ARCTIC WARS

World War III's Newest Battlefield

In my Substack storehouse, I have 211 drafts of essays I’ve been working on, and this essay has been at the top of the list. I’m so happy to have finally finished it!

Vladimir Putin’s Russia and the United States under President Biden are among nine nations squaring off for control of the Arctic, where fast-rising temperatures could make the now-ice-covered region ship-navigable each summer as soon as 2040. (Getty Images)

“What the Aegean Sea was to classical antiquity, what the Mediterranean was to the Roman world, what the Atlantic Ocean was to the expanding of Europe of Renaissance days, the Arctic Ocean is becoming to the world of aircraft and atomic power.” - Canadian historian and diplomat, Hugh Keenleyside, 1949

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In May of 2022, President Vladimir Putin warned that Russia will “knock out the teeth” of any foreign adversary that challenges its sovereignty over any territory it claims.

He might not have mentioned the Arctic specifically, but it’s no secret Russia is massing a formidable array of military weapons in the region — including the Poseidon 2M39, a stealth nuclear-powered torpedo dubbed the “super-weapon.”

According to Worldcrunch:

Since 2014, Russia has built at least 475 military facilities along its northern border and has started to actively develop the port of Severomorsk in the Barents Sea above the Arctic Circle (the main base of the country's Northern Fleet) and the port in Vladivostok.

Russia has also tested specialized hypersonic cruise missiles and nuclear-powered underwater drones in the Arctic. The country's Northern Fleet, which consists of nuclear submarines, battleships, landing craft, icebreakers, and support ships, has been significantly strengthened over the past decade and has become the leading power in the north, according to NATO's 2017 Arctic Strategy.

Russian activity has sparked an arms race among other Arctic states.

Recently, Russia’s defense minister, Sergei Shoigu, visited the Arctic nuclear testing facilities at Novaya Zemlya. The Central Training Ground was the site of more than 130 nuclear weapons tests from 1954 until 1990. It is where Soviet scientists detonated the thermonuclear Tsar Bomba in 1961, the largest nuclear weapon ever tested. Moscow has concentrated a significant part of its nuclear retaliatory capability on the Kola Peninsula, a remote stretch of land abutting northern Norway.

Russian missile test in January (Image: Tass)

The Central Training Ground is now used for "carrying out tests of advanced samples of weapons and military equipment," the Russian Defense Ministry statement said, without specifying further.

It’s interesting that in mid-June, Putin said tactical nuclear weapons had been moved to Belarus. This coincided with the mutinous Wagner group being exiled to Belarus. It remains to be seen if the downfall of the Wagner group is a false flag; a way for Russia to build up its armies against Poland without seeming to.

Wagner “mercenaries” fyi, this is from a movie, which I figure is fitting for our times when you can't tell reality from fiction.

Wagner leader, Yevgeny Prigozhin, was always considered a close ally of Putin

Since Russia's invasion of Ukraine, tensions have escalated rapidly over nuclear threats.

In February 2023, Putin suspended Russia's participation in the new START Treaty, which puts limits on Moscow's and Washington's nuclear arsenals.

The U.S. and NATO had called for the right to inspect Russia’s nuclear facilities, a request that Putin described as "a theater of the absurd."

"They want to inflict a 'strategic defeat' on us and try to get to our nuclear facilities at the same time," he said.

In 2022, the White House vowed to enhance U.S. military presence in the Arctic, increasing exercises with partner countries to “deter aggression in the Arctic, especially from Russia”.

In the same year, roughly 30,000 NATO soldiers descended on an area above the Arctic Circle to carry out the biannual Exercise Cold Response, where allied forces conduct “multinational joint exercises with a high-intensity combat scenario in demanding winter conditions.”

The Finnmark region of Norway and adjacent Russian territory have become one of the most likely battlegrounds for the first use of nuclear weapons in any future NATO-Russian conflict.

