The Arctic in the 2023 Russian Foreign Policy Concept
Russian President Vladimir Putin and Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov before an expanded meeting of the CIS Heads of State Council in Turkmenistan in October 2019. Photo: The Kremlin
On the last day of March 2023, after many months of inter-department approvals, the Kremlin published a new version of its Foreign Policy Concept – the main Russian doctrinal document that reveals how Russia sees and would like to see the world and itself in it.1) The Arctic has a newfound significance in the document.
Russian foreign policy doctrines and strategies are official texts that outline Russia’s goals and objectives internationally, how and under what conditions it intends to achieve them, and most importantly, what it expects from other states’ foreign policies. Their language is some kind of foreign policy Latin: it is almost legal, without accidental words and phrases. They are straightforward, devoid of literary imagery and hidden agendas – they convey what really matters. For the Russian foreign policy community, it is a guidebook, a step-by-step instruction; for the rest of the world, it is a clear signal and a declaration of intent. The 2023 document replaces the previous version of the Concept from 2016.2) Like its previous editions, the document captures the trends in Russian foreign policy that have emerged and taken shape earlier, and in this sense is the product of the Russian leadership’s reflection on international developments in recent years.
For the first time, the new Concept clearly identifies regional foreign policy directions, a style more characteristic of Western states’ strategic documents. This is probably done to make the new hierarchy of regional foreign policy priorities clearer. The Arctic region stands out as one of top regions of priority. It is noteworthy that the update has affected not only the list of directions and their hierarchy, but also the content of the policy itself, including in northern latitudes.
Previously, the Arctic was perceived as part of western policy. The relevant paragraph was located between the Euro-Atlantic and the Asia-Pacific regions and followed mentions of the United States and Canada. In light of recent developments in international Arctic policy and a reassessment of regional priorities, the Arctic now occupies an honorable second place after the ‘near abroad’ (i.e., the Commonwealth of Independent States – CIS).
The focus of Russia’s Arctic policy is shifting to the development of the Russian Arctic, and international cooperation now serves this goal. For Russia, as the largest regional power, Arctic policy has always had both internal and external dimensions. In the new Concept, Russia’s foreign policy in the Arctic is an organic extension of its domestic Arctic development policy.
The reassessment of the Arctic’s position in relation to other regional priorities should be seen in the light of one of the leitmotifs of Russia’s new Foreign Policy Concept. From now on, Moscow does not seek integration into the Western community of states, and its institutions are not perceived as a value per se or a status marker. This trend emerged in Russian foreign policy several years ago, but has now been formalized. However, this does not mean that Russia is closing its doors and rejecting established institutions as such. Its approach is becoming more utilitarian and pragmatic: it is only prepared to use them if it corresponds with its national interest and if other actors are eager to take them into account.
The paragraph on the Arctic has doubled in size, becoming more detailed and structured, with subparagraphs outlining foreign policy priorities in the Arctic. The main goal is still the preservation of peace and stability. Instead of ‘constructive international cooperation’, there are now domestic objectives: increasing environmental sustainability; reducing threats to national security in the Arctic; and, crucially, ensuring favorable international conditions for the socio-economic development of the Arctic zone of the Russian Federation.
It is the first time that indigenous peoples are mentioned in the document: the protection of the ancestral habitat and traditional way of life of the small-numbered indigenous peoples of the Russian Arctic is considered an integral part of its socio-economic development.
One of Russia’s key objectives in the Arctic remains ‘the development of the Northern Sea Route (NSR) as a competitive national transport artery with the possibility of its international use for transportation between Europe and Asia’. It is in relation to the NSR that one of the new priorities of Russian foreign policy in the Arctic should be considered: ‘ensuring the invariability of the historically established international legal regime of the internal sea waters of the Russian Federation’.
The policy point on the ‘special responsibility of the Arctic states for the sustainable development of the region’ remained constant, but all the regional formats with the participation of Western states — the Arctic Council, the ‘Arctic Five’ and the Barents Euro-Arctic Council — have disappeared. Just a month prior, Russia’s Fundamentals of State policy in the Arctic for the Period up to 2035, Russia’s official Arctic strategy, was amended.3) The changes included removal of all the mentioned multilateral formats from the paragraph on international cooperation. The strategy was updated to emphasize the ‘development of relations with foreign states on a bilateral basis, within the framework of relevant multilateral structures and mechanisms.’ However, despite some media alleging Russia removed all mentions of the Arctic Council, Russia’s Arctic strategy retained the point of ‘the Arctic Council as the key regional platform coordinating international activities in the region’.4) This shows that Russia has no intention of creating alternative platforms and remains committed for the time being to constructive international cooperation within the framework of established and proven regional mechanisms. In the aftermath of the 2022 Arctic Council pause, some experts feared Russia or the seven other Arctic states would create its own regional institution without the participation of the party, but this is not likely to materialise in the near future. Nevertheless, it must be noted that this commitment endures until Russia is treated as an equal party whose interests are taken into consideration seriously. After Norway had taken on the chairship of the Council, the Russian Arctic ambassador Nikolay Korchunov expressed that Moscow could leave the Council if its rights were violated.5)
Russia still remains committed to international law in the Arctic. The Concept reaffirms the sufficiency of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) to regulate interstate relations in the Arctic Ocean. The new Concept clarifies the areas of UNCLOS that are relevant to Russia: protection of the marine environment, which is important in light of the recently adopted UN agreement on protecting marine biodiversity in international waters, as well as maritime delimitation, which replaced the ‘establishment of the outer limits of the continental shelf’ in the previous Concept.
Moscow has long opposed ‘attempts to bring elements of confrontation, including a military one, to the Arctic and to politicize international interaction in the region’. The 2023 Concept redefines this thesis as ‘neutralizing the policy of unfriendly states to militarize the region and limit Russia’s opportunities to exercise its sovereign rights in the Arctic Zone of the Russian Federation’.
Russia is rethinking the geography of international cooperation in the Arctic — now the document mentions ‘mutually beneficial cooperation with non-Arctic states that pursue a constructive policy towards Russia and are interested in international activities in the Arctic, including infrastructure development of the Northern Sea Route’. This wording suggests an inclination to work with states outside the Arctic region, such as China. This echoes another February 2023 amendment to the State Policy Framework, which now includes ‘foreign’ instead of ‘Arctic’ states.
The key message of the new Concept is that Russia is self-sufficient and open to cooperation with all those eager to respect its interests, but will not tolerate their neglect. The same applies to the Arctic, where international policy now serves the national interest, so Russian policy in the region should be seen through this prism.
Nikita Lipunov is an analyst at the Institute for International Studies at the Moscow State Institute of International Relations (MGIMO-University).
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