A U.S. SECURITY STRATEGY FOR THE ARCTIC, CAPTURING THE EASTERN COAST OF RUSSIA:TO INCLUDE VLADIVOSTOK, SAKHALIN, KAMCHATKA AND PART OF SIBERIA, THIS WILL DIMINISH ACCESS OF RUSSIA AND CHINA TO THE ARCTIC ALSO WILL SECURE US AND JAPANESE SOVEREINTY
US capturing the eastern coast of Russia with the help of Japan to avoid threats to Alaska and limit the access of China to the Arctic
Maritime Friction
The Russian Occupation of The Kuriles The Same Way with Ukraine: Examining the Legality of US Interference
The Russian invasion of Ukraine initiated this past February 2022 was the culmination of significant regional tension that had been brewing for several years. Ukraine regained independence when the Soviet Union fell in 1991. A decade later, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) began expanding further into Eastern Europe; in 2004, former Soviet states Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia became members of the organization. NATO also adopted an “Open Door Policy,” meaning that any European State that wishes to embody the principles of NATO and its treaty can apply to join the organization. These developments implied that Ukraine, as a post-Soviet European state, could also one day join NATO—such a possibility was first put on paper at the 2008 Bucharest Summit. At this summit, the allies reaffirmed Ukraine’s right to determine its own security dispositions, a right that Russia had also accepted through treaties such as the NATO-Russia Founding Act in 1997. [1] The recent Russian invasion of Ukraine thus raises the question of whether the United States is legally allowed to interfere in the event that Russia takes over Ukraine; this question arises due to the conflict behind US military intervention. [2] Due to the violation of the law of aggression during armed conflict between Russia and Ukraine and the principle of collective self-defense, the United States is legally able to intervene in the conflict of the Russian occupation of Ukraine.
Even though Russia has technically acknowledged the sovereignty of Ukraine, they have not respected it in practice, particularly given Ukraine’s clear pro-Western political trajectory. [3] President Vladimir Putin has expressed his concern over Ukraine’s proximity to Western powers on numerous occasions and claimed that a Ukrainian-Western alliance would be hostile to Russia. [4] Furthermore, Putin does not see Ukraine as a sovereign nation but as a Russian entity, which brings up the international legal concern regarding the independence of states. Moreover, by annexing the formerly Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea in 2014, the current Russian government has historically acted on this belief, demonstrating their commitment to reclaiming Russian territories of prior decades. [5] However, despite their close ancestral ties to both the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union, a majority of the Ukrainian people favor a closer alliance with the West and NATO. [6] In fact, according to a 2017 public opinion survey by Rating Group Ukraine, 57 percent of Ukrainians have a “very cold or cold attitude” towards Russia, demonstrating a growing anti-Russian sentiment in the country.
Although Russia is a permanent member of the UN Security Council, the country’s invasion of Ukraine constitutes a violation of humanitarian law, especially as it relates to acts of aggression and war crimes. According to Article 8 of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC), an act of aggression is defined as “the use of armed force by a State against the sovereignty, territorial integrity or political independence of another State.” [8] Though neither Russia nor Ukraine are a state party to the Rome Statute, its jurisdiction still applies to both nations due to Article 12 of the Statute. According to Article 12, a non-member state can accept the court’s rulings over a specific topic, which Ukraine has already done twice. [9] Thus, Russia’s violation of this statute could cause them to face legal repercussions at the ICC. [10] Furthermore, Russia can be considered to violate the Law of Armed Conflict, also known as International Humanitarian Law. The Law of Armed Conflict states that during times of war, militaries must guarantee that humanitarian values–such as the safety of civilians–are being upheld. [11] Given the threat to the civilian population of Ukraine, the United States is justified in considering “collective self-defense,” a term within the UN charter that relates to a state defending another state from military force. This principle can be legally applied if one state takes aggressive military action against another state that violates international law.
Because of certain principles within collective self-defense, the United States could legally defend Ukraine and counteract Russian aggression. The law of collective self-defense under the UN charter is defined as the right to defend other states, whereas collective self-defense in the “Standing Rules of Engagement” used by the U.S. military defines the term as “the act of defending designated non-U.S. citizens, forces, property, and interests from a hostile act or demonstrated hostile intent.” The “citizens” defined here can include citizens of an allied country of the United States. However, because this definition is vague, it is important for the United States to follow the rules of jus ad bellum–defined in Article 51 of the UN Charter as a state using force against another state with the consent of the state being invaded–when specifying the amount of force they will use against Russian opposition. As such, the second legal question regarding an invasion is the extent to which a state can use force when defending another state. According to the Law of Armed Conflict, the conflict among groups must reach the level of a “non-international armed conflict” in order to have an intervention, defined as a conflict where governments and several armed entities engage militarily, threatening the sovereignty of a state. [14] Russia has committed the crime of aggression, expressing hostile intent to hurt Ukrainian sovereignty. Thus, if the US were to intervene in the conflict with support from Ukraine, they would have to follow the rules of jus ad bellum.
