The Impact of the Post-Arms Control Context and Great Power Competition in the Arctic
The attack submarines USS Ray (SSN-653), USS Hawkbill (SSN-666), and USS Archerfish (SSN-678) surface at the geographic North Pole, 1986. Photo: U.S. Navy
Much recent discussion has focused on the contemporary militarization of Arctic and subarctic regions. Journalism and scholarship alike question if military conflict might occur, how peace can be maintained, and what war would look like in the Arctic. To provide insight on such queries, The Arctic Institute’s 2021 Conflict Series provides analysis on past Arctic militarization and military activities—seeking both historic context and lessons learned for modern Arctic politics.
The Arctic Institute Conflict Series 2021
- The History and Future of Arctic State Conflict: The Arctic Institute Conflict Series
- Fisheries Disputes: The Real Potential for Arctic Conflict
- Environmental Détente: What can we learn from the Cold War to manage today’s Arctic Tensions and Climate Crisis?
- Knowledge is Power: Greenland, Great Powers, and Lessons from the Second World War
- The Impact of the Post-Arms Control Context and Great Power Competition in the Arctic
- The Arctic Institute Conflict Series: Conclusion
The role of the Arctic in the strategic competition between the U.S. and Soviet Union during the Cold War involved potential aerial threats via strategic bombers and intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) traveling over the pole, and maritime threats by ballistic missile submarines and hunter-killer submarines operations under the Arctic sea ice.1) Air defence and early warning provided through the binational NORAD command and concepts for missile defences comprised the Western response to strategic threats against the continent. In addition, the risk of Mutually Assured Destruction established a strategic balance of threat and vulnerability consisting of traditional deterrence by punishment. However, attempts by one side to achieve strategic advantage and enhance its security through deterrence by denial – applying counterforce targeting to disarm the adversary’s systems – upset this balance and introduced destabilizing offensive systems and postures that fueled competition and arms races between the two nuclear powers. Flexible responses involved a combination of counterforce and countervalue (economic and population centres) targeting options.
Arms Control to Enhance Stability
Bilateral cooperation on nuclear arms control emerged from the increasing destabilization that this competition created. The control of strategic arms and strategic defences sought to re-establish balance to deter either state from the ability to threaten a disarming first strike.2) Arms control negotiations, such as the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT I), led to the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty to limit anti-ballistic missile defences and the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty to limit the deployment of intermediate-range nuclear forces. A series of post-Cold War bilateral negotiations led to the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaties (START) – the most recent being New START in 2010, which was renewed in February 2021 for five years.3) Arms control enhances strategic stability and mutual cooperation by creating confidence through transparency, predictability, and verification mechanisms (such as inspections) for compliance.
However, the 9/11 events that targeted American citizens and symbolic landmarks demonstrated that the continent was no longer immune from threats. In response to the threat of WMD (Weapons of Mass Destruction) terrorism and rogue states seeking to develop nuclear capabilities, the U.S. withdrew from the ABM Treaty in 2002 to pursue national missile defences and began modernizing the nuclear triad, which led to revived strategic tensions with Russia and created new ones with rising peer competitor, China.
In 2007 Russia renewed its long-range bomber aircraft patrols across the Arctic, near the airspace of the U.S. and Canada. It began to remilitarize the Arctic and modernize its own nuclear arsenal4) to defend its regional interests and restore its influence in the world starting with its near abroad. Although the 2009 negotiations that led to the signing of New START in 2010 were part of former President Obama’s “reset” with Russia, relations deteriorated after Russia’s annexation of Crimea and its military activity in Donbas. NATO’s response to defend allies near Russia’s borders contributed to tensions, while Russia sought to offset American strategic advantage withnew offensive missile delivery technologies by sea, air, and land platforms;5) in addition to using grey zone tactics below the threshold of conflict, comprising “kinetic and non-kinetic activity across multiple domains, utilizing a combination of information operations, cyber-attacks, and other covert military and non-military methods.”6) Nuclear modernization programs began well before 2018 when Russian President Vladimir Putin unveiled new systems that could circumvent missile defences and threaten North America with both nuclear and conventional warheads on dual-capable delivery platforms.
As tensions in recent times increased between the U.S./NATO and Russia, the arms control regime that provided a degree of stability since the Cold War began to unravel. This involved both bilateral and multilateral agreements. The U.S. demonstrated less and less confidence in arms control as it withdrew from the JCPOA (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, a.k.a. the Iran Nuclear Deal) in 2018, the INF Treaty in 2019, and the Open Skies Treaty in 2020. New START is the last remaining bilateral arms control treaty between the U.S. and Russia. Although New START was extended for five years, uncertainty remains about its future after February 2026. Already the constraints on arms races were loosened with the end of the ABM and INF Treaties, but the expiry of New START could remove them altogether.
What is the impact of new missile technology and the post-strategic arms control context in the Arctic?
The end of arms control and other cooperative regimes like Open Skies re-introduces the mistrust, fear, uncertainty, and unpredictability that fuel destabilizing arms races. The stability of the Arctic could be affected by these developments, although their impact on the broader cooperative framework (reinforced by the Arctic Council and the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea) on non-military matters involving the Arctic remains uncertain. Of concern, however, is the increase in competition between the three great powers – the United States, Russia, and China, which is multifold, involving a nuclear rivalry – essentially, a nuclear security dilemma – as well as Arctic interests that span the cooperative, to competitive, to potentially conflictual dimension. Russia’s deployment of its strategic assets in the North7) provides the capability to target North America over and through the Arctic with long-range systems (such as next generation long-range cruise missiles and hypersonic glide vehicles), while also deploying shorter- and medium-range systems that can reach targets in the European Arctic, particularly around Norway and the Barents Sea. Indeed, tensions have increased with NATO exercises around Norway, such as Trident Juncture in 20188) and the recent U.S. stationing of the B-1 strategic bombers in Norway’s Ørland Air Station.9) Russia’s exercises included bomber flights and testing Northern Fleet missiles in the Barents Sea. These events further contribute to the deterioration of strategic relations in Europe, the Arctic, and more globally. Can we anticipate more Russian strategic posturing, missile tests, and exercises with an increasing NATO presence in the Arctic?
