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Russia2AC PermThe US and Russia are increasing cooperation over the Arctic—new bilateral projects and reduction in competing claimsByers 13 [Michael, holds the Canada Research Chair in Global Politics and International Law at the University of British Columbia. He is the author of “International Law and the Arctic”, “Great Powers Shall Not in the Arctic Clash”, 11/11/13, http://globalbrief.ca/blog/2013/11/11/great-powers-shall/] alla The recent showdown between Russia and the West over Syria sits in sharp contrast with the deep cooperative logic that governs great power behaviour in today’s Arctic. Let us recall that, in 2010, at a conference in Moscow, Vladimir Putin famously said: “It is well known that, if you stand alone, you cannot survive in the Arctic. It is very important to maintain the Arctic as a region of peace and cooperation.”¶ Of course, everything in the High North today is changing with great rapidity – largely because the Arctic Ocean exists in a precarious balance between ice and water and is, as a consequence, acutely exposed to climate change. Indeed, at the current rate of melting, the entire ocean could be seasonally ice-free within five years. This rapid transformation has given rise to concerns about potential conflict over Arctic shipping routes and resources. And yet, apart from climate change, the most significant development in the Arctic today is the ever-increasing level of international cooperation – especially between Russia and the NATO countries.¶ The charting efforts of the navy of the former USSR extended to the heart of the Canadian Arctic. Indeed, in 2011, Soviet-era charts shown to the author on board the Russian research vessel Akademik Ioffe showed more depth soundings in the Northwest Passage than do comparable Canadian charts. For decades, the Soviets dominated the Arctic in military terms – to the point where, by 1989, their Northern Fleet included more than 100 nuclear submarines. Although the fleet has since been scaled back, dozens of Russian submarines continue to operate under the Arctic ice, maintaining a second-strike capability that Moscow deems essential to great power status.¶ Russian politicians have long used Arctic exploits to stoke nationalist pride. The first people to be designated “Heroes of the Soviet Union” were the pilots who rescued the crew of the SS Chelyuskin after it was crushed by ice in the Northern Sea Route in 1934. In 2007, Artur Chilingarov was designated a “Hero of the Russian Federation” after he descended approximately 4,000 metres in a submersible to plant a Russian flag on the seabed at the North Pole. Chilingarov is a notable Arctic scientist, but he was also the deputy chairman of the Russian Duma during an election campaign. One of the other scientists involved in the flag plant later admitted that the event was nothing more than a publicity stunt.¶ In point of fact, the Russian government has explicitly acknowledged that the country’s future success will depend on international cooperation, including in respect of access to foreign capital and technology to develop vast offshore reserves of Arctic oil and gas. Oil and gas rescued Russia from economic collapse in the 1990s. Today, these account for roughly 30 percent of the country’s GDP. As more than two-thirds of that 30 percent comes from Russia’s Arctic, continued development of the region is an objective of central national importance.¶ Two Arctic natural gas deposits – the Bovanenkovo field on the Yamal Peninsula and the Shtokman field in the Barents Sea – hold more reserves than the total proven conventional reserves of the US. France’s Total and Norway’s Statoil have been brought in to help develop the deposits through joint-venture agreements – although development of Shtokman is on hold for the moment because of the currently diminished global demand for gas.¶ Russia is the world’s largest producer of oil. However, falling production levels in Western Siberia have created an imperative to move northward – often in partnership with Western companies. In April 2013, Russian state-owned Gazprom signed an agreement with Royal Dutch Shell to cooperatively explore and develop Russia’s Arctic offshore oil reserves. The importance of the agreement was underlined by the presence of both President Putin and Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte at the signing ceremony. In June 2013, Russian state-owned Rosneft signed a similar agreement with ExxonMobil. The agreement foresees investments up to US $500 billion should reserves meet expectations.¶ Getting the oil and gas to markets will require improved transportation links. Much of the gas from the new fields will be shipped west through the newly opened Nord Stream pipeline, which runs along the bottom of the Baltic Sea between Russia and Germany. Much of the oil, for its part, will be shipped east to Asia via the Northern Sea Route. Russia already uses icebreakers to escort commercial vessels along its 6,600 kilometre-long Arctic coastline, and charges fees for the service. (In 2007, it launched the world’s largest nuclear powered icebreaker, the Fifty Years of Victory, which is able to sail more or less at speed through 2.5 metres of ice.)¶ The Northern Sea has long been considered essential to Russia’s interests. During WW2, some 34 ‘lend-lease’ vessels owned by the US and crewed by Soviets carried supplies from North America along the icy waterway in order to avoid German submarines. Today, the Russian government is intent on transforming the Northern Sea Route into a commercially viable alternative to the Suez Canal and the Strait of Malacca. Said Putin in September 2011: “The shortest route between Europe’s largest markets and the Asia-Pacific region lies across the Arctic. This route is almost a third shorter than the traditional southern one. I want to stress the importance of the Northern Sea Route as an international transport artery that will rival traditional trade lanes in service fees, security and quality.”