After Quad, a Quint for the Arctic

As the Northern Sea Route grows more feasible for commercial shipping, so too the concerns about the geopolitical implications for control over the Arctic maritime zone

Ravi Velloor

3 February 2022

Just over two months ago, the world narrowly escaped an ecological disaster in the Arctic.

Two Russian oil barges transporting diesel oil and paraffin to the remote Arctic region went aground off the north-western tip of Vaygach island, a spot in the Arctic Ocean that is between the seas of Pechora and Kara.

Known for its spooky-looking totems that scare the rare visitor, the area around Vaygach is also known locally as the territory of death. However, the barges ran aground not because of evil spirits but an unexpectedly sudden freeze-up and fast-accumulating sea ice along the Arctic Route, also called the Northern Sea Route (NSR).

According to information published two weeks ago by Russia's Marine Rescue Service and picked up by the Barents Observer, rescuers had a hard time cracking ice of up to 50cm that had covered the decks of the barges. They had to manually break the ice to reach hatches as they sought to reduce the weight of the barges, since pulling the vessels off the rocks could have ruptured the hulls and led to a massive oil spill.

Finally, around mid-December after an operation lasting several days, the oil was reloaded without accident on other tankers. One of the two huge barges contained 7,000 tonnes of diesel fuel, while the other was loaded with 170 tonnes of paraffin. Although this is a fraction of the 37,000 tonnes of crude that spilled from the Exxon Valdez tanker accident in Alaska in 1989, devastating marine and bird life in the area, the damage to the environment could have been considerable this time given the fragility of the Arctic region.

A strategic and commercial lifeline

The disaster averted underscores the dangers that accompany the headlong rush by Russia to develop the Arctic sea route to Asia for shipping, partly a result of the strategic squeeze it faces in the European continent from an expanding Nato, and partly to explore new markets for its market-competitive oil and gas that it needs to profit from before the climate-related squeeze on hydrocarbons gets too suffocating.

Melting ice in the frigid Arctic, an area stuffed with natural resources, is opening up new possibilities to cut the sea route to Asia from Europe. According to the SeaNews portal, 34.85 million tonnes of cargo was carried via the NSR last year, which is almost two million tonnes more than during 2020.

The use of the northern route included a conceptually fascinating delivery in September when the Russian vessel Marshal Valiveskiy collected a cargo of liquefied natural gas from Gazprom at the Arctic port of Sabetta on the Yamal Peninsula, traversed Singapore and Colombo, and a month later discharged in Dabhol, in India's Gujarat state. Dabhol is an Arabian Sea-facing port situated just below Pakistan. LNG to Asia usually comes from the other direction and via the Suez Canal, with Qatar as a major supplier latterly.

Since 2018, when Rosatom, the state nuclear corporation, was appointed infrastructure operator of the NSR, freight traffic via Russia's Arctic Route has almost doubled. Moscow wants NSR cargo traffic to reach 80 million tonnes in 2024, 110 million tonnes by 2030, and 140 million tonnes by 2040.

That may not seem large in the current circumstances; Singapore, for instance, handled 599 million tonnes of sea cargo last year. However, the breakneck addition of icebreakers as well as climate-related pressure on air and sea cargo companies to traverse more direct routes - it is estimated that between 20 per cent and 30 per cent of fuel can be saved this way - could well see an acceleration of efforts to develop the passage.

Rosatom is slated to have as many as six nuclear-powered icebreakers in a few years - marine goliaths that can smash through up to 3m-thick ice like a battering ram. Beyond lie icebreakers that can go through 4m-thick ice. Once they are in operation, the NSR can conceivably be kept open in the bleakest ice seasons.



Indeed, the thought of all those floating nuclear reactors operating in some of the most hostile weather conditions has left some European nations deeply concerned. Norway recently announced that five of its coast guard vessels deployed in the Arctic Ocean would have nuclear radiation-detecting drones.

Other interested parties

The route is important not just for Russia, but China too, since it cuts the distance from Shanghai to Rotterdam by about half.

Beijing has been watching the route particularly since 2017, when a Russian tanker sailed from Norway to South Korea in just 19 days without an icebreaker escort, compared with the 48 days it normally takes to sail from northern Chinese ports to Rotterdam using the Suez route.

China now describes itself as a "near-Arctic nation" and has won itself observer status in the Arctic Council. It is currently building a third icebreaker. It is a safe bet that once it joins the fleet, China will demand even more say, at least in the eastern section of NSR.

