New cold war under way
Maritime arms race
Gordon L. Weil
There’s a new cold war, and it’s bringing a new arms race.
This cold war is more than a figure of speech; it is taking
place in the Arctic Sea. Who will
control an international waterway that has become an increasingly practical
route for warships and freighters, owing to the effects of global warming?
President Trump’s attempted grab of Greenland focused on controlling
the Arctic as a race with Russia and China, ignoring China’s lack of direct access. In this race, the American maritime presence lags
far behind Russia, the country with the most Arctic coast line.
While the U.S. cooperates with NATO allies having Arctic
interests, it appears increasingly to prefer going it alone. It now ignores its most logical partner; Canada
has the second longest Arctic shore and maritime presence. It’s a natural for cooperation with the U.S.,
but that possibility seems to have been cast adrift by trade wars.
The arms race takes the form of the national armadas of
icebreakers. Global warming has made the
Arctic Sea more accessible for oceanic trade, especially as an alternative to
Middle East choke points, endangered by the Iran war. But if, when and how to transit the Arctic is
usually an open question, with routes having to be kept open by icebreakers.
Icebreakers can also yield access to shorelines, allowing
the extension of marine and military threats to areas that are difficult to
defend. Even offshore, they can access
areas, claimed but undefended by one nation, to exploitation of natural
resources or stationing of warships by another nation.
Right now, Russia’s icebreaker lead is large. Its fleet reportedly includes more than 57 icebreakers
and ice capable patrol vessels, including the only nuclear-powered icebreakers. More are being built. The two Chinese vessels could supplement its
fleet.
Canada has about 18 such vessels and is the main force in the
NATO fleet. With Finland (10), Denmark
(7), the U.S. (5), Sweden (5), and Norway (2), NATO’s hypothetical 47 does not
equal Russia and China. Some Nordic vessels
may focus mostly on local port access. NATO
members, especially the U.S., have been slow in understanding the Russian
challenge.
Canada has made broad claims to sovereignty over large areas
of the Arctic Sea. It immediately began
work on two new ships, one mostly built in Finland, to protect its role.
Lacking the necessary shipbuilding capacity, the U.S.
initially turned to Finland and Canada for joint construction. In 2024, the three nations, having a common
adversary, announced the Icebreaker Collaboration Effort (ICE) to build a huge
fleet of icebreakers.
Under Prime Minister Mark Carney, Canada, in addition to the
two new icebreakers, it has ordered six more to be built in Quebec. Noting that the U.S. now has only one
operating icebreaker, he has offered to build vessels for the U.S. But the U.S. arms race may be more with
Canada than Russia.
The U.S. does not fully accept Canadian claims and seeks a dominant
maritime regime. The Trump Administration
misconstrues the Monroe Doctrine to mean that the Western Hemisphere must be
dominated by the U.S. That would include
Canada’s claimed Arctic waters. The U.S.
has launched its own effort to build six icebreakers with Finnish help.
Meanwhile, Canada is increasingly aligning its defense
procurement with Europe at a potential cost to the U.S. It is obtaining submarines from a
German-Norwegian group, and it may choose to buy Sweden’s SAAB Gripen fighters
over American F-35s. The Gripen may
better suit Canada’s northern needs, be cheaper to operate and avoid U.S. operational
controls.
The fighter purchase may be an unseen element of an ultimate
U.S.-Canada trade agreement. Talks may
drag on, because Canada holds this bargaining chip.
Until now, a coordinated NATO Arctic policy has been slow to
evolve. In part, Trump’s Greenland
gambit complicated matters, and he wants the U.S. to lead an arrangement in
which its role is necessarily limited by geography and weaponry. With Greenland potentially resolved,
cooperation could grow.
A major problem for the U.S. may be its failure to ratify
the Law of the Sea Convention, which has been adopted by almost all other countries. Though widely supported, its ratification has
been blocked by enough Republican senators to deny it the needed two-thirds
vote. They claim it would infringe on U.S.
sovereignty.
The Convention includes specific provisions relating to the Arctic
Sea. Though not a complete solution, its
guidelines can be helpful. But the U.S. has left the marine jurisdiction issues
to others.
The Arctic Sea is an example of the way that the U.S. is gradually
ceding its leading world role. American
policy highlights the fallacy of treating an ally as an adversary, by transforming
a normal trade imbalance with Canada into a cause for self-defeating hostility
and an unnecessarily higher defense budget.
