IN SEARCH OF BOREA. HOPES, HYPES AND REALPOLITIK IN RUSSIA’S ARCTIC STRATEGY Marlene Laruelle 1. RUSSIA’S ARCTIC POLICY AT THE INTERPLAY OF DOMESTIC AND INTERNATIONAL Discursive production and decision-making mechanisms The Arctic as a flagship for Putin-style statehood An internationally recognized “brand” for Russia The Arctic, a soft power tool for bilateral relations? 2. A TERRITORY OR AN IDENTITY? THE HIGH NORTH IN RUSSIA’S STATEHOOD The Imperial and Soviet memory of the Arctic What administrative status for Arctic regions? Indigenous peoples as marginalized stakeholders? The nationalist reading of the Arctic: Russia’s new Lebensraum 3. RUSSIA’S SPATIAL AND DEMOGRAPHIC CHALLENGES “Archipelago Russia.” A fragmented territory Russia’s demographic puzzle Evolving patterns of Arctic demography and mobility Is migration the future of the Arctic workforce? 4. EXPECTED CLIMATE CHANGE AND ITS IMPACT ON RUSSIA Framing climate change debates Climate change in the Arctic Climate change in the Russian Federation Calculating climate change impact on Russian economy Russia’s domestic actors on climate change Russia’s hesitant climate change policy 5. THE RUSSIAN STANCE ON ARCTIC TERRITORIAL CONFLICTS The Soviet historical referent: the 1926 decree Russian claims on the Arctic continental shelf The Russian-U.S. agreement on the Bering and Chukchi Seas The issue of the Barents Sea issue and its solution The dispute over the Svalbard/Spitsenberg archipelago 6. PROJECTING MILITARY POWER IN THE ARCTIC The Russian Army still lost in transition Upgrading the Northern Fleet and the nuclear deterrence Russia’s renewed military activism in the Arctic 7. RESOURCE NATIONALISM VERSUS PATTERNS OF COOPERATION Beyond the metrics of the “Arctic Bonanza” Russia’s oil and gas strategies in the Arctic The costs and risks of an Arctic-based energy Foreign actors and the Russian state: competition or cooperation? The Arctic as a mineral Eldorado? Hopes for reviving the fishing industry 8. UNLOCKING THE ARCTIC? SHIPPING ALONG THE NORTHERN SEA ROUTE Sovereignty Issues in the Russian Straits Hopes for an International Trade Lane via the NSR Ice without hype: the harsh realities of Arctic shipping A more realistic future: NSR as a domestic/destination route Modernizing the Fleet and the Shipyard Sector Conclusion Bibliography Index MAPS Introduction: 1. The Arctic Ocean 2. The Southern Borders of the Arctic Chapter 2: 3. Russia’s Arctic Administrative Territories 4. Indigenous people in the Arctic Chapter 3: 5. Migration in Russian Arctic regions Chapter 4: 6. Climate Change in Russia 1970s-2000s 7. Projected Climate Change in Russia 2010s-2050s Chapter 5: 8. Russia’s Territorial Disputes in the Arctic Chapter 6: 9. Russia’s Arctic Resources Chapter 7: 10. The three Arctic Routes 11. The Northern Sea Route INTRODUCTION Long dismissed as a frozen wasteland, the Arctic has recently come under increasing attention, for good and for ill. Moving from the realm of the unknown to the known, from marginal to sometimes central, it has been interpreted as a new front-page story that has given rise to hyped-up analyses, fond of wielding superlatives: the most northerly region, the coldest one, the region with the longest nights and longest days, the world’s most fragile ecosystem, the region richest in hydrocarbons, and so on. The hype is often backed up with multiple historical references, as though the new configurations of the twenty-first century need to be explained in familiar terms in order to be understood. Strategic issues are thus framed using journalistic historical parallels. These include the conquest of the West (Arctic as the New Far West), the Cold War (the Ice Cold War), or the Great Game in Central Asia at the end of the nineteenth century (Arctic as the New Great Game). The economic drivers, often presented without taking into account changes in the market, new technologies, and knowledge of private actors, are evoked using the filter of the Gold Rush (the Arctic Rush).1 At the other end of the spectrum, that of environmental concerns, the messages target emotional sensitivity to nature and wildlife, such as a National Geographic photo of a polar bear, the quintessential symbol of the Arctic, trapped on a melting iceberg.2 Expected climate change is indeed an important driver in the global picture of the Arctic. It already heavily impacts human activities in this region, and will continue to do so, either encouraging more human presence, or making the region increasingly inhospitable and unpredictable. The future of the Arctic in international affairs is not, however, limited to debates on climate change. Once the hype is over, the Arctic is certainly going to remain an issue of world affairs. Various countries’ warships and submarines will