International Politics in the Arctic

Contested Borders, Natural Resources and Russian Foreign Policy

Geir Hønneland

• Publisher: I.B. Tauris
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN: 9781784538989
• eBook ISBN: 9781786722836
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: International Business
• Index: Politics & International Relations

As the ice around the Arctic landmass recedes, the territory is becoming a flashpoint in world affairs. New trade routes, cutting thousands of miles off journeys, are available, and the Arctic is thought to be home to enormous gas and oil reserves. The territorial lines are new and hazy. This book looks at how Russia deals with the outside world vis a vis the Arctic. Given Russia's recent bold foreign policy interventions, these are crucial issues and the realpolitik practiced by the Russian state is essential for understanding the Arctic's future.Here, Geir Honneland brings together decades of cutting-edge research - investigating the political contexts and international tensions surrounding Russia's actions. Honneland looks specifically at 'region-building' and environmental politics of fishing and climate change, on nuclear safety and nature preservation, and also analyses the diplomatic relations surrounding clashes with Norway and Canada, as well as at the governance of the Barents Sea. The Politics of the Arctic is a crucial addition to our understanding of contemporary International Relations concerning the Polar North.

PART I

BACKGROUND

INTRODUCTION

In August 2009, Russia planted a titanium flag on the seabed at the North Pole. It was accomplished by a Russian scientific expedition collecting data for Russia's submission to the Continental Shelf Commission – in accordance with the Law of the Sea – but was widely perceived as Russia flexing its muscles in the Arctic. At the same time, the summer ice sheet in the Arctic had shrunk to ominous proportions amid growing interest in the possibility for commercial oil and gas production in the Arctic. Scott G. Borgerson¹ famously captured the atmosphere in his seminal article ‘Arctic Meltdown’: ‘The Arctic Ocean is melting, and it is melting fast. […] It is no longer a matter of if, but when, the Arctic Ocean will open to regular marine transportation and exploration of its lucrative natural-resource deposits.’² But the situation is especially dangerous, he adds, ‘because there are currently no overarching political or legal structures that can provide for the orderly development of the region or mediate political disagreements over Arctic resources or sea-lanes.’³ ‘[T]he Arctic countries are [therefore] likely to unilaterally grab as much territory as possible and exert sovereign control over opening sea-lanes wherever they can. In this legal no man's land, Arctic states are pursuing their narrowly defined national interests by laying down sonar nets and arming icebreakers to guard their claims.’⁴

Russia's flag-planting and Borgerson's article unleashed a surge of media attention and political interest at the highest levels in the Arctic. To many it looked as if Russia had laid claim on the North Pole itself, a claim one assumed other states would contest. The scramble for the Arctic was allegedly underway, with Russia as the wild card. Relations among the other Arctic states – those bordering the polar waters, i.e. Canada, Denmark, (Greenland), Norway and the US – are excellent and sustained strategically moreover by their common membership in NATO. Russia, on the other hand, is the successor state of the erstwhile Soviet Union, NATO's declared enemy during the Cold War. What happens in the country is often shrouded in mystery – Russia, in Winston Churchill's characterization of it, is ‘a riddle, wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma’⁵ – and one aspect of its multi-hued national identity is also as a state with a stake in the North: who doesn't think of snow, long winters and endless Siberian forests in connection with Russia? Some expect Russia to do as it pleases in the Arctic, whatever international law and other norms of civilized political behaviour dictate. Much of the ‘Arctic fuss’, then, is about what Russia wants.

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Over the past decade or so, I have published a handful of monographs and a number of journal articles about Russia's relations with the outside world, especially in the Arctic. That work was based on extensive field studies in Russia, hundreds of in-depth interviews and comprehensive media surveys. In addition to general Russian and Arctic politics, I have covered in my work fields such as ocean governance, nature protection, air pollution control, nuclear safety, resource management, health policies – all seen from an international relations (IR) perspective – as well as cross-border cooperation and Russian identity more widely. Likewise, my research questions have been addressed from various theoretical angles, ranging from traditional institutionalist/liberalist perspectives such as regime, implementation and bargaining theory to constructivist approaches like discourse analysis, narrative theory and identity studies. The underlying question has always been how Russia responds to what goes on ‘out there’ – beyond its borders, in the Arctic outside.

The present book brings together some of my main contributions to the study of how Russia tackles its relations with the outside world in the Arctic. While earlier versions have been published in academic journals or books, they have been carefully selected from a larger pool, with a view to forming a coherent whole of some sort. Likewise, I have revised each piece in order to avoid too much repetition and to build up a logical argument, again: of some sort, throughout the book. They were written and published at different points in time over the past decade and a half and have not been factually updated. However, they demonstrate how politics has evolved over time, and how the available data at any particular time could be interpreted with varying degrees of confidence. In essence, they show that my interpretations from around the turn of the millennium – at the time considered as anomalies in the still prevailing post-Cold War euphoria – gradually gained recognition before becoming mainstream thinking following the Russian annexation of Crimea in 2014.

