The Poke to Direct the Arctic – Claims, Icebreakers & Competition within the Some distance North

When you think of the Arctic, the first thing that comes to mind probably isn't “emerging domain for international competition”. Instead you might think of pristine environments, cold weather, unique wildlife, science, exploration and cooperation. And in some respects all those things are features of the Arctic reality. But in other respects, competition in the Arctic can have some pretty wild features, some with a distinctly 19th century feel to them. This is a region where only a year ago the United States was able to announce 1 million square kilometres in additional claims.

Presumably making Russia regret the whole sale of Alaska thing even more, as the US planted a proverbial flag on a million square kilometres of extended continental shelf. With the greatest respect to America's effort though, it did lack a literal flag. Unlike Russia's expedition to the Russian-claimed sea floor beneath the North Pole back in 2007. This is a region that can inspire both cooperation and also sometimes terse debates between allies. With the United States and Canada for example, still nursing some pretty old disputes. And as technology improves and Arctic ice recedes, the far north is arguably becoming an ever more significant domain for potential international competition. It's a region where there's a lot going on beneath the surface and today we are going to talk about it.

To do that I'm going to start by talking a little bit about the Arctic itself, which countries claim bits of it, how they claim bits of it, and why they try to do so. Then I'll talk about some areas where those claims can clash a bit. That'll lead into a bit of a discussion on some of the unique demands countries face when trying to project power into the Arctic, including a critically important type of asset, the polar icebreaker. That'll give us a good picture of what countries might be best able to access and exploit the Arctic. Closing out with a bit of a coda on how Russia has managed to take the massive advantage it enjoyed in that area and basically over the last 2 years.

Undermine its tremendous lead and give everyone else a bit more of a chance to catch up. In terms of caveats, the big one up front is that I'm hoping this will be part of an Arctic series. And so to keep the length manageable I have decided to split this into parts. Today we'll be talking about the non-kinetic side of Arctic competition, things like economics, territorial claims and icebreakers. With that introduction in place, hopefully there's a chance to come back to this in the future and talk Arctic warfare. So with that all said: welcome to the Arctic, a truly fascinating polar environment with some beautiful landscapes, bears, ice and many things nice.

On this channel and just in general you are probably used to looking at a world map that looks something like this one. But for the purpose of this episode a lot of the time I'm going to have to mess with your brain a little bit and rotate the map until it looks like this. What you see there is the Arctic Circle marked out by a traditional geographical definition: a line of latitude running 66° 34' north. A nice clean circle on the map with the North Pole in the centre. If you object to simple geographical definitions, there's also some more complicated ones out there. There are temperature-based definitions for example,.

Meaning the Arctic would literally expand or contract over time. Or Arctic boundary definitions like this one used by the US Arctic Research and Policy Act. But for the purposes of this video I'm going to be sticking with a nice neat circle. Using that definition the Arctic isn't exactly a small place, at about 8.1 million square miles, or 4% of the earth's surface. Or expressed another way, an area equal to roughly twice the land territory of the United States. A lot of that area obviously is made up of the Arctic Ocean, but it also includes chunks of land territory from several of the Arctic powers. Roughly a third of Alaska, parts of Greenland, Scandinavia, Russia and obviously northern Canada.

And what that means is while we tend to think of the Arctic as the realm of ice sheets and polar bears, there are actually more human beings living north of the Arctic Circle than there are in Croatia. With one estimate I found indicating that there were more than 4 million people living in the Arctic, of which about 2 million were Russian. As you can imagine though, pulling off a complete government census in Arctic conditions isn't always the simplest feat. And so if there happen to be a few extra people or a frozen Avatar or two out there, there's every chance the relevant government might miss them. It's also worth noting, as obvious as it might seem,.

That when you look at a map and see all that lovely blue colour where the Arctic Ocean is marked if you actually go there you are not going to find an ocean that you can freely sail. Instead you are likely to find something that looks like that satellite image I've included on the right there, with much of the Arctic dominated by ice sheets, especially during the colder parts of the year. Making access to many areas by all but the most heavily specialised vessels somewhere on the spectrum from hard to impossible. Although, as we'll come back to later in this presentation, the seasonal extent of that ice coverage has declined significantly in recent decades.

Meaning that while much of the Arctic is still a very difficult place to access, it isn't quite as hard as it once was. Now obviously all of that is very interesting, but for countries that love nothing more than to place their flags on something it does raise a question. How are we seeing a race to claim territory in the Arctic when most of the time there's no land to claim? And so, ladies and gentlemen, get ready for a crash course in the wonderful world of maritime boundaries, aka how you as a nation can claim bits of ocean, sorta. The baseline for working out any nation's oceanic claims begin with the land territory it holds.

Then, once your dirt hits the water line, you start talking about either internal waters, or in most cases if your claims are facing outwards you start talking about oceanic claims that operate in a sort of tier system. Most of which are measured as a distance from your coastal baseline. Generally, the waters up to 12 miles off your coast are going to be your territorial waters. With a couple of limitations, within that 12 mile marker your nation is sovereign. Within that zone you can make laws and enforce them. Then from that 12 mile marker out to a maximum of 24 miles, you have what's called the “contiguous zone”. Because within that zone you can exercise only the necessary level of control.

To prevent people infringing on your rights in your territory or your territorial sea. The real stretch for most countries is their Exclusive Economic Zone. Depending on the circumstances, like for example any neighbours who might have clashing claims, this can stretch out a maximum of 200 miles from your territorial sea. An EEZ doesn't give you full sovereignty or control over an area. You can't bar innocent passage, you can't impose whatever laws you want, but what it does give you is the exclusive rights to any economic resources inside that territory. If other nations want to fish, mine or explore for resources in that territory, on paper they are only able to do that with your permission.

That combination of rights can potentially lead to some interesting situations. For example, were Guyana to develop oil resources 50 miles off its coastline in its exclusive economic zone it would have sole permission to issue energy companies the rights to operate there. But it wouldn't be able to tell Venezuela not to, for example, park a couple of warships near the oil operation and give the whole thing the nautical equivalent of a death stare. While you can still get disputes over territorial waters and exclusive economic zones, for the most part (and especially compared to the next item on our list) they are generally comparatively easy to determine.

As long as everyone agrees on who owns the relevant land masses. The next bit however, is a little more complicated. Because you see you can actually extend your claim beyond the 200 mile mark, out as far as 350 miles, as long as your extended continental shelf stretches that far. There are a suite of rules and criteria for determining when it does so, which I'll link in the description, but a lot of it does come down to shape, and where for example the foot of your continental slope is. E-EEZ rights afford a country even fewer rights than an exclusive economic zone. You don't for example, own fisheries just because your ECS runs underneath them. But what it does give you is exclusive rights to the ocean floor and the relevant subsoil.

