The Arctic: Battlefield of a New Cold War? | Ice Race | Free Documentary

this is the arctic an icy cold beautiful wilderness that is almost completely devoid of people but crucial for the human race our energy reserves elsewhere on the planet are in the process of being depleted but the arctic still contained vast quantities of untapped oil and gas the potential for conflict over these resources has resulted in a substantial increase in military activities in the arctic during the last few years will we manage to resolve any future energy crises without resorting to the use of military force [Music] [Applause] [Music] modern civilization is completely dependent on oil which more than any other natural resources defines our current era the problem is that there will soon no longer be any oil left on earth most of the world's large oil fields have now reached peak oil this has resulted in oil exploration activities taking place in increasingly more remote places there is just one source of oil that is still more or less intact the arctic a sea and land massive covering six percent of the earth's surface global warming and new technology are now paving the way for new transport routes and creating access to these resources we will all be affected by the battle for these resources for several years there's been little military activity in the arctic but now all the countries in the area are starting to increase their military activity dramatically here on the island of andea is one of the air bases that supports military operations in the arctic someone who is witness to military development in the arctic on a daily basis is johan foreign from their base on under here intelligence gathering aircraft belonging to the squadron fly to some of the most inhospitable areas in the arctic however johann hetta is not unfamiliar with arctic territory [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] foreign the orion aircraft is setting course for the barren sea in order to carry out a military mission that many people thought would be unnecessary once the cold war had come to an end when the berlin wall fell most people thought that the possibility of war breaking out in europe was something that we'd put behind us but the cold war never really came to an end in the arctic where the superpowers have been playing intelligence games all along testing out each other's first strike capabilities this game is taking place around the polar ice cap both above and below sea level this area also contains vast fisheries and petroleum resources that will become even more important in the future and these nations are using military power to enforce their rights arctic states are looking at a change from from global warming they're seeing where according to the u.s geological survey potentially a quarter of the world's oil and gas resources may be under the arctic cap and with that comes as you know appropriately a great race a great game to see who can have access to those resources first both throughout history and in more recent times the arctic has had an important military role even in respect of conflict taking place on the other side of the world the svalsat satellite station is located just outside longyearbyen on svalbard it's eminently suitable for downloading satellite data because the distance between the earth's satellites and the earth is shorter here than anywhere else in the world on the 24th of march 2003 when the u.s armed forces were heading towards baghdad they were stopped by a heavy sandstorm there were two satellites circling high up in the earth's upper atmosphere that were able to see right through the sandstorm in order for these satellites to send their information to the americans they were completely dependent on being able to download their observations to a station in the arctic and this is where they were sent the attack on baghdad was able to proceed war strategists have been totally dependent on the arctic ever since the second world war because stations based in the arctic have been able to provide forecasts about the weather in europe 72 hours in advance the second world war was an entirely new type of war during which the air force played a crucial role precise weather forecasts were essential for the planning of air operations both the germans and the allies set up secret weather stations in the most inhospitable and inaccessible places they could find one of these stations haudigen was located on the northern coast of the island of nord australia it was so inaccessible and remote that it didn't surrender to the allies until the 4th of september 1945 the iron curtain came down almost immediately after the surrender of the soldiers at haudegan during the course of just a couple of years the fronts between the western powers and stalin's soviet union froze over especially the arctic the arctic really was a key area in the cold war and it could have become dreadfully chaotic if the war had heated up during the cold war the arctic of course is where conflicting missiles and aircraft would have flown and therefore the whole northern rim of canada was lined with radar stations looking for russian aircraft very big radars were in in scotland and tule greenland looking for incoming uh and i'm sure the soviets had the same sort of arrangements uh on the uh the north shore that if there had if the balloon had gone up uh the arctic would have been the area over which aircraft would have flown one of the many inventions of the cold war was the orion intelligence gathering aircraft which is still involved in active service this aircraft is equipped with top secret listening equipment and is highly efficient at gathering information ultra lucky that just worked over the brick trail one of the main tasks is to obtain as much intelligence as possible about increasing russian activities in the [Music] area [Music] [Music] this is the theorem [Music] um [Music] this increase in military activities could