Security and Climate Risk in the Arctic: Temperatures and Tensions Rise
Publisher: Woodwell Climate Research Center, Converging Risks Lab, Council on Strategic Risks
Author(s): Kate Guy, Alexandra Naegele, Natalie Baillargeon, Madeleine Holland, and Christopher Schwalm
Date: 2021
Topics: Climate Change, Conflict Causes, Extractive Resources, Governance
Across the Arctic, temperatures are warming faster than any other location on Earth, rapidly shifting the operational environment of an already dangerous and inhospitable region. In the coming decades, the region is set to experience intense change along two main trendlines: first, the major environmental shifts that accompany our current warming trajectory, including sea ice loss and permafrost thaw; and second, an influx of new human activity, including resource extraction, the development and use of new shipping lanes, and commercial and military traffic. These trends take place across a region witnessing increasing defense force activities by many Arctic nations. For the past decade, Russia has been expanding its military presence and upgrading infrastructure along its Northern Border, while improving the technology of its submarines, ice-breakers, and forces to enable greater control over sea-lanes. Meanwhile, NATO allies have conducted increasingly larger joint training exercises in the region, with the United States refurbishing bases and considering the creation of an Arctic brigade. China, classifying itself a “near-Arctic nation,” has likewise exerted its growing interest in a region it deems critical to commercial futures, investing in polar-capable ships and icebreakers, outlining an Arctic strategy, and detailing ambitions to build a new “Polar Silk Road” in its 14th Five Year Plan. Seen together, these developments present worrying realities for ensuring security in the region, including from the point of view of U.S. interests and power projection. Critically, changes in the environment and human activity are not expected to happen gradually, but instead to cascade in unpredictable new extremes, increasing uncertainties in a manner that makes building resilience difficult. These developments increase the likelihood for accidents, misunderstandings, and disasters in a region that is already fragile and defined by growing great power tensions. Likewise, given that major Arctic players are nuclear powers and adversaries, and possess multiple facilities and nuclear armaments in the region itself, the risk of growing military tensions in the region, alongside destabilizing climate factors, should not be taken lightly. Security actors in the Arctic will need to navigate these icy seas with a full picture of the rapid changes underway in order to preserve cooperation, rather than conflict, in response to new challenges.