continue to cross paths in the Arctic Ocean; the fragile ecosystems of local populations and wildlife will need international oversight and protection; potentially profitable exploitation of the subsoil or of water resources could begin despite extreme conditions; and the “Trans-Arctic Air Corridor” in the air traffic linking North America, Eurasia, and Asia will increase because the route via the polar area saves time and fuel. Since the publication of one of the pioneering books, The Age of the Arctic: Hot Conflicts and Cold Realities by Gail Oreshenko and Oran R. Young (1989), the situation in the polar regions has drastically changed, notwithstanding the “hot conflict versus cold realities” paradigm remains one of the main keys to understand the current challenges in addressing Arctic issues The many actors of the Arctic debate The Arctic debate has several distinctive features. Like discussions on climate change, it is a globalized debate. Interested parties come not only from North America and Europe, but also from Asia, Latin America, and Africa. The Arctic debate is even more multidisciplinary than that on climate change, with climatologists, geographers, oceanologists, scholars from the human and social sciences, and security specialists all in the mix. The public voices on the Arctic also epitomize the wide diversity of people involved in the debate: scientific groups, indigenous communities, politicians and the military, NGOs with environmental agendas, and private businesses are all invited to hear and take into account other points of view. The growing dissonance between environmental protection and natural-resource development is but one aspect, perhaps the most media hyped, of a wider, more complex debate. But the Arctic is also distinctive in the way that it stimulates our imaginations. As the last terra incognita of humanity—after the great marine depths—it is apt to evoke romantic and utopian clichés. The two poles remain still largely unknown and untamed spaces. Everyone has its own vision of the Arctic region, influenced by readings from childhood and the accounts of the great polar expeditions of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.3 The Arctic is also eminently visual. Sometimes more than words, photos play a key role in raising public awareness and demanding respect for “Mother Earth.” Another striking visual element of the Arctic is maps. To understand the region, one must look at the globe from a very different and unusual angle. Visual representations have a direct impact on self-perceptions of identity, place in the world, and security. But they are also capable of distorting reality and power relations.4 A great number of arguments and viewpoints must be taken into account in order to discuss the Arctic. As such, collecting information is sometimes challenging. Journalistic reports are plentiful, and they tend to overshadow any academic works, which are usually very rooted in their own disciplines with little cross-referencing. Interdisciplinary connections between the natural sciences, human sciences, and security studies are still largely underdeveloped. Moreover, most of the information is presented from a national point of view. American and Canadian publications are largely focused on their bilateral issues (Northwest Passage, Beaufort Sea, and Alaska), and Scandinavians and Russians focus likewise on their own such issues. The importance of the Arctic in the transatlantic partnership is as yet rarely discussed, and Russia is conspicuous by its general absence in Western discussions. All the Arctic states have published their own strategies in regard to the Arctic, with Norway and Canada being the first, and the United States the last, to do so, but civil society’s productions on Arctic related-subjects are almost exclusively Western. Non-Arctic states like China also want to promote their points of view, and many international organizations are part of the picture: the International Maritime Organization (IMO) and other UN entities, NATO, the European Union, the Arctic Council, and the Barents Euro-Arctic Council (BEAC). Everyone—states, institutions, individuals, firms, and civil society—wants to participate in the Arctic narrative, making it a truly globalized issue.5 Defining the Arctic: a geographical, political, and institutional landscape There is currently no universally accepted definition for the spatial scope of the Arctic. Climatologists, oceanologists, historians, and security experts all lay out their own criteria. Some definitions only take into account the Arctic Ocean, which is the smallest of all the oceans with only 3 percent of the world’s total ocean surface area and 1 percent of its volume. Although it is classified as an ocean because of its size