Russia's Race for the Arctic and the New Geopolitics of the Northpole
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Russia’s Race for the Arctic and the New Geopolitics of the North Pole By Pavel Baev October 2007 October 2007 Occasional Paper Occasional Russia’s Race for the Arctic and the New Geopolitics of the North Pole Pavel Baev The Jamestown Foundation’s Mission The mission of The Jamestown Foundation is to inform and educate policymakers and the broader policy community about events and trends in those societies that are strategically or tactically important to the United States and that frequently restrict access to such information. Utilizing indigenous and primary sources, Jamestown’s material is delivered without political bias, filter or agenda. It is often the only source of information that should be, but is not always, available through official or intelligence channels, especially in regard to Eurasia and terrorism. * * * * * * * * * * * Occasional Papers are essays and reports that The Jamestown Foundation believes to be valuable to the policy community. These papers may be created by analysts and scholars associated with The Jamestown Foundation or as the result of a conference or event sponsored or associated with The Jamestown Foundation. Occasional Papers reflect the views of their authors, not those of The Jamestown Foundation. 1111 16th St. NW, Suite 320 The Jamestown Foundation Jamestown The Washington, DC 20036 tel: (202) 483-8888 • fax: (202) 483-8337 • www.jamestown.org • Pavel Baev Executive Summary The symbolic planting of the Russian flag on the seabed close to the geographic North Pole on August 2, 2007, has received a disproportionate amount of media coverage and triggered massive jubilation domestically as well as international criticism. Officially, Moscow has maintained that it acted in full compliance with the Law of the Sea Convention. The goal of Occasional Paper Occasional the on-going series of expeditions is to collect scientific evidence for resubmitting to the UN Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf (CLCS) its request to confirm that some 460,000 mi2 of underwater terrain between the Lomonosov and Mendeleev ridges are the continuation of the Siberian shelf and thus could be added to Russia’s exclusive economic zone. In fact, however, this particular expedition had minimal scientific content but played a prominent role in adding an Arctic dimension to Russia’s assertive foreign policy. It is widely believed that the main driving force behind Russia’s claim is energy, since research indicates that the Arctic shelf could contain significant reserves of hydrocarbons. Gazprom, however, is in no rush to develop even the proven fields in the Barents Sea and the government is not planning any major breakthrough in off-shore production. It is within the realm of possibility that in some 30 years the ice cap could become much thinner but the demand on oil and gas would remain so high as to justify their production at enormous costs in the High North. It is obvious, though, that the current rush to the Northern frontier is driven by other factors, domestic as well as geopolitical, which justify the application of such risky instruments as combat patrolling by the Long-Range Aviation. The four Arctic states—Denmark, Norway, Canada and the United States—supported by the UK and other allies, might find it useful to defy Russia’s unilateralism not only by blocking its request in the CLCS but also by pursuing a Kennan-style course based on a combination of containment and cooperation. A multilateral deal on dividing the Arctic into five national sectors might appear to be a natural solution, but in fact the Antarctic model is more promising, particularly since the key problem is not about sharing profits from developing abundant resources but about joining efforts in preserving the common endowment. 3 Russia’s Race for the Arctic and the New Geopolitics of the North Pole Introduction The annals of Arctic exploration were expanded on August 2, 2007, by a noteworthy if slightly eccentric entry: the Russian expedition consisting of the nuclear icebreaker Rossiya and research ship Akademik Fedorov reached the North Pole where two deep-water submersibles, Mir-1 and Mir-2, were launched and some nine hours later safely retrieved after reaching the seabed at about 4300m. The symbolic planting of the Russian flag made from corrosion-resistant titanium at the highest latitude point has received a disproportionate amount of media coverage and triggered massive jubilation domestically as well as international criticism and even counter- measures. In Soviet times, every geographical map showed the USSR’s borders going along straight longitudinal lines of 32oE from the Kola Peninsula and 180oE from the Bering Straight towards the Pole, so that a huge sector covering approximately one third of the Arctic Ocean was designated as territorial waters. The new Russian claim is only slightly less ambitious as it seeks to expand its 230-mile exclusive economic zone (EEZ) by about 460,000 mi2 beyond the Chukotka Sea and