In what appears to be a deliberate tension-reducing mode, the Russians I spoke with carefully stressed how potentially explosive issues such as which of the countries with competing claims in the Arctic Ocean – Russia, Canada, Denmark (for Greenland) and the U.S. – will get what share of the top of the world must be achieved through consultation rather than by provocative rhetoric or actions.
It was equally plain from speaking with the Russians that their country remains far more capable of operating in the High Arctic than any potential rivals. Moreover, to build on the lead they inherited from the Soviet Union, they are already devoting more resources and intellectual energy than anyone else.
Russia’s favourable position in the Arctic basin begins and ends with its fleet of more than a dozen polar icebreakers and four especially robust nuclear-powered icebreakers including one that first sailed in 2007. While Canada, the U.S. and Denmark, with its Swedish research partner, dither about whether and when to build new ice-breaking ships to replace their ancient ships, Russia has consolidated its lead by commissioning a new generation of atomic icebreakers. The first of them is to be led by a record-setting 33,450-ton behemoth known until now as Project 22220. The vessel, which is to be ready for work in 2017, will reportedly cost more than $1 billion to build, be able to smash through ice four metres thick and has been designed to operate at any time of year in the northern ocean. At the same time Russia, with Finnish help, has been slowly building a fleet of ice-strengthened cargo vessels capable of travelling across the north in tandem with its icebreakers.
All this is necessary because some Russians believe that global warming will not proceed as quickly in the Far North as some western experts have predicted. Whatever the speed of the retreat of the polar ice cap every summer, ice will still cover the entire circumpolar world for at least six months a year for decades to come.
Much has been made in Canada of Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s annual treks to the High Arctic and how this has underlined his government’s keen interest in developing the north. That is an encouraging departure from what Harper’s predecessors did or, rather, didn’t do. But Russia’s President Vladimir Putin revels in similar, highly publicized annual northern forays.
The difference is that Putin – who, it must be said, does not face a vociferous elected opposition or critical domestic media and has trillions of petro-rubles in the kitty – has been prepared to spend a lot more money than Harper in a part of the world where bringing dreams to fruition is astonishingly costly. In addition to building new ships, Russia regularly undertakes ambitious Arctic scientific expeditions and is developing coastal infrastructure to support use of the Northeast Passage to move vast quantities of minerals, especially liquefied natural gas, over a much shorter route from Europe to markets in Asia than through the Suez Canal or around the Cape of Good Hope.
Thanks to historical, low levels of Arctic pack ice, more than 40 cargo ships made the northeast transit last year and again this summer and fall, always sailing in close proximity to icebreakers
Canada’s plans have in every respect been far more modest. It has made a few announcements about building infrastructure for ships to be built that are capable of operating in northern latitudes and of putting a small number of troops there. But little that is tangible has come of this yet and the timeline for some of Ottawa’s projects has begun to slip.
As the Russians I spoke with admiringly admitted, one area where Canada leads is its treatment of its northern peoples. Not only do Canadian Inuit generally live far better than Russia’s Arctic natives, they are far more involved in decision-making processes that effect the north.
One serious problem that Russia has faced has been rapid depopulation across the north since the collapse of the Soviet Union. For example, Tiksi, on the Arctic coast saw its population plunge from 20,000 to 2,000. By some estimates, over the past 20 years nearly one-million Russians have shifted to the south.
Original Article
Source: canada.com
Author: Matthew Fisher
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