Rapidly receding sea ice is enabling access to a range of highly valuable resources across the Arctic. In addition to energy reserves, critical minerals, and fisheries, newly opened shipping routes across the Arctic could potentially help to re-route global trade and enable high-speed Internet connectivity between Europe and Asia. The ability to exploit newly available Arctic resources is drawing increasing interest from both commercial and national actors and is enticing nations, such as China and Japan, to pour both political and financial capital into the region.When oil prices peaked in 2008, it appeared that a race to secure oil resources in the Arctic was inevitable. However, due to a rapid fall in global oil demand and the high cost of oil extraction in the Arctic, development failed to materialize. Instead, the dynamics of resource competition in the Arctic have shifted toward securing critical minerals, exploiting natural gas reserves, and asserting territorial control over recently opened shipping routes along the Arctic coast. Additionally, the entrance of Asian and European Nations into Arctic affairs has dramatically shifted regional geopolitical dynamics.
The admittance of Asian countries—China, Japan, South Korea, India, and Singapore—as Observer states to the Arctic Council in 2013 significantly expanded the geopolitical landscape of the Arctic. As more national interests converge there, new commercial alliances are being forged. China now looks to Russia’s Arctic energy resources as a means to diversify its energy supply, while European nations are eager to partner with Asian nations to develop high-speed Internet and shipping along the Northern Sea Route.
With new players and commercial relationships emerging in the Arctic, there has been an attendant increase in international tensions. Strengthening commercial ties between Asian and European nations, and deepening levels of Chinese investment across the region—coupled with Russia’s emerging primacy—are generating pushback from the U.S. In May of 2019, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo directly called out Chinese and Russian activities in the Arctic as threats to U.S. national interests and security. Moreover, the wider uncoupling of the U.S. and Chinese economies are making the Arctic an arena of great power competition.
Growing tensions over control of critical minerals that are essential to modern technologies, disputed shipping routes, and Chinese entrenchment across the Arctic are also putting pressure on the region’s governance framework. Consisting of an amalgamation of governance organizations and treaties, the region’s governance structures are not designed to contain or mitigate potential great power conflicts. An escalation between the U.S. and China or Russia would divide the region and significantly harm cooperative efforts toward environmental preservation and mitigation of climate change.
Part I of FP Analytics’ Arctic Competition Power Map breaks down key emerging trends across the Arctic by:
Mapping access and control of key resource bases;
Breaking down the public- and private-sector actors collaborating and competing for Arctic access and influence;
Projecting the key points of geopolitical tension and the relative power positions of the actors involved; and,
Outlining the legal landscape and governance structures in place to mitigate conflict across the region.
FP Analytics’ Arctic Competition Power Map is a powerful tool for businesses and others seeking to understand how emerging great power competition across the Arctic will help shape and influence the wider geopolitical landscape. Part II will map out Russian and NATO military activities in the Arctic and will explore materializing national security risks.
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