Flashpoint Arctic:How climate change will compel a future war between the United States and Russia Part 1
Abstract
The existential threat of climate change will compel the United States and Russia to go to war for the strategic and resource-rich Arctic. It no longer is just nuclear war threatening the existence of life on earth. Nowhere is this more visible than in the Arctic. No other region on earth is experiencing such drastic changes so quickly. These changes have made the region a flashpoint between the Russian Federation and the United States of America.
This dissertation will examine climate change, its impact, and projections of climate change and future war in 2040. The strategic relevance of the Arctic region is two-fold. First, the melting of the perennial ice cover replaces Cold War strategy of nuclear deterrence through the use of strategic nuclear submarine fleets with the possibility of direct military actions. Second, the melting of the ice-covered sea routes creates new opportunities for shipping and the extraction of the world’s largest oil, gas, and raw materials as climate change and consumption impacts the globe.
An examination of climate change, the Arctic, US and Russian national and Arctic specific strategies and military capabilities culminate in a projection of the world by 2040, and a look at future war in the Arctic. The Coldest War chapter looks at the difficulties of predicting the future way of war, how wars are currently being waged and the difficulties one can expect fighting in the Arctic. It also speculates on future operational and tactical changes to warfighting. It ends with the argued hypothesis of the inevitability of war in and for the Arctic.
The research question is how climate change will lead to a war between Russia and the US over the Arctic.
Table of Contents
Introduction 1
Chapter 1 – Climate Change in the Anthropocene 3
Chapter 2 – The Arctic 8
Chapter 3 – The United States of American 18
Chapter 4 – The Russian Federation 30
Chapter 5 – The World by 2040 43
Chapter 6 - The Coldest War (2040 – ongoing) 45
Conclusion 53
Bibliography 54
Introduction
The existential threat of climate change will compel the United States and Russia to go to war for the strategically-placed and resource-rich Arctic. No other region is experiencing such drastic changes so quickly making the Arctic the most strategically crucial place on the earth. Newfound accessibility to the region now exposes both Russia and the US to a potential first strike over the North Pole by reducing the distance and exposing previously-hidden submarines. As the ice retreats because of global warming, inaccessible sea routes are turning into global shipping lanes cutting time and cost and exposing the world’s largest untapped source for raw materials. Russian strategic thinkers believe in the international competition for resources and see themselves under attack by the United States in all measures but short of direct war. The United States believes in its capitalist ideology backed by the world’s most powerful military. It sees the Arctic as a place for American business interests and views Russian modernization efforts as dangerous.
Unrestrained climate change is destroying the world. It is a continuously evolving threat, driven by human industry over the last half of a century. The existential threats of climate change and nuclear war are exasperated by governments’ cyber-driven disinformation campaigns. The United States is the most powerful climate science denier in the world. As such the Arctic is the new front in the war between near-peer competitors. By 2040 resource wars will dominate the globe and the Arctic, presenting a new Eden, will be the center of the fight. Climate change is the key driver for future resource wars.
On January 23, 2020 the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists moved its Doomsday Clock, representing the likelihood of a human-made catastrophe, to 100 seconds to midnight – the direst warning since its inception in 1947. The existential threats of nuclear war and climate change are compounded by cyber information warfare thereby undercutting society’s ability to respond. This eroded international security, “not just because these threats exist, but because world leaders have allowed the international political infrastructure for managing them to erode.”[1]
These existential threats are all present in the Arctic. The Arctic is littered with nuclear material and weapons. It is a region undergoing global warming at double or triple the rate of the world that promises new reserves of raw materials and strategic shipping routes as soon as the vast ice sheets melt. It is a region that guarantees the off-set of global resource losses. Combatting climate change is sabotaged by an anti-science American government using all means at its disposal to deny its existence, in its pursuit of global economic and military dominance. The United States continues to be distracted by forever wars fought for both promoting globalization, and the strategic hydrocarbon reserves in the Middle East which may be depleted before 2040. Opposing the United States is an emboldened Russian autocrat, desiring former glory and ready to secure the rights of the strategically valuable Arctic and to build a defensive front against an encroaching imperial America and its North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) allies.