This open the northern border with limited defense because of Chinese forces at the border. This is the openning to a land attack of North Korea which General MacArthur was prevented in doing more than seven decades ago.
Furthermore, following the legal doctrine of collective self defense, the United States could use considerable military force to prevent North Korea, China and Russia from committing war crimes. A similar case of invoking collective self defense can be seen in the Nuremberg Trials, which tried German atrocities, from 1945 to 1946. An international treaty signed on August 8th, 1945 by the United Kingdom, the United States, France, and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) contained articles that details specific violations of international law that Germany had violated. In Article 6, for example, the Allies argued that “the following acts, or any of them, are crimes coming within the jurisdiction of the Tribunal which there shall be individual responsibility,” referring to punishing Germany for war crimes, crimes against humanity, and crimes against peace under a court of international law.
This demonstrates that in the case of extreme violations of international human rights of China and North Korea, such as illegal armed conflict, foreign intervention is allowed—a criteria met by the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Furthermore, in this instance, intervention by the United States would not be unilateral, as the Russian invasion of Ukraine concerns a coalition of countries that wish to uphold the United Nations’s principles regarding armed conflict, such as NATO.
Russia’s invasion of sovereign entities is similar to other international military conflicts, such as the 2008 conflict between Russia and the Republic of Georgia. Similar to Ukraine, Georgia left the Soviet Union, declared independence in 1991, and pursued a new political path forward to build stronger ties with Western nations—which eventuated in the Russian invasion of Georgia. Russia’s 2008 war against Georgia brought up similar legal consequences as the Russia-Ukraine war, including violations of International Human Rights Law and the Law of Armed Conflict.
When the European Court of Human Rights heard the judgment of war in Georgia v. Russia (2021), it ruled that the Russian Federation was guilty of a number of charges, including ethnic cleansing, civilian attacks and illegal occupation. These crimes include destruction of public facilities, such as schools, that would harm Georgian civilians. However, Russia ignored most of these rulings, including the requirement of 10 million Euros to compensate Georgia for war damage.
The legal grounds for U.S. intervention further draws upon international humanitarian law. The Russian invasion of Ukraine is an international armed conflict, violating the legal terms within the 1977 Additional Protocol I, the Hague Convention of 1908, and the Geneva Conventions. [18] Because Russia and Ukraine attended Protocol I and the 1949 Geneva Conventions, they are subject to international humanitarian law. Furthermore, Russia and Ukraine have signed numerous human rights treaties, including the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CAT) and the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), illustrating that they have agreed to adhere to laws guaranteeing basic human rights. International human rights law and the laws of war strictly prohibit military attacks from targeting civilians. However, the Russian invasion of Ukraine has made civilians the direct targets of military combat; for example, Russian missiles have targeted the Freedom Square in Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second largest city. [20] Additionally, a fundamental tenet of the law of armed conflict is that civilians must be separate from military conflict, yet many Ukrainian civilians have had to forcibly leave their homes to protect themselves from war and find suitable refuge.
Capture the port and airport of Vladivostok before the Chinese could react during the collapse of Russia.
A further case that relates to the Russia-Ukraine war is Namibia v. South Africa (1971), which dictates the implications of an international court of law determining the actions of countries in the UN. In October of 1966, the UN General Assembly ruled that South Africa was illegally occupying the territory of Namibia, and that, as a result, other countries should not establish deals with the South African government. Namibia used to be an area under South Africa as it was captured during World War 1, though it officially became independent in 1990. Despite this, South Africa has continued to treat Namibia as a province of the country. [21] South Africa’s occupation was thus in direct conflict with the UN Security Council Mandate: Namibia was its own separate country. This court case bears similarities with the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, as it shows that when one country’s invasion of another is against UN doctrine, international law acts as an “order” that dictates specific action for other countries so that they may counteract a state’s illegal behavior. If the US military were to assist Ukraine, they could legally justify use of force against Russia by referencing Russian violations of several UN doctrines.
