Читать книгу The Arctic and World Order - Группа авторов - Страница 12

The Arctic was long described as an area of low security tensions, with favorable conditions for international cooperation, but the dramatic climate transformation and rapidly shifting geostrategic realities of the past decade have meant new challenges and changed preconditions for all powers of the circumpolar North. As a result, all actors are now updating their Arctic policies for the 2020s and beyond.⁴⁸

But why do some Arctic countries prioritize the Arctic more than others? How do the global big powers and the mid-sized or small countries each assert themselves in Arctic policies? How does the Nordic regime (focused on peace and cooperation, prosperity and sustainability) interact with the impact of exogenous powers on intra-Arctic affairs and the regional power equilibrium? And what is the relationship between state actors and Indigenous representation? Here, some middling states have acted big—particularly Canada, Norway and Denmark (Greenland)⁴⁹—setting instructive examples against which to compare the conduct of the great powers: America, Russia and China.

For Canada, a neighbor and NATO ally of the United States, and during the Cold War effectively America’s junior partner in the North (spanning from the Beaufort Sea to Baffin Bay), things have changed since 1991, as this relatively small political “actor” has emancipated itself at the circumpolar top table through the Arctic Council in particular. Two cornerstones of its Arctic Strategy stand out. The first is a readiness to exercise national sovereignty, especially over resource development, rooted in a deeply engrained and romanticized narrative of how Canada’s national identify is so deeply intertwined with its historical relationship to the North. Second, the Harper administration (2011–2015) made a high priority of retaining a maritime presence in the Arctic, after Canadian defense officials in the early 2000s had begun to reexamine Canadian capabilities in the Arctic due to the changing security and environmental situation in the region. Ottawa’s fresh focus and military commitment to the Canadian Arctic was shown through opening of an Arctic Training Center in Resolute Bay, Nunavut, in 2013—a year-round training base for Arctic operations which above all else increases the military’s ability to respond to emergency operations in the Arctic.⁵⁰

Since Justin Trudeau became Prime Minister in 2015, Ottawa frames its role in the north as a global leader of climate research and a “responsible steward” of the Arctic. Canada has also positioned itself alongside Russia as one of two indispensable Arctic nations. In 2015, Foreign Minister Dion dubbed Moscow an “unavoidable partner” with which closer bilateral cooperation in the Arctic ought to be sought as a matter of national interest, despite major political tensions. Dion spelled it out in 2016: “Almost 50% of the North is Russian, and 25% is Canadian. Between us, we control 75% of the North. To sever the links with Russia, our neighbour, serves the interest of no one.”⁵¹

The Trudeau administration has furthermore sought to balance the concerns of all Northern stake holders, incorporating the Indigenous community into decision-making processes. After all, “as the ice melts, the debate of the sovereign rights of the Arctic nations heats up.”⁵²

Generally, Canada’s Arctic and Northern Policy Framework in its 2019 incarnation stressed the significance of the so-called “rules-based international order” in the Arctic which responds effectively to new opportunities, but also challenges—such as posed by a brazen China with its persistent interest in the NSR and Canadian natural resources.⁵³ Thus, Ottawa stated that Canada’s Arctic policy will be conducted through international engagement. Meanwhile, the focus at home is on achieving “strong, sustainable, diversified and inclusive local and regional economies,” fostering a healthy and resilient ecosystem and continuing to work towards “reconciliation” with the first nations.⁵⁴

The Canadian Inuit believe the Canadian government must do more. They want recognition of “Indigenous Knowledge as an extensive system of scientific data” that, they stress, must be integrated as a central component of policy and decision-making around Arctic environmental efforts, as well as the health and community prosperity of Inuit Nunaat. Moreover, there is a sense that Inuit participation generally must not merely be secured, but increased in national environmental, economic and defense strategies and international diplomacy. As the Inuit Circumpolar Council (ICC) points out, the government “must understand that Inuit use and occupy Inuit Nunaat—their homeland, that Inuit are the stewards of the land, and, given appropriate infrastructure, are the principal players in Canada’s Arctic sovereignty and security.”⁵⁵

Questions of Arctic identity, security, and economics are equally if not more acute for Norway and Greenland.⁵⁶ For Oslo, the Arctic has long been a foreign (and defense) policy priority. “We play a leading role in international diplomacy in the Arctic and we cooperate closely with other countries and organisations on how best to develop the region.” Norway’s “High North Strategy” is one “between geopolitics and social [and economic] development.”⁵⁷

