Cold War Games: U.S. Is Unprepared To Test The Waters In Icy Arctic (#GotBitcoin)

Navy explores expansion of operations in far North, going head-to head with rivals Russia and China. Cold War Games: U.S. Is Unprepared To Test The Waters In Icy Arctic (#GotBitcoin)

The Navy is planning to expand its role in the Arctic as climate change opens up more ocean waterways and the U.S. vies with great-power rivals Russia and China for influence in the far north.

Cold War Games: U.S. Is Unprepared To Test The Waters In Icy Arctic (#GotBitcoin?) — **The U.S. Navy Is Planning To Station Resources In Adak, Alaska, A Onetime World War II And Cold War Base.**

A Navy warship will sail through Arctic waters in coming months on what’s known as a freedom of navigation operation, or FONOP, said Navy Secretary Richard Spencer in an interview with The Wall Street Journal this week. It will be the first time the Navy has conducted such an operation in the Arctic.

The Navy also is planning to station resources in Adak, Alaska, which would mark a return to the onetime World War II and Cold War base that operated from 1942 to 1997, when U.S. troops were withdrawn. The new detachment could include surface ships and P-8 Poseidon patrol and reconnaissance aircraft, he said.

“The concept is, yes, go up there,” Mr. Spencer said, adding that plans for new Arctic operations are in early stages. “We’re developing them as we speak,” he said.

The Arctic has become a markedly more contentious military and commercial environment as the changing climate has led to greater ice melt in the summer, opening more navigable waterways and leading to greater sea traffic in once-impassable lanes.

The National Snow and Ice Data Center found that 2018 saw the third-lowest Arctic ice level since satellite data collection began in the late 1970s, part of an adverse trend the center says threatens to further accelerate global warming and negatively affect climate patterns. This could open up more trans-Arctic maritime routes, according to the Government Accountability Office, allowing exploration of untapped petroleum reserves and threatening the borders of countries once insulated by thick ice off their coasts.

The U.S. and allied militaries have used freedom of navigation operations around the world to assert the rights of ships from the U.S. and elsewhere to operate freely in waterways where there are territorial disputes, hoping to discourage or counter excessive claims. Dozens of such operations in the South China Sea have targeted excessive Chinese maritime claims around islands and outposts across the region.

The Arctic mission will be the first time the U.S. Navy will undertake a FONOP in the Arctic, according to Cmdr. Jereal Dorsey, a Navy spokesman. Mr. Spencer said that the planning hasn’t yet addressed which ports would be visited or which ship will be used.

Russia has long worked to develop its Arctic capabilities because of its lengthy northern coastline and use of Arctic waters for trade and national defense, including establishment of military bases.

China, which has declared itself a near-Arctic power, issued a comprehensive Arctic policy last year that included a desire to build a “polar silk road” and to ensure its freedom to operate in the region.

Adak, which sits at the end of the Aleutian Islands near Russia, once served as a U.S. naval facility and still has a functioning airstrip used for commercial flights. The base was closed in the 1990s as part of the Base Realignment and Closure Program, better known as BRAC.

The decommissioned naval station was taken over in 2003 by the Aleut Corporation, founded in the 1970s to settle Alaska-native claims against the federal government. With only a few thousand acres of the island still under government control, the Navy is currently in talks with the corporation, Mr. Spencer said. The Aleut Corporation didn’t respond to a request for comment on the matter.

“It has some amazing facilities,” Mr. Spencer said. “Could we bring some surface ships there? Yes.”

The Navy’s planning is part of a broader move by the U.S. military to expand its influence in a region it has discounted, according to experts and military officials, and doing so is likely to pose a series of challenges.

Expanded military operations in the far north will require coordination with the Coast Guard, which handles a large portion of search-and-rescue missions and other U.S. surface capabilities in the Arctic. Mr. Spencer hasn’t said whether the Navy plans to move into some of these roles, but has said the Navy will work with the Coast Guard.