¶ Washington opposes Moscow’s claim that portions of the Northern Sea Route constitute Russian internal waters – a classification that requires foreign ships to seek permission to enter. However, the US has never physically challenged that position. When the US Coastguard icebreaker Northwind approached the Vil’kitskii Strait north of Siberia in 1965, Moscow threatened to “go all the way” if the ship continued onward. Washington responded by ordering the Northwind to turn round, and has kept its ships away ever since.¶ In 2010, a ship owned by Russian mining giant Norilsk Nickel was reported to have completed a round trip via the Northern Sea Route from Murmansk to Shanghai. The ship apparently needed only 41 days for the 18,000-kilometre trip, as compared to the 84 days that it would have taken it to complete the 38,000-kilometre journey by way of the Suez Canal. In 2011, the 280-metre Russian supertanker Vladimir Tikhonov carried natural gas condensate from Murmansk to Thailand. In so doing, it became the largest ever vessel to complete the route. It was able to do so because ice conditions now allow ships to sail north of the New Siberia Islands, thereby bypassing the shallow waters between those islands and the mainland.¶ In 2012, the Chinese research icebreaker Xuelong traversed the Northern Sea Route under the escort of the nuclear-powered Russian icebreaker Vaygach. The presence of the Vaygach underlined an important point: despite the increase in shipping, Russia holds fast to its position that the Northern Sea Route passes through internal waters and is subject to its full control.¶ At the same time, Russia’s offshore oil and gas interests have strengthened Moscow’s commitment to the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). This treaty grants each coastal state a 200-nautical mile (370-kilometre) exclusive economic zone (EEZ), where it has absolute rights over fish and seabed resources. Beyond 200 nautical miles, a coastal state may also have exclusive rights to adjacent seabed resources if it can scientifically establish that the seabed in any particular area is a natural prolongation of its landmass. An international body of scientific experts – the UN Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf – exists to review and legitimate such claims.¶ These international rules accord Russia a massive area of seabed – thanks to its immensely long coastline and the general shallowness of the Arctic Ocean. Indeed, the combined jurisdictional zones of the five Arctic Ocean coastal states (Russia, Canada, the US, Denmark and Norway) likely cover all but two small areas of deep ocean floor near the centre.¶ Just as importantly, smaller overlaps in national claims are proving surprisingly easy to resolve. In 1990, Russia concluded a boundary treaty with the US in the Bering Sea. In 2010, it did likewise with Norway in the Barents Sea. Russia has also limited its seabed claims in the Central Arctic Ocean, filing an initial submission, in 2001, with the Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf that extended just halfway across the Arctic Ocean.¶ The US, for its part, has also embraced cooperation, with then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton telling a 2010 meeting of the Arctic Ocean states that “[w]e need all hands on deck because there is a huge amount to do, and not much time to do it.” In the same year, the US withdrew its longstanding opposition to the creation of a permanent secretariat for the Arctic Council. It also led the negotiation of an Arctic search-and-rescue treaty – an important contribution given the amount of commercial air traffic traversing the region. Now the US is advocating for a regional fisheries organization to manage the biological resources of the Central Arctic Ocean in a science-based manner, consistent with the UN Agreement on Straddling Fish Stocks and Highly Migratory Fish Stocks.¶ The US no longer opposes Russian – or potential Canadian and Danish – claims to portions of the Lomonosov Ridge, an underwater mountain range that runs across the centre of the Arctic Ocean. Nor does the US appear to show as much appetite today as in the past to challenge the Russian and Canadian claims that the Northern Sea Route and Northwest Passage constitute internal waters. (To be sure, this US posture may well change with events and changes in administration.)¶ The embrace of Arctic cooperation may still credibly be seen, at least in part, in the context of US President Obama’s sporadic efforts to ‘reset’ the relationship with Russia – an effort that, again, notwithstanding recent Moscow-Washington tensions related to Syria, may be said to have resulted in the 2010 New START Treaty, whereby both countries committed to reduce their stockpiles of nuclear weapons. Cooperating on the Arctic may well have facilitated progress on the nuclear issue, as a 2009 cable sent by the US ambassador in Moscow, and later released by Wikileaks, explained: “Our continued support of the Arctic Council and bilateral engagement on the Arctic [...] can help bolster the moderates [in the Kremlin] and give incentives to the GOR [Government of Russia] to continue cooperation.”