The Russian Federation is the largest stakeholder in the Arctic and has spent on military and civilian infrastructure improvements along its entire Arctic coastline. The modernization funded by its global energy exports. As such the Arctic is the most strategically valuable region in the world.
As the global temperature rises everything is impacted from melting territories covered in snow and ice, increases in extreme weather. Its impact will not only alter societies, but will lead to an increase in conflict between states and non-state actors. Tens if not hundreds of million people will die along with animal species because of food and water shortages, and war.
Conservative studies by the scientific communities see 2040 as the year in which the Arctic sea-ice will be receded enough for strategic shipping and resource extraction. Global climate change will alter the world by 2040 and the Arctic will be the flashpoint of conflict.
Climate Change in the Anthropocene
Climate change is the alteration of long-term weather patterns. Global warming is one part of climate change, and is an increase in the average global temperature. Although the earth’s climate changes naturally over long periods of time it has not done so with such rapidity over so short a period of time. This is due to an increase in human industrial activity in the twentieth century and the resultant effect on climate, beginning a new era known as the Anthropocene, generally recognized as beginning with the Trinity nuclear test in 1945.[2]
Fossil fuels replaced eighteenth and nineteenth century energy sources such as watermills and windmills and have significantly increased the levels of greenhouse emissions of the twentieth century accelerating earth’s climate change. Greenhouse gases retain heat vital for life on earth but with an increase in greenhouse gases directly caused by human activity, more heat has been retained, resulting in the warming of the planet. Global surface air temperature has increased by approximately 1.0-1.1°C or 1.8°F from 1901 to 2016, with the last decade being the hottest on record at 1.15°C or 2.07°F.[3]
Air temperature measurements, however, have understated the total amount of heat absorbed by the earth because water temperatures are excluded. The earth’s ocean covers 71 percent of the surface but absorbs 93 percent of generated heat since the mid-twentieth century elevating its own acidity and lowering the level of oxygen.[4] Ocean warming has altered global and regional climate. [5] Because the world’s ocean is more acidic, eco-systems are impacted, with catastrophic ramifications for the world food supply.
The increase in heat has led to a rise in sea levels of seven to eight inches (17.8-20.3 cm) since 1900 with one half of about three inches (7.62 cm) occurring since 1993.[6] Predictions see as much as 8 feet or 2.44m by 2100 depending on the melting of the ice sheets of the north and south poles.[7] Rising sea levels have a drastic impact on earth and life leading to coastal erosion and destruction of arable lands for example. Global weather events are more intense and unpredictable because climate change affects regions differently from hotter days to more intense storms to coastal erosions.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the United Nation’s body for assessing the science related to climate change, notes in 2018 that “global warming is likely to reach 1.5°C between 2030 and 2052 if it continues to increase at the current rate”.[8] But it may very well exceed these typically conservative projections. Global warming beyond 1.5°C will significantly worsen the declining situation and increase extreme weather and suffering for hundreds of millions of people.[9] Projections based on continuing current levels of commitments and emissions sets the world for a 3-3.5°C of warming.[10]
The Effects of Climate Change on the Globe
The world’s major fossil fuel financier J.P. Morgan, in a leaked internal report, warns that the climate crisis is a threat to the human race and unsustainable on earth.[11] “Without major reductions in emissions, the increase in annual average global temperature relative to preindustrial times could reach 9°F (5°C) or more by the end of this century. With significant reductions in emissions, the increase in annual average global temperature could be limited to 3.6°F (2°C) or less”.[12]
Global warming is turning what once were agricultural cornucopia into desert wastelands creating environmental refugees. Population growth, especially in China, India and African states, expected to be near 10 billion by 2050, are driving resource demands as does globalization. [13] Water scarcity can be seen as a security challenge notably in the Middle East and Africa. The Arctic and Antarctica are under threat as they tend to warm at twice the global rate. The Himalayas, considered the Third Pole, provides water for hundreds of millions of people in China, India and Pakistan, for example. As the demands for water grow, and global warming melts the perineal snow and ice in the mountain range, a potential conflict can easily become a war for water between nuclear powers. The need to access resources then becomes paramount.