The reader might become aware of a theoretical discord in my jumping back and forth between constructivist and not-so-constructivist approaches to the study of IR, but that was a conscious choice. Russian identity – mediated through discourse or narrative – takes pride of place. The argument that Russian perceptions of Western collaborative initiatives are characterized by suspicion and often outright paranoia, comes through loud and clear throughout the book – from my early tentative reflections on potential ‘cultural conflicts’ in Chapter 1 (originally published in 1998) to my increasingly well-documented observations of the same in Chapters 2–3 (published in 2003 and 2004), Chapters 6–7 (published in 2004 and 2005), Chapters 8–9 (published in 2010) and Chapters 12–13 (published in 2016).

However, this representation of reality is supplemented, academically and empirically, by another. Above all, the book aims to show the Janus face of Russian foreign policy, in relation to the Arctic as elsewhere. As demonstrated in Chapters 4–5 (originally published in 2003 and 2005) and, especially, Chapters 10–11 (published in 2012), Russia is a nation that works actively to build confidence and find compromises with its Western neighbours; more often than not, Russia also complies with its international obligations. Russia is an actor that can be counted on in most of its dealings with the outside world, an actor which thrives in an atmosphere of pragmatic give and take. The West is the significant Other in Russian foreign policy and, as many would argue, in the Russian world view in general. But that aspect of Russian identity is also many-faceted and dynamic – the West is admired and despised at the same time. This is reflected in Russia's relations with the outside world in the Arctic, which is again reflected in my own work. All too often, social scientists studying Russia find themselves entirely in one camp: liberalists interpret Russian foreign policy as ‘rational’ within specific institutional arrangements and disregard ‘the Russianness of Russia’. Constructivists, for their part – and many area specialists with a deep knowledge of the Russian language and history – tend to focus solely on the idiosyncrasies of Russia and fail to convey what makes Russia ‘a normal country’, after all.

What makes me tick is not so much a desire for theoretical refinement – although I do reflect over the relationship between theoretical approaches towards the end of the book. Nor is it the big questions in life, or in Russia – where the country is heading, and all that. What makes me tick is working on the ground, building our knowledge base stone by stone, and above all: the sudden realization of a pattern out there that I didn't know about. The book is ample with such realizations, and I hope you as a reader will find one of interest here and there. The book is more a collection of ‘short stories’ than a ‘novel’, which can be read separately and in any order. Dare I say: enjoy?

Earlier versions of the chapters have appeared as articles in Cooperation & Conflict; Global Environmental Politics; Human Organization; Journal of Communist Studies & Transition Politics; Journal of Environmental Policy & Planning; Journal of International Wildlife Law & Politics and Ocean Development & International Law. A few chapters were adapted from my monographs Borderland Russians: Identity, Narrative and International Relations (2010), Making Fishery Agreements Work: Post-Agreement Bargaining in the Barents Sea (2012) and Russia and the Arctic: Environment, Identity and Foreign Policy (I.B.Tauris, 2016). Many thanks to the publishers for allowing me to re-use this material.

My colleagues and friends at the Fridtjof Nansen Institute (FNI) have been the alphas and omegas of my research career – the cooperative atmosphere at the institute is indeed exceptional. Many deserve to be mentioned here, but I would like to highlight my three co-authors of chapters in this book: Anne-Kristin Jørgensen (Chapter 4), Jørgen Holten Jørgensen (Chapter 5) and Lars Rowe (Chapters 6 and 7). Thanks for letting me use our joint work in a book published under my name only – and for your friendship. The contributions in the book have benefited from my eagle-eyed language consultants Susan Høivik and Chris Saunders, and my colleague Ida Folkestad Soltvedt tied it all together with a steady hand. I also want to extend my thanks to my commissioning editor at I.B.Tauris, Tomasz Hoskins – his encouragement and continued interest in Arctic affairs are inspiring. Thanks also to production editor Arub Ahmed for her thorough, but swift turnaround of the manuscript. Last, but not least, there's my family: Kristin, Lavrans, Alva, Leah and Kasper – I know it's a cliché, but thank you all for bearing over with my absentmindedness, not least when my academic inspiration is at its highest.

References to academic literature and interviews are in the main text, while references to media reports and public documents are in the endnotes. In my transliteration of Russian characters, I generally keep to -y rather than -i for the Russian ‘short-i’ (except following a vowel at the end of a name, such as Nikolai) and the letters -yo, -yu and -ya, and -e instead of -ye for the Russian -e (which is actually pronounced -ye). Hence, Vzglyad rather than Vzgliad and russkie instead of russkiye. I have also omitted the ‘short-i’ at the end of a word when it follows a ‘y’ or a regular ‘i’. I make exceptions, however, for personal names whose English spelling is more or less standardized; hence, I write Yeltsin instead of Eltsin. For the sake of readability, not least for those without a command of the Russian language, I do not use the Russian soft sign in transcription from Russian to English.