The Coast Guard also operates the only U.S. icebreaker in the region, a cause of concern among some lawmakers and defense officials because Russia operates dozens of icebreakers and the Chinese are building a fleet of such vessels. The most recent U.S. defense budget includes authorization for new icebreakers, though the first one won’t be ready for use for years.

Ships that regularly sail in icy waters must be ice-hardened or winterized, to withstand the pounding and stress of thick ice and cold temperatures. The Navy’s current fleet hasn’t been designed to operate in icy waters, the GAO said, but some experts and lawmakers have said the issue will have to be addressed.

The Navy is preparing changes to its official Arctic operations policy to include a broader focus on surface warfare, Mr. Spencer said. Existing policy focuses in large part on the Navy’s submarine and air patrol capabilities—not surface navigation.

Sen. Dan Sullivan (R., Alaska) said in an interview that surface navigation was important to emphasize the U.S. role as an Arctic nation.

**The Buildings Of The Former Military Base In Adak, Shown Here In 2015, Sit Empty.**

“I’ve been pressing them to do something—not just with submarines,” Mr. Sullivan said. “It kind of defeats the purpose if you can’t see it.”

The Navy has moved to expand its footprint in the Arctic region in other ways recently. It launched what officials called the Second Fleet in August to focus on the North Atlantic and on expanding Marine Corps training for extreme cold-weather operations.

Currently, 600 Marines are training in Norway, with that country’s forces, and are preparing for land warfare in Arctic conditions, part of a longstanding commitment to such operations.

The coming Arctic freedom of navigation operation and plans for expanded missions in the far north are planned, in part, to better understand how to work and operate in the extreme cold, Mr. Spencer said.

**The Decommissioned Naval Station Was Taken Over In 2003 By The Aleut Corporation, Founded In The 1970S To Settle Alaska-Native Claims Against The Federal Government.**

“We’ve got to get up there and learn,” he said. “There’s no other way to do it.”

Updated: 7-29-2020

U.S. Names Arctic Policy Czar To Keep Tabs On China, Russia

Career diplomat James DeHart tapped to bolster the U.S. position in the Arctic, including repelling Beijing’s advances.

The State Department has tapped a career diplomat to coordinate efforts to bolster the U.S. position in the Arctic, including repelling China’s advances and capitalizing on commercial opportunities there.

James DeHart begins work Wednesday as the first U.S. coordinator for the Arctic region, representing the State Department in a Trump administration campaign encompassing several U.S. government departments and agencies. He will report directly to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Deputy Secretary Stephen Biegun, advising them on Arctic policy and engaging other Arctic nations in regional talks.

“A year or two from now, I think people are going to look back on the period of time that we’re in now and recognize it as a pivot point for us on the Arctic,” Mr. DeHart said in an interview. “We’re launching a comprehensive and integrated diplomatic strategy and engagement with the Arctic.”

Ice melt due to climate change has U.S. officials, as well as China and Russia, eyeing opportunities for resource extraction and shipping. Meanwhile, other regional powers have focused on the dangers posed by climate change—a discrepancy that hindered consensus at last year’s Arctic Council meeting.

In that context, the U.S. aims to maintain the Arctic as a site of peaceful cooperation, to guard against threats to national security, Mr. DeHart said, and to support economic growth and development in a manner consistent with international norms and “responsive to the needs of the local communities, including the indigenous communities throughout the Arctic.”

In a speech at the Arctic Council meeting last year in Rovaniemi, Finland, Mr. Pompeo warned against Chinese encroachment in the region and challenged Beijing’s assertion of its status as a “near-Arctic” state. More recently, a Chinese state-owned firm’s purchase of a gold mine in the Canadian Arctic has raised alarm.

China’s pursuit of what its officials have referred to as the Polar Silk Road is cause for concern, Mr. DeHart said, noting that Beijing’s approach to infrastructure investment elsewhere is “a model that doesn’t fit well into the Arctic, from our perspective and I think from the perspective of our close partners in the region.”