One of the largest untapped regions of resources is the Arctic. The Arctic holds vast amounts of raw materials, strategic shipping lanes, and fishing for billions of people. However, not all countries or non-state actors have the wherewithal to exploit the region. Some lack the financial resources while others lack the military capability required to forcefully seize or negotiate a suitable treaty. Non-state actors will more likely than not resort to refining criminal networks. Because of resource scarcity hundreds of millions if not billions of people will seek survival by fleeing and moving to areas less impacted by climate change and violence. By 2019, 70.8 million people have been forcibly displaced with a large percentage from Syria, Afghanistan, and South Sudan.[14]
In recent decades billions of animals and other species have been annihilated by rapidly changing ecosystems with scholars describing the loss of biological diversity, the sixth mass extinction, as one of the most severe human-caused global environmental problems.[15] Excessive fishing, acidity increase, and loss of oxygen have nearly emptied the world’s oceans of its marine life.
Projections
The World Bank stipulates the losses to extreme natural disasters such as hurricanes, tsunamis and flooding to a global $520 billion loss in annual consumption, and forces some 26 million people into poverty each year. It predicts an additional 100 million people will be driven into poverty by 2030. And by 2050 climate migrants seeking life may number 143 million refugees including families and entire communities.[16] The United Nations notes an increase from 43 million displaced people in 2009 to nearly 71 million in 2019.[17]
Poor countries will be most affected by climate change. For example, in Sub-Saharan Africa, a 1.5-2°C increase “will contribute to farmers losing 40-80 percent of cropland conducive to growing maize, millet, and sorghum by the 2030s-2040s. In South East Asia without any changes to global emissions the sea level will rise by 30 cm, flooding cities and agricultural regions with a loss of 11 percent crop production, notably rice – a global food source.[18] Climate model projections see a Himalayan region in the future at higher global warming rates seeing an increase in “landslides, floods, drought, biodiversity, human health, endangered species, and food security”. [19] Global agriculture will be severely stressed.
Stabilizing global warming to less than “3.6°F (2°C) above preindustrial levels requires substantial reductions in net global CO2 emissions prior to 2040”.[20] But a major new study by the IPCC “says that even the most optimistic scenario for climate change is dire”. [21] The report sees food shortages and riots, massive wildfires and coral reef die-offs by 2040 based on a threshold of 2°C (3.6°F) since that was the “threshold scientists previously considered for the most severe effects of climate change. The new report, however, shows that many of those effects will come much sooner, at the 2.7-degree mark [Fahrenheit]”.[22] Simulation models suggest that without making any global changes and based on plausible climate trends by 2040 “the global food supply system would face catastrophic losses, and an unprecedented epidemic of food riots. In this scenario, global society essentially collapses as food production falls permanently short of consumption".[23]
At the worst-case scenario for life on the planet, the Permian period about 251 million years ago, saw the extinction of 95 percent of life when the temperature rose by 6°C because of a super green-house effect or because of an even bigger methane belch than happened 200 million years later in the Eocene… One scientific paper investigating “kill mechanisms” during the end-Permian suggests that methane hydrate explosions “could destroy terrestrial life almost entirely”. Acting much like today’s fuel-air explosives (or “vacuum bombs”), major oceanic methane eruptions could release energy equivalent to 10,000 times the world’s stockpile of nuclear weapons.[24]
Climate change today is wreaking havoc on the planet at 1.1°C and is expected to rise to over three degrees. The Arctic is undergoing transformative changes to its perineal ice sheets as it warms at least twice the world’s average.[25]With this transformative change and a rapid global decline of raw materials the Arctic is the new geo-strategic region.
