National Security and International Environmental Cooperation in the Arctic — the Case of the Northern Sea Route

The basic objective of this book is to place the Northern Sea Route (NSR)¹, as the most large-scale economic endeavor of the North, into the broader picture of contemporary Arctic politics. Or put somewhat differently: to assess the political prerequisites involved in getting international use of the NSR recognized as a pan-Arctic challenge to be an object of concerted concern between the Arctic states. The overall focus will be on the issuespecific needs, properties and interactional pattern existing at present between the two driving forces of regional politics: the urge to achieve an adequate level of environmental protection to sustain an eco-system of unique fragility, and the need to utilize regional environmental and geographical components for the sake of preserving national security. The prevailing perceptions on the coexistence and relationship between these two issue areas are twofold. First, the conception is that some of the measures implemented to take care of the respective needs of the issue areas may conflict, creating severe political restrictions on the pace, scope and depth of the regional process to set an Arctic agenda of timeliness and adequacy. Second, and partly contrary to the first, the assumption is that the two issue areas are apt to coexist in conditioned harmony — in a parallel fashion. The concept of environmental security, even indicates the possibility of merging the two forces.

In the post Cold War years world society has striven to foster new modes of international cooperation and security. This endeavor has taken on a pronounced course in the Arctic and is promoted through four sets of interrelated, but highly incremental processes¹: a reconceptualization of regional security, i.e. a distinction has been made between military and civil security, civilianization, i.e. the multiplying of cooperative regimes in civil issue-areas, regionalization of decision-making processes and an intentional mobilization of non-state actors in Arctic policy formation².

Widely publicized Murmansk initiatives put forward by Mikhail Gorbachev in October 1987 have marked not only the beginning of the review process in the traditional Soviet Arctic policies, but a new understanding of the national security concept as well. In the course of the final years of the USSR existence these proposals, however, have been implemented only to a limited extent, and current perspectives of the new Russian policy in the Arctic still remain ambiguous.

This paper is prompted by a need to anticipate and possibly respond to the environmental consequences of substantial year-round international shipping through Russia’s Northern Sea Route (NSR). It seeks to develop a Canadian perspective on the question of whether or not to define and make use of a concept of environmental security. The Canadian Coast Guard is currently taking the lead in an international effort to harmonize national rules for ships and navigation in Arctic waters. If successful, these talks will help to secure Russia’s Arctic marine environment against ship-related pollution in ways that are not now available. But, as will be seen, this was not what moved the Canadian Coast Guard to take the initiative. In fact, as of the late 1990s hardly anyone in Canada is thinking about the use of Russia’s Arctic waters for bulk transit between Europe and the Far East or, for that matter, between the Russian north and Western Europe.¹ This is neither a public policy issue nor one that is taking much official time behind the scenes in Canada. Nor, for that matter, have the Coast Guard and other relevant government departments — Environment, Foreign Affairs, National Defense — regarded environmental protection in the Arctic or elsewhere as a “security” matter. Mention the Arctic, and the reflexive Canadian response is likely to be framed in terms not so much of security as of sovereignty, this largely as a consequence of the long-standing perceived need to defend against incursions by the United States.²

Since the creation of nation states the intrinsic nature and goal of security policy has, irrespective of regime, historical context and cultural heritage, been the pursuit of freedom from threat.¹ As a political act security is the call for exceptional measures to block undesirable developments.² This aspect of security seems to stand firm against the ravages of time, whilst the elements of danger and modes of protection are circumstantial, dynamic and partly embedded in the varying “security logics” inherent in alternating international political orders.³ The focus of this chapter will be on the changing features of the northern dimension of Norwegian security policy as it emerges in the systemic transition from Cold War bipolarity to the increasing multipolarity of the present.

As the new century approaches, we find the United States seemingly embarked on a transition to a new security praxis or reciprocal interaction of thought and practice. By no means closed to ideas and information from abroad or to concepts derived by non-state actors within, the U.S. government shows signs of adapting to a post-Cold War environment in ways that accentuate pre-existing American inclinations to articulate and employ extended notions of security. Received thinking which emphasizes the national interest, self-help, the military instrument, and an opposed-forces view of the world now finds itself challenged. New thinking on security, as Emma Rothschild puts it, extends the frame of reference in fourfold fashion: (1) upwards from the state to the global and planetary level; (2) downwards to the individual; (3) sideways to non-military or civil concepts of environmental, economic, and social security; and (4) in all directions where responsibility, and I would add the need for cooperation, in ensuring security is concerned.¹ A formidable array of private analysts, NGOs, foundations, think tanks, and officials as well as a few political leaders have started to generate and, to a far lesser extent, to institutionalize new ideas about extended security. The result, even at this early point, is a vigorous intellectual and political process whose complexity cannot but daunt those wanting to estimate where the U.S. might be headed on matters of security.

The Danish Realm is composed of three parts that are widely dispersed geographically: Denmark proper in the South, the Faeroe Islands in the north Atlantic and Greenland in the Arctic. The distance from the capital city Copenhagen to Thule in Greenland is more than 3900 km. In terms of size, population, climate, economy, culture and constitution the three parts differ widely. The mainland of Denmark covers some 43,000 square km and has a population of approx. 5 million, whilst the biggest island in the world — Greenland — occupies some 340,000 square km of the earth’s surface and sustains a population of some 53,000; the Faeroe Islands are spread over 1,400 square km of ocean expanse and are home to a population of about 43,000. Significant contrasts in climate and topography have made Denmark a modern industrial society and the two other parts mono-economies depending almost exclusively on fishing; at the same time three separate nations are embedded in the kingdom: the Danes, the Faeroese and the Greenland Inuits; constitutionally, both Greenland and the Faeroe Islands have attained home rule in the post war period, but foreign and security policy still rests as an exclusive obligation with Copenhagen.

The focus of this chapter is on the interrelatedness of regional environmental cooperation and national security as expressed in the pan-Arctic processes of regionalization, civilianization, mobilization and reconceptualization of security. The overall objective is: