From Collaborative Space to Contested Area: The Battle for the Arctic (Part One)

The (too) strong words of US President Donald Trump regarding the interest in Greenland and Canada, in addition to raising strong general criticism, have brought to the world's attention the issue of the Arctic Ocean and the economic and strategic implications related to this area, which has become of significant strategic interest. An attention that, in fact, had never waned in the international community that deals with geopolitics but that, instead, had not until now been the object of careful reflection by public opinion, more understandably focused on immediate issues such as Russian expansionist policy and tensions in the Middle East, which have now become dramatic realities with the war in Ukraine and the situation in Gaza and Lebanon.

Until a few years ago mainly focused on scientific studies and environmental protection, attention towards the Arctic is therefore growing because this area of ​​the world still holds significant resources, so much so that it is called "The Last Treasure of the World" for its huge reserves, not only energy but also raw materials and rare earths. Not only that, what is also whetting appetites is the growing importance that it could have with the probable future opening of new commercial maritime routes.

All this has inevitably caused a shift in interest towards aspects more pertinent to the economy and security and has unleashed a heated international competition. In the context of this global competition for access to and management of resources, the Arctic represents, therefore, the current frontier and the attention and interests of nations, not only those bordering the Arctic, are focusing on this area of ​​the world.

Over the last 5 years, therefore, the Arctic region has established itself as a new relevant geopolitical scenario, whose balances would be able to influence future global arrangements. Far from not concerning our country, the Arctic question has instead various aspects of interest even for our normal daily life. Let's see which ones.

Science and environment

In the Arctic, temperatures are increasing at a rate 3-4 times faster than the global average (so-called Arctic amplification). This warming, however, is not uniform across the Arctic regions, but there are areas, such as northern Russia, where temperatures are rising particularly rapidly, while in others, such as northern Canada and Greenland, warming is occurring more gradually. This increase in temperature has led to a series of consequences such as melting of sea ice, the reduction of the albedo effect and the melting of the permafrost, which further accentuate global warming.

All this causes, for example, repercussions on the level of the oceans, but also changes in marine currents, even at mid-latitudes, elements that are fundamental for our survival on this planet. In this sense we can say that the Arctic, in the context of research on climate change, plays a bit like the role that the canary once played in the mines. That is, it signals the danger that is approaching.

With the Rovaniemi Declaration of 1991, theArtic Environmental Protection Strategy (AEPS), dedicated to protecting the Arctic ecosystem, preserving the environment, understanding the needs of indigenous peoples and reducing pollution in the Arctic area. In essence, it is an attempt to slow down the reduction of ice and the melting of the permafrost, which are rapidly altering the region's fauna and flora, with devastating consequences for dozens of species, including polar bears, walruses, reindeer and caribou.

But the dissolution of the permafrost also hides other potential dangers. In fact, inside this frozen ground, presumably reside animal carcasses, viruses and bacteria that have not lost their pathogenic load and that have remained "sleeping", frozen for at least 10.000 years. Coming "back to life" they could cause damage. In permafrost, furthermore, there are enormous quantities of methane, a greenhouse gas that is much more climate-altering than carbon dioxide.

Regarding marine fauna, warming waters in the world's oceans have already triggered the migration of stock fish to the Arctic Ocean, with important implications for global food security. Not only that, an ice-free Arctic would also have important consequences for the southernmost regions, which would manifest themselves through extreme weather events, including heat and drought, and sea level rise.

The history of Italy in the Arctic dates back to the scientific activities conducted by the Navy since the end of the 90th century, continued by Umberto Nobile and, later, by other Italian explorers and researchers. We could date the current phase back to the 1997s, when our research institutions began operating in Thule, Greenland, in an international observatory. Then there is the CNR, which opened the “Dirigibile Italia” base in Ny Ålesund (Svalbard, Norway) in XNUMX.