According to Rebekah Koffler, an intelligence analyst and author of Putin’s Playbook: Russia’s Secret Plan to Defeat America:

The distance between Russia and NATO countries in the Arctic has been reduced to about 100 miles. And everyone is posturing for dominance. The US Army says we’re going to dominate the region, but the Russians have their own strategy. They’re screaming that they’re going to be the only non-NATO country in the Arctic Group. And China has joined the fight. They’re trying to tap into the Arctic as a major shipping route.

Like the Suez Canal of old, whoever controls the route will control an essential artery of the reshaped capitalist world economy. And, like the Suez, the Great Power scramble is turning into a growing military presence that threatens future conflict.

While claiming to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, the global shipping industry is responsible for over a billion tons of greenhouse-gas emissions each year, about 3% of the world’s total. This will only increase that amount.

The Arctic—3 million square miles of eternal frost is at last revealing its treasures to a greedy world.

President Biden warned that the climate change could “generate potential conflict in terms of dominating the Arctic.” Indeed, climate change has become the convenient excuse for everything from plagues to wars.

Whether or not you believe climate change is the fault of man’s greenhouse emissions or a naturally occurring phenomenon, the fact is that Arctic ice is melting. Figures from the US space agency (Nasa) suggest the loss of the minimum Arctic sea-ice extent is in the region of 13.1% per decade, based on the 1981 to 2010 average.

We hear repeatedly how bad this is for the environment and how countries must come together to protect the delicately balanced Arctic ecosystem.

What we never hear is how the last thing the powerful elites who control those countries really want is to stop the ice from melting. While the masses are lectured on “carbon footprint” and how everyone must do their part to preserve the planet, the Arctic states of Canada, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Russia, Sweden, the United States and China (a self-proclaimed “near-Arctic state”), are engaged in a “scramble for the Arctic” and the riches that the melting ice is uncovering.

Russia has always considered this vast frozen land to be its domain and nations had an understanding that conflict there was off limits—until now.

Although shipping, mining, drilling and fishing rights have been established along the Arctic coastal waterways for each country, none have been set for the wider Arctic. It is wide-open territory that in reality, despite Russia’s claims, no one actually “owns”. It’s led to bitter disputes in the past that will only escalate as the treasures beneath the ice become more accessible, opening up what is being called the new Arctic Silk Road.

According to the U.S. Geological Survey, “The Arctic is estimated to harbor over 90 billion barrels of oil reserves, 30 percent of the world’s untapped natural gas, and around one trillion dollars’ worth of rare earth minerals, ranging from gold and silver to beryllium, cadmium and lithium — all in great demand due to the explosive growth of personal electronics and electric-battery cars”.

Thawing ice has also opened trans-Arctic shipping routes, including the Northern Sea Route (NSR) and the Northwest Passage (NWP). The Northern Sea Route, for example, decreases transit time from Europe to Asia by nearly 40 percent.... Russia and China, the two great power rivals for the U.S., are quickly moving to positions of advantage in the Arctic to exploit growing economic and security opportunities.

“Today is a pivotal moment that is going to reshape the energy market and the supply chain,” said Koffler.

“The Arctic is going to be the future battlefield for economic dominance and possession of natural resources.”

The United States cannot stand to see Russia gaining the advantage in the Arctic. More than anything else, the war in Ukraine has been a way to break Russia and seize the upper hand in the Arctic. But that is something we never read about in our news feeds. Nor are the complex issues surrounding it something most people are interested in exploring, since it takes longer than a couple of minutes to do so and by that time, they have moved on to the next sensational tidbit of news. If you have made it even this far into my essay, thank you!

You can see from the map below how Russia’s coastline dominates the Arctic. This alone should prove its rights, but now, those rights are being tested in ways that threaten to unleash a nuclear war.

Russia’s coastline accounts for 53% of Arctic Ocean coastline and the country’s population in the region totals roughly 2 million people. The Arctic is a vital source of economic stability for Russia. “The Arctic accounts for more than 20 percent of its Gross Domestic Product (GDP), along with approximately 75 percent of its oil and 95 percent of its natural gas reserves.”.