So you may not be able to stop others going fishing, but you can stop them drilling any gas deposits for example. One of the challenges with these kind of extended continental shelf (or ECS) claims is they rely on underwater topography, features we can't see because, you know, they are underwater. So in order to support and make ECS claims, nations need to do a lot of underwater mapping. And as more mapping is done, more claims can be made. In 2023 for example, the US stated it was making a small revision to its extended continental shelf claim, adding a casual million square kilometres or so, as you can see in the map on the right there. That followed a protracted effort of mapping out the continental shelf as it stretches out from Alaska.

The problem with doing this in general, and especially in the Arctic context, is often the information and mapping is incomplete. And nations can contest ownership of particular geographical features, saying they represent extensions of their respective continental shelves. That gives us things like this wonderful example of border gore, which maps out some of the claims to the Arctic, showing both nations' respective exclusive economic zones as well as their claims to extended continental shelf regions. Cleaned up a little, as of 2023 the Arctic claims look something like this. With a couple of uncontroversial and undisputed areas, and a whole bunch of overlap.

Including, but not limited to, territories claimed by both the US and Canada, Canada and Russia, Russia and Norway, Russia and Denmark, or in some cases Russia, Denmark and Canada all at the same time. Suffice to say it's messy enough that just by showing this map I've probably given a couple of EU4 players out there a collective aneurysm. But perhaps fortunately, most of the nations involved have collectively decided how to outsource the enviable task of trying to untangle this vaguely Gordian Knot and determine the real answers to the hard questions. Like for example, who gets to claim ownership of Santa's workshop.

After Denmark extended its claim to the North Pole in 2014, an area also claimed by Moscow. For most of the nations involved, it's the UN Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf that gets to rule on all this. The Commission was established by Annex 2 of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea. And it basically allows countries to put their claims for a continental shelf beyond the 200 nautical mile limit to the Commission. And provides the Commission the power to make recommendations and rulings in relation to those claims.

I'll put links to a range of things, including the Commission's website, in the description if you want to read up on its work, Or if you want to read the full text of the relevant treaty on this fantastic example of 1990s web design, complete with the absolutely unimpeachable choice of green text on a white background. Which I guarantee you is exactly the sort of thing that every law student out there trying to read this thing on 4 hours sleep is going to be very happy to work through. There is however one massive caveat to the role of the Commission, the application of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea and this process for claiming territory in general,.

Namely that there are a couple of small, mostly irrelevant, geopolitical actors out there that are not signatories to the UN convention, like you know, the United States. Meaning that when the US for example made its recent claims, what it basically did, to greatly oversimplify the situation, was that the US took the view (as it has pretty consistently) that while it isn't a member of the convention it is generally supportive of it, and aims to “Act in a manner consistent with its provisions with respect to traditional uses of the ocean.” The US takes the view that a lot of what is in the convention is just reflective of customary international law and binding on all countries anyway.

Including Article 76 which pertains to delineating the outer limits of continental shelves. So the US State Department's view is that “A country's continental shelf rights are inherent under international law including as reflected in Article 77 of the convention.” All of which basically boils down to the US saying that they are following the same rules you'll find in the convention for determining what their extended continental shelf is. But because the US hasn't ratified the convention, it didn't actually submit a claim to the Commission. Instead it just released a statement publicly indicating what it had done and what it was claiming, and that as a result, again to oversimplify, the relevant area of sea floor, more than twice the size of California, was theirs now.

What was also said was that the US already had a number of agreements in place with other powers regarding maritime delimitation. That included a 1990 agreement with the USSR with which the new US claims were consistent. Not said but potentially implied, was that anyone who had a problem with this particular interpretation was welcome to file an appeal with the US Navy. OK, so if that's a bit about how a country can go about claiming some Arctic seabed, the next question to ask might be why are they trying to do so? After all, in geo-strategic terms saying you've claimed the seabed underneath the North Pole is a bit of a weird flex.

And the sort of scientific and mapping exercises necessary to stake out this sort of claim don't always come cheap. And part of the answer might be that what the Arctic is seen as offering is changing. Traditionally, much of the Arctic was seen as having mostly scientific or environmental value. It was hard to get there, bloody cold when you did. And while cute animals and beautiful vistas can certainly be cool, indeed in the case of the Arctic they are often downright freezing, for most countries an Arctic fox or a polar bear isn't the kind of face that launches a thousand icebreakers. Plus there has long been a multilateral push to keep the Arctic environment preserved,.

And the area as one not for competition, but for international cooperation. However, that might potentially become more difficult as the Arctic becomes more valuable and potentially more accessible. What you're seeing on screen there is an image, and the yellow line represents the average minimum yearly ice volume between 1981 and 2010. Compared to the [image] itself which shows the minimum ice extent for September 18 2022. As you can see, the yellow line encompasses a lot of area that isn't covered in 2022. As temperatures have tended to increase, ice volume has tended to decrease. And as a general rule most ships find it much easier to travel through water.

As opposed to breaking through thick Arctic ice. Those improvements in access are coming alongside increases in technology, which potentially make resource extraction in the Arctic potentially more viable. Arctic resource extraction has already been a reality for some countries for many years. A lot of Russia's valuable hydrocarbons for example, are developed in its polar regions. But the potential deposits of offshore and seabed resources are also believed to be immense. I have some 2019 figures from the US Coast Guard there for example, estimating the Arctic probably contains at least 90 billion barrels of undiscovered oil reserves. That is the stuff we don't even know is there yet,.

And potentially around 30% of the world's undiscovered supply of natural gas. A lot of that for the moment, with current environmental conditions and technology levels, might not be economically viable to extract. But while there's a lot of technological problems humans tend to put in the too hard basket, when it comes to extracting energy resources, historically, where there's a will there's a way. And oil reserves tend to inspire a whole lot of will. What you're seeing on screen there for example is an image of a floating oil producing platform in the Pechora Sea. That Russian platform was the world's first operational Arctic rig.

That could process oil, drilling, production, storage and end product processing and loading all-in-one. Float it out there and in exchange for having some mildly unpleasant working conditions for those aboard, later on you could bring a ship alongside, load up on refined hydrocarbon products and ship those to your final market. It's not a perfect solution, and it's hardly going to produce the cheapest oil on the planet. But in the end systems like this prove that often there is a way to make sure the oil flows. Another great piece of strategic potential for the region is the idea of using it as a trade route. Because while it might not be immediately obvious looking at a regular side-on map projection, sometimes there's a lot of distance that could potentially be saved on some major shipping routes,.

If instead of going across, you went up and over. When it comes to the Arctic there are three potential routes that are often described. The Polar Route, as the name suggests, would run straight down the middle and potentially be the greater short-cut. Of course it's also where the ice is often thickest and least likely to go away. So for now, and hopefully the near future, it's a complete non-starter. The actual potential alternatives are the so-called Northwest and Northeast Passages, both of which you can see marked on the map to your right there. The Northwest Passage wraps around North America, with much of the route going through northern Canada.