In addition to the activities conducted by civilian scientists and researchers, one of the key players in scientific research is the Navy, through the multi-year program called “High North”. Since 2017, in fact, with Nave Alliance The Navy is present in the Arctic area for approximately six months of the year. The activity is coordinated and conducted by the Navy Hydrographic Institute with the NATO Centre of Excellence for Maritime Research and Experimentation (Center for Maritime Research and Experimentation – CMRE), based in La Spezia. Several national and international research institutions also participate in this activity at sea, such as the National Research Council (CNR), the National Agency for New Technologies, Energy and Economic Development (ENEA), the National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology (INGV), the National Institute of Oceanography and Experimental Geophysics (OGS), the European Union Research Centre (Joint Research Center - JRC), the European Research Institute (European Research Institute - ERI). In this way, The Navy Hydrographic Institute is at the centre of national scientific action in the Arctic, with particular reference to the study of climate change in areas of particular interest and to understanding the environmental implications of such transformations.

Economy

Climate change in the Arctic generates the paradox that economic activities that were previously more complex are now less so, determining, for example, theincreased navigation and greater ease of hydrocarbon extraction and mining. Precisely with regard to natural resources, in 2008 theUS Geological Survey carried out a probabilistic study (the Circum Artic Resource Apprisal), estimating that the Arctic may contain 30% of the world's undiscovered natural gas and 13% of its oil. Mineral resources also present significant prospects, as huge deposits of rare earths and other important minerals are being discovered in the Arctic, which are essential for new technologies and the energy transition.

^{_{Source: European Parliament, EU Arctic Policy in Regional Contest 2016, data from Rispling and Roto Nordregio 2015}}

Another theme, which is less remembered but is of enormous interest, is that of fishing, with schools of fish moving north and that make the Arctic increasingly important also from a food point of view, attracting many countries, especially from East Asia. In order to try to regulate fish catches, sectoral agreements have been concluded. A very significant one is theAgreement to combat unregulated fishing in Arctic high seas, signed by Canada, China, Denmark (on behalf of the Faroe Islands and Greenland), Iceland, Japan, Norway, Russia, South Korea, the United States and the European Union, and which is based on the principles established by the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (Montego Bay, 1982). It entered into force in March 2019 and has an initial validity of 16 years.

China appears to be particularly active in this region, also through orders for the laying of submarine cables for telematics connections. After having laid approximately 5.000 km of cables to connect Canada, Iceland and Greenland with HMN Tech (projects Greenland Connect e Greenland Connect North) now it seems, in fact, that Beijing is thinking about the drafting of a submarine "telematic" highway that, from the Far East and through the Arctic, would allow reaching Europe, bypassing the current longest route that takes the connection through Malacca, Bab-el-Mandeb and Suez, waters considered rather dangerous and where several landing stations they insist on territories where political situations are unstable, making the management of such infrastructures difficultⁱ. Problems that are, at the moment, non-existent in the Arctic region where, moreover, the ally Russia would be well present. To underline the Chinese interest in the area, some estimates evaluate that between 2012 and 2017 the Chinese have invested in the Arctic over 1.400 billion dollars, mainly in the energy and mining sectors. In Greenland, for example, Chinese investments have accounted for 11,6% of the GDP, and in Iceland for 5,7%.

Russia deserves a special mention, for which the Arctic region is one of the key areas of interest. Among the countries bordering the Arctic, it is, in fact, the one with the largest territorial extension and with the largest population beyond the polar circle. Before the invasion of Ukraine, moreover, more than 20% of the Russian GDP derived from activities in this region and it has been estimated that 75% of the Russian oil and 95% of the gas are concentrated in the north of Russia, as well as reserves of those known as "rare earths", for which Western economies are increasingly hungry.