The Arctic
Definition
The Arctic is a region between the North Pole and the northern coasts of North America and Eurasia.[26] It surrounds the North Pole and consists of a large ocean, adjacent seas, and parts of the northern timberlines of Eurasia and North America. The world’s oceans cover 71 percent of Earth and is divided into five geographical ocean basins with the Arctic Ocean being the smallest and differentiated by its location and extreme cold climate.
Three scientific classifications define the Arctic boundaries. The first is the imaginary line north of the Arctic Circle at 66° 32” N (dashed blue line) dominated by six months of continuous daylight and six months of continuous night.[27] The second classification is where the Arctic tree line (green line) gives way to the Arctic tundra and its permanently frozen (permafrost is defined as any type of ground continuously frozen for at least two years to hundreds of thousands of years[28]) soil where only lichen vegetation and shrubs can survive. Three-fifths of the Arctic terrain is outside the zones of permanent ice.[29] The final definition is the 10-degree isotherm line where the temperature does not exceed 10°C or 50°F.[30]
The three classifications of the Arctic: the tree line; the 10 degrees Celsius isotherm, and the Arctic Circle at 66° 34' North.[31]
The Arctic Circle encompasses approximately six percent of the Earth’s surface, “an area of more than 21 million km2 (8.2 million mi2), of which almost 8 million km2 (3.1 million mi2) is onshore and more than 7 million km2 (2.7 million mi2) is on continental shelves under less than 500 m of water”.[32] The coastline totals 45,400 kilometers.[33]The Arctic has on average a three-meter thick perennial ice packs. Although some parts can be covered by three times the average density. The average mean weather in the summers is 0°C (32°F) and in the winters -40°C (-40°F).[34]
Canada, Denmark (Greenland and Faroe Islands), Finland, Iceland, Norway, the Russian Federation, Sweden and the United States of America are Arctic nations.[35] There are about four million inhabitants spread throughout the Arctic.[36] The overwhelming majority are indigenous peoples. The extreme conditions have prevented major settlement, commercial and military activities.[37] Cooperative scientific research has been the main area of Arctic interaction between the Arctic and non-Arctic nations.
The economy is limited to resource exploitation of oil, gas, fishing and seal hunting. The Arctic fishery region is the smallest in the world and in 2017 the “five littoral states Canada, Denmark (Greenland), Norway, Russia and the US agreed to a 16-year ban on fishing in the Central Arctic Ocean to study the ecological systems in these waters”.[38]
Major seaports are Churchill in Canada, Murmansk in Russia, and Prudhoe Bay in the United States. The Arctic has a limited transportation network including air, ocean, river and land routes. The principal waterways are the Northwest Passage (NWP) in North America, claimed by both Canada and the United States in an ongoing dispute, and the Northern Sea Route (NSR) in Eurasia, shared by Russia and Norway. Two maritime straits, the Bering Strait between Russia and the US in the Pacific Ocean, and the Davis Strait between Greenland, Denmark, and Canada, are crucial in accessing the Arctic and its two sea routes. The NWP and NSR are only accessible during short periods of time each year because of ice and extreme weather conditions.
Changing Climate
“We are people of the sea ice. And if there’s no more sea ice, how do we be people of the sea ice?[39] Inuit Elder
On average the Arctic Circle is warming at two to three times the rate than the rest of the world. As of 2019, its sea ice has reduced significantly and the glaciers in northern Canada and Greenland are melting at a faster rate than previously thought. Climate change has led to land ice losses with each year since 1984. But sea ice loss shows the most dramatic decline. On average Arctic sea ice decreases by 12.85 percent annually.[40] It is estimated that by 2040 it is very likely that the Arctic sea will be nearly ice free in late summers.[41] “Losing the reflective power of Arctic sea ice will lead to warming equivalent to one trillion tons of CO2 and advance the 2ºC threshold by 25 years. Any rational policy would make preventing this a top climate priority for world leaders”.[42]
Arctic winter sea ice extent, with multi-year ice in bright white, in 1980 (left) and 2012.