The Northeast Passage, like the Northwest, also passes through the Bering Strait between the United States and Russia, aka that place where you can see Russia from your house. Assuming that is, you are equipped with a high altitude reconnaissance drone, or something to see across the 80 something kilometres the Strait stretches at its narrowest extent. As an aside, this is also my personal nomination for where ships of the future might be able to go to get that true Bab al-Mandab experience without going anywhere near the Red Sea. Given you will literally be sailing through a choke point between Russia and the United States. The rest of the Northeast Passage though is very different from the Northwest, instead tracking the north coast of Russia.

Before hooking around Scandinavia to make it to the Atlantic or northern Europe. If things like ice and logistics weren't a factor, the Northeast Passage would probably have serious advantages over some exist existing global trade routes. For some cargoes going from China to northern Europe for example, the Northeast Passage might be 40% shorter than an equivalent route via Suez. Plus, at least for now, pirates aren't really a thing in the Arctic. And as resilient as, they are, I just can't see the likes of the Houthis setting up in the Siberian tundra and tolerating 20 degree below temperatures. For now, as we'll discuss, the Northeast and Northwest Passages aren't really handling that much cargo.

Logistics is a problem, ice is a problem, insurance is a problem, search and rescue is a problem. These are all things that we will come back to shortly, but the point is if those challenges ever went away or could otherwise be overcome, it's hard to entirely walk past some of the distance savings that might be on offer here. And with the region's potential value for both trade and resource extraction growing over time, crossed it must be said with other changes in the global security environment and context, we've arguably seen a broader shift in approach by many countries, which might explain why they are so keen to extend their Arctic claims. But who are the nations that are primarily active in the Arctic that are making those sort of claims?.

And how in the past have they negotiated and cooperated? Historically, the Arctic stands out as being somewhat special. The small family of Arctic states have generally favoured keeping the region more cooperative in nature than many other places in the world. And the Arctic is covered by a number of treaties, cooperation agreements, and governance frameworks that just aren't applicable elsewhere. With those covering a range of topics from search and rescue, to environmental protection and scientific research. Basically the region has long had much less of a “get off my lawn” vibe than many other areas of the world.

And probably not just because actually growing a lawn in the Arctic would be quite the endeavour. It's generally considered that there are 8 Arctic states, that is countries with any territory north of the Arctic Circle. These are Canada, Finland, Sweden, Norway, Denmark by virtue of Greenland, the United States by virtue of Alaska, and Russia by virtue of Russia. Iceland also makes the cut although, as the map probably shows, it's a pretty close-run thing and they're probably only one well-placed earthquake or mega-engineering project from being kicked out of the clubhouse. Five of those are considered to be Arctic littoral or Arctic coastal states.

When you narrow things down to that grouping, Iceland, Sweden and Finland all drop away. Collectively, those 8 nations marked as dark blue on the map there make up the membership of the Arctic Council. While the states coloured in light blue are those with observer status. The council is a multilateral forum that was established in 1996 to address issues relating to the Arctic. It was established by the Ottawa Declaration which is notably a declaration, not a treaty and so doesn't have the same binding force. And over the last nearly 30 years it's done three very important things.

Regularly brought together the 8 Arctic nations to make decisions on a variety of issues by consensus. Provided a forum accessible to various interested observers like non-Arctic states, indigenous groups and NGOs. And of course laid potentially legitimate claim to having the cutest logo of any multilateral organisation. There's a few things that are important to note up front about the Arctic Council. First this is no tribal council, decision are made by consensus, and there's no mechanism to just kick a country out. The second is that it was very deliberately established.

Not to be a place where countries hurl their various security grievances. With the Ottawa Declaration specifically saying that “The Arctic Council should not deal with matters related to military security.” Basically it was meant to be a forum where Arctic states that may not necessarily always get along, could leave their potentially very real and very significant security concerns like nuclear threats or invasions at the door, and work on a consensus basis at getting decisions on areas they could cooperate in. Like for example environmental preservation, protecting fish stocks, or scientific research. If you want an image of the council doing its work that must seem like it comes from a different era now,.

Here's an image from 2021 when the Kingdom of Norway symbolically handed over the rotating presidency of the organisation to Sergey Lavrov on behalf of Russia. Such as been the traditionally non-security focused nature of the forum, that in 2019 when US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo made a speech in Finland ahead of a ministerial meeting of the Arctic Council, his, shall we say, robust and security-focused tone, wasn't necessarily appreciated, even by American allies present. With the Secretary of State not just publicly calling out China and Russia, but also American ally Canada, with Pompeo reportedly saying.

“We recognise Russia is not the only country making illegitimate claims.” It may not have been the diplomatic equivalent of a full-auto mag dump, but you could argue there were some shots being fired. One of the reasons this speech was so heavily reported was because in the Arctic Council context it was also rather unusual. But this attempted insulation of the Arctic Council from security affairs hasn't stopped the war in Ukraine disrupting its operation. In part because Russia held the rotating presidency of the organisation, the seven other members began boycotting meetings in 2022.

And as at time of recording, the organisation has not met now since 2021. Also previously sometimes important but currently obviously defunct, are the so-called “Arctic 5”, these are those Arctic coastal states I mentioned earlier, Russia, Canada, Denmark, Norway and the United States. And on occasion those 5 countries have met to discuss and decide Arctic issues separate from the Arctic Council, although doing so has sometimes reportedly been to the chagrin of both the observers and the other Arctic Council members. In 2008 for example, the 5 met in Greenland at a meeting that was called the “Arctic Ocean Conference”, and discussed a number of issues, including maritime security.

Lavrov was there for Russia obviously, because it's totally normal for someone to serve 16 years as a country's Foreign Minister. But given the, shall we say, currently escalated tensions between four of those countries and number five, I wouldn't be betting on any constructive meetings of this informal grouping in the near future. When it comes to issues like territorial disputes however, neither the Arctic Council nor meetings of the Arctic 5 have historically had much of a role in resolving them. Those instead have generally been a matter for negotiation between countries,.

Or decision by the Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf, which we discussed earlier. And as I hinted earlier, so far as claims and disputes go, there are a lot of them to go around. Now to be fair, some of these disputes are not exactly fight to the death affairs. Denmark and Canada for example, only relatively recently concluded a near half-century dispute over Hans Island. This was a completely uninhabited 1.3 square kilometre rocky outcrop of an island between Greenland and Canada. And given that it basically sat in the territorial waters of both Canada and Denmark (via Greenland), both nations long contended that this little deserted rock was their little deserted rock.

Fortunately for the world however, the belligerents in this case were Denmark and Canada, which resulted in one of the most wholesome territorial conflicts in human history. In 1984 Canadian soldiers made their way onto the island, planted a Canadian flag and left a bottle of Canadian whiskey. The Danes then sent a team of their own the next year, put up the Danish flag, and left a letter saying “Welcome to a Danish island” as well as a bottle of schnapps. The two nations would then basically take turns in the following years, sending teams to the island, planting flags, and leaving booze for the opposing side. In 2022 however, after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the dispute very much came to a head.