The battle to dominate nuclear power will start and end in the Arctic. Nuclear power needs uranium and Russia’s Kazakhstan produces almost half of the world's raw uranium while the U.S. produces a mere 8 percent.

Not only that, but Russia excels in refining uranium with almost 40 percent of the total uranium conversion infrastructure in the world coming from Russia. The same goes for uranium enrichment, for which Russia is responsible for 46 percent of the world’s total.

“That’s equal to all of OPEC put together in terms of market share and power,” said Paul Dabbar, a visiting fellow at the Center on Global Energy Policy at Columbia University, referring to the oil dominance of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries.

According to the New York Times,

Russia’s megalithic nuclear power company, Rosatom, has proved “uniquely successful as both a business enterprise and a vehicle for Russian political influence. Much of its ascendancy is due to what experts have labeled a “one-stop nuclear shop” that can provide countries with an all-inclusive package: materials, training, support, maintenance, disposal of nuclear waste, decommissioning and, perhaps most important, financing on favorable terms.

The American nuclear power industry gets up to 20 percent of its enriched uranium from Russia, the maximum allowed by a recent nonproliferation treaty, according to the International Energy Agency. France imports 15 percent. Framatome, which is owned by state-backed nuclear power operator, Électricité de France, or EDF, signed a cooperation agreement with Rosatom in December 2021, two months before Russia’s invasion, that is still in effect.

Add to that, Russia’s amassing of military might in the Arctic and testing of its newest weapons in a bid to secure its northern coast and open up shipping routes from Asia to Europe.

Weapons experts and Western officials have expressed particular concern about one Russian ‘super-weapon,’ the Poseidon 2M39 torpedo.

This unmanned stealth torpedo is “powered by a nuclear reactor and intended by Russian designers to sneak past coastal defenses – like those of the US – on the sea floor. Christopher A Ford, former assistant secretary of state for International Security and Non-Proliferation, said the Poseidon is designed to inundate U.S. coastal cities with radioactive tsunamis”.

Russia’s Arctic/nuclear dominance must be broken, but how to do it?

Start a war between Russia in the poorest and most corrupt country in Europe, Ukraine, fund the war with billions upon billions of U.S and European taxpayers’ money, thereby, theoretically, bringing Russia to its knees and turning Europe’s dependency from Russia to the United States.

The 2022 photo above shows the site of a proposed Rosatom nuclear power plant in Pyhajoki, Finland. It’s no surprise that since Finland joined NATO, the project has been canceled.

The Czech Republic’s energy company, CEZ, has signed contracts with Pennsylvania-based Westinghouse Electric Company—Rostatom’s greatest rival—and the French company Framatome to supply fuel assemblies for its plant in Temelin. Rostatom is a Russian state corporation headquartered in Moscow that specializes in nuclear energy, nuclear non-energy goods and high-tech products. Established in 2007, the nonprofit organization comprises more than 350 enterprises, including scientific research organizations, a nuclear weapons complex, and the world's only nuclear icebreaker fleet.

But so far, the United States’ efforts are peanuts compared to Russia. As long as Russia maintains dominance over the Arctic, the U.S. will struggle to surpass it.

How can the United States gain dominance over more Arctic land?

Alaska represents a mere 1060 miles of Arctic coastline. Even that land was purchased from the Russian Empire in 1867 for $7.2 million.

In 2019, the press made fun of President Donald Trump’s interest in buying Greenland, the world's largest island. Greenland wasn't for sale but given the United States’ desire to increase its Arctic coastline, Trump’s desire to buy it was understandable.

Greenland’s riches have the possibility to severely cut into China’s 90 percent dominance of global rare earth extraction. China is wooing Greenland while establishing firm relations with Russia.

