NATO Sees Little Risk of Arctic Confrontation as Ice Caps Melt

NATO’s chief played down the risk of military confrontation in the Arctic as the melting polar ice cap threatens to trigger a race between Western countries and Russia for oil and gas resources.

Increased Russian bomber patrols over the North Atlantic and the planting of the Russian flag on the seabed are not even a “nuisance,” North Atlantic Treaty Organization Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer said.

“The word threat is unjustified and inappropriate in this regard,” De Hoop Scheffer told reporters today in Reykjavik. “I would be the last one to expect or to make any reference to military conflict, definitely not.”

The U.S., Denmark, Canada and Norway -- all part of NATO -- and Russia have staked claims to Arctic raw materials, as thawing sea ice eases access to 90 billion barrels of oil, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.

Arctic sea ice shrank to the second-smallest size on record in 2008, and the breakaway of an ice shelf nearly the size of Manhattan island from the Canadian mainland offered dramatic evidence of the pace of global warming.

Russia in 2007 planted a titanium flag on the floor of the sea under the North Pole, claiming an area that the government estimates holds 10 billion tons of oil-equivalent along with gold, nickel and diamonds.

In a throwback to the Cold War, Russia has stepped up strategic bomber patrols in northern latitudes, and has begun training troops for combat in temperatures that can plunge to below -57 degrees Celsius (-70 degrees Fahrenheit).

No ‘Imminent Threat’

Iceland, on the front lines in any possible Arctic confrontation, hasn’t been unnerved by the pickup in Russian strategic patrols, Icelandic Prime Minister Geir Haarde said.

“I don’t think there has been any imminent threat in these areas recently,” said Haarde, set to leave office in coming days after the economic crisis toppled his government and led to early elections.

Canada last year staged its largest-ever military exercise in the high north, and Prime Minister Stephen Harper held a symbolic Cabinet meeting in Inuvik, the country’s northernmost town.

“All parties, and that includes ourselves, but also our Russian friends and partners, should respect airspace when they decide to send aircraft into the air on patrolling missions, but I do not think that as we speak we either find ourselves in a nuisance or let alone in a threat environment,” De Hoop Scheffer said.

Cooperation in the Arctic will be on the agenda as NATO seeks to rebuild ties with the Kremlin that were shattered by Russia’s five-day war in August with would-be alliance member Georgia, De Hoop Scheffer said.

Superpower Status

“I hope we’ll see that development soon,” De Hoop Scheffer said, referring to the improvement of NATO-Russia relations. The alliance chief is slated to meet Russian First Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov at a security conference in Munich on Feb. 6.

Enriched by oil and gas revenues, Russia has served notice of its determination to regain superpower status by upping military spending, overpowering Georgia’s army in August and cutting off gas shipments through Ukraine this year.

NATO’s role in the Arctic can include search and rescue missions for stranded vessels and emergency response to ecological disasters as the opening up of frozen shipping lanes increases the risk of accidents, De Hoop Scheffer said.

While it is “understandable and fully legitimate” for allies to ponder the defense and security consequences, De Hoop Scheffer called on all countries in the far north to pursue “a military presence which is not overdone.”