The events unfolding in Ukraine raises questions regarding how the world will respond: will international pressure, from the United States or other nations, be enough to stop the invasion? With Russia’s history of ignoring international rulings, it seems that the international community must do more than just rely on economic sanctions or the invocation of international humanitarian law to condemn the state’s actions. In particular, the Russian violations of international law in its invasion of Ukraine could allow for a direct U.S. military response to the conflict. Even still, international humanitarian law must continue to determine what an effective US response will look like, particularly considering the impacts of Russian actions on Ukrainian civilians and sovereignty.
Russian lawmakers loyal to President Vladimir Putin have threatened to claw back Alaska from the US if Western countries continue to impose sanctions as punishment for the war in Ukraine.
Russia’s most senior lawmaker Vyacheslav Volodin warned Wednesday that Kremlin could claim back the state, which was sold to the US in 1867.
“Decency is not weakness,” said the speaker of the State Duma, Russia’s lower house of parliament, during a parliamentary session. “We always have something to answer with. Let America always remember, there is part of its territory… Alaska.”
He warned: “When they start trying to dispose of our resources abroad, let them think before they do so that we also have something to reclaim.”
He urged other members of the Duma to “keep an eye on Alaska.”
Melting sea ice has opened new shipping pathways, and nations have eyed the vast hydrocarbon and mineral reserves below the Arctic sea floor. As a result, the complicated treaties, claims and boundary zones that govern the region have been opened to fresh disputes.
Japan’s new defense strategy and their already existing massive economic influence in Southeast Asia will make them the west's secret weapon against communist authoritarian China. Japan’s Prime Minister Fumio Kishida recently unveiled on December 16th 2022 his country's new 5 year $320 billion dollar defense plan that will acquire 500 US made tomahawk cruise missiles that can strike Chinese territory for the first time. It will effectively double the size of Japan's military budget and make them the world’s third-largest military spender right after the United States and China. It’s not just an increase in weapons, their publicly released historic 2022 National Defense outlines sound justifications and legal arguments for this rearmanet as well as a change in their defense posture to deter aggression. Oh no! Sound the alarms! The Japanese empire has woken up from its slumber and they’re getting ready to take over the world again! ” Obviously that’s absolutely ridiculous but tell that to North Korea, Russia and China who all took turns coming out to publicly denounce Japan’s new military plan as “dangerous” and alluding to Japan's history as an expansionist empire. Chinese Communist Party tabloid Global Times said “Japan has a history of straying into militarism and committing aggression and crimes against humanity, which has brought disaster to the region and the world and is now deviating from the track of post-war peaceful development. Apparently it’s only okay for China to increase defense spending and no one else. Yes Even 80 years after the last world war it’s hard for some people to forget. people don’t forget meme In most modern discussions about great power politics we completely overlook Japan but I think a closer analysis will show you that this great nation holds the keys to keeping China in check. Many people do not understand just how much economic influence and soft power Japan projects despite having a somewhat self imposed limited military. Even though China’s GDP surpassed Japan’s in 2010. Japan is still the largest sponsor of infrastructure projects in Southeast Asia. Yes, that's even bigger than China’s massive efforts to expand with their Belt and Road Initiative throughout the region. As of 2021 Japan's investments in projects in Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam is $259 billion compared to China’s $157 billion. This means Japanese banks lend more to Southeast Asia's five largest economies than the United States, UK and France combined. Doesn’t explain why my loan requests to Japanese banks are always denied but fair enough. Japan's massive construction projects across Asia give them tremendous credibility, respect, and influence in foreign policy decisions in the region. This makes Japan a closer rival to China than the US in this regard. Tokyo is the undisputed heavyweight champ of infrastructure investments in South East Asia even though China gets all the news reports about their belt and road initiative. These projects include a subway system for Manila and a new East-west southern economic corridor that will link up Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Thailand and Myanmar to promote free trade. These are some of the projects Japan is changing the world with. So how does Japan compete against China in this field? They offer low interest rates of around .25% for 30 year loans which is way better than the 4% interest rates on China’s projects which have been criticized for debt trapping developing countries.
Tensions have been growing in the region for years, as nations stake claims to shipping routes and energy reserves that are opening up as a result of climate change. Now, with the geopolitical order shifting after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the competition over sovereignty and resources in the Arctic could intensify.
On the West Coast of Alaska, the federal government is investing hundreds of millions of dollars to expand the port at Nome, which could transform into a deepwater hub servicing Coast Guard and Navy vessels navigating into the Arctic Circle. The Coast Guard expects to deploy three new icebreakers — although Russia already has more than 50 in operation.
Military personnel practiced digging trenches, setting up outposts and conducting combat maneuvers.