Image: NASA[43]
Another concern in the Arctic is feedback. Feedback increases warming because as the ice melts in the summer, dark open water is exposed which in turn absorbs more heat from the sun. This increase in heat exasperates the melting of the Arctic. Permafrost’s release of carbon dioxide and methane, from the decay of previously frozen plants and animals, also increases warming as plants and animals that had been frozen thaw. Thawing permafrost has created numerous large-sized craters and ground slopes which are slow moving mudslides some more than a kilometer across.[44] A NOAA report concluded that “Arctic climate is unlikely to return to previous conditions”.[45]
Shipping Routes and Strategic Context
The major Arctic waterways of the Northwest Passage and the Northern Sea Route may in the future be joined by a third, the Central Arctic route, as climate change continues to adversely impact the Arctic. The two current waterways increase in strategic value as the polar ice packs recede, allowing for an increase in shipping and resource exploitation. Future commercial and military activity may potentially result in clashes that could spill over into sovereignty issues as nations continue to stake claims in the Arctic. In terms of global shipping the strategic value of these waterways can equal the shipping channels of the Malacca Strait between the Indian Ocean and Pacific Ocean, and the Suez Canal that connects the Mediterranean Sea and the Red Sea. For example, “if the NSR becomes utilized, it can save about 5000 nautical miles and weekly shipping time compared to the existing routes via the Suez Canal”.[46]
Potential shipping route through the NSR. Image: Economist.[47]
Economic Opportunities and Resources
The Arctic continental shelf may hold the geographically largest unexplored prospective area for petroleum remaining on Earth.[48] In 1962 the Soviet Union discovered the large Tazovskoye oil field and by 1968 the first American Arctic oil and gas discovery was made in the Prudhoe Bay field on Alaska's North Slope.[49] In 2007 Russia expanded its territorial claims by planting its flag on the sea bed beneath the North Pole sparking international concerns about disputed boundaries and potential resource exploitation, significantly raising the Arctic’s strategic significance.[50]
In 2008, the United States Geological Survey (USGS) released the first assessment of undiscovered Arctic oil and gas resources of which 84 percent occurs offshore. [51] According to the USGS, the Arctic holds 13% of the world's undiscovered oil reserves and 30% of the world's undiscovered natural gas reserves, mostly within Russian borders. [52]The total mean undiscovered conventional oil and gas resources of the Arctic are estimated to be approximately 90 billion barrels of oil, 1,669 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, and 44 billion barrels of natural gas liquids.[53] According to the Energy Information Administration [EIA] in 2018 nearly 100 million barrels of oil were consumed daily. Sixty percent is consumed by top ten consumers[54] of which the US and China combine for 34 percent.[55] “From 1969 to 2018, a fifty-year span, the world has consumed 1.306 trillion barrels of oil”.[56]
Ice had made commercial hydrocarbon extraction extremely difficult but with climate change the Arctic raises the stakes because of its commercial opportunities. Russia has significantly expanded resource extraction along its arctic coastline.[57] The challenges to exploiting oil and gas in the Arctic are numerous. On land harsh winters require specialized equipment. Poor soil conditions undermine infrastructure as well as challenge the emplacement of equipment. During the summer marshy tundra pose logistical challenges as well, not forgetting ground slope and craters caused by methane gas. On the seas, floating ice packs can damage facilities, interfere in shipping of men and material, as well as expose vessels and equipment to damage. Limited transportation systems and the vast distance add a greater burden to logistics. The conditions increase financial burdens. Labor costs are higher because of the stressful working environment.[58] Despite these challenges, hydrocarbon exploitation is on the way at a cost of increased global warming and climate change. By 2030, the Russian energy giant Gazprom has predicted that gas production will reach 310-360 bcm (billion cubic meters).[59] This translates to approximately three times the Russian export rate in 2017 to Great Britain, Germany, France, and Belgium combined.[60]
Organizations
The Arctic has not been a major zone of conflict in international relations. Environmental factors have provided protection from large-scale human interference. Military operations during the Cold War tended to be based on nuclear deterrence enforced by Russian and American strategic submarine forces.
