The reverberations of the ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine is being felt in the Arctic. There are fears that the future security dynamics in the region could be quite similar to those during the Cold War. In that context, a regional expert is of the view that hard security issues and militarization of the Arctic will gather momentum. Furthermore, Arctic littoral countries would have little or no choice but to build respective Arctic-military capabilities with emphasis on troops and military strategies for the Arctic region.

Meanwhile, a Joint Statement issued by the Members of the Arctic Council Cooperation (Canada, the Kingdom of Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden, and the United States) has noted that they are “temporarily pausing participation in all meetings of the Council” of which Russia is the chair for 2021-2023. Also, the Scandinavian nations and the EU have decided to suspend cooperation with Russia within the framework of the Barents Euro-Arctic Council (BEAC) that was started in 1993.

The current tensions between Russia and the west (US, EU, UK and NATO) and many others driven by ‘liberal-western value-sets’ could permanently damage regional cooperation, compromising coordinated efforts on climate change in the Arctic and push it to the back burner i.e. “geopolitics and military-strategic” tensions could drive the Arctic region to competition. It could also result in Russia taking hardened position over its expansive undersea territorial claims at the North Pole. A leading Canadian expert on Arctic geopolitics, has warned that Russia is “claiming the entire Arctic Ocean as their continental shelf in regards to where their Arctic comes up against Canada’s and Denmark’s.”

It is worth mentioning that cooperation has been high on the agenda of the Arctic Council. Significantly, the Council has published enormous amount of academic and scientific work in the field of climate change. Russia is an important stakeholder given that “Half the Arctic is Russian” i.e. 53 percent of the Arctic coastline is Russian, and “climate gases, black carbon and other substances” are localized in Northwestern Russia and that “environmentally-harmful Russian activities in the region [if] go unchecked” could “further worsening the effects of climate change.”

Though geographically far from the region, the Russia-Ukraine war has impacted India in multiple ways that have politico-diplomatic-economic-strategic dimensions. India’s concern also arise amid fears that issues or concerns related to the rapidly warming Arctic could potentially become less important and even derail cooperation on this issue among the Arctic Council members and Observers.

India is an Observer country in the Arctic Council and has recently announced its Arctic Policy. The document titled “India’s Arctic Policy: Building a Partnership for Sustainable Development” is built around six pillars – science and research; climate and environment protection; economic and human development; transportation and connectivity; governance and international cooperation; and national capacity building. Each of these supports have clear-cut objectives and action plans.  

India’s engagement in the Arctic is predominantly in the field of science. After its successes in scientific research in the Antarctic, India began to look at the Arctic region and has since then its scientists have been researching on issues concerning atmospheric sciences, climate change, geoscience and glaciology, and polar biology. It has successfully conducted thirteen expeditions to the Arctic till 2022.

One of the objectives of India’s polar research is to harmonize it with the Himalayas, also referred to as the ‘Third Pole’. Global warming has impacted the glaciers and some of the adverse impacts of this phenomena has been glacial lake outburst floods (GLOFs). These result in sudden releases of large quantities of water that can wreak havoc on mountain communities. There are as many as 2,000 glacial lakes in the Himalayas of which over 200 are vulnerable to outbursts.

A recent report, ‘Hindu Kush Himalaya Assessment: Mountains, Climate Change, Sustainability, and People’ has warned that “glaciers have thinned, retreated, and lost mass since the 1970s, except for parts of the Karakoram, eastern Pamir, and western Kunlun” and “Glacier volumes are projected to decline by up to 90 percent through the 21st century in response to decreased snowfall, increased snowline elevations, and longer melt seasons,”

The above issue is closely associated with the mountain communities. The GLFO can potentially cause severe flooding downstream areas in Nepal, China and India. “In Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh, there are 300 potential hotspots for GLOF,” and the 2014 outburst in the Gya glacial lake in Ladakh had caused destruction.

Similarly, the connectivity infrastructure in the Himalayan region is most vulnerable to climate change and Arctic warming. It gains greater salience in the context of the China-India military standoff along the Line of Actual Control (LAC). China has already built sophisticated road, rail and air infrastructure over permafrost to support military operations. India is beginning to invest in building tunnels, roads, airfields and other military related supply chains and these remain vulnerable to GLFOs.

Finally, Russian invasion of Ukraine could have repercussions in the Arctic and these go way beyond the region as far as India.

Dr Vijay Sakhuja is Consultant Kalinga International Foundation, New Delhi.