CHAPTER 1

IDENTITY FORMATION IN THE BARENTS EURO-ARCTIC REGION¹

Introduction: The Creation of the Barents Region

The cessation of the Cold War led to a rethink of the security concept pertaining to the European North. A window of opportunity was presented by the transnational integration in Europe that had been underway since the early 1990s. This move towards greater politico-economic cooperation among regional and local actors from different European nation states – or the building of the so-called Euregional Networks² – was adopted by security policy makers in the Nordic countries as a tool for re-structuring the security policy of their own states.

In the course of 1991–2, the idea of a Baltic Sea regional cooperation area was elaborated by a loosely coupled epistemic community of social scientists, civil servants and politicians from the various Baltic Sea countries. Norway, for its part, was referred to a quite peripheral position within this collaborative framework, and partly for fear of losing its say in the making of a northern European security policy, officials at the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs soon began exploratory talks with the research institutes of international relations in Oslo on the creation of a Northern region. Similar thoughts were being elaborated in Finland, but the Norwegians were the first to produce a substantive proposition. After consulting with Norway's allies and the Russian Foreign Minister Andrey Kozyrev, Norwegian Foreign Minister Thorvald Stoltenberg presented his idea for a Barents Region in April 1992. In January 1993, the Kirkenes Declaration formally established the Barents Euro-Arctic Region.

This joint venture was originally intended to include the three northernmost counties of Norway, Norrbotten in Sweden and Lapland in Finland, as well as Murmansk and Arkhangelsk Oblasts on the Russian side. At the initiative of Finland and Russia, the plans were amended to encompass the Republic of Karelia in Russia as well. (Later, several new regions have been added in Sweden, Finland and Russia.) The regime has a two-tier decision making structure. At the national level, the Barents Council, consisting of the foreign ministers from the four core states as well as Denmark, Iceland and the European Commission (and a number of states with observer status), assembles at least once a year to make strategic decisions.³ The leaders of the regional entities meet on a more frequent basis in the Regional Council to discuss pressing problems. National secretariats in each state coordinate the activities of the two levels and the four states.

The overall objective of the cooperation is to contribute to stability and prosperity in the area. More specifically, its formal goals are embodied in the concepts of normalization, stabilization and regionalization. It also aims at reducing military tension, the environmental threat and the East/West gap in standards of living in the region. Furthermore, the project ties in with the wider regionalization process underway in Europe and the Arctic, turning previously peripheral border areas into points of contact between states in a transnational network involving many-sided interaction. Functional areas of special focus are environmental problems, regional infrastructure, economic cooperation, science and technology, culture, tourism, health care, and the indigenous peoples of region (the Sámi and Nentsy).

In order to realize its goals, it is a declared aim to create both a functional and an identity region.⁴ From a theoretical perspective, geographers usually distinguish between two main types of region, functional and homogeneous.⁵ Among the latter, one may single out three different types. Natural regions are characterized by shared features related to topography, climate or other natural conditions. The term is largely applicable to the northern periphery of Europe. An identity region is an area where the population has a specific awareness of us inside the region, as opposed to them on the outside. Common language and cultural history usually characterize such regions. The Catalan and Celtic areas – or the Scandinavian peninsula, for that matter – are examples of cross-national identity regions in today's Europe. Homogeneous economic regions are areas with a common basis for economic and industrial activity. As for the northern periphery, the forests of Sweden, Finland, and Russia can serve as examples. Functional regions, on the other hand, are not characterized by internal similarities; rather, they seek to enhance interaction and integration across the borders of the different homogeneous regions. Each of the different parts are meant to supplement each other and establish a functional entity. While homogeneous regions are held together by similarities, what constitutes functional regions is the very absence of such similarities.

The Region-building Approach

The concept of region building has evolved in the international relations literature as an alternative to prevailing conceptions of regions as either inside-out or outside-in developed phenomena.⁶ These approaches to defining regions differ with respect to the weight they assign to internal and external factors. Whereas the former idea explains the existence of a region mainly in terms of linguistic, cultural and social similarities within a specific geographical area, thus underlining the internal ‘centripetal forces’ of the area, the latter primarily views transnational regions as given outcomes of the preferences of hegemonic states. The inside-out and outside-in approaches merge, however, in their focus on regions as given entities (with some kind of common identity or enclosed in wider international power structures, respectively). They seek to explain the existence of regions a priori, leaving little space for individual or collective actors in defining them.

Criticizing these traditional orientations for lack of self-reflection, region-building theorists give political actors an opportunity to decide for themselves what should be inside and what outside of a region. Drawing on nation-building literature, they believe politicians, bureaucrats, rese...

Table of contents

• Front Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of Illustrations
• Part I: Background
• Part II: Environmental Discourse in the European Arctic
• Part III: Implementing International Environmental Agreements in the Russian North
• Part IV: Combating Communicable Diseases in Northwest Russia
• Part V: Russians in the Borderlands
• Part VI: Post-Agreement Bargaining in the Barents Sea
• Part VII: Arctic Talk, Russian Politics
• Notes
• Bibliography