The North wind is coming: The Arctic is becoming a point of intersection between the interests of Russia and the United States

The topic of the geopolitical struggle for the Arctic and its resources is not new. It was first mentioned in the mid-noughties. However, the implementation of the Arctic strategies of Russia and Western countries proceeded at different speeds. Recently, the United States has been increasingly talking about a significant lag in the development of military and industrial infrastructure in the region. At the same time, the United States and Russia regularly conduct military exercises in the North in order to practice possible actions in the Arctic region. The events are organized jointly with partner countries: for Russia, this is China, and for the United States, these are NATO partners, primarily European ones. Meanwhile, cooperation between the two superpowers in an undeveloped region is becoming a tangible alternative to competition. This topic is likely to be the main topic on the agenda of the meeting between Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump on August 15. Why the North is so important and what its political future will be is in the Izvestia article.

Immeasurable potential

The Arctic region, which until recently was perceived mainly as another arena of confrontation between world powers, may become a space for long-term cooperation between Russia and the United States. On August 15, the leaders of the two states, Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump, will meet in Anchorage. It is very possible that joint Arctic projects will become priority points of discussion.

Donald Trump has never hidden his interest in US access to resources in different regions of the world. For this reason, a so-called "resource deal" was concluded with Ukraine, the practical effect of which, however, is still in great doubt. The shortage of critical resources for a number of industries has also become a factor that has led to another pause in the trade war with China: the United States is simply unable to provide the necessary amount of rare earth metals to manufacturers of microelectronics and the military-industrial complex.

At the same time, the inability to return to the previous level of influence on the global energy market is becoming a separate headache for the White House. The Trump team is aware that a "tariff war" and the threat of secondary sanctions against India and China will do much more harm than good, and ordinary Americans will also be hit.

Thus, it is likely that on August 15, the US president will meet his Russian counterpart, who is ready to continue discussing, as Vladimir Putin's aide Yuri Ushakov said, "the prospects for possible strategic cooperation."

Since January of this year, Trump has publicly spoken at least three times about Russia being "rich in very valuable land resources."

In turn, back in February, the head of the Russian state offered the United States cooperation in projects for the extraction of rare earth metals, of which Russia, according to him, "has an order of magnitude more than in Ukraine."

In March, speaking at the Arctic — Time for Dialogue forum, Putin reiterated Russia's interest in regional issues with all those who are ready to cooperate: "the time for such projects will surely come, too," he concluded.

As always, oil and gas

In 2008, the U.S. Geological Survey published its report titled "Arctic Resource Assessment: Assessment of Undiscovered Oil and Gas Reserves North of the Arctic Circle." According to calculations by American experts, the region may contain 90 billion barrels of oil, 19 trillion cubic meters of gas and 44 billion barrels of gas condensate. This is almost a quarter of the total oil and gas reserves of the planet.

For Russian experts, this data did not become a sensation. Back in the 80s of the last century, Soviet scientists conducted relevant research (which, apparently, the Americans relied on almost 30 years later). According to their results, the Arctic reserves amount to about 100 billion nominal tons of hydrocarbon resources. The reserves in the region are really large, regardless of estimates, but the cost of production is very high, Elena Telegina, Dean of the Faculty of International Energy Business at Gubkin Russian State University of Oil and Gas, noted in an interview with Izvestia.

— In the Arctic, the cost of producing one barrel of oil is about $80-120 per barrel (for comparison, in Saudi Arabia this figure is about $20. — Izvestia), due to the complexity of drilling in permafrost and ice. If global warming continues, drilling will become easier, costs may decrease and be comparable to complex deposits of traditional oil," the expert said.

By the way, as of 2015, 107 mineral deposits had been explored in the Arctic at various stages of development, of which: 42 in Russia, 19 in Alaska, 22 in Canada, 6 in Greenland, 6 in Norway, 9 in Sweden and 3 in Finland.

The domination that did not exist

In 2009, a week before the end of George W. Bush's presidential term, Directive No. 66 was issued. For the first time, the document documented geopolitical interests in the Arctic and some defense initiatives, including missile defense and ensuring the safety of navigation.