And for some unknowable reason, both Canada and Denmark ultimately decided to settle the disputes rather than going to war with one another. They finally ended up deciding to divide the (remember totally uninhabited) island in half, meaning that technically Canada and Denmark now share both a land border and an island they are co-parenting. Although one imagines they'll both probably skip the usual customs and border infrastructure. Much less wholesome, and potentially much more consequential, are debates over the nature of the so-called Lomonosov Ridge. This as the name suggests is an underwater ridge spanning roughly 1,800 kilometres (or 1,100 freedom units) spanning from Siberian Islands.

All the way to parts of the Canadian Arctic archipelago. The ridge is potentially very important because it provides a strong basis for extended continental shelf claims. And to that end there are at least three nations that attach potential claims to the ridge, those are Denmark, Canada and Russia. And while not all of the claims overlap with each other, parts of them do. A significant part of the Russian claim was approved by the Commission in late 2023 but there are still outstanding, potentially overlapping, claims to be ruled on. The final status of the ridge is yet to be determined,.

But those decisions may significantly impact who controls how much of the Arctic sea floor. But while “NATO states have territorial dispute with Russia” is probably a bit of a no duh headline in 2024, the Arctic also gives us a couple of examples of live and active disputes between nominal allies. Perhaps one of the most notable has to do with the Northwest Passage, that potential trade route running through the Canadian archipelago. As you can see on screen here, for part of the route the Northwest Passage weaves between different islands, all of which are internationally recognised as part of Canada. The Canadian practice therefore is to recognise and refer to these areas as Canadian internal waters.

The potential implications of that include Canada being able to exercise full sovereignty over these waterways and potentially choose to bar a nation's passage. That position is contested, perhaps most notably, by the United States. With the USA long taking the view that this is an international straight, not Canadian internal waters. And while agreements have been put in place that mostly allow the two countries to metaphorically live and let live, the dispute is a very long lived one which has tended to flare up from time to time. Indeed in that 2019 Pompeo speech I mentioned earlier, he described it as a “long-contested feud.”.

The article on screen there talks about a flare up caused by the passage of a United States Coast Guard icebreaker through the Northwest Passage where the US didn't request permission for the Polar Star to transit, only notified the Canadian government that it was going to do so. That incident occurred in 1985, and yet nearly 40 years on the matter is still very much a live one. And if and when the passage becomes easier to navigate for a wider array of ships during more of the year, the impetus to get an actual resolution to the question is probably only going to increase. Now let's be honest the two nations aren't exactly on a war footing over this,.

And the Canadians don't seem to have any plan to burn the White House a second time, at least that we know of. But it goes to illustrate that while borders and demarcations might be pretty clear in much of the world, in the Arctic those boundaries, legal realities, and future security situation still often remain just a bit uncertain – even among fairly close allies. But all of this so far has really only dealt with the legal question and the imperative: why do you want some of the Arctic and how do you legally get a hold of it? But when it comes to actually competing for presence and influence in a region, sometimes you need more than just the black-letter law. To paraphrase one NATO commander, when it comes to the Arctic access is everything.

And if you want to advance your strategic position in the Arctic, or leverage it for political or economic gain, you are going to need to be able to operate there. Projecting influence into and operating in the Arctic is arguably pretty different from other maritime operations. The Arctic environment, as well as its somewhat unique economic and political context, tends to place more of a premium on certain specialised capabilities. For example, and how's this for some in-depth five-star strategic analysis for you, the Arctic tends to be cold, like really bloody cold. And if your people and equipment are not prepared for the fact.

That it might be bone-chilling levels of freezing out there, then you probably don't even get to pass go and start your race to become an Arctic power. The Arctic context also arguably places a premium on having good scientific capability, and in particular a good ability to map the sea floor. In most cases in the Arctic, at least so far, you don't take territorial claims by sinking your opponent's ships, or seizing and occupying territory. You get it by accurately mapping what you're interested in and then either making some effective legal arguments before the Commission, or in the case of the United States, putting out a press release that says “This is mine now.”.

In any case, all of this puts a premium on scientific resources. Canada's mapping efforts before its 2013 claim for example, reportedly cost something like $200 million. And recent claims by the United States and Russia are both the results of long-term mapping efforts. Then if you actually want to be able to use the parts of the Arctic you want to access, you probably need sufficient logistics and search and rescue available. In heavily travelled shipping routes around the world, cargo vessels have plenty of choices for ports to pull into and refuel and resupply. If they have to sound a mayday because a ship encounters a serious emergency,.

They can be fairly confident if they are on a major shipping route that there'll be another vessel nearby able to render assistance relatively quickly. In the Arctic however, none of that can be taken for granted. Refuelling and support bases can be fewer and further between, which can also limit the ability of ships to maintain themselves on station before heading back to port. All else being equal, if you extend the journey time from the nearest base by 5 days to where it is you want to patrol, you've just cost yourself 10 potential days on station. This is also a serious issue for potential commercial utilisation and tourism. Insurers want to know that if a ship gets into trouble,.

Which it might do in an area that tends to be full of stuff like sea ice, that there is hopefully going to be help nearby and a port to limp to. In the Arctic, that sort of thing can't be taken for granted. In 2023 for example a luxury ship, the Ocean Explorer, broke down in the Arctic. When the news report relating to it came out on Wednesday the 13th, the word was that a Danish naval ship would only be able to reach the vessel to provide assistance on the coming Friday. If your emergency is that the ship breaks down, but you have an ample supply of food and booze on board to keep everyone entertained that might not be a problem.

But if your problem is instead something like “Oh my gosh, the ship is on fire,” 2 or 3 days might be a bit of a long wait. But perhaps the most distinct requirement that comes from polar operations is the need to have ships that can actually go there. And given that significant parts of the Arctic are covered with ice year round, that means icebreakers. These are ships, as the name suggests, that are specifically designed to break ice. Pushing through a path either just for themselves or serving as leaders to enable other ships to follow through behind them. They need to have significantly strengthened hulls, powerful engines,.

And all the features you'd expect from ships whose job is to seek revenge for the Titanic day after day, after day. Icebreakers are very much not all created equal. And one way to categorise them is by their so-called Polar Class. Basically a measure of how much ice they can safely break and when they can be expected to do it. Different countries (or groups of countries) do have different rating and classification systems. So not every icebreaker out there is specifically given a Polar Class rating. So for the purpose of this segment I'll be taking the definition of those classes, and also the classification of ships in different nations to those classes, from a count by the CIA.

Who actually released a count of global icebreaker fleets back in 2022 according to this sort of common set of definitions. PC 5 and 6 ships tend to be relatively light, to use the CIA description, PC 6 ships are expected to operate in the summer and autumn against first year ice with a thickness of between 30 and 70 cm. The class 5s instead can operate all year round against ice that's a little bit thicker, somewhere between 70 and 120 cm. PC 3 and 4 ships are often significantly heavier, with PC 3 ships potentially operating against 2 year old ice all year round.

With a thickness that might be up to 2.5 metres. PC 2s tend to be absolute chonkers that might be able to operate all year round against older ice that might be as much as 3 metres thick. And for a PC 1, 3 metres might not be the limit. Obviously icebreaker fleets aren't everything, but the larger your fleet and the more capable the ships are, the greater level of access you're going to have. The more expeditions you are going to be able to support, the more cargo you're going to be able to move. And the more viable it is for you to potentially hold trade routes open more of the year for commercial traffic.