While the press convinces the public that governments care about cutting greenhouse emissions, mining companies have been pushing for rights to exploit rare earth deposits in Greenland, which is estimated to hold one-quarter of the world’s rare earth deposits that are essential for everything from technological devices to electric vehicles to military weapons to wind turbines.

At Kvanefjeld project, one of two major rare earth mineral deposits in Greenland, when you shine an ultraviolet light on the rocks, they explode with vivid pink and orange hues, revealing the rare earths inside the rocks.

Trump didn’t succeed in buying Greenland, but in 2019 the two countries signed a memorandum of understanding to develop Greenland’s energy and mining sectors, including rare earth minerals, hoping to break the U.S. dependency on China for rare earths.

Behind the United States government’s designs on exploiting Greenland are the billionaires.

A 2022 Vanity Fair article describes how “Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates, and other masters of the universe are betting big on Greenland as mining in the Congo gets too dirty for even Elon Musk”.

Almost every lithium-ion rechargeable battery in the world has cobalt in it, and almost three-fourths of that cobalt is mined in appalling conditions in the Congo. “Never in human history has there been so much suffering that generated so much profit that directly touched the lives of more people around the world,” says Siddarth Kara, author of the book, "Cobalt Red."

From left: Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates, and Michael Bloomberg are among the billionaires financially backing KoBold Metals to search for electric-vehicle metals. Mandel Ngan/AFP/Spencer Platt/Getty Images

In 2019, “a landmark legal case was launched against the world’s largest tech companies including Dell, Microsoft and Tesla, by Congolese families who say their children were killed or maimed while mining for cobalt used to power smartphones, laptops and electric cars”, the Guardian revealed.

In the court documents, the Congolese families describe how their children were driven by extreme poverty to seek work in large mining sites, where they claim they were paid as little as $2 (£1.50) a day for backbreaking and dangerous work digging for cobalt rocks with primitive tools in dark, underground tunnels.

The families claim that some of the children were killed in tunnel collapses while others were paralysed or suffered life-changing injuries from accidents.

One of the central allegations in the lawsuit is that Apple, Google, Dell, Microsoft and Tesla were aware and had “specific knowledge” that the cobalt they use in their products is linked to child labour performed in hazardous conditions, and were complicit in the forced labour of the children.

Shockingly (or perhaps not so shocking), the lawsuit was dismissed. The billionaires have since turned their hungry eyes to Greenland, claiming (as always) that they can save the planet while turning a profit. A company called KoBold Metals has received backing from Andreessen Horowitz and Breakthrough Energy Ventures, a multibillion-dollar funding vehicle created by Microsoft cofounder Gates and seeded by Bezos, Bloomberg, Ray Dalio, David Rubenstein, Jack Ma, Reid Hoffman, and Sir Richard Branson to search for rare earth minerals in Greenland.

It’s a mockery to claim that such mining is part of a clean energy strategy. Cobalt mining produces radioactive emissions, cancer-causing particles, and particles which may cause vision problems, vomiting and nausea, heart problems, and Thyroid damage. In addition, mineral mining produces pollution that leaches into neighboring rivers and water sources. Dust from pulverized rock is known to cause breathing problems for local communities as well. 

Charlie Angus, who wrote a history of Cobalt, had some unpleasant things to say about these billionaires and their do-good hypocrisy to Popular Mechanics:

The image of the billionaires Gates, Bezos, and Bloomberg digging out the fragile and disappearing ice shields of the planet in order to gain more wealth is a perfect symbol for our dystopian times. Cobalt may play a role in the transition to a clean energy economy, but the exploitation of these resources have had serious environmental and human rights impacts. The name of their company literally means ‘demon metals.’ I wonder if they are aware of the dark and troubling mythologies associated with the metal and the Kobold demons.

The word cobalt comes from the German word kobold, meaning goblin. These folklore figures live in the rocks deep underground and serve a dual purpose for miners, both warning them—like tommyknockers in the U.K. and the U.S.—and causing dangerous mischief.