Another key document was the 2012 report of the National Intelligence Council (a strategic analytics body subordinate to the President of the United States). The report was called "Global Trends 2030: Alternative Worlds". It summarized information on Arctic resources, and the region itself was named the most important alternative for the American economy. The following year, the White House published a "National Strategy for the Arctic Region" with a development plan until 2032. It is already openly considering the buildup of the US military, diplomatic, and economic presence in the Arctic, the construction of icebreakers, and further study of the region's hydrometeorological conditions.

By 2022, NATO countries had 19 military bases in the Arctic Circle — eight American, five each from Norway and Denmark, and one from Iceland. In addition, in 2021, the Americans began construction of the deep-water port of Nome in Alaska in addition to the two existing air bases. At the same time, an agreement was signed on the construction of five more facilities — two marine and three aviation — in Norway. After Sweden and Finland joined NATO, their number increased by another nine.

Indisputable leadership

Russia, as it seems at first glance, entered the Arctic race late. But it only seems so. The first and main factor of superiority, which is difficult to argue with, is geography. Russia has the longest Arctic coastline — more than 39 thousand km. Large cities with up to 2.5 million people live beyond the Arctic Circle.

The second factor that determined Russia's superiority is technology. Our country has a gigantic icebreaking fleet by world standards: 57 ships compared to 49 from the rest of the world (data may vary due to differences in classification), and the gap continues to increase. At the same time, the Russian Federation is the only state with nuclear icebreaking technology. For comparison, American icebreakers are a refinement of far from the most modern German Polarstern technology, and their base is located in Seattle, which is more than 2 thousand km from the Arctic Circle.

As for military facilities, the Russian Federation has only about 20 aviation facilities. These are both reconstructed bases from the Soviet era and those built from scratch.

Russia's superiority is explained by economic and geographical factors, Ilya Kramnik, a researcher at the IMEMO RAS Center for North American Studies, told Izvestia.

— Russia has been supplying its cities along the routes of the Arctic Ocean for many decades. We must not forget about the Northern Sea Route, through which millions of tons of cargo pass," the expert says. — In addition, the part of it that washes the Russian coast is much more suitable for navigation than the waters off the coast of Canada. As for the military value of the Arctic, it is explained by the fact that it is the shortest route from one hemisphere to another for missiles and strategic bombers.

A march to nowhere

The objective lag of the United States has become apparent in recent years. In 2021, the US Congressional Research Service summed up the interim results of the Arctic race in a special report. Following the results of the hearings with the participation of several defense departments, the document stated the following: "The research Service concluded that a military presence in the Arctic Region would require significant expenditures from the US budget to create a virtually new infrastructure that is unlikely to be able to compete with Russia's existing military infrastructure." In addition, the report document speaks about the increased role of China, whose achievements are also being established at a faster pace.

This rather gloomy conclusion led American analysts to a logical decision: relying on allies, including in the format of the Arctic Council. The organization was founded in 1996 to create conditions for cooperation between eight countries in the region: Canada, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Russia, Sweden and the United States. It should be noted that for a long time the Council has been coping with this task quite successfully. Everything changed in 2022. A week after the start of the meeting, all permanent members, except Russia, made the unprecedented decision to "suspend their participation in all meetings of the Council and its subsidiary bodies." It is pointless to continue operating as before, but without the participation of a country with a coastline of 39,940 km (including islands) and almost half of all polar territories.

However, the increasing importance of the Arctic will force all Council members to return to negotiations at some point. The future of the organization is currently uncertain, but an alternative format is unlikely to be viable.

A sharp U-turn

So, it is cooperation on a number of projects, including in the Arctic, and therefore the opening of technical opportunities for it, which have been closed until now due to the sanctions regime, that is likely to become the first item on the agenda of the upcoming meeting between Putin and Trump in Anchorage (the chosen meeting place also looks symbolic in this sense). And that is why Kirill Dmitriev, the special representative of the President of the Russian Federation for investment and economic cooperation with foreign countries, calls it having a chance to become historic.

At the same time, the potential opportunities for strategic cooperation, if implemented, will inevitably entail a significant change in the overall picture of trade and economic relations between Russia and the United States.