Half of Norway’s territory (land and waters) is north of the Arctic Circle, from the city of Bodø to Svalbard, and it is here that the country is on the frontline with Russia—with tensions for the past century flowing and ebbing. Since 1949, NATO has formed an indispensable pillar of Norwegian security, and the Alliance in turn benefits from Norway’s active contributions to it. No one anticipates direct threats to Norway in the short term. The most serious concern is so- called “horizontal escalation” of a crisis triggered elsewhere on the fringes of Europe, rapidly growing into a wider conflict that threatens Norwegian waters, airspace and territory. In this regard all eyes are on the Kremlin, for there is a sense that Russia has been demonstrating hostile intent with its continued build-up of Arctic military capabilities that threaten the ability of Norway and its allies to operate armed forces, secure critical infrastructure and waterways, protect civilian populations, and come to each other’s assistance.

Specifically, improvements to Russia’s Northern Fleet, including surface vessels and submarines armed with modern cruise missiles, pose an increased threat to NATO operations in the Norwegian Sea, to undersea internet cables and to sea lines of communication essential to reinforcing Norway from North America or Europe. And since the High North holds strategic importance to Russia’s Bastion Defense in the Barents Sea and Arctic Ocean, NATO feels it must plan for possible future operations in an increasingly contested environment. What’s more, the collapse of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty in 2019 has brought an increased threat from new medium-range ballistic missiles, requiring Norwegian and allied defense planners to adjust to novel threats to the homeland and region.

Norway, though small in size, is undoubtedly “punching above its weight” when it comes to security; it does so thanks to high-tech capabilities and its ability to engage all of society in a “total defense” effort. Despite these perceived strengths of its military capabilities, the country still faces pressing challenges. Not only does Oslo need to enhance the readiness and resilience of Norwegian forces to deter aggression, it has to manage the consequences of an increasingly complex international (Arctic) environment and the climate challenge, too.⁵⁸

Given Norway’s geographic location—it is intimately connected to the sea, with long coastlines on the Atlantic and Arctic oceans—maritime resources have always formed the basis of its national economy and defined the very identity of its northern coastal communities. Significantly, 80 percent of ship traffic in the Arctic takes place in waters under Norwegian jurisdiction, much of it related to oil and gas exploration and production as well as to fisheries. Now that the sea ice is melting, Norwegian businesses and industries are also seeking to take advantage of emerging opportunities—albeit they postulate in a safe and environmentally sound way.⁵⁹

Here it must be noted that Norway does not actually use much of the hydrocarbons it pumps out from under the seafloor. Instead, it exports the oil and gas while using the income to provide free health care and education and to save for the future. As a result, despite the fact that its wealth is generated largely by oil and gas, Oslo likes to promote a reputation for environmental leadership. Therein lies a paradox, for global warming caused by carbon pollution from fossil fuels produced by Norway (and other countries) is harming also the Indigenous at home, some 50–60,000 Sámi people.⁶⁰ Across the region of Troms og Finnmark, the Sámi are fighting “sustainable development and economic growth” policies that they see as being disruptive to local reindeer-herding operations. These include obvious areas such as the expansion of mines, railroads, and logging, but also wind farms, which are believed to be disturbing grazing habits and disrupting reindeer migration through habitat fragmentation. And while being presented by European governments generally as a climate solution paving the way for sustainable future, the Sámi consider them as programs of “green colonialism” due to their destructive effects on their ways of life. In short, relations between Sámi and the Oslo government are tenuous, raising questions of adequate representation and sovereignty over Sápmi, the Sámis’ ancient lands spanning from the Kola Peninsula via Finland, Sweden to Norway.⁶¹

Similar to the issues of political participation and self-determination at stake in Arctic Europe between the Nordic capitals and the Sámi, the ICC (representing Inuit from Alaska, Canada, Greenland, and Chukotka) and the governments of the United States, Canada, Denmark and Russia disagree whether the rightful meaning of ‘sovereignty’ is either a fundamental “binary concept” (internal/external, national/global, legal/factual, formal/material, abstract/territorial) or increasingly, in these globalized times, a “contested concept” in flux.⁶²

