Barack Obama, the 44th President of the United States
© RIA Novosti.  Sergey Guneev

The US Arctic Front: The environment, icebreakers and Russia

A conference on the Arctic was held in Anchorage, Alaska, in late August. Despite the conference participants' discussion of the environment and climate change, the Western media focused on President Obama's call to build more icebreakers. The conference was held during the first year of the US presidency of the Arctic Council (AC), which means that the topics covered are likely to determine the US policy in the Far North until at least 2017.

The fact that research and the environment were presented as the main area of focus is encouraging, especially considering that the United States is the second largest contributor, after China, of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. However, a political subtext can be detected here as well. In July, environmentalists excoriated the Obama administration for its rash decision to allow Royal Dutch Shell to drill off the Arctic shelf, so it's possible that one of the conference's goals was to highlight the US government's reverent approach to environmental issues. Later, Hillary Clinton joined the protests. As the most likely Democratic presidential candidate, she will certainly benefit from distancing herself from an unpopular Obama and his bad decisions.

America's big Arctic problems

According to experts, despite the severe consequences that Shell drilling may have, with the risk of an oil spill amounting to 77 percent in the long run, this is not the biggest problem facing the US administration. The US falling behind on the Arctic front in general is a much worse blunder. At a time when other AC member countries seek to delimit their respective Arctic shelf areas in accordance with the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, the United States hasn't even ratified this document. The Senate ruled that it could pose a threat to national sovereignty. Meanwhile, the UN Convention entitles states to extend their borders in the Arctic to 200 nautical miles (over 370.4 km), if they can provide scientific evidence that a particular shelf is an extension of their respective territories.

Clearly-defined borders at sea and on land help avoid drawn-out conflicts. In the case of the Arctic shelf, it is also an issue of resources. Should the claims of a particular state be deemed justified, the underwater areas will become part of its property, together with the minerals. Canada, Denmark, Norway and Russia are the most active participants in the debate on delimiting the Arctic borders. The fact that the Americans aren't ready to think of their country as an Arctic nation and, therefore, to spend money on developing the Far North, may explain why the United States has so far remained on the sidelines. According to Fran Ulmer, chair of the US Arctic Research Commission, the other American states don't feel connected with Alaska, because it's so far north. The Americans don't think of the United States as an Arctic nation, so receiving public support to fund Arctic development is a tall order.

A small fleet of icebreakers — just two — is another reason the US is falling behind in Arctic exploration. According to Politico, Russia has "40 active ships, six more under construction and two more planned beyond that." According to Newsweek, Russia operates 41 icebreakers and plans to build 11 more. Although the numbers vary slightly, the difference is obvious and was dubbed an "icebreaker gap" in the Western media. Apparently, Obama decided to address the issue by instructing the people in charge to complete the construction of a new, third, American icebreaker by 2020, not 2022 as previously planned.

Arctic geopolitics

US analysts estimate a clear Russian advantage and the growing interest in the Far North on behalf of the Arctic and non-Arctic nations (including China) as a new kind of geopolitical cold war, which the US is in danger of losing. As global warming is opening up new trade routes and making new mineral deposits accessible, "the Arctic nations hope that the current peace will keep, but are arming up<…>with Russia making the most aggressive moves," writes Newsweek. Military maneuvers in March and, of course, planting a titanium flag in the Arctic Ocean in August 2007 are cited as examples of such moves.

On the other hand, the US Navy agrees that global warming creates new security challenges and makes rescue operations more complicated. According to Rear Admiral Daniel Abel, the Coast Guard commander in one of the sectors, so much ice has disappeared since the 1970s that he now has to deal with an area of new open water equivalent to almost half of the US territory.

If you follow this line of thinking, Russia, which has much vaster territories in the Far North than the United States, has an objective need to increase its military presence in the Arctic. As Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said on August 31, ship-based fighter and anti-aircraft regiments will have been added to Russia's Arctic military forces by late 2015 based on the need to develop the Northern Sea Route and to protect national interests in that region.

The fact that not all can be explained by imperial designs or geopolitical interests is recognized in the West as well. Betsy Baker from Vermont Law School, an expert on Arctic Ocean governance, says that global geopolitics does not apply to the Arctic, as the media try to present. According to Baker, the situation in Ukraine and other such conflicts do not affect international cooperation in the Arctic and are not relevant to shelf claims. She says that the Arctic is certainly not in a vacuum, but rather, after the Cold War this region has become a center of scientific cooperation and remains so today.

Perhaps scientific cooperation will prevent the Far North from becoming the Wild West in the wake of potential disputes over borders and resources, and environmental issues will override matters of prestige. It is even possible that the Western media will stop considering the United States' lag in the Arctic as the machinations of an aggressively-minded Russia. As always, time will tell, but it's already clear that the Arctic in the short term will continue to be the focus of attention of experts, politicians and the military.

Yelena Doroshenko