Environmental Security in the Arctic Ocean

Promoting Co-operation and Preventing Conflict

Paul Berkman, Paul Arthur Berkman

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2012
• eBook ISBN: 9781136217487
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Military & Maritime History
• Index: History

The North Pole is being transformed from a sea-ice cap to a seasonally ice-free sea within the next few decades. This fundamental shift in the boundary conditions of the Arctic Ocean will create a new natural system with different dynamics than anything previously experienced by humans in the region. With the diminishing ice cover, interests are awakening globally to take advantage of extensive energy, shipping, fishing and tourism prospects in the Arctic Ocean. A range of states, including the major Arctic powers, are increasingly asserting their sovereignty seawards. National security policies are being declared and nuclear-capable states are adjusting their strategic deployments in the Arctic Ocean.

There are forums for international cooperation in the Arctic, most notably the Arctic Council, but peace in the Arctic Ocean has yet to be explicitly established as a common interest because of the long-standing military presence. Risks of political, economic and cultural instabilities are inherent consequences.

This volume proposes environmental security as providing a holistic framework to assess these security risks and then identify the appropriate adaptation and mitigation responses. Only after shared risk assessment and understanding of the appropriate responses, will there be sufficient clarity about the governance paths to pursue within the international legal framework of the law of the sea.

1. INTRODUCTION

Within our lifetime, the Arctic Ocean will transform from a permanent sea-ice cap to a seasonally ice-free sea. Like a fertile area becoming a desert or a glacier becoming a mountain valley, this is an environmental state-change where the boundary conditions and dynamics of the system are fundamentally replaced.¹ Consider that the boundaries of the Arctic Ocean have been the sea-ice cap, the sea floor and surrounding continents, with inflow-outflow from the North Pacific and North Atlantic, together with solar forcing from the Sun. Removing the sea-ice cap fundamentally alters the dynamics of this Arctic Ocean system. Over timescales that are relevant to humans in the region, even in a historical context over centuries and millennia, the new Arctic Ocean is unprecedented.

Consequences of the environmental state-change in the Arctic Ocean are explored in this paper, with focus on the overlying geopolitical risks that will influence sustainable development across the maritime region at the top of the Earth. These risks are characterised in terms of political, economic and cultural instabilities that are herein defined as events or operations requiring governments to allocate resources in an unplanned manner, or at the expense of previously prioritised activities. These resources could be financial, diplomatic or intellectual, as well as tangible assets that are relevant to the security and welfare of the governments and the human populations that they represent.

The first objective of this paper is to introduce environmental security as a holistic framework to address the inherent risks of political, economic and cultural instabilities that are emerging as the Arctic Ocean is transformed into a new natural system. In the absence of a holistic approach, it is likely that a patchwork of institutions will emerge, leading to a fragmented approach to governance. Environmental security is defined herein as an integrated approach for assessing and responding to the risks, as well as the opportunities, generated by environmental state-change.

This definition of environmental security is without reference to the cause of the environmental state-change, which could be related to indirect impacts of the Earth’s climate or direct impacts from specific human activities, such as pollution or armed conflict.² Responses to environmental security involve regional, international and global considerations with co-ordinated responses.³

Future engagement will be required to assess and agree on the common risks (which are beyond the scope of this Whitehall Paper). Such risk assessment is the first step toward identifying the necessary adaptation and mitigation responses, which will enable human activities to mature with stability in the Arctic Ocean. With a shared understanding about the necessary infrastructure, it then becomes feasible to determine whether existing institutions are adequate within the international legal framework of the law of the sea. Consequently, it is argued that broad governance discussions are currently premature without a holistic vetting of the risks as well as a common understanding of the integrated responses for human development to be sustained in the Arctic Ocean.⁴

Rather than trying to conceive detailed recommendations, this paper is simply designed to establish a pathway for addressing security matters in the Arctic Ocean in an international, interdisciplinary and inclusive manner. This is intended for consideration by policy-makers who have the overriding responsibility to promote co-operation and prevent conflict in the Arctic Ocean, both in their own interests and for the common good.

Moving Beyond the Cold War: Peace as an Arctic Consideration

The challenges today are no different to those during the Cold War, as described by President Gorbachev in his seminal 1987 Murmansk speech:⁵

The potential of contemporary civilization could permit us to make the Arctic habitable for the benefit of the national economies and other human interests of the near-Arctic states, for Europe and the entire international community. To achieve this, security problems that have accumulated in the area should be resolved above all.