Greenland is situated between those two opposite views, as a state-in-the-making with almost 90 percent of its population of 56,000 being Inuit. On the one hand, their self-government is part of the transnational Inuit community; on the other hand, Greenlanders yearn for independent statehood from Denmark. In this striving, the ongoing development of more foreign policy sovereignty is an important factor in the enhancement of Greenland’s international status and in its ability to attract external investments. Yet, the latter combined with more political emancipation also raises the problem of novel dependencies; alongside economic and political opportunities lurk new dangers to ecology and cultural heritage but also to the budding polity. Put another way, protecting the environment and traditional livelihood and rapid industrial development (in part facilitated by rising temperatures) are potentially mutually exclusive goals.⁶³

To be sure, with greater navigability of Arctic waters because of thawing sea-ice and with raised expectation for easier access to its rich mineral deposits as the Greenland ice sheet is dissolving ever faster,⁶⁴ Greenland’s strategic importance has grown. Thus, its voice will be heard. But exogenous actors such as China in particular are pushing onto the scene—increasingly aggressively looking to realize ambitious infrastructure and mining projects (in exchange for supporting the local wilderness tourism industry) as Beijing seeks to expand is global influence under its Silk Roads strategy—also in the Arctic. China’s growing engagement with Greenland (as well as Iceland, Norway and Finland) may have a broader security dimension, given their relevance for U.S. global policy and NATO defense strategy. As a result, in fall 2019, Denmark—keen to remain a player at the top table in the North—has now made Greenland its number one priority on its national security agenda.⁶⁵

Nowhere is the complexity of the interplay of climate change and geopolitical power games, of national interests and of the interests of Indigenous people more palpable than in Greenland. Largely overlooked as a frozen wasteland and zone of peace since the Cold War ended, Nuuk is rapidly being forced into playing it big, moving to center stage, all the while Copenhagen is looking to consolidate its strategic cooperation with Washington.⁶⁶

This has not been easy given the erratic nature of the Trump administration. In April 2020, news of an American offer to the self-governing territory of $12 million in financial support and the slated re-opening of the U.S. consulate in Nuuk sparked outrage among many politicians in Copenhagen, coming barely a year after the Danish and Greenlandic governments rebuffed U.S. president Donald Trump’s awkward expression of interest in buying Greenland. And while Greenlanders appear delighted at the most recent U.S. overtures, stating that “our work on building a constructive relationship with the United States is [proving] fruitful,” the Trump administration left doubt that strategic calculations were behind its “provision of assistance:” to counter, as a Senior U.S. State Department official put it, Russia’s “military build-up in the Arctic” and Chinese efforts to “winkle their way” into Greenland.⁶⁷

Since the Cold War, the United States has been the least active and least assertive of the littoral Arctic nations and has lacked a clear, comprehensive and consistent Arctic strategy for much of the post-Soviet era. U.S. administrations have not treated the Arctic region as a U.S. national security priority on par with Europe, Asia and the Middle East, nor did they pursue comprehensive or well-resourced policies towards the region. In fact, U.S. officials actively sought to keep Russian-U.S. frictions out of the Arctic. However, since Moscow annexed Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula in 2014 and launched a proxy war in eastern Ukraine, Western governments have suspended most dialogue with the Russian military.

Today, the Arctic, peripheral to U.S. security policy for almost three decades, has returned to the forefront of American politics, though not entirely in its own right. Alaska appeared in the news because the Trump administration promoted its off- and onshore hydrocarbon agenda as well as pledging drilling lease sales for gold and copper mining, not because it was worried about the UN’s declaration of a climate emergency. Energy needs (and the energy lobby) and mining riches, not global warming, are the push factors why the White House is looking North.⁶⁸ Indeed, America remains the odd state out when it comes to Arctic governance, still not having ratified the UNCLOS and pulling out of the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement.