The progressive melting of the ice, moreover, already allows navigation of the Arctic routes for an increasingly extended period, offering suggestive prospects for the future of the flow of goods and an evident key to development for Moscow, which wants to remain at all costs among the great powers. Today the Russian Federation has about 40 icebreakers in active service and has planned the construction of a further fleet of 13 heavy icebreakers, 9 with nuclear propulsion, to be completed by 2035, functional to increase commercial traffic through the Northeast Sea Passage. Moscow has also (optimistically?) planned the construction or expansion of numerous hub logistics in Murmansk, Arkhangelsk, Vladivostok and in the Sea of ​​Korsakov on Sakhalin, but also supply and maintenance ports in Tiksi and Dikson, as well as mega-projects for the exploitation of natural resources similar to the already operational Yamal LNG in Utrenny for liquefied gas, Bukhta Sever for oil and Yenisei for coal.

To facilitate all this, the construction of a flotilla of floating nuclear power plants to anchor in Russian ports along the future Northern Sea Route, starting from the autonomous district of Chukotka, a large region of about 720 thousand square kilometers located in the Russian Far East, near Alaska, where the largest copper and gold deposits on the planet are located. However, it should be noted that environmental associations believe that these plants represent a very high risk for the ecosystem, already put in crisis by climate change, and consider this type of plant very vulnerable in the event of a natural disaster.

As for Italy, scientific research remains the heart of national activities in the Arctic, although the addition of a significant economic dimension. There is ENI, for example, which has the platform offshore northernmost in the world, in Norway. Then there is E-geos, a company formed by the Italian Space Agency (20%) and Telespazio (80%), which markets Cosmo-SkyMed data. Finally there is Fincantieri, which also builds ships for Arctic navigation.

geopolitics

There are eight Arctic states, five of which are coastal and three are non-coastal, but are still considered Arctic because they have part of their territory above the Arctic Circle.

The fundamental characteristic of the Arctic is that, in addition to being obviously a sea surrounded by land, it also has a fair amount of human presence, that is, it has a population of about 4 million people, of which 500.000 individuals belong to indigenous populations. In this context, the remote, vast and barren Canadian Arctic is in contrast to the reality of the other Nordic countries. In fact, the northern region of Canada, despite representing 40% of the country's landmass and 20% of the entire Arctic, is inhabited by less than 0,5% of the Canadian population (about 35 million), with "only" 113.000 people living in that region. In comparison, Finland has more "Arctic" inhabitants than Canada, with 180.000 people living in northern Finland, that is, the part of the country above the Arctic Circle. In this respect, the Russian Federation is well ahead of other Arctic states, occupying about 53% of the entire region (with about 24.000 km of coastline) and counting approximately 2 million Russian residents, about half of all those living in the Arctic area.

^{_{Source: European Parliament, EU Arctic Policy in Regional Contest 2016, data from Stępień, Koivurova and Kankaanpää based on Arctic Portal and Arctic Centre}}

With regard to relations between coastal states, it is worth recalling the Ilulissat Declaration in 2008, with which the Arctic coastal states strongly reiterated that they did not no intention of moving towards a specific Arctic treaty, which is sometimes talked about, while instead they believe that the current legal framework, based mainly on the law of the sea, is absolutely adequate.

To better understand the dynamics that led to the current international situation, it should also be remembered that on 1 October 1987 in Murmansk, the then General Secretary of the CPSU, Mikhail Gorbachev, gave a speech in which He stressed the desire to make the Arctic a region of peace and international cooperation.. He was referring mainly to the atomic threat, but the process that arose from it, the so-called “Rovaniemi process” which led to the aforementioned AEPS, instead took a direction mainly addressed to environmental aspects.

A few years later, in 1996, the Ottawa Declaration was adopted in Canada, which created the Arctic Council, not a true international organization, but an intergovernmental forum that promotes cooperation, coordination and interaction between the Arctic States, with the involvement of the indigenous peoples of the Arctic and other inhabitants of the region. Its mandate is mainly scientific research, and it formulates recommendations (therefore, non-binding) on ​​environmental protection, conservation and sustainable development. However, the Arctic Council has also become a context in which mutual knowledge serves as a link between the scientific world and policy makers.