These security problems are broader than just military issues, illustrated by the ongoing strategic deployment of nuclear submarines with ballistic missiles.

After the end of the Cold War, the Arctic states and indigenous peoples collectively established sustainable development as a common interest. In this new era, cooperation has flourished, especially with the high-level forum of the Arctic Council. Tensions have been low, even with the strategic military activities which have been ongoing in the Arctic Ocean for the past half-century. Territorial disputes are being dealt with in an amicable fashion. Everything appears to be going along smoothly. The environmental state-change in the Arctic Ocean, however, is a game-changer and it is therefore imprudent to be complacent.

The Arctic Council’s progress illustrates the challenges in responding to the consequences of a new Arctic Ocean. With its establishment in 1996,⁶ the Arctic Council began ‘to provide a means for promoting cooperation … on common arctic issues,^* in particular issues of sustainable development and environmental protection’. The asterisk (which is included in the quote) is shorthand for ‘the Arctic Council should not deal with matters related to military security’, which means that strategies to prevent conflict have been avoided. Moreover, because it was equated with demilitarisation, ‘peace’ was specifically excluded from the 1996 Ottawa Declaration that established the Arctic Council. This Cold War posture continues, as demonstrated by the five Arctic coastal states in their 2008 Ilulissat Declaration, in which they discuss their ‘stewardship role’, but make no mention of peace or stability in the Arctic Ocean.

Though the Arctic Council (in collaboration with partner organisations, such as the International Arctic Science Committee) has produced many meaningful reports, the absence of the military dimensions of the Arctic have compromised its ability to consider holistic solutions. This dilemma is illustrated by the 2009 Arctic Marine Shipping Assessment (AMSA), which is the most comprehensive analysis of Arctic shipping ever produced. Even though coastguards have a necessary role in emergency responses for pollution prevention and clean-up as well as safety-of-life at sea, ‘in keeping with the scope of the Arctic Council, naval or military vessels were not included in the AMSA database’.

With the opening of trade routes across the Arctic Ocean from the North Atlantic to the North Pacific, trillion-dollar business opportunities will alter the global balance of power – as other new trade routes have before them. Dismissing the peaceful use of military assets in support of global trade and commercial activities in the Arctic Ocean, just because the region involves strategic deployments, is an unnecessary Cold War-era complication.

Environmental security is a strategy to unblock this loggerhead and enable appropriate military assets to be considered in building the capacity for sustainable development in the new Arctic Ocean. An indication of post-Cold War progress would be for the Arctic coastal states, including the United States and Russian Federation, to explicitly identify peace in the Arctic Ocean as another common Arctic issue.

The Environmental Security Framework

The second objective of this paper is to establish environmental security as a framework for shared dialogue to both promote cooperation and prevent conflict in the Arctic Ocean: two sides of the coin of peace. One outcome of these dialogues will be strategies that balance national and common interests in the Arctic Ocean, establishing precedents for human activities across and beyond sovereign jurisdictions elsewhere in the world.

This paper is organised into four chapters, followed by a concluding segment. Concepts and details in the chapters are embedded within three subsections to reduce the complexity of the diverse elements associated with environmental security in the Arctic Ocean. Figures and tables are used to further synthesise the information and highlight key arguments. In addition, primary resources are referenced, rather than media digests, to enhance the rigour of the analyses and to facilitate additional assessments by the reader.

Chapter 2 (The Arctic Ocean) introduces the spatial and temporal dimensions of an environmental security approach by describing the geography, characteristics and dynamics of this marine region that is surrounded by continents and centred over the North Pole. The Arctic and the Arctic Ocean have many definitions.⁷ For the purposes of this paper, as well as for management strategies based on a geographic setting that can be consistently compared over time, the Arctic Ocean is defined herein as the marine region north of the Arctic Circle (66.58 north latitude). The human dimensions of the Arctic Ocean are presented here largely in the context of the indigenous peoples who have inhabited this region for millennia.

The long-standing boundary conditions of the Arctic Ocean as a natural system, with the sea floor and persistent sea-ice cap surrounded by continents, are also discussed. Satellite and submarine datasets from above and below the sea ice, respectively, demonstrate the decreasing horizontal and vertical dimensions of the sea-ice cap over the past few decades. Results from independent models further indicate that the Arctic Ocean will be seasonally ice-free with open water across the North Pole – an environmental state-change that is replacing the surface boundary condition and fundamentally transforming the Arctic Ocean into a new natural system – by the middle of this century.