Beijing has acknowledged that Chinese territory doesn’t touch the Arctic Circle, but says China is a stakeholder in Arctic affairs and has an interest in developing shipping, carrying out scientific research and exploiting the region’s oil, gas, minerals, fisheries and other natural resources.

By contrast, Russia is an Arctic power, and has collaborated with the U.S. and other countries in the region on search and rescue, pollution, and disaster response, Mr. DeHart said. Deteriorating relations with Russia since its 2014 invasion of Ukraine have complicated matters, and Moscow is “becoming increasingly active” in the Arctic, including on security issues, he said.

The U.S. aims to maintain the region as a zone of international cooperation, but also recognizes that “the Arctic is NATO’s northern flank,” he said.

Noting that the department’s Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs has most of the Arctic nations in its portfolio and the Bureau of Oceans and International Environmental and Scientific Affairs works on the “soft side” of Arctic issues, Mr. DeHart said, “I don’t plan to crowd anybody out.”

The creation of the post is the latest in a series of administration actions on the Arctic, including the White House’s plans to acquire a fleet of icebreakers; the June 10 reopening of the U.S. consulate in Nuuk, Greenland; and Mr. Pompeo’s recent meetings in Copenhagen with the Danish, Greenlandic and Faroese foreign ministers.

Mr. DeHart has held senior posts in Washington and abroad during his 28 years in the foreign service, including as deputy chief of mission in Norway and as assistant chief of mission in Afghanistan. He most recently served as a senior adviser for security negotiations and agreements in the department’s political-military affairs bureau. In that capacity, he represented the U.S. in negotiations with South Korean officials over cost-sharing for the American military presence on the Korean Peninsula.

Recent U.S. actions are part of a long-term plan for the region, Mr. DeHart said, as the nation’s interests in the Arctic are ongoing.

“Our involvement is not a flash or a moment in time,” he said. “This is really an enduring commitment here that we have to the region, and I think that we’re all going to see this sustained.”

Updated: 10-11-2020

Russia’s Siberian Waters See Record Ship Traffic As Ice Melt Accelerates

The Northern Sea Route is becoming a highway to move Russia’s oil and natural gas exports while some global carriers shy away.

The Arctic has gone through its warmest summer on record, and with the ice melting, more ships than ever are sailing along Russia’s Siberian coast, underscoring its role as a growing energy transport corridor and potential as a new ocean trade route.

The Northern Sea Route, which runs from Alaska to the Baltic Sea, counted 71 vessels and 935 sailings across the waterway from January to June this year, according to the NSR information office. That was up by double digits from the same period a year ago and a big increase from the 47 vessels and 572 voyages in the same period of 2018.

The mostly frozen seaway is used in warmer seasons to move some of Russia’s energy exports to overseas markets. Container ships and general cargo vessel operators also have used the route to move goods between Asia and Europe as it cuts an average 10 days of sailing time compared with the standard route through the Suez Canal.

Freight transport on the NSR is at its highest from July to November. Some sailings also take place in the rest of the year, and the Russian government expects largely ice-free year-round trips starting in 2024.

“There are many more ships because the ice is thin and you can sail without the help of icebreakers,” said Arne O. Holm, editor in chief of the Norway-based High North News, which monitors the NSR. “The NSR needs a lot of investment to attract bigger cargo vessels, but activity is picking up, and if the ice keeps melting it will be another option to move cargo from northern China to Europe.”

The National Snow and Ice Data Center, a private science research group supported by U.S. government agencies, said in September that this summer was the warmest on record in the Arctic, with the extent of sea ice across the entire Arctic shrinking to 3.74 million square kilometers, or 1.44 million square miles. That’s not much more than half the average ice cover of 6.7 million square kilometers measured from 1979 to 2000.

“There was no ice at all across the coastline in September, no need for icebreakers or ice-hardened vessels,” said Nikos Papalios, a mechanic on a crude tanker that sails the NSR.

“It stayed above freezing for 10 days, from the port of Sabetta to the Bering Strait, and it was pleasant to sit on the deck. It felt out of place,” Mr. Papalios said.