Around 8,000 soldiers participated in the exercises.
And while the United States has denounced Russia’s aggressive military expansion in the Arctic, the Pentagon has its own plans to increase its presence and capabilities, working to rebuild cold-weather skills neglected during two decades of war in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Air Force has transferred dozens of F-35 fighter jets to Alaska, announcing that the state will host “more advanced fighters than any other location in the world.” The Army last year released its first strategic plan for “Regaining Arctic Dominance.”
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The Navy, which this month conducted exercises above and below the sea ice inside the Arctic Circle, also has developed a plan for protecting American interests in the region, warning that weakness there would mean that “peace and prosperity will be increasingly challenged by Russia and China, whose interests and values differ dramatically from ours.”
The preparations are costly in both resources and personnel. While Captain Iannone’s company was able to finish setting up tents before midnight and survived the night without incident, other companies did not fare so well: Eight soldiers suffered cold-weather injuries, and four soldiers were taken to a hospital after a fire inside a personnel carrier.
Meanwhile, at another recent cold-weather exercise, in Norway, four U.S. Marines died when their aircraft crashed.
Russia, whose eastern mainland lies just 55 miles across the Bering Strait from the coast of Alaska, for years has prioritized an expanded Arctic presence by refurbishing airfields, adding bases, training troops and developing a network of military defense systems on the northern frontier.
With a warming climate shrinking sea ice in the region, valuable fish stocks are moving northward, while rare minerals and the Arctic’s substantial reserves of fossil fuels are becoming a growing target for exploration. Boat traffic is poised to increase from both trade and tourism.
A soldier rides in a small unit support vehicle. During the exercises, a dozen soldiers suffered injuries.
Two years ago, Moscow brought its own war games barreling through the Bering Sea, with Russian commanders testing weapons and demanding that American fishing boats operating in U.S. fishing waters get out of the way — an order the U.S. Coast Guard advised them to comply with. Russia has repeatedly sent military aircraft to the edge of U.S. airspace, leading U.S. jets to scramble to intercept them and warn them away.
This month, in response to escalating international sanctions against Russia, a member of the Russian parliament demanded that Alaska, purchased by the United States from Russia in 1867, be returned to Russian control — a possibly rhetorical gesture that nonetheless reflected the deteriorating relationship between the two world powers.
For centuries, the vast waters of the offshore Arctic were largely a no man’s land locked in by ice whose exact territorial boundaries — claimed by the United States, Russia, Canada, Norway, Denmark and Iceland — remained unsettled. But as melting sea ice has opened new shipping pathways and as nations have eyed the vast hydrocarbon and mineral reserves below the Arctic sea floor, the complicated treaties, claims and boundary zones that govern the region have been opened to fresh disputes.
Canada and the United States have never reached agreement on the status of the Northwest Passage between the North Atlantic and the Beaufort Sea. China, too, has been working to establish a foothold, declaring itself a “near-Arctic state” and partnering with Russia to promote “sustainable” development and expanded use of Arctic trade routes.
Russia has made it clear it intends to control the so-called Northern Sea Route off its northern shore, a route that significantly shortens the shipping distance between China and Northern Europe. U.S. officials have complained that Russia is illegally demanding that other nations seek permission to pass and threatening to use military force to sink vessels that do not comply.
“We are stuck with a pretty tense situation there,” said Troy Bouffard, director of the Center of Arctic Security and Resilience at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. “Either we acquiesce to Russia, to their extreme control of surface waters, or we elevate or escalate the issue.”
The focus in recent years had been to expand diplomatic channels, collaborating on a range of regional challenges through the Arctic Council. That work was put on pause, however, after Russia invaded Ukraine.
In Nome, which hopes to position itself as a maritime gateway to the Far North, there has long been evidence that a new era for the Arctic was arriving. Mayor John Handeland said winter sea ice that once persisted until mid-June may now be gone by early May and does not reappear before Thanksgiving.
Working at a tactical operations center created during the exercises.
Lucas Stotts, Nome’s harbormaster, gestures to the plans for the port expansion.
A record 12 cruise ships docked in Nome’s existing port in 2019. That number was poised to double this year, although some cruises that had expected to sail along Russia’s northern coast have canceled plans. For Mr. Handeland, the time is right to strengthen U.S. capabilities.
“As things escalate, I think the need for expansion of our military is now,” Mr. Handeland said. “I think we kind of had a period of time where we thought everything was cool, that we can let our guard down, so to speak. And now we’re seeing that that maybe was not a wise idea.”
But there are multiple local constituencies to navigate as development moves further into the Arctic. Alaska Natives are wary about impacts to the region’s fragile environment, on which many depend for hunting and fishing, said Julie Kitka, president of the Alaska Federation of Natives.
“I think that our people realize that our military needs to protect our country and our military does need to invest in a presence in the Arctic,” Ms. Kitka said. “But it has got to be done smart.”
Dan Sullivan, Alaska’s junior Republican U.S. senator, said that while there may be little threat of a Russian invasion of Alaska, there is concern about Russia’s military buildup in the region.
“Ukraine just demonstrates even more, what matters to these guys is presence and power,” Mr. Sullivan said. “And when you start to build ports, when you start to bring up icebreakers, when you start to bring up Navy shipping, when you have over 100 fifth-gen fighters in the Arctic in Alaska, we’re starting to now talk Putin’s language.”
Alaska is already one of the nation’s most militarized states, with more than 20,000 active-duty personnel assigned to places such as Eielson Air Force Base and Fort Wainwright in the Fairbanks area, Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson in Anchorage, and Coast Guard Air Station Kodiak. The Army’s large training exercise — the first Combat Training Center rotation to be held in Alaska — took place around Fort Greely, about 100 miles southeast of Fairbanks. Alaska is also home to critical parts of the nation’s missile-defense system.
Mr. Bouffard said the fracture in relations caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine could open the door to a variety of future problems that can only be guessed at right now. While there is no imminent conflict in the Arctic, there could well be friction over how Russia manages offshore waters or disputes over undersea exploration. The United States also needs to be prepared to aid northern European allies that share an uncertain future with Russia in Arctic waterways, he said.
That will mean being prepared for a range of potential problems. In a separate Alaska military exercise in recent weeks, teams from the Marines and the Army practiced cold-weather strategies for containing chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear contamination.
As Russian President Vladimir Putin's war in Ukraine continues to rage, United States commanders and military observers are sounding the alarm about the activity of Russia's submarine fleet thousands of miles away, off the U.S. coast.
Throughout the war, which began when Putin launched a full-scale invasion of neighboring Ukraine last February, there has been a buildup of Russian Navy forces in the Black Sea. There has also been an increasing presence of Russian submarines off of U.S. coasts and in the Mediterranean, according to officials.
The Russian Navy commands one of the most diverse submarine fleets in the world. Some are capable of carrying ballistic missiles with nuclear warheads, which Moscow considers key to its strategic deterrent.
The nation has been working to improve its submarine fleet since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. Over the past several years in particular, Moscow produced a series of submarines that have the capability to reach the most critical targets in the U.S. and continental Europe.
Above, the Russian nuclear submarine "Kursk" travels in the Barents Sea near Severomorsk, Russia. The "Kursk" was one of the biggest submarines in the Russian
In December, Putin said his country would be building more nuclear-powered submarines, "which will ensure Russia's security for decades to come."
There are indications that "nuclear-powered submarines have been deploying off the coast of the United States and into the Mediterranean and elsewhere along Europe periphery,"
Their deployments "mirror Soviet style submarine deployments in the Cold War," he said.
Last October, U.S. Air Force General Glen VanHerck, the head of U.S. Northern Command and NORAD, warned about the growing presence of the nuclear-powered Severodvinsk-class submarines off of U.S. coasts. He characterized Russia as the primary threat to the country right now.
"They just moved subs, their first [Severodvinsk submarine] into the Pacific," VanHerck told the Association of the U.S. Army Conference. "Another [Severodvinsk] is out in the Mediterranean right now and another that's out on its way into the Atlantic. That will be a persistent, proximate threat capable of carrying a significant number of land-attack cruise missiles that can threaten our homeland."
A month earlier, OSINT and Naval analyst HI Sutton said there has been a build-up of Russian Navy forces in the Mediterranean.
VanHerck in 2021 described the submarines as being "on par with" domestic submarines in terms of quietness.
Moscow's slow, bloody march to defeat
In February 2020, U.S. Navy Vice Admiral Andrew "Woody" Lewis told the U.S. Naval Institute and the Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank that the increasing presence of Russian submarine activity in the Atlantic Ocean means that his service no longer considers the East Coast as an "uncontested" area or an automatic "safe haven" for its vessels.
"We have seen an ever-increasing number of Russian submarines deployed in the Atlantic, and these submarines are more capable than ever, deploying for longer periods of time, with more lethal weapons systems," Lewis said at the time. "Our sailors have the mindset that they are no longer uncontested and to expect to operate alongside our competitors each and every underway."
