Russia’s culture of carelessness produces the very conditions that elicit its cult of heroism; the two are linked in a self-perpetuating pattern.
There was no pollution from the sinking of the Kolskaya oil rig, but a catastrophic oil spill remains the main danger to the Arctic. Many experts would agree with Simon Boxall, a specialist in oil spills from the University of Southampton in England who helped analyze BP’s Deepwater Horizon spill in the Gulf of Mexico and is quite straightforward on the subject of Arctic drilling: “It is inevitable you will get a spill—a dead cert.”[320]
There are two particular problems with an oil spill in the Arctic. Hundreds of boats were available in the Gulf of Mexico to aid in the cleanup, which would hardly be the case in the Arctic. To complicate matters, says Boxall, the Arctic presents “a completely different type of environment. In temperate climes, oil disperses quickly. Bacteria help. In the Arctic the oil does not break down this way—it can take decades before it breaks down. Nature will not help us.” The rule of thumb is that what took five years in the Gulf of Mexico will take more than twenty in the Arctic.
Visiting the Arctic in 2010 and helping attach a tracking device to a sedated polar bear, Vladimir Putin announced: “We are planning a serious spring cleaning of our Arctic territories.”[321] That has remained largely an empty promise. In fact, rapid exploitation has been the order of the day, a project that includes what has to rank as one of the Worst Ideas in the World—the Russians are planning to supply their exploitation projects with floating nuclear power plants!
The prospect of these floating nuclear power plants (FNPPs) has elicited reactions that range from “floating Chernobyls”[322] to “fairly proven hardware, derived from those used on the icebreakers.”[323] Other observers, like former Soviet submarine captain and atomic safety inspector turned antinuclear campaigner Alexander Nikitin, worry about earthquakes and their aftereffects. “If a working floating nuclear reactor were dashed against the shore in a tsunami, it would mean an unavoidable nuclear accident.”[324] For his troubles Nikitin has been arrested several times for treason and espionage, the first time coming in 1996, when Yeltsin was still president. Though never convicted—a good sign—he has spent considerable time in pretrial detention.
Luckily, the lightly enriched uranium the FNPPs will use will not make them an attractive target for criminals or terrorists.
The first FNPP, soon to be operational, is called the Academician Lomonosov; not coincidentally, the extended continental shelf that Russia claims as an extension of its mainland is also named after Mikhail Lomonosov, an eighteenth-century polymath of peasant origin. The floating reactors will be able to supply electricity, heat, and desalinated water to a city of 200,000. They will be refueled every three years and serviced every twelve, and have a lifespan of forty.
Fifteen countries from China to Argentina have already expressed interest in leasing FNPPs.
The vast blank whiteness of the Arctic can, it seems, take any projection—from wealth rising from the sea like some god of ancient myth to tsunamis lashing floating nuclear power plants toward cities through waters black with spilled oil. Yet it’s also possible that both of these dramatic extremes will be avoided by the most common result of human endeavor—failure.
The gas and oil deposits may prove smaller than anticipated or more difficult and expensive to extract. The price of oil may stay low for a long time. And in the meanwhile breakthroughs in energy—fusion, superpowerful batteries—may make oil less necessary as fuel. The sea lanes over Russia connecting Asia and Europe may also not prove as lucrative as hoped. The dangerous unpredictability of the weather will impose strict limits on the shipping season, and many believe the main traffic will consist of raw materials being shipped out of the Russian Arctic rather than commercial traffic between Tokyo and Rotterdam. It wouldn’t take more than a few serious accidents for shippers, and insurers, to have second thoughts about the route. There have already been close calls. Two tankers, each loaded with thirteen thousand tons of diesel fuel, collided in July 2010, though the Russians dismissed the incident as a mere “fender bender.”[325]
There are even pessimists when it comes to the possibility of a bounty of fish revealed by the shrinking ice cap. An Economist article, “Tequila Sunset,” warns that a “warming Arctic will not … be full of fish. It will simply be an ice-free version of the desert it already is.”[326] The reason for this is that “global warming … may increase ocean stratification. This is the tendency of seawater to separate into layers, because fresh water is lighter than salt and cold water heavier than warm. The more stratified water is, the less nutrients in it move around.”
The greatest failure that could occur in the Arctic is, however, war. Henry “Hap” Arnold, commanding general of the U.S. Army Air Forces and the only U.S. officer ever to hold five-star rank in two military services (Army and Air Force), predicted the following: “If there is a Third World War the strategic center of it will be the North Pole.”[327] Arnold was no doubt basing his thinking on the fact that the shortest distance between the United States and the USSR for strategic bombers was over the North Pole, and whoever controlled the Arctic would have a vital advantage. It wasn’t long before ICBMs made the North Pole less important, but that in turn made it all the more important for nuclear subs. Just as the United States was shocked by Sputnik in 1957, the Soviets were shocked by advanced U.S. nuclear subs like the Nautilus, which transited the Arctic Ocean in 1958, and the Skate, which surfaced at the North Pole in 1959.
A resurgent Arctic is part of a resurgent Russia. Putin has declared, “We have no intention of militarizing the Arctic,”[328] but that statement is contradicted by other official statements that define the Arctic as a vital interest and main strategic base in the twenty-first century, by military doctrine dedicated to maintaining Russia’s national interests in the Arctic, and by a whole series of practices—the reopening of bases, the building of airstrips able to accommodate fighters and bombers, and the production of military equipment specifically designed for fighting in Arctic conditions.
Stalin emphasized the importance of the Arctic, seeing it as a source of “colossal wealth,”[329] and used forced labor to extract its resources, a luxury Putin does not have. But the wealth of the Arctic is even more important to Putin that it was to Stalin. It will be his last chance to transform Russia’s riches into greatness and strength. Since he has not sufficiently diversified the economy, the Arctic could well be Putin’s last stand.
Some of Putin’s moves have already made Russia’s Arctic neighbors nervous. Russia is moving forward with a gas turbine–powered armored vehicle called Rytsar (the Knight). A sort of light Arctic tank, its motor is designed to start and operate in the extreme cold and also to travel the long distances between bases and settlements. Drones are already patrolling, especially in the eastern part of the country. Motorized rifle brigades are being formed in the Murmansk region in the western part. The FSB created an Arctic Directorate in 2004, the control of borders always part of that organization’s purview. The list could go on but would thereby create an overly dramatic impression, as do some of the statements of Russian politicians and documents, like the following: “In a competition for resources it cannot be ruled out that military force could be used to resolve emerging problems.”[330]
320
Fiona Harvey and Shaun Walker, “Arctic Oil Spill Is Certain If Drilling Goes Ahead, Says Top Scientist,”
321
Christoph Seidler, “Spring Cleaning in the Arctic: Putin’s Environmental Action Plan for the Far North,”
323
Ken Stier, “In Russia a Push for Floating Nuclear Power Plants,”
327
Matthew Farish,
328
Ivan Nechepurenko, “Oil Price Drop Puts Russia’s Arctic Drive in Question,”
329
Eva Stolberg review of John McCannon,
330
Tony Halpin, “Russia Warns of War Within a Decade over Arctic Oil and Gas Riches,”