Most vessels operating in the NSR are natural gas carriers and oil tankers carrying exports to European and Asian customers from Novatek’s Yamal liquefied natural gas project and Gazprom’s Novy Port crude oil project at the Yamal Peninsula along Russia’s northern coast. These heavily reinforced ships are built to move through ice-filled waters and can cost more than $200 million each, more than twice the price of similar-size ocean vessels.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has said the NSR will be key to develop the Arctic and become a global transport route.

The Russian government expects cargo volumes across the waterway will reach 32 million metric tons this year, up 78% from 18 million metric tons in 2018. Novatek expects to ship about 52 million metric tons of LNG a year by 2030.

Updated: 5-23-2021

Arctic-Superpower Jostling Heats Up As Russia Takes On Key Role

Russia’s Sergei Lavrov claimed this week that “this is our land and our waters” as NATO allies boost military activity.

A battle of words between top Russian and U.S. diplomats this week is the latest sign of rising tensions between superpowers racing to seize Arctic resources made more accessible by climate change.

Ministers gathering in the Icelandic capital Reykjavik for a meeting of the Arctic Council weren’t due to discuss security. But the issue dominated conversations on the sidelines after Russia’s Foreign Affairs Minister Sergei Lavrov declared ahead of the summit that the Arctic “is our land and our waters.”

“We are especially concerned with what’s going on close to our borders,” Lavrov said on Thursday after journalists asked him about what Russia sees as increased U.S. military activity in the region. “We are going to undertake necessary measures in order to ensure our security, but our priority is to ensure dialogue.”

At the summit this week, which marked Iceland’s handover of the Arctic Council presidency to Russia for the next two years, most representatives called for the eight-nation body to remain focused on peaceful cooperation. But Lavrov signaled that Russia could take a different approach.

“Within the next two years we will create proper conditions so proper security will be part of the work of the Arctic Council,” he said. “We believe we can revitalize this mechanism if we decide so.”

The Arctic is one of the regions most affected by climate change and is warming more than twice as fast as the rest of the world.

Ice that used to cover the region’s waters for most of the year is shrinking and thinning. That’s opening new shipping routes and creating the prospect of easier access to once-trapped resources such as natural gas, oil and minerals.

Superpowers including Russia have rushed to claim some of these assets, leading to a stronger military presence that has resulted in a series of confrontations.

Last year, Russian planes buzzed U.S. fishing boats on the northern Bering Sea during a military exercise. In February, the U.S. deployed bombers to Norway for the first time, strengthening its presence in the region, and the two countries signed a new agreement in April to boost military cooperation.

“The Arctic as a region for strategic competition has seized the world’s attention, but the Arctic is more than a strategically- or economically-significant region” U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said at the Arctic Council’s meeting on Thursday. “Its hallmark has been and must remain peaceful cooperation.”

The council, which gathers the eight Arctic nations— Canada, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Russia, Sweden and the U.S.—as well as indigenous peoples, has no mandate to address security matters. These used to be negotiated at a separate Arctic Security Forces Roundtable, but Russia was removed from that forum, as it was from the Group of Eight advanced economies, following its annexation of Crimea from Ukraine in 2014.

The region doesn’t have a history of military conflicts because it’s difficult to access and its harsh climate makes it hard to position soldiers there. That’s changed as ice melts and countries try to get a foothold in the area, said Kate Guy, a senior fellow at the Council on Strategic Risks, a Washington-based nonprofit.

The Arctic is home to about 30% of the world’s undiscovered but recoverable gas reserves and 13% of undiscovered oil reserves, according to a report co-authored by Guy that was published this week. Private shipping activity has increased 25% in recent years. Having more tankers and fishing boats in the waters could lead to more accidents, with search and rescue operations often performed by the military, the report found.

Russia is making the so-called Northern Sea Route, which runs along its Arctic coastline, a key part of its strategy to boost natural gas exports to Asia. At the same time, China has signaled its interest in small islands such as Svalbard, Guy said.

