Arctic region | Op-ed | Security Lense | 17-Aug-2024
Arctic is polar region located at the northernmost part of earth and this region is covered by ice caps, forests with adjacent arctic ocean and seas average temperature – 40 C° to 5 C°. However this region is affected by climate change because of riding temperature, melting ice caps rise’s concerns about climate security.
The rapidly melting Arctic is not only creating new opportunities for the shipping industry and access to natural resources but also increasing the focus of the world’s leading countries on the struggle for influence. In the past, the Arctic region was characterized by the thick immovable ice that hindered the access to the strategic resources and routes. This is however a fast-changing feature especially as recent data suggest that more ice is melting at a very fast pace.
New passages such as the Northern Sea Route (NSR) passing through the Russian Arctic coast and the Northwest Passage passing through Canadian Arctic Archipelago are getting ice-infested. The potential of these routes is to reduce the time for delivering goods between Europe and Asia, but at the same time, they contribute to the raising of the stakes of the Arctic territory which leads to growing arguments on the topic.
The melting ice of Arctic has discovered great unexplored resources such as oil, gas, and minerals. This has led to what could be referred to as a ‘resource race’ among the Arctic states in a bid to seize these resources. Russia has been especially active, opening new military facilities and exploring for resources on the spots. Other countries such as the United States, Canada, and Norway are also developing capabilities for the region in order to protect their stakes.
Geopolitical Unrest in Arctic region
This has cast the competitions and strategic games among the Arctic and non-Arctic states at a higher pitch. The importance of the Arctic region has resulted in the militarization of the area that could be compared only to the Cold War period. Russia in particular has been improving its military infrastructure in the region and has reopened some of the old Soviet times bases and has opened new ones.
This military expansion encompasses the use of modern technology and has boosted the maritime forces. In response, the U. S and its NATO allies are investing in the Arctic, training through military exercises, and building up their presence to deter Russia’s aggression. This return to military confrontation means that there is a new Cold War-like process of rivalry taking place in the Arctic, the basis of which is not an ideological, but rather strategic and resource.
The Arctic’s governance is quite complicated as established on the basis of several international treaties and legal acts. UNCLOS, is an international treaty that offers legal solutions to solving territorial disputes; however, in recent years, the overlapping claims, and conflicting interpretations have escalated diplomatic disputes.
For instance, Russia wanted to file an application to increase the area of the continental shelf in the Arctic which has created conflict by Canada and Denmark and negotiations have been prolonged and negative diplomatic relations between these countries have been created. The relations between countries will be complex and crucial in handling these issues and avoid wars. Speaking of the influence of these changes, one cannot help mentioning the consequences of the Arctic Ocean’s ice melting.
The area’s melting ice in part influences the ever-rising global sea levels and climate instability around the world. On the same note, high chances of enhanced industrial production are a major threat to the melt of the Arctic region’s environment. The people who are most affected by change, including the indigenous peoples, whose survival depended on the Arctic ecosystem, would also be the first to suffer.
In such a context, Indigenous people, who are mostly marginalized and whose rights are ignored by these competing states, but whose territories are vital for these countries’ development, should also be protected against people-natural resources conflicts. Climate change is the root cause of the changing dynamics of the Arctic politics. Climate change is not only visible in the changing face of the Arctic, but it is also changing the international political and economically landscape.
Currently, countries are shifting their approaches in handling relationships and the exploitation of resources of the Arctic region as a result of the effects of climate change. Thus, the interaction of climate change and geo-political factors is pivotal to the trends in this area. Ice is also on the process of melting, thus the regions that were once difficult to access are now opening, and this is enlarging the competition between the countries in terms of natural resources, military, and economy.
Modern tendencies in the Arctic region provoke the discussion about new Cold War that is not a conflict of ideologies but a struggle for resources and power. The growth of military forces, the territorial disputes and the stakes for economic aims are very similar to the Cold War conditions.
The difficulty is that all of these are interrelated and the issue is to balance them using collaboration instead of confrontation. Thus, the Arctic is set to emerge as the new frontier of global geopolitical competition; however, it is essential to turn the region into the opposite of its potential – the area for peaceful and sustainable cooperation between the countries of the world. Overall, it can be stated that the Arctic as a continent transformed from an ice-covered area to the hotspot of the new cold war owing to climate change and resource competition.
In this conflict of interest, nations are forced to manage relations with other states and organizations as they address the consequences of climate change as a complicated combination of striving for the self-interested and diplomatic course, and the search for the ways to protect the fragile Arctic environment in order to provide a sustainable future for the region.
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