U.S. Moves on Arctic Protection

The White House has just responded to Russia and China’s threatening Arctic moves.

Over the past several years, Russia has moved unprecedented amounts of armed forces into the Arctic region. It has near total military supremacy on the top of the planet, and it is continuing to add to its domination. Russian sources quoted the Kremlin’s Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu boasting that Russia’s Northern Fleet has added the Ilya Muromets icebreaker, the Elbrus supply ship, the Admiral Gorshkov frigate and the Ivan Gren landing ship, and the Pashin fuel tanker, all of which add to Moscow’s growing supremacy of the Arctic.

In 2018, Moscow’s North Fleet received five combat ships, five supply ships, 15 aircraft and 62 radar stations and missile-radar complexes. RT added that “Russia has continued construction of military bases in Arctic regions and conducted exercises in extreme conditions to boost the combat readiness of military personnel.”

Moscow is not alone in its Arctic moves. Former U.S. State Department official Daria Novak recently noted that China, if unchecked, could move from a strategy of war by other means to one of limited open conflict over the abundant natural resources in the Arctic and the military and economic benefits gained by controlling the new Transpolar Passage.

In response, the White House, on June 9, issued a “Memorandum on Safeguarding U.S. National Interests in the Arctic and Antarctic Regions.” The purpose of the move is “ To help protect our national interests in the Arctic and Antarctic regions, and to retain a strong Arctic security presence alongside our allies and partners, the United States requires a ready, capable, and available fleet of polar security icebreakers that is operationally tested and fully deployable by Fiscal Year 2029.”

Specifically, the U.S., according to the document, will develop a polar security icebreaking fleet acquisition program to defend U.S. and allied interests in both the Arctic and Antarctic regions. The fleet may not look like the traditional strong-hulled vessels currently employed, and it will not include just ships. According to the Memorandum, it will include “unmanned aviation, surface, and undersea systems; space systems; sensors and other systems to achieve and maintain maritime domain awareness; command and control systems; secure communications and data transfer systems; and intelligence-collection systems. This assessment shall also evaluate defensive armament adequate to defend against threats by near-peer competitors and the potential for nuclear-powered propulsion.” Russia has used armed, nuclear powered vessels to gain dominance of the region.

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America’s primary means to have a presence in the Arctic is the aging Coast Guard vessel Polar Star. In an effort to replace it, Washington will examine an array of options, including possibly buying or leasing icebreakers from allied nations with proven experience in this special brand of shipbuilding.

Arctic affairs are becoming increasingly vital. With reduced ice cover now occurring during the warmer seasons, it provides an important shipping route. In addition, its strategic location makes it a potential source of military conflict. Russia has forty icebreakers, and is arming them with advanced and powerful weaponry. By comparison, the U.S. has only the Polar Star, and the Polar Sea, and a smaller vessel, the Healy.

Looming over all the other considerations is the Arctic’s vast mineral wealth. As one Russian source explains, “The Arctic contains a wealth of petroleum and mineral resources. Currently, the region produces about one tenth of the world’s oil and a quarter of its natural gas.”

Beyond energy, both mineral and seafood resources are heavily abundant, making the region a relatively untapped source of vast wealth. Considering the aggressive moves by both Moscow and Beijing, the U.S. and its allies are being forced to move quickly to prevent being shut out of gaining a fair share.

Photo: US Coast Guard

Quick Analysis

Putin’s Saber Rattling

Earlier this week, President Biden reversed his 2022 decision, authorizing the provision of antipersonnel land mines to the Ukrainian government. It follows an earlier Administration authorization to allow the use of an advanced American missile system capable of striking as deep as 100 miles inside Russian territory. The US election season may be ending, but both Russia and the West show no indication of stepping down the conflict. Russian propaganda continues to swell as the Kremlin increases its threats to use nuclear weapons against the West. Last week Andrey Sushentsov, program director of the pro-Kremlin think tank Valdai Discussion Club (VDC), published an article on growing nuclear tensions in the region. Official Russian language in the last few years has been threatening. Since the US election, rhetoric like that in the Sushentsov article, has approached the level of nuclear blackmail. The VDC article’s main theme centers on Russia’s intent to directly confront the West militarily if the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) becomes involved in Russia’s conflict with Ukraine. “On the one hand, these threats are intended to frighten the West, but on the other, Russian propagandists themselves are starting to believe in the inevitability of escalation,” according to Ksenia Kirillova of the Jamestown Foundation. On November 11, Sushentsov wrote that “The conflict will reach a completely new level, with unpredictable consequences for Europe and the entire world.” Kirillova points out that Putin’s distorted image of the world is divorced from reality and is causing the Kremlin to issue demands that are impossible to fulfill. Financial and other Russian resources needed to support Putin’s war are growing scarcer at the same time. This week the Kremlin announced a reduction of payments to its soldiers. Recently North Korea acknowledged it was sending soldiers to fight in Ukraine as Putin is running out of bodies to use as cannon fire. The war is not going well for Russia. One question floating around the Washington intelligence community is whether Putin will act out of desperation before President-elect Trump assumes office. In recent months the Russian propaganda machine is spewing out materials from fairly reputable analytical platforms inside the country. Kirillova says that “Kremlin ‘experts’ do not conceal that such threats are only intended to break the West psychologically, as they themselves are not prepared for full-scale nuclear war.” Despite Russia’s lack of preparation for an all-out war with the West, the expanding nuclear rhetoric carries with it an increase in the threat of a full-scale war in multiple theaters of operation. In June 2023 a founder of the Russian Council on Foreign and Defense Policy, Sergey Karaganov, called for “delivering a pre-emptive strike of retaliation” on Poland to force the West to surrender. In the previous month, Dmitry Suslov, a direct of research programs at the policy center proposed organizing “a demonstration nuclear explosion” aimed at intimidating the West. In September, President Putin announced a reappraisal of Russian nuclear doctrine after speaking earlier in the year at the plenary session of the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum and jokingly calling Suslov a “scary person.” Pavel Baev, writing in the European Daily Monitor, says “Putin intends his announcement to mark an escalation of nuclear brinkmanship and influence the proceedings of future Ukrainian peace efforts.” Putin is expanding the list of environmental conditions that are acceptable for using a nuclear weapon and incorporating it into Russian military doctrine. Baev adds that “The ups and downs of Russian brinkmanship are disconnected from the kinetic battles of the war, correlating instead with Ukrainian peace offensives, such as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s first peace summit in Bürgenstock, Switzerland.” Despite the increase in vitriolic language, in a You Tube video published a week before the US presidential election, Karaganov openly assured the West the primary goal of the escalation is to break the American spirit and that of the West, not outright nuclear war. By Election Day in the US, with political prognosticators predicting a win for former president Trump, Karaganov changed his tune and called for an increased role in nuclear deterrence. Kirillova points out that Western concessions to Russia are unlikely to reduce the risk of nuclear escalation. The distorted reality inside the Kremlin continues to push that President-elect Trump is an adherent of “world government,” that Ukraine will create a nuclear weapon, and Russia must prepare for a nuclear conflagration to achieve its ambitions for a new world order. President-elect Trump has indicated he will not agree to concessions that destabilize Europe, the Middle East or other regions. Going forward a strong US foreign policy may be the most stabilizing course the West can count on to restrain Putin and his intent to rebuild the Russian empire. Daria Novak served in the U.S. State Dept. Illustration: Pixabay

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