And keep that in mind while I tell you that when it comes to icebreaker inventories, yeah, it's not exactly close is it? Now remember there are different ways to count and classify icebreakers, and I've used CIA definitions and figures from 2022 here. What it shows is that in 2022 Russia was operating more icebreakers than all of the other Arctic states combined. That on average those icebreakers tended to be heavier than their competitors, and that Russia was the only nation, other than the United States, to have any Polar Class 1 or 2 ships in inventory.

And so to help understand this chart and its potential implications, what I want to do now is quickly go over some of those national icebreaker fleets and ask what they might tell us about the country's polar capabilities, and also potentially its intentions. Hopefully then in a future episode we can add that to a look at military bases and assets in the region in order to get a fuller strategic picture. But for the moment, we are just going to break the ice on the topic a bit. Noting that for each country we look at I won't be looking at every class of icebreaker they have in operation, just a couple of the key ones.

And for what might be the first time on this channel, we are going to save Russia for last and give Canada top billing. We'll come back to Canada's unique strategic position in a future episode, but for now it's enough to say that Canada has the longest coastline in the world and immense exposure to the Arctic. And that presumably means a requirement for icebreakers. According to the Canadian Coast Guard, that translates into a current force that has two so-called heavy icebreakers (although in this case “heavy icebreaker” still means a considerably smaller displacement.

Than a lot of the other heavy ships that we'll look at for other countries) there are seven so-called “medium icebreakers” and a number of lighter ships. Meaning that even if this isn't a fleet of the heaviest icebreakers we'll look at, the Canadian force is at least one of the most numerous. And in recent years it has been in the process of getting just that bit bigger. Alongside its traditional fleet of unarmed icebreakers, Canada has also had its so-called Arctic Offshore Patrol Ship project. The goal here was to essentially create a patrol ship which could be used by both the Canadian Navy and Coast Guard.

And undertake that patrol mission while doing at least some light ice breaking itself, making it less reliant on dedicated platforms. The result was the Harry DeWolf class, with 8 ships being planned, 6 for the Navy and 2 for the Coast guard, and a pair of the vessels already being in active service. The ships have been controversial for (like many Canadian procurement projects) facing considerable delays and very significant cost overruns. Somehow managing to turn out significantly less armed and much more expensive than the Norwegian Svalbard class on which they originally modelled. The Coast Guard variants are to be entirely unarmed,.

And the naval variants will carry a grand total of one 25mm gun and two Browning .50 cals. Combined with an on-board helicopter, that might be enough for their intended patrol role. But it's worth noting the class of ships that can be broadly described as the Russian equivalent to both Svalbard and Harry DeWolf is reportedly meant to be about as fast, roughly the same displacement, and managed to carry a slightly larger 76.2mm naval gun and 8 cruise missiles. Now one might ask the question does a patrol ship really need to carry an 8-pack of Kalibrs, but I think the real question is how do we stop the US Border Patrol finding out about it before they start trying to sneak Tomahawks into their next budget request?.

But while obviously I do have to sass Canadian procurement a little bit, the reality is at least that they have a significant number of icebreaking vessels. Meanwhile for the United States, which so often we describe as being ahead of or at least at the front of the pack when it comes to key capabilities, the inventory looks much, much more sparse. In 2023 the Commandant of the Coast Guard made the following statement during a budget hearing, “I recently signed out a fleet mix analysis that indicates we need 8 to 9 icebreakers.” According to a number of sources, including the CRS, the United States Coast Guard doesn't currently have 8 to 9 operational polar icebreakers, it has 2.

By some counts the number should be 3 if you include the USCGC Polar Sea, but that vessel (originally commissioned in the 1970s) has been out of service since 2010 after her engines basically gave up. She since has reportedly been partially cannibalised to keep one of America's two remaining Coast Guard icebreakers in service. That's the USCGC Polar Star, first commissioned in 1976, which despite its age meets the definition of a formidable heavy icebreaker. But according to the Coast Guard she's often too busy to be on full-time Arctic employment. With one report stating that the ship spends the northern hemisphere winter.

Breaking ice near Antarctica in order to refuel and resupply America's McMurdo station there. And then after that mission is complete the ship tends to return to Seattle in order to complete critical maintenance and prepare for the next Antarctic resupply mission. Now anyone who's watched Stargate understands just how important it is to keep bases in Antarctica supplied. But it does mean a lot of the burden for the Coast Guard's Arctic icebreaking missions tends to fall on the service's other icebreaker, the much more modern USCGC Healy, which at this point is a mere quarter century old. The US has long had a plan to bulk out the icebreaker fleet.

Back in fiscal year 2013 the Polar Security Cutter Program was stood up, which envisaged at least 3 new heavy icebreakers. If successfully built, these would be some of the larger and more capable icebreakers in NATO inventory. However, the “if and then” of getting them built comes with an unfortunate number of procurement question marks. According to a report that I will link below, the Coast Guard originally hoped to get the first vessel into service in 2024. So of course in April of 2023 the GAO released a report that said as of August 2022.

The ship's overall design was 41% complete. Not the construction of the ship, the design of it. By fiscal 2023 the PSC program had reportedly received about $1.8 billion in procurement funding, and some of the estimates I read suggest the first ship of the class may not actually arrive until 2028. Now of course none of this means the US is helpless in the Arctic. US Navy submarines and Air Force aircraft have no problem with access. When it comes to ice the US can go under it, it can go over it, it just can't go through it. And in any situation when it needs to do so, until either 2028 or some other interim solution is developed,.

The US might be reliant on its NATO allies. And with the accession of Finland and Sweden, that definition of NATO ally now includes all Arctic states other than Russia, along with their often quite substantial icebreaking fleets. Most sources identify the Norwegian icebreaking fleet as being relatively compact, consisting of two vessels. A research vessel owned by the Norwegian Polar Institute, and the OPV Svalbard. Svalbard is armed and shares a number of commonalities with the Canadian design that was derived from it.

But it does have a number of distinguishing features, like a different sensor suite, a larger main gun, and the distinction of having been built for a fraction of the price. Denmark I believe used to have a small fleet of government-owned icebreakers, but the last two I believe were sold for scrap in 2023. Meaning that in that respect at least, the country probably has to concede some podium spots to Norway and Sweden. The core of Sweden's icebreaking assets are arguably its four 9,500 ton displacement vessels. The newest of which was the Oden commissioned in 1988. Swedish activities, like those of many countries, have also often.

Been supported by icebreakers that are operating on contract. Though a number of those ships have also now taken on very different fates. The Swedish fleet is also in the process of currently recapitalising somewhat with the ordering of two new state-of-the-art icebreakers. Although these are likely optimised for the Baltic mission, not Arctic operations. But when it comes to icebreaker design and construction, the real NATO superpower is arguably Finland. Back in 2017 Finland's Consol General in Los Angeles reportedly told a presentation at the Arctic Ambitions Conference.