Armed forces are also upgrading their facilities in the region as permafrost, the frozen ground that covers most of Arctic land, thaws. The U.S. Department of Defense has already requested over $1 billion to retrofit and repair three Alaskan bases in the past five years, according to the report.

“We’re concerned about the level of recent angry and provocative rhetoric,” James Stotts, president of the Inuit Circumpolar Council in Alaska, said at the summit. “We don’t want to see our homeland turned into a region of competition and conflict, we don’t wish to see our world overrun with other people’s problems.”

Updated: 5-24-2021

As The Arctic Heats Up, How To Keep The Peace

Global warming has increased human activity at the top of the world, and fueled interest from non-polar China. How it’s overseen must reflect that.

Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, back in 1987, called for the Arctic to be a “zone of peace” — and it has been. Yet warmer temperatures are heralding ice-free summers, opening up all sorts of economic opportunities from potential oil and gas riches to new shipping routes. Military might is being cranked up, too. Decades of harmonious exceptionalism may be coming to an end.

It is still possible to shield the region from rising tensions elsewhere. That will require rethinking the role of states without polar territory, China among them, and creating an informal venue for security discussions that includes sanctions-hit Russia.

The eight Arctic states, including the U.S., Canada and Russia, must also take real action to tackle the region’s greatest threat: climate change. A statement after this week’s Arctic Council meeting made multiple mentions of global warming, but tough national targets need to match that talk.

It won’t be an easy balance to strike. Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov warned against encroachment ahead of the Council meeting, which included government ministers from the region. “This is our land and our waters,” he said, before Moscow officially took the two-year rotating leadership of the Council. Framing the discussion as raw competition helps no one.

Fortunately, there’s a track record of substantive cooperation. A “race for resources” narrative underplays the real cost of extracting oil in the Arctic, despite oft-cited estimates of untapped mineral wealth.

New shipping routes such as the Northern Sea Route along the Russian Arctic coast are swifter and matter greatly for fossil fuels. But practical difficulties like pricier fuel bills, the need for stronger hulls and crews trained to deal with unpredictable sea ice mean these routes aren’t about to displace other options.

Nevertheless, the Arctic is changing fast. Temperatures have warmed at three times the global average over the past 50 years, according to the Council. Shrinking sea ice will probably make matters worse as more heat is absorbed, rather than reflected back. Melting permafrost has already contributed to one of Russia’s worst fuel spills. Pathogens are a major concern.

The surge in human activity increases the risk for misunderstandings and accidents. There are more soldiers and military hardware as Russia builds up capacity, resuming operations at Soviet-era bases.

The U.S. reestablished the Navy’s Second Fleet, responsible for the northern Atlantic Ocean, and is adding icebreaker capacity. In February, Denmark said it would invest in drones and radar for Arctic surveillance.

It’s a very different place than it was in 1996, when the Council, the closest thing to a regional governing body, was set up.

So what needs to be done? First, recognize the change. No one denies the rights of Arctic states and we won’t see a wholesale revamp of the consensus-run structure. But the Arctic doesn’t exist in a vacuum. Beijing’s inflated language on its Arctic policy has done it few favors, but Mike Pompeo, former U.S. Secretary of State, was wrong to say that China, and by extension other outsiders, were entitled to “exactly nothing.”

A proliferation of issue-specific arrangements show the need for a broader approach, albeit one with the Council at its core. It’s significant that Lavrov mentioned the need to “evaluate” and “improve” the observer nation set-up that allows some countries from outside the region to take part, even if it’s less clear what he has in mind. A stronger Council needs this.

Russia wasn’t keen to allow China observer status in 2013, but Beijing is a key investor in Russian Arctic ventures such as the Yamal LNG project. As Elana Wilson Rowe at the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs says, it’s unclear how Moscow can keep pursuing an independent policy in the region and keep Beijing at arm’s length as China becomes more integral to the Arctic’s development.