¶ What of Canada in this emerging cooperative Arctic logic? In Moscow, a map produced by the Canadian Department of Natural Resources has pride of place in Arctic Ambassador Anton Vasiliev’s office in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The choice of wall decor reflects the fact that Canada is manifestly an important Arctic country. Still, that importance is based almost entirely on geography: Canada cannot compete militarily with Russia or the US, and has done little to seriously develop its economic and diplomatic power in the Arctic. It lacks roads and pipelines connecting southern Canada to the Arctic coast, and has just one railway line to Churchill (Manitoba), on Hudson Bay. Its only other Arctic port is a neglected wharf located at an abandoned mine at Nanisivik, on northern Baffin Island. Canada also has a glaring shortage of adequate Arctic airports, search-and-rescue capabilities, and navigation charts – while poor social, health and education conditions have resulted in a largely unemployable local workforce.¶ Although Canada should be developing itself into an Arctic gateway, it has kept that door firmly shut. To be sure, Canada was pivotal in the creation of the Arctic Council in 1996. And yet its diplomatic potential on northern matters has in recent years been hamstrung by inconsistent federal support for a sustained, credible northern push and strategy, as well as by the manipulation of Arctic projects for populist domestic ends at the expense of strategic consequence. Unlike Moscow, Ottawa has been slow to negotiate its Arctic boundary disputes. Indeed, it was not until 2012 that Ottawa and Copenhagen announced an agreement in principle on the location of the boundary in the Lincoln Sea. Another relatively large boundary dispute remains in the Beaufort Sea between Canada and the US – a dispute that should, in principle, be easy to resolve, given that the two countries share a common energy market under NAFTA (which reduces the stakes). In short, the other Arctic countries have increasingly bypassed Canada in addressing northern issues. Even negotiations on sub-strategic matters like search and rescue, shipping safety, oil spill response, fisheries management, and short-lived climate forcers like black carbon have been led by the US – often in partnership with Russia. 2AC Arctic PermPerm solves—reduced tensions in the Arctic specifically—cooperation in the Arctic can solveBernstein 14 [Leandra , Journalist at International News Agency, “Arctic Cooperation May Ease Russia-US Tensions – Analyst”, 5/22/14, http://en.ria.ru/world/20140522/190037278/Arctic-Cooperation-May-Ease-Russia-US-Tensions--Analyst.html] alla WASHINGTON, May 22 (RIA Novosti), Leandra Bernstein – Tense relations between Russia and the US and NATO could potentially be cooled through Arctic cooperation, according to the program director at the George Washington Institute for European, Russian, and Eurasian Studies.¶ “I think the Arctic is, today at least, one of the last places for cooperation with Russia following the Ukrainian crisis,” Marlene Laruelle said.¶ “US-Russia [Arctic] cooperation will probably be less directed to cooperation on security issues because of the Ukrainian crisis,” she specified, “but there are several other elements that are still open for discussion.”¶ Since 2011 the US has increased its stake in Arctic security and development and currently holds the chairmanship for the Arctic Council. The US is planning to invest $1.5 billion focusing on the Arctic, according to former State Department official Heather Conley.¶ However, US assets in the region are limited and they rely on dated technology and borrowed equipment from other Arctic nations. Russia is currently the only country employing nuclear-powered icebreakers.¶ “The securitization trend we see in the Arctic from the Russian side is mostly not an issue of military aggressiveness, but it is a business issue,” Laruelle said.¶ Concerning Russia’s delimitation of its continental shelf and control over the North Sea Pass, Laruelle said “Russia is playing by the rules.” The demarcation of national and international waterways is contested within the Arctic Council, but the first voyage of a Chinese merchant ship, Hong Xing, through the North Sea Pass last year set a precedent when the ship adhered to all Russian requirements for passage. 2AC Russia Fails at SatsRussia fails at ocean satellites—recent tech malfunctions and failed launchesCarbonnel 13 [Alissa de, is a Moscow-based Reuters correspondent, “Russian Arctic-mapping satellite malfunctions: Ifax”, 6/6/13, http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/06/06/us-russia-satellite-idUSBRE9550D720130606] alla A Russian satellite launched last year to map the Arctic has stopped working, a space industry source told the Interfax news agency on Thursday, in the latest disappointment for the country's once-pioneering space program.¶ The orbiter, Zond-PP, was the first of five Earth-mapping satellites being developed by Russia. Launched in July 2012, it was expected to have a three-year life span.¶ "Zond-PP is declared lost due to a technical malfunction," the source told Interfax, but added experts were working to try to revive the probe.¶ The satellite was equipped to monitor ocean salinity levels and land humidity to help Russian meteorologists model ocean currents and ice floes in the Arctic. It was also intended to test imaging systems to detect oil and benzene spills.¶ Moscow has boosted space industry spending and said it wants to redirect energy away from manned flight, which makes up nearly half its budget, to focus on pioneering Earth-mapping satellites and deep space exploration.¶ But the country that sent up the world's first artificial satellite has suffered a series of humiliating failed satellite launches that industry veterans blame on a decade of budget cuts and a brain drain. 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