That about 60% to the world's icebreakers have been built in his country, about 80% designed there. And that at Finnish shipyards a Polar Class icebreaker could go from contract to delivery within 24 months. He also openly threw a little bit of shade at some of America's icebreaking projects reportedly saying, “I have serious difficulties however, understanding how you can pay a billion for an icebreaker that costs 1/5th of it if you order it from abroad. But I'm not going to go into those political situations.” Now one could argue whether those statements themselves represented going into the political situation so to speak.

But what can't be argued is how immensely important Finnish yards and designers have been to shaping icebreaker fleets. Until recently the Finnish order book was so wide that it even included selling ships or design services into Russia. Although the Russian invasion of Ukraine does appear to have torpedoed efforts to build the largest ever Finnish-built icebreaker for a Russian firm. Finland does possess its own significant icebreaker fleet, although that's going to be mostly focused on the Baltic mission given Finland's obvious strategic interest in keeping its ports as accessible to maritime trade as possible.

With Russia now lost as a client, it remains to be seen how Finland's shipbuilding sector will evolve. On one hand, for the US and its allies, Finland might be to icebreakers what Japan and Korea are to shipbuilding more broadly. An established an advanced provider that can do top-shelf product at competitive prices. But what isn't clear is where countries might choose to buy Finnish as opposed to paying the extra premium to try and manufacture domestically. One way or another, you can expect Finnish shipyards to continue to try and sell into the global market just as they have in the past, including to the country we are about to talk about.

Which brings us to another nation with a keen stated strategic interest in the Arctic, and one which I sneakily didn't include on my chart of icebreaker powers earlier, the People's Republic of China. Now I know on saying that there are probably some of you that quickly Googled “world map” to see whether or not you are misremembering your first grade geography, you're not. The line on that map there roughly represents the Arctic Circle and it touches every other country we've talked about or will talk about this episode. China of course is down here with no part of the country's land mass being above that line. So how, you might ask, does China end up in a YouTube video listed as an Arctic power?.

And the answer is that while geographical realities may be what they are, they are clearly no match for one of the most powerful things humans have ever invented: policy documents. In 2018 the People's Republic of China released a policy white paper, “China's Arctic Policy”. I'll link the full official English translation in the description. But suffice to say that Section II, “China and the Arctic”, opens with an interesting declaration, saying that “China is an important stakeholder in Arctic affairs. Geographically China is a 'Near-Arctic State', one of the continental states that are closest to the Arctic Circle.” It would go on to say that China is closely involved in the trans-regional and global issues in the Arctic.

And would go on to lay out a number of objectives, strategies and principles, all of which basically proceeded from the assumption that as a 'Near-Arctic State' China should be a significant and relevant player in the far north. Essentially this was a public policy statement that could be rendered down to saying that in geographical terms, near enough was good enough. Now for those of you wondering, the term 'Near-Arctic State' doesn't have a formally accepted international definition. But assuming it relates to a line of latitude drawn from the northernmost extent of a country's territory, I've drawn a helpful line on the map there.

And based on that, I'd like to congratulate countries like Belarus, Poland and Germany on their new status as Near-Arctic States. Assuming instead it relates to a line of latitude drawn from a country's northernmost port, considering, you know, you kind of need to sail to the Arctic, then we can go on to extend that invitation further to famously Arctic minor countries like Italy and Türkiye. Unfortunately, Türkiye might miss out if we instead measure on the basis of sea travel distance from nearest port, but we can still bring in countries like Spain and France.

On a completely unrelated note, one might suggest that strategic interest doesn't always follow a direct 1:1 linear relationship with geographical distance. Just because you're a long way away from something doesn't mean you don't care what happens there. And in that sense, China probably does have a range of reasons to be deeply invested in what happens in the Arctic, arguably making it a Near-Arctic State, at least in strategic terms. China's white paper set out a number of stated objectives for the Arctic. These included deepening exploration and understanding, protecting the environment of the Arctic and addressing climate change,.

Followed by a goal of “Utilising Arctic resources in a lawful and rational manner, participating actively in Arctic governance and international cooperation, and promoting peace and stability in the Arctic.” But arguably one of the most interesting parts of the strategy wasn't the elements around oil, gas or mineral resources, but instead China's stated desire to participate in the development of Arctic shipping routes. With the strategy saying “China hopes to work with all parties to build a polar silk road.” That's hopefully a concept we can come back to when this series continues in a future episode. But for now it's probably enough to say that if you want to develop trade routes.

And extract resources, you are going to need icebreakers. And despite working from a starting point that not too long ago wasn't that far from zero, Chinese shipbuilders have been working hard and quickly on getting Beijing what it needs. Until 2019, China had exactly one research icebreaker. This was the Xue Long (or Snow Dragon) which was actually built in Kherson, Ukraine, in the early 1990s to a Soviet design. The Xue Long 2, completed in 2019, followed the same evolutionary path we've seen China take with things like aircraft carriers. Instead of being a foreign design built in a foreign yard,.

Now you are looking at a foreign designed ship (a Finnish engineering company helped design it) but one that was constructed in a Shanghai shipyard. Albeit it some hard to design or produce components like the diesel power plant still being imported. Xue Long 2 is a fairly formidable (more than 14,000 ton displacement) polar icebreaker, reportedly built to a Polar Class 3 standard. China's follow-on class of slightly smaller polar icebreakers (of which I believe two are currently under construction) are also expected to be built in China and take further steps towards being fully made in China vessels. So if you're looking for a big picture evaluation, China is a 'Near-Arctic Nation'.

With significant ambitions for the region and (so far) relatively middling resources. The country has some presence in the Arctic, a history of scientific expeditions and a middling icebreaker fleet. But if you've taken anything away from any of the videos I've done on China, it's that often you shouldn't focus so much on what their capabilities are today, as what they're likely to be in 5 or 10 years. In terms of icebreakers, China has gone from being a one ship force in 2019 to having more icebreakers than the US Coast Guard in 2024, and a stated ambition to continue expanding and potentially becoming.

The second country in the world to operate nuclear powered icebreakers. A type of ship which might offer particular benefits to the Chinese, given the value of extra endurance when you have to get to and from the Arctic from Chinese ports. Which brings us at last to the true icebreaking superpower on our list, the Russian Federation. Of all the nations we've talked about, none have anywhere close to the number of assets Russia does in the Arctic Circle. Much of Russia's far northern infrastructure was established during Soviet times, as was the basis of their icebreaking fleet. And those developments had significant economic and strategic imperatives behind them.

Because whereas in this episode we've generally talked about Arctic resources as a kind of hypothetical, for the former Soviet Union and current Russian Federation they are already part of the core economic model. Depending on what source you read, Russia's Arctic region accounts for somewhere between 10% and 20% of the country's GDP and a larger share of its exports. The region produces diamonds, platinum, gas, nickel, oil, copper, and a range of other resources. In some cases accounting for the overwhelming majority of Russia's entire production. Russia's Yamal LNG project for example, accounts for the majority of the country's LNG exports. But in order to make resource extraction operations viable, or supply military bases,.