Where security is concerned, something has to be done to foster dialogue and ensure more frequent armed forces’ maneuvers don’t lead to confrontation. Military affairs are explicitly outside the Council’s mandate.

Yet sideline discussions bridging Western and Russian interests stopped after the annexation of Crimea in 2014, and activity has hardly cooled since. Informal meetings or expert discussions are overdue — in a set-up that explicitly doesn’t exonerate Russia’s actions elsewhere, as Mathieu Boulegue of Chatham House points out. A code of conduct is also essential.

Updated: 5-26-2021

Arctic Wildfires Are Back With Record Blazes In Western Siberia

Scientists are worried about the intensity of fires this early in the season.

This year’s fire season in the Arctic started with intense activity in western Siberia and Canada, and a below-average number of blazes in eastern Siberia.

The boreal fire season, which typically runs from May to October, started earlier this year with the first blazes recorded in April, according to a report by the Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service. Europe’s Earth observation agency registers the daily number of incidents and total estimated emissions using satellites.

“While it isn’t uncommon to see some wildfires during spring in high latitudes, it is difficult to predict what we may expect during the summer,” said Mark Parrington, a senior scientist and wildfire expert at Copernicus. The intense activity in western Siberia this early in the season is raising concerns among scientists.

The Arctic suffered the worst wildfire season on record for the second year in a row in 2020, with greenhouse gas emissions from blazes rising to the highest ever. Last year a prolonged heatwave hit the region, which is warming almost three times as fast as the rest of the world. Thermometers in one town hit 38 degrees Celsius (100°F) in June and in July, while average temperatures were more than 5°C higher than the historical level.

Fire activity at the start of this season was more intense in regions that also posted higher-than-average temperatures, and lower where temperatures were cooler, according to Copernicus.

Wildfire emissions in the area around the city of Tyumen in western Siberia were the second-highest between April 1 and May 24, while pollution around Omsk was the third-highest ever. In Canada, larger-than-average wildfires burnt in Manitoba and Ontario.

Updated: 6-23-2021

Melting Arctic Ice Pits Russia Against U.S. And China For Control Of New Shipping Route

Warming in the Arctic is opening a shipping passage through Russia’s northern waters that could put the country at the center of new Asia-to-Europe trade routes.

Melting ice in the Arctic Ocean is bringing a centuries-old dream closer to reality for Russia: a shipping passage through its northern waters that could put it at the center of a new global trade shipping route.

After one of the warmest years on record, the Kremlin is near to realizing its controversial plans for a global shipping route in its high north—plans that have put Moscow at odds with the U.S. and could create friction with China, two countries that also have designs on the Arctic.

Warming in the Arctic is happening twice as fast as the rest of the planet. Last year, ice coverage reached some of the lowest levels ever recorded, and it is only expected to shrink further in 2021. That is pushing Moscow to build infrastructure along the route, which can cut the distance of trips between Europe and Asia by a third compared with shipping through the politically fraught South China Sea or congested Malacca Straits currently used for cargo.

This year’s shipping season on the passage, which spans Russia’s expansive Arctic coast, started earlier than ever before, in February, when the liquid-natural-gas carrier Christophe de Margerie sailed from China to the northern Yamal peninsula.

The voyage followed an unprecedented nearly eight-month shipping season last year, giving Russia a taste of what the future could hold for the Northern Sea Route if traffic continues to grow.

A host of issues remain, such as icebreaker escort tariffs, transit costs and navigational unpredictability in the Arctic Circle. But an opening of the passage would put Russia at the center of a new global shipping route for energy supplies and cargo.

Moscow says it has the right to restrict passage and set prices for transit, and the route would also give it an important bargaining chip in its ties with China—one of the biggest beneficiaries of the 3,500-mile long passage.

“We have to see what the future holds, but it could very well look a lot like this,” said Alexander Alyoshkin, head of shipping for the transport division of SUEK, Russia’s biggest coal company.