Chapter 3 (Beyond National Boundaries) expands on the Arctic Ocean environmental state-change in the context of Earth system processes and international frameworks operating beyond the scope of individual nations. Societal perspectives on climate are illustrated by the First International Polar Year in 1882–83, when European nations began to recognise that their agriculture and economies are directly impacted by global changes taking place across decades and centuries. The internal dynamics of the Arctic marine ecosystem further illustrate the fluid nature of the ocean and atmosphere, independent of sovereign jurisdictions.

The interconnectedness of our natural world extends to our civilisation, recognising that we inexorably became a global society during the twentieth century, as illustrated by two world wars and the steep growth of international legal frameworks in the aftermath. The chapter also explores the diverse engagement of both Arctic and non-Arctic states in the high north, to underscore the reality of broad international interest, capacity and responsibilities for decision-making with regard to Arctic Ocean affairs. Such international engagement is further justified by the emergence during the second half of the twentieth century of legal frameworks for international spaces that exist beyond sovereign jurisdictions.

In view of its transboundary and international dimensions, Chapter 4 (Matters of Security) broadly investigates the consequences of the Arctic Ocean environmental state-change in terms of geopolitical risks in the region. Political stability in and around the Arctic Ocean is considered since the end of the Cold War, largely following the 1987 Murmansk speech by President Gorbachev, who was extending lessons from the Antarctic to the Arctic. With the International Arctic Science Committee as an analogue to the Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research, scientific exploration has become both a diplomatic tool that promotes international co-operation and a research tool that contributes to basic assessments in the Arctic Ocean. Moreover, building on President Gorbachev’s suggestion for an ‘Arctic Research Council’, the Arctic Council has established a meaningful presence as the high-level forum to address the common Arctic issues of sustainable development and environmental protection.

Differences between the Arctic and Antarctic, however, demonstrate that governance strategies are not portable, as shown by the 2008 Ilulissat Declaration⁸ of the five Arctic coastal states who ‘see no need to develop a new comprehensive international legal regime to govern the Arctic Ocean’. Among the most significant differences is the long-standing military presence in the Arctic Ocean, as demonstrated by the tests of submarine-launched ballistic missiles since 1961. Such activities have complicated the realisation of President Gorbachev’s vision to ‘let the North Pole be a pole of peace’.

Well before the environmental state-change in the Arctic Ocean was recognised, President Gorbachev suggested ‘[opening] the Northern Sea Route to foreign ships’. Clearly, significant economic opportunities are now on the horizon in the Arctic Ocean: from the exploitation of mineral and living resources to global trade and commerce. To plan effectively for the future in the Arctic Ocean, lessons must be learnt from far and wide. For example, mineral resource estimates on the Antarctic continental shelf in the wake of the 1973–74 oil embargo closely parallel the quantities of oil and gas that are estimated on the Arctic continental shelf today. Similarly, the opening of trade routes across the Arctic Ocean is analogous to the early twentieth century, when paved roads were being considered to accommodate the onslaught of motor vehicles that would be travelling across continents. Assessing the integrated risks of political, economic and cultural instabilities will lead to an understanding of the appropriate logistic and legal infrastructures needed to establish sustained stable development in the Arctic Ocean for the security of all stakeholders.

Chapter 5 (Arctic Ocean Stewardship) recognises that implementation of the appropriate infrastructure in the Arctic Ocean will involve the interplay of diverse institutions. Some of the institutions, including government agencies of the Arctic coastal states, will have more central roles than others. All of these institutions fall across a gradient of jurisdictions – from states to international spaces – within the international legal framework of the law of the sea, to which all of the Arctic coastal states ‘remain committed’, as they noted in the 2008 Ilulissat Declaration. From the perspectives of the sea floor and the overlying water column, the Arctic Ocean illustrates the challenge of balancing national interests and common interests.

The concluding chapter (Global Statesmanship) is as much a synthesis of the paper as a call for the requisite leadership to achieve peace and stability in the Arctic Ocean. Environmental security is a valuable commodity – ‘Environment must also be an approach to development. Environment is a social justice issue and environment even is a peace and security issue’⁹ – and hence is the focus of the paper. There is no room for complacency just because tensions have been low. The environmental state-change offers an opportunity to address the emergent political, economic and...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• About the Author
• Acknowledgements
• Acronyms and Abbreviations
• Foreword
• 1. Introduction
• 2. The Arctic Ocean
• 3. Beyond National Boundaries
• 4. Matters of Security
• 5. Arctic Ocean Stewardship
• 6. Global Statesmanship