia of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea in 1997 and, especially, its use for the international legal regulation of actions by states in respect of Arctic territories, in particular for identifying the borders of national Arctic sectors, looks rather ambiguous in this context. It would be useful therefore to study the Canadian experience of fixing the boundaries of the country’s Arctic sector, which was done on the basis of national legislation. The Russian authorities could use the Canadian experience as a precedent in the event of similar actions.

A similar situation is taking shape with regard to the Nord Stream project. More and more of Russia’s partners in the Northern Dimension have been joining the opponents of this Russian-German energy project. Sweden, Poland, Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia have declared their open opposition to Nord Stream. Swedish experts argue that the project, which is intended to diversify energy supplies to the European market, is threatening regional stability in the Baltic Sea region, is sowing discord among Europeans, strengthening the positions of an “authoritarian” Russia, and reducing the Baltic States’ opportunity to participate in ensuring the security of the Northern Dimension region. Moscow will hardly agree with this assessment of its policy in the region. However, Russia is finding it increasingly difficult to reach a compromise with its Western partners on both Arctic and energy security issues.

The situation is worsening as Brussels and Washington are becoming new centers of decision-making with respect to the Northern region. Russia reacts nervously to discussions about the possible admission of Sweden and Finland to NATO, realizing that the lack of consensus within the Northern Dimension frameworks on a wide range of military-political issues will also impede economic cooperation in Northern Europe. This, in turn, will create an undesirable situation in the context of disputes over Arctic resources, since all the countries in the region, except for Russia, will be integrated into European and Euro-Atlantic structures.

Despite having the status of a Northern power and partnership within the frameworks of the renewed Northern Dimension, Russia remains a largely non-regional actor with regard to Northern Europe and the Baltic region due to its weak interaction with the European Union and NATO, which oversee economic and military-political processes in the region. The position of a non-regional actor offers some advantages, the main one is that Russia’s hands are not tied and it can conduct a flexible multi-vector policy and form alliances with other interested parties. However, this status implies limitations as well, first of all the need to promote one’s interests on one’s own, without support from regional countries. Earlier, Russia already had to uphold the expediency of the construction of new port facilities on the Baltic coast at the Council of the Baltic Sea States, and to discuss with EU candidates possible solutions to the problem of transit to the Kaliningrad region.

The creation of a regional security system, such as a Baltic Union, would help to consolidate Russia’s positions in Northern Europe and in the Arctic, as this system could be a prototype for a new, co-operative security system in Europe. Discussions about the possible admission of Sweden and Finland to NATO, actively encouraged by Washington, mark the opposite trend. Sweden fully sided with the U.S. and shared the latter’s assessments of the August 2008 events in Georgia and South Ossetia. Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt condemned Russia’s recognition of the independence of Abkhazia and South Ossetia and compared its actions to protect peacekeepers and Russian citizens living in South Ossetia to the occupation of Czechoslovakia by Hitler in 1938-1939. Earlier, Russian-Swedish relations became strained after Stockholm refused to extradite to Moscow several people suspected of terrorist activities in Russia.

At the height of the “Arctic boom” in September 2008, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev instructed the Russian Security Council to turn the Arctic into a resource base of Russia and to fix the borders of Russia’s continental shelf as soon as possible. At the same meeting, the Security Council approved the Fundamentals of the State Policy of Russia in the Arctic in the Period Until 2020 and Beyond and announced Russia’s plans to resubmit a claim to expand its continental shelf with the UN Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf in 2010. Russian General Vladimir Shamanov reiterated the Russian Armed Forces’ readiness to ensure the protection of the claimed Arctic sector. Plans were announced to set up an Arctic military force based on units of the Leningrad, Siberian and Far Eastern military districts.

These developments inevitably bring up the issue of a future development model for this vast region, its new geographical boundaries and international legal status, and the need for a multilateral consensus and the search for adequate ways to govern those vast territories. All these factors sow uncertainty with regard to the renewed Northern Dimension and serve as a test for the “Northern vector” of Russia’s policy in new geopolitical realities. The economic crisis has already caused Russia to amend and partially suspend its plans. In particular, the filing of the Russian application concerning new outer limits for its continental shelf has been postponed until 2012; geological prospecting in the Arctic has been frozen; and the deployment of an Arctic military group is still a dim prospect.

Therefore, building the “Northern vector” of Russia’s policy is a problem with many unknowns. Depending on changes in the situation in the region, Russia may either try to fully integrate into a multilateral cooperation system, which is being created in the region on the basis of the renewed Northern Dimension, the Arctic Council or other institutional structures, or put an emphasis on selective cooperation, presupposing the solution of the most acute problems on a bilateral basis. Sooner or later, Russia will have to choose its priorities for the “Northern vector” of its policy and find a way out of the Arctic labyrinth.