But nothing, not even the specter of demons, nor the rising threat of nuclear war, can deter these greedy billionaires and their sidekicks, the leaders of the worlds more powerful nations, from fighting over dominance of the Arctic.

Adding insult to injury, on August 14th it was reported that the United States world-spanning military emits more greenhouse gasses each year than most countries and that “lawmakers want to make it harder to determine the ecological impact of weapons manufacturers”.

The defense policy bills that passed the House and Senate last month each include provisions that would block public reporting on greenhouse gas emissions by military contractors, according to a new open letter from more than two dozen activist groups and research organizations.

Once again, while the MSM, the propaganda arm of the United States, assures citizens that the government’s first concern is “climate change”, the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) has expanded funding for the most polluting sector of our government yet again, with Biden seeking $24 billion more in funding for the war in Ukraine.

As I write this just 18 minutes ago an article came up Belarus' Lukashenko threatens use of nuclear weapons if faced with 'aggression'.

President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko with his son Nikola, CNN

Belarus will respond to "aggression" with nuclear weapons, President Alexander Lukashenko warned in an interview with state-run media, as its NATO neighbors have deployed thousands of troops to their shared border amid growing tensions.

As I mentioned earlier Moscow transferred nuclear weapons from the Arctic to Belarus. The irony is that the push to shut down Russia’s nuclear reactors has only succeeded in the build-up of nuclear weapons on Europe’s doorstep.

"We didn't bring nuclear weapons here in order to scare someone," Lukashenko said. "Yes, nuclear weapons represent a strong deterring factor. But these are tactical nuclear weapons, not strategic ones. This is why we will use them immediately once aggression is launched against us."

The battle for dominance between East and West is on a course of escalation with no signs of stopping.

Russian minister Aleksey Chekunkov likened the U.S. and NATO’s attacks on Russia to a “disease in the human body, which provokes an immune reaction, and stressed that “the Russian economy is going through this immune reaction with dignity.”

“We haven’t even stumbled. The pace of new investments has increased. While we had 248 investment projects in 2021, the number reached 260 in 2022, while over 50 new businesses were launched. Some projects required changes… but companies were able to adjust. All in all, it made us stronger, it made us more self-sufficient, it gave the industry the push to build what we’ve been building for ten years,” he stated.

Nowhere is that push more apparent than in the Arctic. Why would Russia ever give it up?

According to RT, “it is the source of nearly 90% of Russia’s natural gas. It will soon be home to floating natural gas liquefaction plants that will be able to produce 7 million tons of LNG per year. The region is also rich in oil, with the largest project, Rosneft’s Vostok Oil, expected to produce up to 100 million tons of crude annually by 2031-2032. Russia’s first floating nuclear power station is also located in the Arctic”.

“The Arctic and the Far East are a treasure trove. The Arctic is where the future economy of Russia is being built. What happens today in the Arctic…will serve many generations of Russians,” Chekunkov said.

Launch of Termit cruise missile. Photo: Russian Ministry of Defence, mil.ru

The Arctic is where the third, and surely the last, World War could well be played out. Yet few are talking about it.

The war in Ukraine has exacerbated tensions in the region, rendering “government-to-government cooperation with Russia in the Arctic virtually impossible.”

As I am about to end this essay, I see a new article Ukraine brings war to Putin's door as 'powerful' drone attack rocks central Moscow.

Far from discouraging Moscow from fighting, the Biden administration’s funding of the war in Ukraine has only made it worse. The only way to end this war is for the U.S. to stop funding it. That will not happen. Not before the insane intent to bring Russia to its knees and gain control over the Arctic has been achieved.

The ancient, warmongering Lizard Kings in Washington don’t care if this ignites World War III. They hate that they are old, and their years of control are coming to an end. If they have to die without ever reaching the immortality promised to them by their overlords—an immortality that never materialized because, of course, it was a lie, then the entire world must go down burning along with them.