The Arctic Council was established in 1996 as a forum to enhance cooperation, coordination and interaction among the Arctic States with the active involvement of indigenous peoples and other Arctic inhabitants on common issues.[61] It also allows observer status of non-Arctic nations, such as China, and non-governmental organizations. It has negotiated three cooperative agreements among the eight Arctic states relating to search and rescue operations, oil pollution efforts, and enhancing scientific cooperation. Significantly, the Arctic Council cannot “implement or enforce its guidelines, assessments or recommendations. The Arctic Council’s mandate explicitly excludes military security”.[62]
The 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) is an organization that “defines the rights and responsibilities of nations with respect to their use of the world's oceans, establishing guidelines for businesses, the environment, and the management of marine natural resources”.[63] Others involved in the management of oceans and sea beds are the International Maritime Organization, a United Nations specialized agency with responsibility for the safety and security of shipping and the prevention of marine and atmospheric pollution by ships, the International Seabed Authority, and the International Whaling Commission.[64] The Russian Federation is a signatory to UNCLOS but the United States of America is not.[65]
Boundaries and Sovereignty
As climate change sets records in the summer melting of sea ice in the Arctic, it has renewed interest in shipping lanes and sea floor exploration that cause boundary disputes. Boundary issues may impede resource exploitation as sovereignty claims need to be resolved. [66]
Arctic Territorial Claims. Image: Durham University[67]
UNCLOS permits countries to claim economic sovereignty from 200 to 350 nautical miles beyond the point where the sea depth exceeds 2,500 meters (8,200 feet) of water.[68] “Coastal states can claim an extended continental shelf up to 350 nautical miles from its baselines by proving that this area is a natural prolongation of the state’s land territory” and by making submissions to the United Nation’s Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf (CLCS) founded in 1997.[69]
There is an ongoing dispute between Canada and the United States regarding the Beaufort Sea, an area that is thought to contain significant oil and natural gas, and the Northwest Passage which Canada considers an internal waterway but that the US sees as an international sea transit route.[70] Denmark (Greenland) and Norway have made submissions to CLCS.[71] Russia claims of economic sovereignty through much of the Arctic Ocean, based on the existence of the Lomonosov Ridge that extends from Russia’s coast across the Arctic Ocean to Greenland, and have submitted claims.[72] The US is gathering data although it will probably need to ratify UNCLOS before it can make a submission to CLCS.[73]
With its untapped resources and geographical situation, the Arctic is of great geo-strategic value. The Russian Federation is the largest stakeholder in the Arctic. It envisions the region as part of its restored Soviet-era Bastion defense and nuclear deterrence against the US and NATO. Russia believes in the inevitability of competition for the world’s resources, especially with the United States. The United States also values the resources in the Arctic as part of its global leadership role and continued globalization effort. Globalization, the integrated global economy, fuels the drive toward resource exploitation especially since other strategic areas of interest, such as the Middle East, may run out of hydrocarbon by 2031.[74]
[1] Doomsday Clock Statement (2019)
[2] "Anthropocene: Have Humans Created a New Geological Age?" BBC, 11 May 2001
[4] Dahlman (2020)
[5] Wuebbels (2017) and "Ocean Temperatures Hit Record High as Rate of Heating Accelerates." The Guardian, 13 January 2020
[6] Wuebbels (2017)