The Pentagon’s April 2019 Arctic Strategy commits the Department of Defense to work with allies and partners to counter unwarranted Russian and Chinese territorial claims and maintain free and open access to the region. This reactive position in the Arctic is a sign that the United States has begun to consider how to project force in the North in the context of great power competition. The Coast Guard now plans to add six new polar ice-cutters for Arctic and Antarctic missions, in addition to its current two.⁶⁹ It has also announced that it will conduct freedom-of-navigation operations in the Arctic to contest Russian claims that the NSR is an internal rather than an international body of water. Furthermore, the U.S. Navy has relaunched its Second Fleet in the North Atlantic and expanded exercises in the Arctic Ocean, while the U.S. Air Force’s July 2020 Comprehensive Strategy is premised on exercise vigilance that “recognizes the immense geostrategic consequence of the region and its critical role for protecting the homeland and projecting global power,” all to be underpinned by a combat-credible force.⁷⁰

For all this recent activity and bombastic rhetoric, the United States—together with Canada, and the Nordic countries—has continued to work with Russia on a range of issues in the Arctic, including search and rescue (SAR) under the May 2011 Arctic Council agreement on Arctic SAR, and creating a scheme for managing two-way shipping traffic through the Bering Strait and Bering Sea in 2018. Some observers see possibilities for further U.S.-Russian coaction in the Arctic.

It is undeniable, however, that Putin’s Russia has played it both ways—engaging in cooperative diplomacy in the Arctic Council and over territorial questions via the UN Law of the Seas, while constantly seeking to assert itself on the global stage.⁷¹ Putin’s long-term strategy has been to rebuild Russia’s international position since its humiliating crash at the end of the Cold War. Over the past decade, having restored political and economic stability at home, Putin has been testing the West—exploiting opportunities in Ukraine (Crimea and Donbas) and Syria.

The Arctic is a keystone of that policy, because only here—as Putin said in December 2017—is there real scope for territorial expansion and resource acquisition. This builds on and deepens the main asset of Russia’s unbalanced economy—its continued heavy reliance on the extraction and export of raw materials, especially oil and gas—which no modern leader of the country has been able to change.

The natural resources in Russia’s Arctic region already account for a fifth of the country’s GDP. The oil and gas under the North Pole offer the prospect of huge additional wealth but it will take time, money and technology to exploit, not to mention much international haggling. Somewhat easier pickings may be in the offing thanks to the thawing northern rim of Siberia—14,000 miles of coastline from Murmansk to the Bering Strait—both on land and in Russia’s territorial waters. De-icing opens up new opportunities for mining—from hydrocarbons to lithium—and shipping, but the melting of permafrost also harbors the problems of collapsing infrastructure, oil spills and toxic leaks, as the costly accidents at Norilsk and in Kamchatka in 2020 revealed.⁷²

Russia has complemented its economic activities with an Arctic security policy, involving bases and ice-breakers. In December 2014, Moscow announced that it intended to station military units all along its Arctic coast, and began pouring money into airfields, ports, radar stations and barracks. The new infrastructure includes two huge complexes: the Northern Shamrock on Kotelny Island and the Arctic Trefoil on Franz Josef Land, 620 miles from the North Pole. Taken together, Russia’s six biggest Arctic bases in the High North will be home to about a thousand soldiers serving there for up to 18 months at a time in constant snow, permanently sub-zero temperatures from October until June, and no daylight for nearly half the year. Moscow is now concentrating on making airfields accessible year-round. Under Gorbachev and Yeltsin, “our Arctic border areas were stripped bare,” Pavel Makarevich, a member of the Russian Geographical Society, proclaimed. “Now they are being restored.”⁷³

No other country has militarized its Arctic North to anything like this extent. And none can match Russia’s 40-strong ice-breaker fleet, which is used to clear channels for military and civilian use. Three nuclear-powered ice-breakers, including the world’s largest, are now under construction to complement the six already in operation. Russia is also giving its naval warships an ice-breaking capacity. By 2021 the Northern Fleet, based near Murmansk, is due to get two ice-capable corvettes, armed with cruise missiles.⁷⁴

The scale of Russia’s endeavor becomes clearer when one considers that the next countries on the ice-breaker list currently are Finland (eight vessels), Canada (seven), Sweden (four), China (three) and then the United States (two).⁷⁵ We are not talking about Cold War-era militarization, when the Soviets packed much more firepower in the Arctic and were geared to wage nuclear war with the United States. Arctic bases were staging posts for long-range bombers to fly to the United States. Now, in an era when a slow-motion battle for the Arctic’s energy reserves is unfolding, Russia is creating a permanent and nimble conventional military presence in small packets that are highly mobile and capable of rapid reaction. Furthermore, having tested its hypersonic Kinzhal air-launched ballistic missiles in the Arctic in 2019 with the quiet threat to regionally deploy them, Russia has in 2020 begun preparations to resume testing of nuclear cruise missiles on Novaya Zemlya, all the while, according to U.S. Coast Guard Commandant Admiral Paul Zukunft, “building ice-capable combatants” that can launch cruise missiles with ranges “as far south as Miami, Florida.”⁷⁶

