Arctic’d-Off: A Rising Phase of Sino-Russian Territorial Expansion Ambitions

 

Russia’s modernized Arctic fleet and its supporting bases outnumber Western nations sharing Arctic borders… with seriously upgraded technology, like the nuclear-powered Russian icebreaker pictured above. Now, paired with Chinese vessels, Russian military ships and aircraft patrol the region in force… with increasing frequently. Russia has already planted its “it’s mine” titanium flag under the North Pole and claimed the entirety of the evolving (as ice melts) Northwest Passage as its own. The Arctic is a Sino-Russian Ukraine/Taiwan equivalent, with vastly lower levels of defenses.

It does seem that if Russia is trying to undo the 1867 US’ purchase of Alaska from Russia (named “Seward’s Folly” for the American Secretary of State who negotiated the deal) for $7 million (2 cents an acre). Russia has stated that the Tsar did not have the right to sell the “people’s land.” Mainland Russia and mainland United States are separated by 55 miles (their islands are within 3 miles of each other). Sitka, Alaska is awash in Russian built structures (including a church), and the Bering Strait that separates the two countries is plagued by a never-ending game of cat-and-mouse between rival naval vessels and well-armed aircraft testing defensive limits. Recent incursions have involved combined Chinese and Russian fleets practicing joint military maneuvers, taunting US forces in Alaska.

But the United States is but one Western power in the region. Add Scandinavia and Finland to Canada and Greenland to the mix, and the entire area is both dangerous and volatile. Indeed, should the Ukraine invasion escalate into a NATO vs Russian conflict, it would not be surprising to see Russian forces, perhaps in concert with China’s PLA, moving to solidify their claims to these Arctic regions. That Northwest Passage could easily become one of the premiere trade routes on Earth, and the Arctic holds vast petroleum, mineral and sea life riches coveted and claimed by Russia, with Chinese support.

But there have been some transparent, with sufficient deniability, direct attacks by Russia against Western targets in the region. For example, “The world’s largest satellite ground station, on the Svalbard archipelago off Norway, is used by Western space agencies to gather vital signals from polar-orbiting satellites. This January [2022], one of two fibre-optic cables on the Arctic seabed connecting Svalbard to the mainland was severed. Norway was forced to rely on a back-up link.” Reuters, November 16, 2022. That Svalbard archipelago has become a major strategic arena that typifies the escalating conflict between this Sino-Russian cabal and the West. Writing for the September 28th Wall Street Journal, Georgi Kantchev explains:

“Nestled high above the Arctic Circle, the Norwegian archipelago of Svalbard is home to hundreds of polar bears and boasts prime views of the Northern Lights… Now the territory of fewer than 3,000 people is emerging as a front line in Russia and China’s attempts to dominate the Arctic’s trade routes and expand their military presence in the region at the expense of the West… Formally part of Norway, Svalbard—a collection of mountains, glaciers and fjords about the size of West Virginia—has an unusual status. A treaty signed in 1920 granted the Norwegians sovereignty but allowed signatory states, including the Soviet Union, to exploit resources and conduct research… But in recent years this quirk has provided a way for Moscow and Beijing to strengthen their foothold in the Arctic as tensions with the West worsened over the invasion of Ukraine, unsettling Norway and its allies in NATO…

“Since the [Ukraine] war, Russia has held a military-style parade, illegally erected an Orthodox cross and issued a stark warning to Norway not to challenge Russia on Svalbard. Earlier this month, a Russian lawmaker proposed building a prison for terrorists there. Just a month before the invasion, Norwegian officials suspected Russian involvement in a severed undersea fiber-optic cable near Svalbard…

“Norwegian officials, meanwhile, report a growing Chinese interest in acquiring land on the archipelago, including a recent proposal to establish a laser-research station. Svalbard has become an increasingly important espionage target for both China and Russia, they say, with Norwegian companies advising employees to turn off their phones when traveling to Russian-controlled dwellings. ‘We are seeing the return of geopolitical competition in the Arctic and Svalbard is a key piece of the puzzle,’ said Norway’s Foreign Minister Espen Barth Eide in an interview.

“The competition for Svalbard is emblematic of the intensifying global race for the Arctic. The region contains up to a fifth of the world’s untapped oil and natural-gas reserves, as well as other minerals. As the ice melts, Moscow and Beijing want to use the shorter Northern Sea Route to ship goods via the Arctic, avoiding chokepoints at the Suez Canal and Malacca Strait.”

Few Americans take such Sino-Russian advances in the region seriously. They should! As both Russia and China face crippling economic woes, they see the Arctic as potential economic salvation. Further, as the United States seems to be in polarized self-destruct mode, both Russia and China are counting on a severely weakened United States, veering towards isolationism and perhaps even civil war, to let Russia and China have their way with rising claims to international territories, waters and even holdings of other Western nations. China claims Taiwan and has created a land-fill airbase in the Spratley Islands to assert control of the regional seas, paralleling Russia’s equally aggressive claims to the Arctic and Ukraine.

I’m Peter Dekom, and after reading the above, is there is any doubt why both Russia and China are pouring massive mis- and dis-information into our election universe, all focused on getting Donald Trump reelected?