Mr. Alyoshkin said the company had planned one test-run shipment to China across the route last year from its port at Murmansk, but boosted that number to six: “In June, when we saw over satellite that there is practically no ice on the Northern Sea Route, we started to plan for a few more runs, then a few more.”

“This year we’ll do more, as many as we can,” he said.

The U.S. says Russia doesn’t have the right to regulate traffic through the waters and environmentalists say heavy shipping on the waters could cause untold damage to the high north’s fragile ecosystem. But with other shippers, including the Chinese, interested in exploring the route, Russia has pushed ahead with plans.

So far this year, traffic regulated by the Russian government is up 11% from the record 1,014 trips made last year. That is a drop in the ocean for global shipping that sees some 60,000 vessels every year. Last year’s traffic was up more than 25% from 2019 with 33 million tons of cargo, oil and liquefied natural gas, and Moscow expects that number to grow. Russian President Vladimir Putin has said he wants cargo to double to 80 million tons by 2024.

During his summit with U.S. President Joe Biden in Geneva on June 16, Mr. Putin said the two leaders talked about the project where Moscow, which has more nuclear icebreakers than any other country in the world, has developed a new class of vessels.

“Navigation will become practically year-round due to climate change,” Mr. Putin said. The two leaders spoke at length about the Arctic, where the U.S. has accused Russia of militarizing the region by reopening old Soviet-era bases. Mr. Putin called the accusations groundless.

The scope of the project, expected to cost around $11.5 billion, highlights Moscow’s great ambitions in the Arctic.

The State Atomic Energy Corporation, or Rosatom, which manages a fleet of nuclear icebreakers that can cut through ice up to 10-feet thick, is drafting plans to station personnel along the route, boost port infrastructure along the shipping lane to allow for loading, and provide navigational and medical aid for ships.

It has already stationed one floating nuclear-power plant on the route, to help with onshore construction.

“The Arctic region is quite a unique one so we must think about infrastructure in a complex way,” said Polina Lion, chief sustainability officer at Rosatom.

Russia still has a way to go in upgrading its network of dilapidated, Soviet-era ports along the route to provide for loading and refueling. A British mining company, Kaz Minerals, has agreed to build a port on the eastern tip of the route to export gold and copper from a newly acquired asset, said Alexey Chekunkov, minister of development for the Arctic and Far East. The port will be open to other ships passing, he said.

But shippers remain cautious.

China is watching progress but hasn’t yet made any commitments to invest in the passage or give cargo guarantees. China’s state shipper, COSCO, carries out around nine test runs every year, but the amount of Chinese shipping could rise, said Ms. Lion, as some companies are already in talks to guarantee some annual shipping volumes.

Beijing is eyeing the route in case weather makes navigation more predictable or if other trade routes in the South China Sea are disrupted by tensions with the U.S. or its allies.

Moreover, “There is a certain interest in the NSR from the Chinese Navy for strategic mobility to move troops between Pacific to Atlantic theaters,” said Vasily Kashin, an expert on Russia-China relations at the Moscow-based Higher School of Economics.

“And they do have this interest in establishing their presence on the Atlantic.”

Russia has already boosted its military presence in the Arctic and along the Northern Sea Route, but the U.S. says Moscow’s legal jurisdiction doesn’t extend to the waters where the Kremlin is working to develop the passage.

“Unlawful regulation of maritime traffic along the Northern Sea Route undermines global interests, promotes instability, and ultimately degrades security in the region,” a U.S. naval strategy paper on the Arctic said earlier this year.

Russian authorities are still determining the transparent tariff duties, both for transit and for icebreaker escorts along the passage, that are key to attracting both investment and cargo.

Traffic on the route, however, is already guaranteed by Russia’s increasing production of Arctic oil and gas. The majority of vessels carry LNG from the port of Sabetta, where gas from Russian energy giant Novatek’s Yamal project is loaded for consumers in Europe or Asia. Crude from Rosneft’s planned Vostok oil field project will also be sent along the route when it comes onstream.

But Russia has yet to convince Europe’s biggest shippers about the Northern Sea Route.

