It is a short step from Suez to the Arctic
Michele Scarpa's in-depth analysis of the Arctic game
The accidental closure of the Suez Canal was a wake-up call to the international community about the fragility of world trade.
If Cairo cried, Moscow could laugh.
In fact, as a result of the blockade of Suez, the Russian media have tried to highlight the insecurity of the Egyptian watercourse as a way of supplying gas from Quatar to Europe, suggesting instead the route of the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline as a safe source. supply of gas for Europe.
In fact, 9% of world trade in liquefied gas transits via Suez and its blockade has made the energy markets of the Old Continent worry, turning attention to Russia, the traditional gas supplier for Europe.
Nord Stream 2 is a gas pipeline, under construction, which runs from the Russian Federation to Europe via the Baltic Sea. The new pipeline, similar to the one in operation (Nord Stream), will establish a direct link between Gazprom and European consumers. However, the project is at the center of a bitter geopolitical battle that sees the United States committed to sabotaging a pipeline that would excessively bind Europeans (or rather Germany) to Russia which, with the new Biden presidency, has returned to being one of the main opponents of the USA.
In reality, the Suez crisis rather than giving new impetus to the construction of the Baltic Sea gas pipeline, which indeed, with the latest crisis in Ukraine seems to have gotten bogged down in construction, has rekindled the lights on Arctic routes.
These are those avenues for world maritime trade which, due to global warming, are opening up in the North Sea.
The melting of the Arctic ice sheet is in fact opening up the Northwest Passage, the Northeast Passage and the Transpolar Route for longer and longer periods of the year. These routes, if practicable for the entire duration of the year with common commercial shipping, would be a real revolution for world trade.
The so-called Arctic route could considerably shorten the journey of an Asian ship to the ports of the Old Continent and in addition it would avoid the transit of the “southern” chokepoints and their well-known fragility. For a ship traveling from China to ports from northern Europe it is estimated that the Arctic route is 20% faster and 40% shorter. The distance is in fact about 12,800 kilometers against the approximately 21,000 kilometers of the journey through the Suez Canal. Of course, at the moment the greatest criticality is a navigability limited to 2-3 months a year, but the novelty is precisely given by the fact that, according to experts, climate change will ensure that in 2050 this route will be free from ice and navigable throughout the whole year .
It is no coincidence that the Russian Ministry of Energy following the Suez accident stated "the North Sea route has a high potential for expansion of the volume of freight transport, allowing to significantly reduce the duration of the transport of goods from Asia. to Europe ".
Vladimir Panov, Rosatom's Special Representative for Arctic Development, echoed, arguing that “the development of the North Sea Route protects against logistical risks and makes global trade more sustainable. Undoubtedly, Asian countries such as China, Japan and South Korea will take into account the precedent of the blockade of the Suez Canal in their long-term strategic plans ”.
As the whole story of the Suez crisis teaches us, the question of arctic routes, however, is not just a commercial problem.
Geopolitics über alles. Indeed, the question of commercial interests in the Arctic closely intersects with Moscow's strategic interests. The Arctic is currently worth more than 10% of GDP and 20% of exports for Russia, but in the future it will be a real life insurance for Russians. Moscow owns more than 53% of lands bordering the Arctic and is undoubtedly the player, with the US, of greatest weight among the coastal countries (Norway, Canada, Denmark and precisely Russia and the United States) that can make territorial claims on the 'area. An area that, according to the US Geological Survey, owns 40% of the world reserves of oil and gas, for a value of about 20 trillion dollars. In addition, the area is estimated to possess 30% of all global natural resources. An enormous wealth.
For Russia it is therefore understood that it is vital to ensure control of both what happens on the surface of the waters of the North Sea, that is the commercial traffic, and what is under the seabed, that is the enormous mineral resources.
What is interesting to note is that Moscow's Arctic declarations following the Suez blockade are not impromptu declarations but a script for a vital match for Russia. In fact, to guarantee control of Arctic waters, Moscow follows a dual strategy: legal and military.
On the Arctic, Moscow has claims regarding the continental shelf and claims sovereignty over the Lomonosov and Mendeleev ridges, considered two submarine extensions of the Eurasian continental mass. Such a claim would thus guarantee the exploitation of hydrocarbon and mineral resources of an area between its coastal perimeter and the North Pole.
In order to legally pursue the claims on the continental shelf, Russia ratified the UNCLOS treaty in 1997 and is a member of the Arctic Council (in which Italy is an observer). Russian claims on these areas often overlap with claims of other Arctic states and create international controversy. The latest, for example, in 2020 arose after Moscow expanded its claim on the seabed of the Arctic Ocean to the EEZs of Canada and Greenland. The CLCS (Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf), an institution created by UNCLOS and appointed to resolve precisely such situations, deals with the dispute.
Parallel to the legal claims, the Arctic is vital for Moscow and consequently to be defended at any cost: hence the muscular strategy.
Being one, if not the Arctic nation par excellence, the Russian Federation has deployed a massive military apparatus in this vast area. For example, Moscow has transformed the Kola Peninsula, in the north-western extremity close to the NATO borders, into a real fortress, amassing about 200 warships, 20 atomic submarines and 1830 nuclear warheads. In addition, Moscow has created departments specializing in Arctic warfare, a type of conflict that is easily understood beyond the reach of many given the extreme geographical context. Moscow is reactivating a number of Soviet-era infrastructures (ports and airports) and building new ones that run parallel to the Arctic trade route.
The Arctic game is very complicated because the Russian positions obviously resist the other Arctic states, with the US and NATO at the forefront to control Moscow's ambitions in the far north.
But in this vital game for the Russians and fundamental for many, the great challenge of this century intersects: the Belt and road Initiative or new Silk Roads.
The Chinese presence in the Arctic is not a mystery in fact if Moscow puts the sea, the goods are mainly Chinese. The trafficking is therefore understood to be strategic for Beijing. As a result, China, more than anyone else, is investing enormously in this area. The investments are mainly infrastructural, and they happen with everyone. In particular, by collaborating closely with the Russians from whom Beijing obtains energy through some infrastructures that carry Siberian gas (the Power of Siberia pipline) and the North Sea (the Arctic LNG 2 liquefaction plant). But at the same time the Dragon invests in all the other Arctic countries, particularly Greenland, Finland and Iceland.
The closure of Suez therefore not only highlights the fragility of the southern hemisphere, global value chains and chokepoints, but brings attention back to the fragility of the far north, showing scenarios that seem distant but involve everyone, including Italy. The future of the world is played at the poles.
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/energia/da-suez-artico-il-passo-e-breve/ on Sun, 02 May 2021 06:17:36 +0000.