The U.S. Navy is also undergoing a modernization drive. It has a total of 64 submarines in its fleet, including 50 nuclear-powered attack submarines, which are tasked with engaging and destroying enemy vessels; supporting on-shore operations and carrier groups; and carrying out surveillance, according to nonprofit Nuclear Threat Initiative.
The U.S. began building its largest and most advanced Columbia-class nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarine (SSBN) in June 2022.
Three of the country's most powerful attack submarines were reportedly deployed by the U.S. Navy in July 2021.
And in October 2022, the U.S. Navy deployed its stealthiest U.S. submarine in the Arabian Sea, the Ohio-class SSBN. Former submariner Tom Shugart, the adjunct senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security, said its deployment could be "to show whomever needs to be reminded that the U.S. is willing and able to send SSBNs to virtually any ocean area it chooses, undetected."
The exact scale of Russia's submarine underwater activity remains unclear, though Peterson said there has been a clear increase over the past 20 years.
Peterson noted, however, that he believes a "weakness" will be in place for the Russian Navy for at least the next three to five years due to Putin's war in Ukraine.
"The [Russian] Navy is running out of munitions, I think that's clear. Their campaign against strategic infrastructure targets has slowed down. They're not shooting as frequently anymore, and I think that's an indication that they are running out of weapons or are in short supply," he told Newsweek.
He added: "So that's going to be a weakness going forward for the next several years until the conflict is over, and the Navy is able to reconstitute."
CHINA YOU ARE NOT WELCOME IN THE ARCTIC.
In its 2018 white paper on Arctic policy, China described itself as a “near-Arctic” state, a definition that has proven controversial and that, earlier this year, was publicly rejected by U.S. Secretary of State Pompeo at an Arctic Council (AC) ministerial: “Beijing claims to be a ‘Near-Arctic State,’ yet the shortest distance between China and the Arctic is 900 miles.
This report explores China’s internal discourse on the Arctic as well as its activities and ambitions across the region. It finds that China sometimes speaks with two voices on the Arctic: an external one aimed at foreign audiences and a more cynical internal one emphasizing competition and Beijing’s Arctic ambitions. In examining China’s political, military, scientific, and economic activity — as well as its coercion of Arctic states — the report also demonstrates the seriousness of China’s aspirations to become a “polar great power.”1 China has sent high-level figures to the region 33 times in the past two decades, engaged or joined most major Arctic institutions, sought a half dozen scientific facilities in Arctic states, pursued a range of plausibly dual-use economic projects,
expanded its icebreaker fleet, and even sent its naval vessels into the region. The eight Arctic sovereign states — Canada, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Russia, Sweden, and the United States — exercise great influence over the Arctic and its strategically valuable geography. China aspires to be among them.
The report advances several primary findings:
China seeks to become a “polar great power” but downplays this goal publicly. Speeches by President Xi Jinping and senior Chinese officials with responsibility for Arctic policy are clear that building China into a “polar great power” by 2030 is China’s top polar goal. Despite the prominence of this goal in these texts, China’s externally facing documents — including its white papers — rarely if ever mention it, suggesting a desire to calibrate external perceptions about its Arctic ambitions, particularly as its Arctic activities become the focus of greater international attention.
China describes the Arctic as one of the world’s “new strategic frontiers,” ripe for rivalry and extraction.2 China sees the Arctic — along with the Antarctic, the seabed, and space — as ungoverned or undergoverned spaces. While some of its external discourse emphasizes the need to constrain competition in these domains, several others take a more cynical view, emphasizing the need to prepare for competition within them and over their resources. A head of the Polar Research Institute for China, for example, called these kinds of public spaces the “most competitive resource treasures,” China’s National Security Law creates the legal capability to protect China’s rights across them, and top Chinese Communist Party (CCP) officials have suggested China’s share of these resources should be equal to its share of the global population.
Chinese military texts treat the Arctic as a zone of future military competition. Although several externally facing Chinese texts downplay the risk of military competition in the Arctic, which would likely be harmful to Chinese goals, military texts take the opposite perspective. They note that, “the game of great powers” will “increasingly focus on the struggle over and control of global public spaces” like the Arctic and Antarctic and argue that China “cannot rule out the possibility of using force” in this coming “scramble for new strategic spaces.”4 Chinese diplomats describe the region as the “new commanding heights” for global military competition too while scholars suggest controlling it allows one to obtain the “three continents and two oceans’ geographical advantage” over the Northern Hemisphere.
