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President Trump has repeatedly said that the acquisition of Greenland was necessary for national and international security reasons, often pointing to the presence of Russia and China in Arctic waters as an example. NPR’s international affairs correspondent Jackie Northam reports on what exactly Russia and China are doing in the North.
JACKIE NORTHAM, BYLINE: A warming climate is having a profound impact on the Arctic. Once forbidden waterways are gradually opening up. The search for resources is intensifying and Russia is becoming more active in staking its claim – not surprising since more than 50% of the Arctic Ocean coastline is Russian.
SOPHIE ARTS: The Arctic has long been of great strategic importance to Russia, both from a security and economic perspective.
NORTHAM: Sophie Arts focuses on Arctic security and geopolitics at the German Marshall Fund, or GMF, in Washington, DC. She says melting sea ice creates economic opportunities for Russia, from resource extraction to shipping.
ARTS: Russia has placed great emphasis on developing the North Sea Route, to which it controls all access, hoping to make it a truly transit route, for the longer term, while boosting investment in its energy and infrastructure projects.
NORTHAM: At the same time, the Kremlin has been modernizing its military assets – bases and the like – in the Far North as part of its efforts to restore its geopolitical standing in the world, says Klaus Dodds, professor of geopolitics at Middlesex University in London.
KLAUS DODDS: So as part of that process, which would take fifteen years, Russia is reopening Arctic facilities, rebuilding and expanding, in some cases, runways and things like that.
NORTHAM: Dodds, co-author of ‘Unfrozen: The Fight For The Future Of The Arctic’, says Russia is still employing a Cold War naval strategy by using a range of defensive measures to protect its nuclear-armed ballistic missile submarines around the Kola Peninsula in the Arctic.
DODDS: The only thing that has changed is that Russian submarines are a lot more advanced than Soviet submarines.
NORTHAM: Sophie Arts of the GMF says Russia poses a more acute threat to the Arctic than China. Although not an Arctic country, she says China has ambitions in the Arctic, focusing on commercial shipping, including building a fleet of icebreakers, setting up a network of satellites in polar orbits and scientific expeditions.
DOCTOR: China, for example, is mapping the seabed. We have also done research at GMS which shows that they are doing acoustic research, which really helps to create greater awareness about the operational environment in the Arctic, but could also support submarine operations and other undersea technologies.
NORTHAM: Dodds says China is increasingly dependent on Russia for access to the region. It also tries to curry favor with others in the Far North.
DODDS: So China has shown a lot of interest in trying to cultivate resource-based relationships with Arctic states, trying to gain access to Canada’s mining sector, and for example has tried to buy infrastructure in Greenland, which was largely rejected on national security grounds.
NORTHAM: But China has also made a show of force against the US. It has conducted joint military air and naval maneuvers with Russia in the Bering Sea near Alaska, but nowhere near Greenland, said Malte Humpert of the DC-based Arctic Institute.
MALTE HUMPERT: Trump’s statement that Greenland is surrounded by Russian and Chinese ships is simply not true. It’s actually quite the opposite: there is much more Chinese and Russian activity off the coast of Alaska.
NORTHAM: While the Trump administration has been focused on Greenland lately, there could be a problem that needs to be addressed much closer to home. Jackie Northam, NPR News.
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