The scale of Russia’s Arctic ambitions is not in doubt. In March 2015, Moscow conducted the largest full-scale readiness exercise in the Arctic since the collapse of the USSR. It deployed 45,000 soldiers, 3,360 vehicles, 110 aircraft, 41 naval vessels and 15 submarines, according to the Russian Ministry of Defense. On Navy Day, July 30, 2017, Russia made a point of showing off its naval might across the world, from Tartus in Syria to Sebastopol and Vladivostok, and, above all, in the Baltic waters of St. Petersburg under Putin’s approving eye. Up to a point, Putin’s naval show that day represented a Potemkin village, for Russia’s 2018 defense budget of $61.4 billion was small compared to America’s spending of $649 billion, and even China’s $250 billion.⁷⁷ Yet it would be an error to write off the resurgent Russian fleet as mere bluff and bluster. In fact, in July 2017, Russia and China held their first common naval drills, called Joint Sea 2017, in Baltic waters, bringing the Chinese uncomfortably close to one of the most turbulent fault lines in East-West relations; and once again, China was an active participant in a 2018 exercise, the massive Vostok 2018 maneuvers (throughout Siberia and all the way to the Pacific), officially with some 300,000 Russian service members. Both countries’ growing focus on the North became evident when—it seems by chance—the crew of a U.S. Coast Guard cutter found the Chinese and Russian navies conducting a joint exercise simulating a potential small-scale military encounter in the Bering Strait in the summer of 2020.⁷⁸

Perceptions matter as much as crude power projection. In this vein, the Kremlin regularly releases pictures of President Putin in snow gear, of ice-breakers in the Arctic Ocean, and of troops training in white fatigues, brandishing assault rifles as they zip along on sleighs pulled by reindeer. And now that Russia’s military forces can move with agility to deliver precise and deadly strikes, they are far more useful. Such forces need not be enormous. If cleverly deployed, even a small military hand can deliver a big blow with success—as Russia did in Ukraine and Syria, outmaneuvering the West. Through its new presence and military build-up, Russia can also deny others access to polar terrain—just as China has managed to do in the East and South China seas. And it does so under the pretext that as “the Arctic region has become a zone where geopolitical, geo-strategic and economic interests of the world’s leading powers are colliding,” Russia must be able to counter what it sees as the U.S. challenge to its control of its “Arctic zone,” especially at the economically and strategically significant NSR’s entry points, the Bering Strait and the Barents Sea.⁷⁹

Still, to realize the kaleidoscope of its Arctic ambitions, Russia has to crack the Potemkin problem. It still lacks the necessary technology and finance to open up the new Arctic, onshore and offshore. Deep sea ports and supply stations need to be built along the Northern Sea Route, as well long-distance railway lines, motorways and undersea fiber-optic data cable networks. Because of U.S. and EU sanctions since 2014, Russia cannot rely primarily on investment from the West. That is why it has begun to turn to China for money and markets.⁸⁰

To President Xi Jinping, Russia’s Arctic ambitions present an opportunity for China to use its economic might to increase its global influence. Xi, like Putin, sees the Arctic as a crucial element of the country’s geopolitical vision. Now that the People’s Republic is no longer an introspective state, but one that has “grown rich and become strong,” as Xi declared in his December 2017 New Year’s Eve speech, it intends not only to become “a great modern socialist country” but the “keeper of international order.” America’s long-time abstention from Arctic power politics seemed then to be offering the PRC an unexpected gift.⁸¹

The scale of Xi’s vision is remarkable. In 2013 China embarked on the “One Belt, One Road” initiative, the most expensive foreign infrastructure plan in history. It is a two-pronged development strategy, encompassing the “Silk Road Economic Belt” and the “21^st Century Maritime Silk Road,” which together map out a highly integrated set of land-based and maritime economic corridors linking thousands of miles of markets from Asia to western Europe. Late in 2017 Xi called for close Sino-Russian co-operation on the Northern Sea Route in order to realize what he called a “Silk Road on Ice.” Although cast in terms of mutual benefit, the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is a means to strengthen China’s influence and security along its strategically important periphery.⁸²

