If there is one geo-political zone associated with peace it is the north of the planet. The Canadians and the Nordics have traditionally led in peace and conflict resolution matters since 1945, the latter epitomised by the global and often unwarranted status of the Nobel Peace Prize.

Although the Canadians participate in wars overseas as aides to the Atlantic alliance, Canada itself has been high on the list of those states strategically unthreatened by enemies. Its often prickly relationship with the US is cultural and economic rather than one based on fear.

The Baltic zone has been a cockpit of European war for centuries but, although Nazi troops swept swiftly along the coast to Leningrad and captured Norway with notorious and humiliating ease, Sweden remained untouched and the Finns held back the Soviets through superior military craftsmanship.

The Russian zone from Murmansk to the Bering Strait was the dark mimic of Canada's tranquillity - an inhospitable landscape that never saw a foreign tank and could safely be used as the dumping ground for dissidents under Stalin. The peace of the grave perhaps but peace nevertheless.

The New Northern Nervousness

We are so used to this picture of great wastes of minimal strategic importance that we never question it. But wider changes in global affairs suggest that we should think again. There is a new nervousness in the West about the northern fifth of the globe. Canadians, Nordics and Balts are getting very edgy.

As so often, the story is one of competition for resources but it is also one of the rising assertiveness of Russia. It also brings in climate change and the growth of the Chinese population.

The newspapers would have it that the story is just a matter of competition for the energy resources of the Arctic. If climate change is taking place, then, with higher energy demand as the global economy recovers and constantly improving technology, the Arctic becomes commercially viable for exploitation.

This is not going to happen overnight. The Russian oil and gas sector technology is still inferior to that of the West. It will take time to build capability unless some sort of entente takes place with the West and, as we will see, the nature of that entente is what is making Northerners nervous.

The background is that the Obama Administration is quite happy to develop an improved relationship with Russia that will enable it to find the resources to exploit its natural resources more effectively. Meanwhile, the Europeans are working towards their own accomodation with Russia.

Win-Win?

In a perfect world, this could be a win/win - the Russians would provide more, and so ultimately cheaper, energy, more reliably, to Europe. This would take the global heat off the supply from the Middle East (and elsewhere) of energy that the US and China needs on its own account.

Unfortunately, position-taking in advance of the exploitation of the Arctic (in which the Canadians, Americans and Nordics have their own interest) is taking place during a different and non-economic recovery, that of the geo-political and military capability of Russia.

The geostrategic imperative of Russia is not expansion but restoration of its borders and the res-establishment of its spheres of influence before rival empires move into the vacuum left by the fall of the Soviet Union. As we have often argued, this is essentially a defensive strategy.

The Arctic is a relatively simple matter of drawing lines across what is left of the ice. Washington and Moscow are unlikely to want to see the process degenerate into fisticuffs.

But elsewhere the process of boundary management is creating flashpoints that do involve rival powers, but more particularly their smaller proxies, and these could directly affect the distribution of the energy that the big powers need.

Triggers For Conflict

Realpolitik dictates that some of the small countries allied to the West are becoming a bit inconvenient to their patrons when they insist on a strict interpretation of their rights against the more important matter of getting raw material from A to B at lowest cost and with minimal disruption.

As the Russians mount major military exercises to indicate that they can deliver force to any part of their empire, it becomes an interesting question for smaller military powers whether a 'mistake' might result in an intervention to which their patrons might turn a blind eye.

In other words, Finland, Canada and the Baltic States have seen what happened in Georgia. The Russians, with some moral justification for a change, used military force against a blundering nationalist and not merely got away with it but enhanced their negotiating power with the US.

Disputes over energy exploitation rights, over the routing of energy distribution systems (and non-payment) and (in the Baltic and further south) the rights of Russian-speaking minorities might create triggers for conflict.

If you think this far-fetched, consider the tetchy Canadian reaction to Russian plans to do a parachute drop at the North Pole. This was a clear case of Moscow testing the defensive resolve of its militarily weaker but massive neighbour.

Russian Impunity

Nor is this the only example of the Russians making a point to Western neighbours about their willingness to use armed force to protect their interests.

The Finns and the Balts have become very edgy about military exercises on Lake Ladoga, ostensibly to protect the NordStream pipeline and the Canadians equally so about the forthcoming exercises in Siberia that send a very clear signal about Russian interest in the Arctic.

The problem for the Canadians, the Finns and the Balts is not that the US will not ultimately defend a direct attack on their sovereignty, but that all the smaller allies of the West are faced with a new politics of US and European co-operation with rising powers that diminishes their own room for manoevre.

Whereas before they had to deal only with US demands and the US tended to take a hard line in support of their aspirations against the evil empires, now they have to take account of the deals being struck by the US with the evil empires.

Take the Lake Ladoga exercises. These are very worrying for the Finns but it could be argued that this is just the sort of thing that the West wants Russia - and China and India - to do: to use military strength to ensure the safe supply of energy resources to the West.

Small States In A Bind

The mood in Washington, London, Paris and Berlin is definitely towards co-operation with rising powers in policing trade and energy routes where they are threatened by failed states, rogue states, insurgents and pirates.  The Lake Ladoga exercises ostensibly protect the flow of energy into core Europe.

However, from the perspective of smaller Western allies on the boundaries of the rising empires, there is reason for concern. Instead of being the forward lines of defence against an enemy (and so given unquestioned political support and military assistance), they may become a nuisance.

This is happening world wide. The Gulf States in relation to Iran, Ukraine and Georgia in relation to Russia, Tibetan resistance and the East Asian tigers in relation to China, Pakistan in relation to India - all these stalwart allies of the West are being placed under pressure to change their behaviour.

This does not mean that the US nuclear umbrella is withdrawn or that sovereign states will not be protected if attacked nor that pro-Western elites will not be sustained through soft power means but it does mean that there is no automatic support for their lesser rights and claims.

This is why some Balts and Finns consider the understanding between Core Europe and Russia over Nordstream to be a latter-day Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact, a selling-out of their security interests in order to ensure that German industry gets reliable sources of Russian energy.

The Russian Perspective

But there is a Russian perspective to consider. It is not as strong as its bluster suggests. It certainly could not survive a direct confrontation with the US for long even if it can play Europe like a fiddle because of its energy resources.

More to the point, it considers that it 'owns' by right of empire the vast Siberian 'wastes' yet a combination of global warming and the economics of revived demand for energy will make this an asset that it has neither the technical expertise nor the manpower to exploit effectively.

Inputs of capital and labour will change the social composition of Siberia and could place Russian control under threat in the long term. Canada has had to adapt to demands from indigenous peoples but that is not the problem here.

In Russia, migrants are likely to be Muslim or Chinese and if the investment capital does not come from Eurasia, it must come from the pools of capital in the Arab World or in East Asia. A sparsely populated natural resources zone bordering on hungry, expansive zones of high population growth ...

Russian strategists have to bluster and secure all their borders now - preferably in an 'entente' with the Americans and with the European Union based on shared strategic and economic interest. The long game is how to ensure that a Slavic empire can hold on to its assets without a conflict that it might lose.

The chances of a major war arising out of the conflict for resources in the Arctic or Russia's new assertiveness as a military power are slim, but shifts in the relationship between the major powers will make small pro-Western states feel more vulnerable and less secure.

Meanwhile, the long game is that of Russia's control not so much of its borders with the West but of its own territories beyond the Urals. This is a domestic matter but one with global implications.

 

Particular thanks to my correspondent in Sweden for the supply of useful background data. You know who you are ...