FYI.

This story is over 5 years old.

Tech

So Who's Going to Start the Oil War in the Arctic?

So who's it going to be? Who's going to kick off the armed conflict over those precious oil and gas reserves in the Arctic? Russia? Nah, they're a bunch of crotchety has-beens. Norway? Denmark? Nope—too Scandinavian, too neutral, too peaceful...

Who’s it going to be? Who’s going to kick off the armed conflict over all those precious oil and gas reserves in the Arctic?

Russia? Nah, Putin’s steely villainy is just a show. Norway? Denmark? Nope—too Scandinavian, too neutral, too peaceful. Canada? Please. So how about the ol U.S. of A.? We do like to toss our military might around, and our trigger finger’s probably getting pretty itchy, what with the drawdowns in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Advertisement

Chances are, it’s not going to be anybody; there will likely be no warfare in the Arctic anytime soon, despite Russia’s insistence on pissing everyone off by lowering its flag onto the ocean floor there, “proving” it has a claim to the land. And that’s valuable land. Some 13% of the world’s proven oil reserves remain stored away up there, and a full 30% of the gas. As climate change melts away the sea ice and opens up access, corporations and governments are increasingly bullish in their efforts to secure the rights to that land. And so far, there’s no unified framework in place to sort out who gets to drill where—the U.N. wants northern countries to agree on one by 2013.

But still; militaries are mobilizing. A report surfaced last summer called Climate Change and International Security: the Arctic as a Bellwether, and it concluded that: “Although the pursuit of co-operation is the stated priority, most of the Arctic states have begun to rebuild and modernise their military capabilities in the region. The new military programs have been geared towards combat capabilities that exceed mere constabulary capacity.”

And there’s more: “States such as Norway and Russia are building new naval units designed to engage in high-intensity conflicts. While this capability may be understood as prudent, the ability of rivals to intimidate or subdue with sophisticated weapons systems could, if collegiality falters, undermine diplomacy and stability in the region.”

Hear that? Norwegian and Russian naval units designed specifically for Arctic conflict. So nobody’s ruling this out.

Al Jazeera’s Fault Lines put together this nice doc on the resource rush to the Arctic, and it lays out the various elements that are transforming the entire region into a pressure-cooker right now. It too notes that armed conflict remains a possibility, though it’s unlikely.

As the Arctic melts away thanks to all the oil and gas we’ve already burned, there will be unprecedented access to resources that are in ever-shorter supply and ever-greater demand. And with Canada, the U.S., Russia, Greenland, and Norway all vying for the black and gassy gold—and all increasingly willing to metaphorically point their guns at one another—tense times lay ahead for Arctic diplomacy.

image