By making the infrastructure plan an integral part of its constitution and announcing that by 2050 China would be a “leading global power,” Xi has shown long-term thinking on a grand scale. He has done so by arousing genuine excitement about the future—so different in tone from the small-minded negativism about lost greatness that emanates from Trump. Indeed, this is the kind of visionary leadership that Washington has not shown since the early Cold War era, when it set out to rebuild western Europe. And once the BRI reaches its predicted spending of $1 trillion, it will amount to almost eight times the value in real terms of America’s Marshall Plan.⁸³

Xi’s grand global vision is combined with shrewd diplomatic tactics. His string of state visits in May 2017 to Finland, Alaska and Iceland was no coincidence: Finland was just about to take over the rotating chairmanship of the Arctic Council from the United States, to be followed by Iceland two years later. In Iceland—situated at the crossroads of the transatlantic shipping lanes and the gateway to the Arctic Ocean—China had used the opportunity of the global financial recession to push a free trade agreement, concluded in 2013. The new Chinese embassy in Reykjavik is the biggest in the country.

Xi’s visit to Finland was a chance for him to shore up support in the EU, China’s biggest trading partner. When lobbying for Chinese financial involvement in the creation of new shipping and transport corridors such as Rovaniemi-Kirkenes railway line and the Helsinki-Tallinn tunnel, he had his eye also on penetrating Eastern and Central European markets as part of the glittering BRI silk-road web.

Furthermore, China is working with Russia and Nordic partners to build the shortest data cable connection between Europe and Asia: a 10,000 km trans-Arctic telecom cable from Finland via Kirkenes in Norway and the Kola Peninsula in Russia. Another intersection of this is planned with a cable for the Bering Strait, from Chukotka to Alaska. The Finnish project, called “Arctic Connect,” plans to deliver faster and more reliable digital communications between Europe, Russia and Asia through a submarine communication cable, built by Huawei Marine, on the seabed along the Northern Sea Route (NSR). The $1.2 billion, 13,800 km cable is expected to be finished between 2022–2023. It will be owned by an international consortium, also including Russian and Japanese companies.⁸⁴

Finland, home to the European Center of Excellence for Countering Hybrid Threats, hopes to turn itself into a node of digital communication in the netflow world through this interconnection and attendant investment in Finnish data centers. With Arctic Connect, Finland wants to improve regional connectivity while providing the necessary infrastructure. It is an attractive destination due to its geopolitical location between East and West and history of neutrality are believed to make Finland the “Switzerland of data,” but also because of its reliable energy and internet infrastructure, access to green energy and cold climate-related reduction of cooling cost, reduced energy tax for data centers, transparent legislation and skilled workforce. Arctic Connect is believed to benefit the Finnish economy with €1.38 billion and over a decade generate over a thousand jobs annually. This is not pie in the sky; Google, for example, has already invested almost €2 billion in a data center in Hamina.⁸⁵

China is interested within the framework of the “Digital Silk Road” in building transcontinental and cross-border data cables that would bypass data cables and as such would be better shielded from outside actors. It must be noted, that for all the excitement, there are no illusions in Finland and the EU at large, that Chinese (and Russian) offensive intelligence gathering capabilities are likely to increase. After all, the Chinese companies contracted to build the project, including Huawei, are obliged by PRC law to collaborate with intelligence services. In addition, the construction of Arctic Connect will enable China to implement underwater surveillance capabilities it has been developing through military-civilian fusion in the South and East China Seas.⁸⁶

Beijing unveiled its systematic Arctic strategy with a grand white paper on the “Polar Silk Road” on January 26, 2018. The paper openly challenges the dominant position in the region of the Arctic Eight or the inner Five. China declared that it was time for Arctic countries to respect “the rights and freedom of non-Arctic States to carry out activities in this region in accordance with the law.” Since “the governance of the Arctic requires the participation and contribution of all stakeholders,” China said it would move to “advance Arctic-related cooperation under the Belt and Road Initiative”—a potentially hegemonic claim of its own, as we also see with its digital network activities.⁸⁷

The Arctic is thus definitely heating up, physically as well as politically, raising a multitude of questions at all levels as to the region’s future in terms of its resource management and governance.