The Arctic impact of the breakdown of arms control leading to strategic arms competition concerns the increasing regional deployments of offensive nuclear systems and missile defences, by both the United States and Russia. This involves Russia’s Northern Fleet’s air- and sea-launched platforms, which are based around the Kola Peninsula and protected by air defence systems such as the S-400. In addition, the U.S. deploys air and missile defences in Alaska and its submarines patrol under the Arctic sea ice. More recently, USNORTHCOM and NORAD have released a new strategic guidance for developing all domain awareness capability and information dominance, under a deterrence by denial doctrine that shifts responses to Russian and Chinese aggression to the left (i.e., early, or prior-to the launch phase) to prevent or disarm threats before they are deployed. Nuclear weapon testing and other nuclear activities in the Arctic have security implications at the local and regional level, risking radiation poisoning of the people and wildlife. For instance, an explosion at Nyonoksa, near Severodvinsk and Arkhangelsk that occurred in August 2019 was attributed to a failed test of Russia’s new 9M730 Burevestnik nuclear powered cruise missile. Much ambiguity and debate concern whether this so-called “doomsday weapon” is a feasible capability for Russia to achieve at this time.10) Nevertheless, the accident caused a spike in radiation levels potentially endangering local people and caused the death of six Rosatom employees.
Returning to arms control cooperation could reinforce cooperation at a global level, and regionally in the Arctic, with the potential positive spillover into other regional relationships. How to achieve this objective will be challenging, but the extension of New START and the U.S. re-engaging Iran on the JCPOA suggest a positive start.
Potential Solutions to Manage Competition
Potential solutions to constrain strategic arms competition can be addressed at the global and regional levels. The first most feasible approach involves negotiating a treaty to replace New START that addresses particularly problematic technologies for the U.S. and Russia, such as expanded missile defences (area defences, as opposed to point defences), long-range standoff weapons, multiple independently-retargetable vehicles (MIRVs), tactical (theatre) nuclear weapons, and dual-use systems (particularly because target states may not be able to distinguish nuclear from conventional warheads). Negotiations may also return to limiting intermediate-range nuclear forces. Such initiatives will be challenged by whether China would restrain its nuclear and conventional forces’ modernization program (a debate remains among nuclear experts about whether it would be feasible to bring China into a new New START treaty). A successor to New START might also reduce the deployment of nuclear forces in the Arctic, with the option of placing conventional, rather than nuclear, strategic weapons on air and maritime platforms patrolling the area; or reducing patrols altogether (notwithstanding Russia’s strategic assets located in Arctic bases protected by air defence systems).
Another option is exploring nuclear exclusion zones or a more comprehensive Nuclear Weapon Free Zone (NWFZ) treaty in the Arctic. Proposals for an Arctic NWFZ would limit or prohibit nuclear behaviour in the Arctic through a bilateral or multilateral agreement and would reinforce cooperation, transparency, and confidence-building among key great powers in the region and possibly on a broader global level, thus easing tensions among strategic competitors. However, any limitations on deployments of strategic forces would be challenged to find receptivity by the U.S. and Russia, particularly as a significant portion of Russia’s Northern Fleet is located in the North, although limited zones excluding ballistic missile submarine and anti-submarine operations, might be feasible. Additional constraints on the deployment and transit of nuclear assets could be reinforced through a multilateral, rather than bilateral, treaty involving either the Arctic-5 circumpolar nations (Canada, Greenland-Denmark, Norway, United States, and Russia) or the Arctic-8 nations (Canada, Greenland, Norway, United States, Russia, Sweden, Finland, and Iceland). Nevertheless, the U.S. and Russia will have to be willing to accept the conditions of restricting nuclear activities under such a treaty, which ultimately requires them to assess the costs and benefits to their national strategic interests in the Arctic.
Conclusion
The impact of a post-arms control era and great power competition creates significant challenges to Arctic stability in the mid- to long-term, although it is difficult to predict how the competition in the region will emerge alongside the cooperative framework – the norms and institutions – that currently governs Arctic relations. It can be assumed that different parts of the Arctic will demonstrate different types of competition, such as in the European Arctic where NATO activities are increasing, versus the North American Arctic with the modernization of continental defence emphasizing persistent domain awareness and information dominance, deterrence, and defeat mechanisms. A return to arms control, rather than arms competition, would involve engagement and dialogue between the U.S., Russia, and possibly China, which would set conditions for increasing cooperation towards strategic stability that would see benefits in the Arctic domain. At this time, however, the deployment of offensive weapons systems and mutually provocative postures reinforces mistrust and vulnerability that leads states towards closing the gaps to enhance security, paradoxically creating further instability globally, and potentially in the Arctic.
Nancy Teeple ist a Adjunct Assistant Professor and Research Associate – Department of Political Science and Economics, Royal Military College of Canada and a Network Member of the North American and Arctic Defence and Security Network (NAADSN).
References