Being able to get there by ship is a massive help. And that's part of where Russia's massive fleet of icebreakers comes in. And it is worth noting that Russia's icebreaker inventory isn't just the largest in quantitative terms, it also has something that no other icebreaker fleet currently has. Some of Russia's icebreakers aren't just big, they are also nuclear powered. Adding nuclear propulsion gives ships like the Sibir not just additional power on tap for pushing through thick ice, it also lets them do it continuously with a much greater endurance for the ship than a conventionally-powered equivalent. Ships like this can theoretically operate further away from port for longer periods.

With about 6 months of on-board provisions, rather than continuously having to run back to port to refuel. And in a part of the world where metaphorical gas stations aren't exactly on every street corner, that can be a major advantage. And it's sufficiently unique enough as a capability that if this was a Civilization game I'd be suggesting a nuclear icebreaker as Russia's unique unit. To quickly cover just a few highlights of the Russian inventory, the ships Yamal and 50 Years of Victory are each roughly 23,000 ton displacement vessels that were commissioned after the fall of the Soviet Union, but which had been laid down in the late 1980s to an originally Soviet design.

They were augmented by two slightly smaller shallower-draft icebreakers that were originally actually built in Finland. Those two ships would be built in Finland and then have their nuclear power plants installed by the Baltic shipyard at St Petersburg. Because while the Finns can design and build fantastic icebreakers, they don't build nuclear propulsion units. The Russian follow-on to these 1980s-era designs were the so-called Project 22220 icebreakers. These vessels, of which 3 are currently active, were even larger and more powerful than the ones that came before. Russian sources advertised the ships as being capable of cracking through 2.8 metre thick ice.

At a continuous speed of 1.5 to 2 knots. And with the nuclear power plant, they could keep that up a lot longer than the conventionally fuelled vessels we've looked at. With vessels like these, the Russian icebreaker fleet may not have always been the most technically reliable, and it has reportedly often operated at a financial loss. But in terms of raw capability, arguably nothing came close. For more than a decade leading up to 2022, I'd argue that Russia's Arctic capabilities were only compounding. Old bases were being reactivated or new ones built, new resource projects developed,.

And older Soviet icebreakers were increasingly being replaced by new Russian designs. Russia's practical ability to access the Arctic was arguably only increasing, and the country also seemed dedicated to a long-term play of trying to leverage the Arctic into an additional source of Russian prestige, economic power and global influence. The Russians even compounded their position by contracting the South Koreans to build 15 of these things. This is the Yamalmax class, a 120,000+ gross tonnage LNG tanker with a length of almost 300 metres, that is capable of carrying its incredibly explosive cargo and giving the middle finger to some fairly thick sea ice while doing it.

These ships were critical to the operation of that Yamal LNG project we discussed earlier. Since 2017 these vessels have reportedly made far more than a thousand trips shuttling product to Europe and Asia. With each delivery reportedly being valued in excess of 30 million US dollars. And this significant capability was built up fairly quickly. The South Korean shipbuilding industry being what it was, they managed to deliver a casual 15 of these things between 2016 and 2019. And I'd argue they really helped demonstrate the extent to which Russia was just that far ahead when it came to developing resources and access in its Arctic territories.

Sure, it might not have built these ships, but it was the one that had them and was using them. And you could argue that just accentuated a situation where Russia already had considerable advantages in the Arctic region. Russia was the country with the most population in the Arctic Circle, the most bases in the Arctic Circle, the most military forces proximate to the Arctic Circle. And arguably the best suite of civilian and dual-use capabilities to exploit the region as well. All of this we touched on earlier, but arguably it was only the start of Russia's Arctic potential. While it's ultimately impossible to know what would have been, I'd suggest that in the early 2000s the Russian Arctic was on track to be even more strategically significant.

Improvements in extraction technology looked like they were going to make resources in Russia's far north, be they on land or offshore, increasingly economically viable to extract. And at the same time strategic and economic imperatives alike meant that if the ice started to thin at least a bit, there might be incentive for more Asia-Europe traffic in particular to start taking the northern route, avoiding the run through the Malacca Strait, up the Red Sea and through Suez. Both the route and the resources potentially had massive implications for Russia. There were a variety of offshore energy projects that were attracting European know-how and European financial capital to develop energy resources.

That could ultimately be sold into European or potentially Asian markets. Increased use of the northern route would push more global trade through a Russian-dominated corridor. And if it wanted to, Russia with increased mobility on its northern flank, would be in a better position than ever to act as a sort of bridge between East and West. Directing things like exports, exploration permits, or other forms of cooperation selectively in order to make the most out of economic and political opportunities in both Asia and Europe. That's a recipe for Russian economic opportunities, Russian strategic relevance, Russian leverage and also Russian development opportunities in the country's far north. And yet you could argue this sort of line of development represents at least two things for Russia,.

Namely its incredible promise and potential, and also wasted opportunities. And rather than try and demonstrate that with macroeconomic statistics or lines out of strategy documents, instead I want to bring this back to where we started the section: icebreakers and the story of a class of ships. In the late Soviet era there was a concept developed for a type of icebreaker that went well beyond anything that anyone else had. That wasn't that hard, Russia already had a massive advantage by being the only operator of nuclear powered icebreakers in the world, but the concept of a “leader icebreaker” was something that was going to go much further.

The idea was a class of icebreakers so capable that they could make transit along the northern route viable for cargo ships the whole year round, not just when the weather cooperated. It would need to be able to crack through thick ice at an economically viable speed, and very thick ice, like 3.5 to 4 metre thick ice, at a reasonable pace when it had to. So the brief was thicker ice than almost anyone else, faster than almost anyone else. And before those of you in the comments who understand how wedges work get too excited, it wouldn't be enough to design a ship that could cut a channel through very thick ice relatively quickly, it would also have to cut a fairly wide path. Because all else being equal, often times the larger.

The cargo ship you can use, the more economical the transit is. That's actually one of the drawbacks of the route and icebreaker fleets today, there are a lot of cargo ships out there that are too big for the existing icebreaker ships to cut viable paths for. And most shipping companies probably aren't too keen on the idea of losing a valuable ship and cargo just because someone thought it would probably fit. So of course the Russians looked at a borderline impossible set of requirements and gave us Project 10510. I just said you'd need a big ship, and indeed the Russians gave us a nuclear-powered chonker.

Reportedly these things were meant to displace about 70,000 tons, more than just about any warship out there that isn't an American supercarrier. It would have a beam of 48 metres, and it would be able to push that nearly Olympic swimming pool sized waistline through 4 metres of ice. Or if it was cutting through a mere 2 metres of ice (near the cap of a lot of icebreakers out there) it would be able to do so not at a handful of knots, but 10 or 11, about 20 kilometres an hour. And if you're wondering how that's possible, the answer is a shit ton of nuclear power. With a multi-reactor propulsion system capable of developing something like 120 megawatts. If you want to put that into perspective, a US Nimitz class supercarrier.

Displaces a little less than 50% more while having more than 50% additional power. And this project wasn't just a design or shipbuilding effort, it was an industrial expansion effort. Because the ships wouldn't be built at the established Baltic shipyard that had handled Russia's previous nuclear power designs (at least the ones that weren't built in Finland). Instead they'd be constructed at a relatively new yard in the Far East. So if all went according to plan, Russia would get a fleet of three new super ships that could crack open trade opportunities in the far north, quite literally. And in doing so build up a new industrial base for these types of ship in the Far East. And if you want some idea of just how much significance Moscow attached to this project,.

The lead ship of the class, intended to be the first of three, was given the very understated and not at all politically significant name Rossiya. If you're a national government, you are probably not going to choose to put the name of your nation on the side of a tugboat. Although to be fair, the US Navy did call one of the Littoral Combat Ships the USS Canberra, so thanks for that one guys. But ultimately Moscow decided not to put the national name on the side of a battle cruiser, submarine or aircraft carrier, it was going to go on the side of an icebreaker. One which would have represented a considerable feat of Russian engineering,.

And a statement about Russia's commitment to its Arctic future. Then however Ukraine happened. When Russian tanks crossed Ukraine's borders in February 2022 they probably undid in a matter of minutes years of work on Russia's long-term Arctic strategy. The future for energy and resource extraction projects that relied on Western technology, Western investors and Western customers, all suddenly didn't have quite the outlook they did before. And the ability of Russia to exploit its resources, geographic position and holdings in the Arctic in order to balance interests between China and Europe.

Has so far in significant part given way to a world where Moscow is increasingly dependent on Beijing, while facing strenuous sanctions and decoupling from Brussels and Washington DC. At the same time, NATO's strategic position in the far north was strengthened by the accession of Finland and Sweden. Not to mention various NATO states deciding that their defence budgets could probably afford to be kicked up a notch or 15. And while investors were pulling back and NATO consolidated, Russia was also diverting some of its valuable northern-facing assets to the fight in Ukraine. We'll come back to this more in the future when we talk about Arctic warfare specifically,.

But here I think it's important to differentiate between military units that know how to tolerate the cold. You know, maybe their personnel have done something like gone through an Arctic survival course, or grown up in Siberia or northern Canada. And on the other hand dedicated Arctic warfare units that have specialised training, specialised equipment for a specialised role. Being able to fight in an environment where everyone else is just going to be focused on survival. In open sources, a number of Russian units that are normally allocated to that sort of environment or the northern front have been identified in Ukraine. We've seen the 61st Independent Naval Brigade, the 80th Arctic Motor Rifle Brigade.

We've seen images like this of a Tor-M2DT air defence system destroyed in Ukraine, which is an Arctic version of the Tor air defence system. Unlike the regular Tor it actually consists of two connected tracked vehicles, and has various adaptations to enable it to operate in an extremely hostile Arctic environment. Developing a vehicle like this one that can reliably operate at -50 degrees Celsius doesn't come cheap. And yet here it was, presumably with its specially trained crew, being destroyed in Ukraine. I could go on, but the point here is that a lot of the resources that Russia had been carefully developing and husbanding to increase its influence and power projection in the Arctic.

Since appear to have found themselves, at least on some scale, reallocated and expended in Ukraine instead. As long-term ambitions in the Arctic were traded for short-term battlefield imperatives in Ukraine. The Rossiya and its planned sister ships wouldn't escape that trade-off or the consequences of the invasion. Russia's icebreaker fleet and manufacturers were placed under international sanctions, making access to technology more difficult, or at least more expensive. Not to be outdone by the West in anything however, the Russian military also appears to have gone about trying to kinetically sanction itself.

For example certain key components of Rossiya were originally meant to be manufactured by, and had been ordered from, a Ukrainian company. They were to be manufactured in the Ukrainian city of Kramatorsk in facilities that would then be struck by the Russian military. Those parts were eventually reportedly re-contracted to Russian suppliers, but at the cost of an estimated multi-year delay and a cost blow-out some sources are already estimating it an almost Canadian 60-70%, despite construction barely having started. With construction delayed, cost blowing out, and Western countries now.

Less potential market and investor and more potential military competitor, Russia quietly revised the plans for three 10510-class ships in its latest Arctic Strategy from the originally planned three to just one, the Rossiya itself. Despite the only relevant shots involved being fired by the Russian military, roughly 100,000 tons, an entire American supercarrier's worth, of future icebreaker tonnage was wiped off Russian planning. And with it potentially a new chapter of Russian access dominance in the far north. Obviously none of this means the Arctic won't be incredibly important for Russia going forward, nor does it mean that no investments are still being made.

Many of the fundamentals of Russia's position remain the same, millions of Russians still live in the Arctic Circle, the region has tremendous potential economic value. And that economic value is expected to only increase as global temperatures do. And that means Russia is still continuing to announce new investments in the Arctic or its military presence there. Back in the August of 2022 for example, Russian Prime Minister Mishustin reportedly approved the development plan for the Northern Sea Route. Totalling more than 150 measures between 2022 and 2035,.

Expected to cost a total of 1.8 trillion rubles. As long as those investments and investments like them continue to be made, Russia will probably make progress in developing the far north. But all else being equal those advancements, those developments, will probably be far, far short of what they might have been if the war on Ukraine didn't so fundamentally alter Russia's strategic position and available resources. Whatever the result of the war in Ukraine, the opportunity costs for Moscow have been immense. Including arguably the sacrifice of some of the country's advantage and its Arctic future by pursuing military goals in the west at the expense of potential in the north.

With Finland and Sweden now joining NATO, all of the other Arctic states are now members of that alliance. Something which might make it easier for the alliance to coordinate and project into the far north. Some NATO nations also appear to be waking up to just how important the Arctic might be, and what it might take to compete there. With just one example of that being that we expect the Pentagon to relatively shortly release its own Arctic strategy. Something which might mark another stage in the militarisation of US strategy in the Arctic. But as for what that might mean, or the strategies being adopted by the other Arctic nations, I think that's a story for another time.

And OK, let's add a channel update to close out. The Arctic as a topic scored very well in recent patron polls. But after I started working on it, I pretty quickly figured out that it wouldn't be the work of one episode. Kind of like with space, there's a lot going on when you talk about competition in the Arctic. Especially when you account for the fact that the accessibility and potential value of the region appears to be increasing over time. With any luck, the next part of this story will be the strategies countries are embracing to try and gain an advantage in the Arctic, and the potential intricacies and balance of power involved when it comes to potential Arctic warfare.

But as to when and if that follow on will happen, I'm not exactly sure yet. I'll also add another apology to the long-suffering Perun Gaming viewers out there, this week has not been a simple one, it's been fairly bumpy. But touch wood, you should finally get your release when I get a chance to breathe on Monday or Tuesday. Other than that, thank you very much to all of you as always, and special thanks to the patrons who voted for this topic. And I do look forward to seeing you all again next week.

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