Japan has presented to Moscow a draft concept for commercial and economic cooperation in north- east Asia and the Arctic. Among other things, it suggests expanding cooperation in the energy sector, logistics, fish processing, port and transport infrastructure, urban environment and tourism.

At the other end, with Moscow dangling the prospects of friendship-priced oil and gas, even Asian nations far distant from the Arctic Route are eyeing its potential; New Delhi has forcefully endorsed the Russian vision for the NSR and is currently negotiating a Reciprocal Exchange of Logistic Agreement (Relos) with Moscow as both seek to raise their level of economic engagement in the Russian far east and the Arctic.

Elsewhere, the Arctic Route is beginning to get attention from even landlocked nations. Kazakhstan is reportedly studying if it can access the Arctic Route via Russia's river system, using Sabetta port as a transit hub.

Inevitably, the high north, once a region that saw strong cooperation between the world's superpowers, is steadily turning into a military theatre.

Security implications

Four years ago, the US Navy conducted a five-week-long wargame in the Arctic Ocean that included fast-attack submarines that fired torpedoes under the sea ice. Divers then punched holes through the ice to retrieve the torpedo tubes. Last September, the Pentagon appointed a retired air force major-general as senior adviser for security in the Arctic.

In echoes of tensions in East Asia, where the US has joined with Japan, Australia and India to form the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, or Quad, new arrangements are forming focused on the Arctic.

Where the US goes, Britain cannot be far behind; its Chief of Defence Staff General Sir Nicholas Carter said in October that warming Arctic waters have brought new attention to what was at stake for Nato.

Russia's advances in submarine technologies and deep undersea capabilities of its Northern Fleet, he said while visiting the US, means "you are right to focus on the maritime" from the North Atlantic to the Arctic as a major security concern for allies and partners.

Britain, along with Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Finland and the Netherlands - or "the Quint" - "are focused on the region" and the changing maritime security conditions in the Arctic, according to Gen Carter.

An open Arctic Route would be hugely advantageous for Russia from both an economic and a geopolitical standpoint. More than half of the coastline on the ocean is Russian territory. It could help unlock the tremendous hydrocarbon reserves in the Russian Arctic and deliver them economically to global markets, along a route where the US Navy cannot impose a blockade.

In anticipation of the heightened geostrategic attention to the route, Russia is building more military icebreakers. This year, the first Russian military icebreaker built in nearly five decades - an 85m-long Project 21180M class ship - is to join its Pacific fleet. Both the navy and coast guard are getting icebreaking patrol vessels.

As these words are written, Russia is conducting major wargames in the Arctic involving some 30 warships, 20 aircraft and 1,200 personnel. The Russian defence ministry says the exercises are designed to assess combat readiness in the Arctic and its ability to protect the NSR.

Since almost the entire NSR is within Russia's exclusive economic zone, it insists that Article 234 of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (Unclos) creates the basis for all foreign ships passing the NSR to give Moscow preliminary notification. It also asserts the right to compulsory piloting and icebreaker support services, for a fee it decides.

This claim is challenged, notably by the US, under the "freedom of navigation" argument.

What's not clear at this point is how Russia's desire to dominate the route will mix with its growing proximity with China on the strategic front. Russia wants to keep matters within the Arctic fold - Canada, the US, Norway, Denmark and, of course, itself.

However, China is elbowing in. The Chinese navy is said to be planning to build its own nuclear-powered icebreakers, something that could also come in useful as a test platform to build future nuclear-powered aircraft carriers.

This puts Moscow in a quandary; it needs Beijing's help to ease the strategic pressure the West places on it, and will need China even more if the US proceeds to impose sanctions upon it over Ukraine. But it also is leery of yielding greater say to Beijing in the Arctic.

Without question, how the Ukraine issue is settled will have a major impact on how Moscow seeks to resolve this issue.

How should the smaller nations of Asia prepare for all this? As always in the big issues of the day, there is the risk of being crowded out from the debate.

What is clear is that the NSR will soon become a reality, like it or not. Who knows, while it throws up challenges to the established maritime order there might be opportunities to build rigs and ships for the industrial and shipping activity that the route will undoubtedly generate.

Second, as the sail from Sabetta to Dabhol showed, from bunkering to transhipment of cargo, new business opportunities may show up. Either way, there are major shifts coming in the maritime commons. Stay prepared.