the East Siberian Sea, advancing the argument that the underwater ridges of Mendeleev and Lomonosov constitute continuations of its continental shelf. In itself this claim is nothing remarkable, however, the spectacular manner in which it was asserted, described as an “audacious foray” and a “flag-planting caper,” constitutes a cause for concern in the West, particularly when placed in the context of Russia’s increasingly reckless behavior and chesty rhetoric, exemplified by Putin’s Munich speech in February 2007 [1]. This paper examines the immediate fallout and the wider implications of the Russian advance towards the Arctic, starting with the legal issues and scientific background, moving then to the crucial aspects of energy and security policies, touching upon matters of national identity, and evaluating the prospects of the unfolding geopolitical competition in the Arctic Ocean. Could Science Provide a Solid Legal Foundation for the Claim? There have been more than a few triumphant statements about the newly-confirmed Russian ownership of the Arctic seabed, including the half-joke by Artur Chilingarov, veteran explorer and the leader of the expedition, who stated that “we have exercised the maritime right of the first night” [2]. Such statements were met with harsh rebuttals from Western officials, who characterized the Russian underwater enterprise as a “show” and reminded that 15th century tactics are no longer valid: ‘You can’t go around the world and just plant flags and say ‘We are claiming this territory’” (Canadian Foreign Minister Peter MacKay), or clarified that “whether they went and spray-painted a flag of Russia on those particular ridges is going to make one iota of difference” (U.S. State Department Deputy Spokesman Tom Casey) [3]. However, both Russian President Putin and Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov were in fact quite cautious in their The Jamestown Foundation Jamestown The 4 Pavel Baev assessments of the situation, with the former emphasizing the new scientific evidence that would strengthen the Russian application and the latter clarifying that raising flags is a matter of tradition in exploration and pointing to the planting of the U.S. flag on the moon [4]. Russia is indeed acting in perfect accord with the Law of the Sea Convention (1982), which it ratified in February 1997, with the significant reservation that it would not accept the procedures Paper Occasional leading to the compulsory decisions regarding the disputes related to Articles 15, 73 and 83 that concerned delimitation of maritime borders and EEZs [5]. It is, however, Article 76 on Definition of the Continental Shelf that is in the center of the current dispute, and while this definition is extraordinary vague, one point is established perfectly clear in §8: Information on the limits of the continental shelf beyond 200 nautical miles from the baselines from which the breadth of the territorial sea is measured shall be submitted by the coastal State to the Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf set up under Annex II on the basis of equitable geographical representation. The Commission shall make recommendations to coastal States on matters related to the establishment of the outer limits of their continental shelf. The limits of the shelf established by a coastal State on the basis of these recommendations shall be final and binding. Russia was the first state to invoke this rule in late 2001 when it submitted to the UN Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf (CLCS) the request to confirm that some 460,000 mi2 of “no-mans” underwater terrain were the continuation of the Siberian shelf. The request was put on hold in mid-2002 due to insufficient scientific evidence, and it could be pointed out that the CLCS has not produced a single affirmative recommendation on the eight submissions it received since its establishment [6]. Moscow was not discouraged by this setback and redoubled its efforts at collecting data on the geological structures and mapping the Arctic seabed. Of particular importance in this respect was the expedition by the Institute of World Ocean Geology in May-June 2007 when the Rossiya nuclear icebreaker conducted in-depth research on the Lomonosov ridge, including drilling, acoustic and seismic tests, which received little if any media coverage [7]. Chilingarov’s expedition had in fact a modicum of scientific content, if that: the submersibles reached the seabed in the middle of the Amundsen Basin that is squeezed between the Lomonosov and Gakkel ridges, and the few samples of sand and dirt that it collected could not constitute any geological evidence [8]. What the expedition did achieve was unprecedented international attention to Russia’s Arctic research, and that could constitute an important factor in resolving the dispute. Moscow expects that its demonstrated commitment to conducting a large-scale research program would convince the concerned parties of the feasibility of its claim, much the same way as direct presidential support was conducive to the success of Sochi’s 2014 Olympic bid.