[7] Wuebbels (2017)
[8] IPCC (2018)
[9] "Climate Emergency: 2019 was Second Hottest Year on Record." The Guardian, 15 January 2020
[10] Tayag (2020) and IPCC (2018)
[11] "JP Morgan Economists Warn Climate Crisis is Threat to Human Race." The Guardian, 21 February 2020
[12] Wuebbels (2017)
[13] "World Population Projected to Reach 9.8 Billion in 2050, and 11.2 Billion in 2100." United Nations, 21 June 2017
[14] "Figures at a Glance." UN Refugee Agency, 19 June 2019
[15] Ceballos (2017)
[16] Climate Change.” World Bank, 2019
[17] Figures at a Glance." UN Refugee Agency, 19 June 2019 and "Global Trends: Forced Displacement in 2018." The UN Refugee Agency
[18] "What Climate Change Means for Africa, Asia and the Coastal Poor." The World Bank, June 19 2013
[23] "Society Will Collapse by 2040 due to Catastrophic Food Shortages, Says Study." The Independent, 22 June 2015 and Spratt (2010)
[26] "Arctic." The American Heritage Dictionary
[27] "All about Arctic Climatology and Meteorology." National Snow & Ice Data Center
[29] "Peoples and Cultures of the American Arctic." Encyclopedia Britannica
[30] "All about Arctic Climatology and Meteorology." National Snow & Ice Data Center
[31] "All about Arctic Climatology and Meteorology." National Snow & Ice Data Center
[32] US Geological Survey
[33] "World Factbook: Arctic Ocean." Central Intelligence Agency
[34] "Which Pole is Colder?" NASA Climate Kids
[35] "Countries." The Arctic Institute
[36] "Countries." The Arctic Institute
[37] Boring (2014) p.6
[38] "World Factbook: Arctic Ocean." Central Intelligence Agency
[39] "How Scientists are Coping with 'Ecological Grief'; Scientists Reveal how they are Dealing with a Profound Sense of Loss as the Climate Emergency Worsens. “The Guardian 12 January 2020
[40] "Arctic Sea Ice Minimum." NASA Global Climate Change
[44] Biello (2014)
[45] "All about Arctic Climatology and Meteorology." National Snow & Ice Data Center
[46] Lee and Song, Economic Possibilities of Shipping through Northern Sea Route, 2014, P.2
[48] US Geological Survey
[49] "Evolution of Arctic Energy Development: A Timeline (1962-Present)." The Stimson Center, 2013
[50] Yenikeyeff (2007)
[51] US Geological Survey
[52] US Geological Survey
[53] US Geological Survey
[54] Geiger (2019)
[55] "What Countries are the Top Producers and Consumers of Oil?" US Energy Information Administration
[56] Geiger (2019)
[58] "Arctic Oil and Natural Gas Potential." US Energy Information Administration
[59] "Evolution of Arctic Energy Development: A Timeline (1962-Present)." The Stimson Center, 2013
[60] "Norway's Pipeline Gas Exports to Europe at Record High in 2017." Reuters, January 2 2018
[61] "20th Anniversary Declaration - the Arctic Council: A Forum for Peace and Cooperation." The Arctic Council Archive, 2019
[62] "The Arctic Council: About." The Arctic Council
[63] https://www.un.org/Depts/los/convention_agreements/texts/unclos/unclos_e.pdf
[64] "Introduction to IMO." International Maritime Organization and "About the International Seabed Authority." International Seabed Authorityand "The International Whaling Commission." International Whaling Commission
[65] "United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea." Wikipedia and "Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf (CLCS)." United Nations Oceans & Law of the Sea
[66] For a timeline of territorial claims and agreements since 1903 "Evolution of Arctic Territorial Claims and Agreements: A Timeline (1903-Present)." The Stimson Center, 2013
[67] "Arctic Maps." Durham University
[68] "Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf (CLCS)." United Nations Oceans & Law of the Sea
[69] “Continental Shelf Claims in the Arctic. “The Arctic Institute
[70] "Oil and Natural Gas Resources of the Arctic." Geology.com
[71] "Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf (CLCS)." United Nations Oceans & Law of the Sea
[72] "World Factbook: Arctic Ocean." Central Intelligence Agency
[73] "Arctic Maps." Durham University