A strong point of the Arctic Council is that it provides for the presence at the table, at the same formal level, of the States e as permanent participants, 6 organizations of indigenous peoples. Then there is the active presence of observers, which can be States, international organizations, non-governmental organizations. Italy became an observer in 2013 and the Farnesina has appointed a special envoy for the Arctic: Minister Plenipotentiary Carmine Robustelli. While at the beginning the observers were mainly European countries (the first were Germany, Poland, the United Kingdom, Holland, France, Spain), in 2013 five other states joined us (China, Japan, South Korea, India and Singapore).

Among observers, the Asian country that has the the greatest political impact is China. The interest of that country in the Arctic is very broad and, obviously, has both strategic reasons and many other motivations, for example economic ones, such as fishing.

It is worth noting that Russia's international isolation following the second aggression against Ukraine is exploited by China to wedge itself into a region that is geographically foreign to it, but which has considerable development potential. Beijing is, in fact, trying to position itself as a global power through initiatives One Belt One Road already underway (the maritime one, more developed and prospectively more profitable and the rail one up to Germany) and with an eye in any case also attentive to the developments in the Arctic, a region in which challenges overlap with opportunities. For Beijing, the Northern Sea Route (NSR) represents a possible solution to the “Malacca dilemma” and, in fact, cooperation with Moscow has increased, with Chinese capital (we are talking about tens of billions of dollars) employed in the construction of infrastructures linked to the Russian energy sector. The aforementioned Yamal LNG it is the tangible fruit of this growing cooperation.

With respect to the potential of possible new northern routes, China is not, therefore, standing by and watching, dependent as it is on international trade. It is no coincidence that Beijing, after the creation in 1981 of the National Committee for the Antarctic Expedition, with the task of coordinating Antarctic research, and the start of scientific collaborations at the South Pole, in 1999 conducted the first scientific expedition to the Arctic with its own icebreaker Xue Long, in 2013 he obtained the status as an observer at the Arctic Council and in January 2018 developed its own Arctic strategy, declaring itself near arctic state.

As far as Russia is concerned, from the point of view of great strategy, the war in Ukraine has changed little of his view of the Arctic. The region remains of primary interest to Moscow, indeed, it can be said that it has acquired further importance.. In fact, the economic aspect is unchanged, given that a large part of the Russian energy resources and raw materials, as mentioned, are located in the North and even with Western sanctions and the partial closure of exports to European countries, the sector remains fundamental. For this reason, the maintenance of existing infrastructure and the development of new ones cannot be set aside entirely. However, the aggression against Ukraine has had significant repercussions in the Arctic as well, and I am referring to the draining of resources that the Kremlin could have allocated for the continuation of its strategy in the region and which, instead, it finds itself having to direct towards supporting the war effort in Ukraine. This of course scales down the ambitious goals declared by Moscow in the 2020 strategic document, which in the short to medium term will have to deal with the situation on the ground.

Last but not least, a fact is that with the exception of Russia, as a result of the war in Ukraine and the consequent entry of Sweden and Finland into the Atlantic Alliance, all the other coastal countries of theArctic Council They are part of NATO.

However, regarding the Atlantic Alliance, it should be noted that there are some differences of opinion among the allies regarding access to the Arctic routes. I am referring, for example, to the disputes that have been latent until now between Canada and the United States, today exacerbated by Trump's (excessive) latest statements, and those that arose between Washington and Copenhagen regarding Greenland (the largest island in the world with more than 2 million kmXNUMX of surface area, equal to approximately two thirds of Argentina). Provocations that have not failed to provoke indignant reactions and that risk undermining mutual trust, built over decades of loyal collaboration that, today, the US seems to want to reduce in intensity. Strong and worrying signs of a possible disagreement on the method to achieve strategic objectives.