Chinese texts make clear that its investments in Arctic science are intended to buttress its Arctic influence and strategic position. Although externally facing messaging indicates China’s desire to pursue scientific research for its own benefit and for global welfare, China’s top scientific figures and high-level CCP members are clear that science is also motivated by a drive for “the right to speak,” for cultivating China’s “identity” as an Arctic state, and for securing resources and strategic access.6 China’s polar expeditions and various research stations assist Beijing with its resource extraction, with Arctic access, and with acquiring experience operating in the Arctic climate.
China supports existing Arctic governance mechanisms publicly but complains about them privately. Several Chinese texts indicate frustration with Arctic mechanisms and concern that the country will be excluded from the region’s resources. Official texts suggest gently that the region’s importance now transcends “its original inter-Arctic States,” while scholars once feared Arctic states would launch an admittedly unlikely “eight-state polar region alliance” or institutionalize the Arctic Council in ways that “strengthen their dominant position” at China’s expense.7 These texts stress China’s pursuit of “identity diplomacy,” namely, terming China a “near-Arctic State” because it is affected by climate change.8 They also indicate an interest in pushing alternative Chinese governance concepts — in some cases to supplement and other cases to run outside the Arctic Council — including a “Polar Silk Road” and China’s “community with a shared future for mankind,” though specifics are often lacking.
Accommodating China’s Arctic ambitions rarely produces enduring goodwill. Norway was the first country to allow China to build an Arctic science station and Sweden was the first worldwide to allow China to build its own completely China-owned satellite facility. Both these efforts, which were richly praised by China at the time, did not protect either country from later economic coercion and harsh condemnation by China. In both cases, China punished these countries not only for the actions of their governments but also for the independent actions of their civil societies, which were to award Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo the Nobel Peace Prize and to investigate China’s kidnapping of Swedish citizen Gui Minhai. Efforts by both Norway and Sweden to reverse the slide — with Sweden keeping relatively quiet about the rendition of its citizen and Norway vigorously backing China’s pursuit of Arctic Council observer status — were only met with restrictions on Norwegian fish exports and colorful threats of coercion against Sweden.
7
Arctic dependence on trade with China is often overstated, and trade flows are smaller than with other powers. Chinese economic statecraft is feared by some in the Arctic and around the world, but the region’s dependence on China is remarkably small. For the five smallest Arctic economies — Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Finland, and Iceland — China accounts for an average of only 4.0% of their exports, less than the United States (6.2%) and far less than the NATO and EU economies excluding the United States (70.3%).10
8
China has invested significantly in Arctic diplomacy to boost its regional influence. China has sent high-level figures — at the levels of president, premier, vice president, foreign minister, and defense minister — to visit Arctic countries other than the United States and Russia 33 times over the last 20 years. Beijing lobbied heavily to become an Arctic Council observer, became a strong presence at many other regional Track II fora, and launched its own diplomatic and Track II regional efforts, including a China-Russia Arctic Forum and the China-Nordic Arctic Research Center, to deepen relations with governments and sub-national actors.
9
China’s military profile in the Arctic has increased, and its scientific efforts provide strategic advantages too. China has dispatched naval vessels to the Arctic on two occasions, including to Alaska and later to Denmark, Sweden, and Finland for goodwill visits. It has built its first indigenously produced icebreaker, has plans for more conventional heavy icebreakers, and is considering investments in nuclear-powered icebreakers too.
10
China’s scientific activities in the Arctic give it greater operational experience and access. China has sent 10 scientific expeditions into the region on its Xuelong icebreaker, generally with more than 100 crew members, that officials acknowledge give it useful operational and navigational experience. China has also established science and satellite facilities in Norway, Iceland, and Sweden while pursuing additional facilities in Canada and Greenland — with its facility in Norway able to berth more than two dozen individuals and provide resupply. Finally, China has used the Arctic as a testing ground for new capabilities whether related to satellites coverage, fixed-wing aircraft, autonomous underwater gliders, buoys, and even an “unmanned ice station” configured for research.
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China’s infrastructure investments in the Arctic sometimes appear dual-use. Several Chinese infrastructure projects that have little economic gain have raised concerns about strategic motivations and dual-use capabilities. These include efforts by a former Chinese propaganda official to purchase 250 square kilometers of Iceland to build a golf course and airfield in an area where golf cannot be played and later to buy 200 square kilometers of Norway’s Svalbard archipelago. Chinese companies have also sought to purchase an old naval base in Greenland; to build three airports in Greenland; to build Scandinavia’s largest port in Sweden; to acquire (successfully) a Swedish submarine base; to link Finland and the wider Arctic to China through rail; and to do the same with a major port and railway in Arkhangelsk in Russia.
