By Marko Filijovic
Climate change has led to global warming, which has caused the melting of the northern ice cap. While this has impacted ecosystems and human life in the Arctic region, it has also opened up previously impassable routes for maritime transport during the summer months. Among these routes, the Northwest Passage, which connects the Atlantic and Pacific oceans via Canada’s Arctic Archipelago, has become more navigable. There’s also the emerging Transpolar Arctic Route. However, the most significant of these and the most attractive is the Northeast Passage, particularly its segment known as the Northern Sea Route (NSR). It stretches 5,600 kilometres and is now the shortest shipping route between northern Europe and Asia. This reduces the distance between northern Europe and northern China by up to 4,000 nautical miles and cuts shipping times by up to two weeks.
Given that the route is now ice-free for three months over the year, it’s no surprise that in 2022, 2994 voyages were made by 314 vessels. In 2023, cargo volume along the NSR reached a historical high of 36.254 million tons, with a record-breaking transit traffic. Strong demand for Russian crude oil in China fuelled this surge, as more than a dozen shipments totalling 1.5 million tons travelled from the Baltic Sea to China through the Arctic. Projections for 2024 suggest yet another record year for Arctic transit.
However, this route is contentious. While the U.S. and its allies would like it to be an international passage, Russia claims sovereignty, viewing it as a national transport corridor. However, despite U.S. opposition, Russia’s legal regime for NSR navigation is widely recognized, especially by China, which is keen to tap into the route’s potential and position itself as a “Polar Great Power.” This situation has heightened tensions with the West, particularly the U.S., as articulated in the 2021 U.S. Army document, Regaining Arctic Dominance, which clearly states, “The Arctic has the potential to become a contested space where US’ great power rivals, Russia and China, seek to use military and economic power to gain and maintain access to the region at the expense of US interests.” It emphasizes the need for the U.S. Army to “organize to win in the Arctic,” framing the region as “an arena of competition, a line of attack in conflict… and a platform for global power projection.”
Things worsened following Russia’s full-scale war in Ukraine in early 2022, which led to a near halt in cooperation within the Arctic Council, the key forum for managing regional issues under international law, prompting scholars to now question the Council’s future. With the West isolating Russia from Arctic cooperation due to war in Ukraine, Moscow has turned to countries like China, India, and Turkey, seeking partnerships for developing its High North. China, in particular, has taken advantage of this shift. Sizing the opportunity, Beijing has significantly increased its presence, registering 234 firms in the Russian Arctic between January 2022 and June 2023, an 87 percent increase from the previous two years. Moreover, China has begun constructing its own docks in critical Russian Arctic ports and establishing railways along the coastline, signalling its intent to expand further.
This increasing presence of non-Arctic actors has alarmed Washington, especially after encounters between U.S. Coast Guard ships and joint Chinese-Russian naval formations near
Alaska in 2022. With joint military exercises now becoming more frequent—the most recent exercise took place earlier this month—concerns are deepening. While U.S. policymakers reiterated their earlier stance in the 2024 Department of Defense Arctic Strategy, in the meantime, China’s military diplomats and literature have begun to refer to the Arctic as a zone of future military competition and even the ‘commanding heights’ of the next geopolitical struggle.
Finland and Sweden’s NATO membership, along with Russia’s pivot to new partners is further polarizing the region, which once relied on the Arctic Council to resolve disputes peacefully. As geopolitics and militarization dominate the conversation, crucial issues like tackling the climate change and preserving the regional ecosystem, are, unfortunately, put to the sidelines. Moreover, the emergence of the so-called shadow fleets, due to Western sanctions on Russia, further complicates matters, as experts suspect that these fleets may operate outside International Maritime Organization guidelines, likely violating the Polar Code and even Russia’s own high environmental and safety standards.
This breakdown in environmental cooperation suggests that the concept of “One Arctic” is fracturing, raising the possibility of parallel governance structures emerging instead of the Arctic Council. Considering this, the question appears – can these processes be reversed? Is there a viable and unified governance solution that includes the growing number of interested actors?
Well, one possibility lies in the involvement of countries like India and Turkey, which have already proven themselves as effective ‘geopolitical catalysts’ on several occasions. India, with observer status in the Arctic Council and close ties to both Russia and the West, and Turkey, a longstanding NATO member and recent BRICS aspirant, are both eager to engage in efforts to end the war in Ukraine. Given their interest in contributing to Arctic development as well, they could potentially help bridge the gap between competing interests.
Alternatively, a more robust solution may involve elevating these issues to the United Nations. However, with the UN Security Council stalled on critical global issues, from Ukraine to outer space, effective Arctic governance seems increasingly unlikely unless the UN undergoes reform. Dissatisfaction with the existing UN system has already been expressed by countries like Turkey, Germany and Finland, along with emerging powers such as India and Brazil, which have called for a more inclusive and representative international system to address the growing complexities of global challenges. This could potentially be initiated through Article 109(3) of the UN Charter, allowing states to reconsider the global governance structure and address not just Arctic geopolitics but also other pressing challenges such as climate change, armed conflicts, governance of AI, and more.
Without such reforms, the global system may fragment, leading to multipolarity in its most negative form, with competing blocs failing to address universal problems that require unified global solutions, leaving most critical issues unresolved and casting uncertainty over humanity’s future. However, if reform efforts succeed, many of these issues could be addressed, including the challenges posed by climate change, facilitating a timely transition to Net Zero.