Until now, in fact, regional disputes between coastal states have been managed in accordance with international law but, in an increasingly fragmented and uncertain world, in which the UN now appears incapable of containing or resolving international disputes, multilateralism unfortunately seems to have lost its appeal. In this context, alliances will have an enormous weight on the future balances of the region and the world. In fact, no one can face alone the serious geopolitical challenges that are emerging, especially when faced with adversaries like Putin and Xi Jinping, threatening and determined to exacerbate every crisis.

In this framework, the European Union (EU) has developed its own specific strategy, which aims to address the complex dynamics of the Arctic region, considering both the aspects of international cooperation and those of environmental protection and promotion of sustainable development. In 2021, the European Commission therefore explained the modalities of theEuropean approach in the region and areas considered critical for Arctic policy, through the joint declaration “A stronger EU engagement for a peaceful, sustainable and prosperous Arctic”. The European line of action in the Arctic, with a view to promoting sustainable development and protecting the environment, also includes the conservation and sustainable use of living marine resources of the Arctic, including fish stocks. The aforementioned Agreement to combat unregulated fishing in Arctic high seas fits into this framework.

About the maritime communication lines, the essentiality of which for our economy I have repeatedly underlined, if on the one hand it must be said that there are well-founded reasons to believe that the opening of the new Arctic routes represents a risk of bypassing the transits via Suez and of consequent marginalization of the entire Mediterranean region, other schools of thought believe that the Arctic route could, even in the future, not be particularly easy to travel, also as a consequence of the fact that 53% is monopolized by a single country which, among other things, insists on direct control of maritime traffic, imposing the use of its own icebreakers to support anyone wishing to travel that route.

The belief that this could be a route to be followed in parallel with the classic Indian Ocean, Suez, Mediterranean, Gibraltar route could, therefore, be a little utopian. The Arctic route, although important as an alternative route, does not appear to be as important as a route parallel to existing routes., because the routes Containers have a peculiarity. They are never point to point, that is, there is no route that goes from Shanghai and arrives directly in Hamburg. These are routes that ships take Containers, even more so the large ships from 22 to 24.000 TEU, travel making several stops during their navigation and act both as regional carrier be from global carrier. In a nutshell, they scoop up cargo and distribute cargo wherever they can, which they couldn't do along the Arctic routes.

I add to this that on August 8, 2013, for the first time, the Chinese cargo ship Yong Sheng of 19 thousand tons, was able to travel from China to Europe through the Arctic, that is without passing through the Suez Canal, setting sail from Dalian, the largest Chinese oil port, located in the northeast (Liaoning), and arriving in Rotterdam on the afternoon of September 10, after crossing the Bering Strait. A feat previously possible only for larger icebreakers. A success that crowned a long-standing dream and led to a 35% increase in the number of ships that transited through the Arctic between 2013 and 2019ⁱⁱ, but still of such a size as not to call into question the current southernmost trade routes.

In essence, the Arctic area has significant importance from the strategic, energy and mineral resource exploitation points of view, but certainly less so (as an alternative and not parallel) for commercial navigation. In practice, the polar route would have some similarities with the Trans-Siberian railway line, to cite a line on land that connects two very distant points. Some geopoliticians fond of the theories of the British Halford John Mackinder, who in 1902 formulated the concept of a pivotal continental state (Heartland), whose power could challenge the prevalence of maritime power, believe that rail traffic could represent an alternative to maritime traffic. However, if one does the math of how many Containers transports a 24.000 TEU ship and counts how many trains are used to carry the same load via a rail route such as the Trans-Siberian, for example, it turns out that It takes about two and a half years. Just to balance the load of a ship.

In this sense, the Arctic routes would have difficulty competing with the enormous capacity (and therefore cost-effectiveness) of transport along existing routes, even if longer.

_{Laws "From Collaborative Space to Contested Area: The Battle for the Arctic (Part 2)"}