The Danish integrated shipping company, Maersk, which made a test run of the passage in 2018, said it isn’t pursuing the route as a feasible alternative to current shipping passages, citing possible environmental damage to the fragile Arctic ecosystem.

Hapag-Lloyd AG , the German international shipping and container transportation company, has also said it isn’t interested.

Still, Russia says it will be able to bring Western shippers on board if the route proves predictable, and Mr. Chekunkov says the use of nuclear-powered icebreakers to help with escorts won’t add to carbon emissions in the high north.

“The dream, of course, is the dream of a regular container line. We are not there yet,” said Mr. Chekunkov. “But I’m a believer.”

Updated: 10-08-2020

Russia’s Siberian Waters See Record Ship Traffic As Ice Melt Accelerates

The Northern Sea Route is becoming a highway to move Russia’s oil and natural gas exports while some global carriers shy away.

“There was no ice at all across the coastline in September, no need for icebreakers or ice-hardened vessels,” said Nikos Papalios, a mechanic on a crude tanker that sails the NSR.

“It stayed above freezing for 10 days, from the port of Sabetta to the Bering Strait, and it was pleasant to sit on the deck. It felt out of place,” Mr. Papalios said.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has said the NSR will be key to develop the Arctic and become a global transport route.

Brokers said container ships and bulk carriers operated by Cosco Shipping Holdings Co. Ltd., Nordic Bulk Carriers A/S and Norway-headquartered Golden Ocean Group are active in the waterway. Denmark’s A.P. Moller-Maersk, the world’s biggest container ship operator, sent a 3,600-container ship from Vladivostok in the Russian Far East to St. Petersburg in late 2018 laden with frozen fish to explore the NSR’s potential.

But there are limits to the waterway’s potential role in global trade.

Cargo between Asia and Europe is handled by massive ships that can carry more than 20,000 containers each. Parts of the NSR are too shallow for anything larger than a 5,000-container vessel and there are no transshipment ports.

Early hopes of big Chinese infrastructure investments also are fading. State-owned transport giants like Cosco and China Merchants Holdings Ltd. are pouring billions into linking ports with roads and rail to connect Asia and Europe under the Belt and Road Initiative rather than step up investments in the Northern Sea Route.

French container ship major CMA CGM SA and German counterpart Hapag-Lloyd AG have said they won’t send ships on the NSR, citing concerns over the environmental protections.

“The NSR is growing and it’s good if you want to move boxes quickly at a single destination port. But it’s not going to replace the Suez Canal,” a senior Cosco official said.

Updated: 1-13-2022

Danish Spy Agency Frets Over Arctic Operations By China And Russia

Danish intelligence service warned China and Russia are looking to destabilize parts of the Kingdom of Denmark, including Greenland, as these nations’ geopolitical ambitions in the Arctic region are growing.

Espionage and influence operations by Chinese and Russian spy services, including via cyber attacks, pose a threat against authorities, companies and research bodies in Denmark and the semi-autonomous Faroe Islands and Greenland, Danish security and intelligence service PET said on Thursday in its first publication assessing such risks.

“The kingdom is particularly vulnerable in that regard as Chinese or Russian intelligence services can exploit controversial topics to try to create tensions in or between the three parts of the kingdom or complicate relations with allies, particularly the U.S.,” the agency said.

Greenland and the Faroe Islands are strategically located on the pathway between the Arctic and the North Atlantic. Denmark’s primary security ally, the U.S., has its northernmost base on Greenland and the island’s natural resources have further boosted the interest from Russia and China.

Tensions between Denmark and Greenland, which has a strong independence movement, have grown recently.

The island’s new government, appointed after last year’s general election, has urged to demilitarize Greenland and rejected a 1.5 billion kroner ($230 million) deal struck by the Danish parliament to boost defense spending in the Arctic.

The previous government wanted to attract foreign companies, such as Chinese-backed Greenland Minerals, which were looking to tap the island’s rare-earth metals.

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