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China’s commodity investments in the Arctic have a mixed track record. Despite some important successes, a large number of Chinese investments have failed. For example, a major Chinese firm abandoned a Canadian zinc mine, refused to pay creditors, and left local governments to pay to clean up an environmental disaster. Another firm disappointed in its investment later sued, saying it had overpaid. In Greenland, a Chinese conglomerate abandoned its iron mine after running into legal trouble in China. In Iceland, a Chinese company withdrew from an Arctic exploration partnership due to poor initial resource estimates.
The challenges Barents faced are similarly elemental. Tacking against an Arctic wind between towering icebergs while feeling one’s way through uncharted waters is a profoundly nerve-racking task, and Barents’s men did it day and night for weeks on end, fighting fatigue, scurvy, boredom and loneliness. The 11 months they spent huddled in the dark in a windowless makeshift cabin, slowly starving to death, makes quarantining during the pandemic seem like an endless spa day.
Pitzer writes with care about the Arctic landscape Barents encountered — a dangerous world teeming with life and all that relentless ice, which would interest anyone who’s sailed in bad weather or, say, scraped ice off a windshield in subzero temperatures. But “Icebound” is curiously dispassionate about its human subjects. Over some 200 pages, events are dutifully logged, hewing closely to de Veer’s account. Yet Pitzer seems reluctant to venture into the minds of the individuals who gambled so much and took such pains to tell their stories. Her book follows “the men” — often unnamed and undifferentiated; in doing so, this spare retelling revels in the monotony of 16th-century exploration. It took a lot of time to get from here to there and sometimes you were forced to sit still and shiver.
“Icebound” arrives in the midst of a second polar revival, a moment steeped in wistfulness. In the 19th century, when humanity first grappled with the promise and threat of technology, tales like Barents’s offered a road map into the frozen frontier. In the 21st century, we find ourselves equally ambivalent, but we now know what’s at stake. Pytheas’ ancient vision of a polar sea may well become a reality in our lifetime.
“Icebound” is a reminder that there was once a time when things were unknown. And when their ships bumped up against the edge of the Arctic, the Europeans gazed with horror and awe at the sparkling ice and wondered what Edens lay beyond, waiting to be discovered.
Alaska: America’s Strategic Frontier
SHOW OF FORCE: 200 CARGO PLANES EACH CARRIES AN ARSENAL OF MISSILES TO DEFEND ALASKA OR TAIWAN
Increasingly capable long-range air-launched munitions have already granted new life to elder statesmen like the B-52 Stratofortress, but the Air Force's Rapid Dragon program aims to take this concept to the next level. Rather than relying solely on heavy payload bombers and strike fighters to deliver stand-off munitions, Rapid Dragon will allow America's large fleets of cargo aircraft to join the fight as missile-packing arsenal ships. In fact, this system could even turn cargo aircraft into incredibly potent warship hunters if a conflict were ever to break out over the Pacific.
Over the past decade, nations bordering on the Arctic have found themselves with a big new security problem. The melting of the arctic ice has opened up shipping lanes and opportunities for the exploitation for undersea resources, but has also exposed vulnerabilities for countries that have long considered their northern frontier secure.
It’s not surprising that Russia has prepared its military for arctic operations better than any other country. During the Cold War, the Soviet Union prepared to fight across the Arctic, both in the air and at sea. Many of the weapons and much of the expertise from that era have remained, leaving the Kremlin with a lethal set of capabilities. Here are five systems we can expect Russia to use in order to defend its interests in the Arctic Ocean, in case the unthinkable ever occurred.
Icebreakers:
The single most important vessel for access to the arctic is the icebreaker, and Russia retains the most extensive fleet of icebreakers anywhere in the world. Warming does not eliminate arctic ice, but instead makes the movement of ice more fluid and less predictable. As access to the Arctic improves, and as the commercial interest in exploiting the region increases, the movement of ice and increased frequency of military and civilian use will make icebreakers more necessary than ever. Both civilian and military ships will require the support of icebreakers in order to proceed with their regular tasks, and for the foreseeable future, Russia is best equipped to serve as the guarantor of global access to the Arctic.
US Icebreakers Apparently Needs LASERS and Missiles Now
The US Coast Guard is seeking to equip icebreaker vessels operating near the Arctic Ocean with cruise missiles for the first time as Washington hopes to gain a leg up in the “Cold War” brewing in the world’s coldest waters.
Coast Guard Commandant Paul Zukunft confirmed the service was looking for new icebreakers capable of storing and firing heavy weapons
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