cause suspicion to arise between the countries in the area in march 2009 norway organized a major international military exercise cold response during the cold war this was a common event however during the last 15 years the arctic has fallen increasingly into the shadow of the war on terror nato has been focusing elsewhere for a small country like norway which has russia as its closest neighbor it's essential to get your allies to become interested in the northern areas again the norwegian authorities therefore invited foreign foreign scenario for exercise cold response was an imaginary conflict between two states about energy resources after having been attacked by a larger enemy the smaller country hits back with the help of its allies this exercise scenario was not well received by the russian authorities who called the exercise a provocation called response the [Music] [Music] [Music] the russians are reacting suspiciously to western military activities in the arctic the explanation for this is largely based on past events president putin in 2005 said that the demise of the soviet union was the greatest catastrophe of the 20th century i think that it's not only present put into things like this but the society has also experienced the changes after the cold war as a great failure [Music] i think that the uh steps taken by the united states and nato other western europeans western european countries and organizations [Music] have overlooked how deep the feeling of failure and humiliation can actually be in russia [Music] russia has increased its military activities in the arctic this illustration shows sorties undertaken by russian military aircraft off the norwegian coast in 2005 two years later these activities had increased dramatically the increased military activity russia's focus on on military power and they have also a domestic dimension the russian public reach very uh positively to this kind of active activities which restore the picture of russia as a great power again russia's revenue from its increasing exports of petroleum and other raw materials has enabled the country to recover after the soviet union collapsed at the beginning of the 1990s when it lost the cold war another major nation emerged victorious from this conflict thomas reed was president reagan's national security adviser at the beginning of the 1980s the cold war really was a conflict between two views as the role of man government perhaps supreme beings it was a free society believing in individual freedoms versus a society that the individual owes his allegiance to the state and exists for the existence of the state that led to conflicts and could have led to very serious conflicts with possible world war iii it did not because careful people were involved the cold war resulted in an unprecedented increase in military activities in the arctic this is the story of camp century the city on the right here on greenland the usa built what was one of the cold war's most secret projects a launch pad for nuclear missiles beneath the ice a maze of tunnels designed to be several hundred kilometers long and covering an area the size of greece as part of man's continuing efforts to master the secrets of survival in the arctic the united states army has established an unprecedented nuclear-powered arctic research center around 60 trains each with 10 nuclear missiles ready to be launched would travel along railway lines in the tunnels [Music] this huge facility was to be powered by nuclear reactors which would also be placed beneath the ice the secret base was operational between 1959 and 1966. it proved that it was possible for a large number of people to live under such extreme conditions and operate advanced military equipment we had to show that we could operate in the arctic above the arctic circle this forced the soviets to keep a number of forces tied down to combat that particular threat if we hadn't their forces would have been free to go out into the atlantic and raise havoc with our sea lines of communication at the beginning of the 1980s the soviet navy had modernized the vessels in its northern fleet and they'd also developed nuclear submarines that were able to hide beneath the polar icecap ace lions decided to counter these developments with a new aggressive american naval strategy in the arctic we were not going to seed control of either the north atlantic or the arctic to the soviets the fact that we were able to demonstrate that we could strike the soviet homeland from the north atlantic from the arctic tied down a number of their forces and which to me was a key element in raising the level of deterrence which is what we were really all about we were able to do that basically without firing a shot all stations tale we have a possible submarine contact they're at 294 3500 yards ahead but you're a bogey 8015 take with missiles cover with guns soviet submarines were shadowed constantly from the time they left their bases on the kola peninsula and they could be sunk the very minute they opened their nuclear missile launch hatches soviet submarine commander boris corliada was a witness to the um [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] is foreign [Music] fish in the arctic is a renewable resource which yields billions of dollars each year here in the raitan outside border is the control center which is able to see all movements in the arctic in practice it's only the armed forces who are responsible for the enforcement of rights and keeping an eye on things in the arctic obviously one of the reasons for this is because they have the necessary expertise and equipment but the use of military forces and the huge increase in military activities that's currently taking place is also an expression of the fact that there are vast assets to be guarded at uh [Music] the norwegian and russian coast guards have also cooperated on the prevention of illegal fishing in the barren sea in 2006 the russian authorities asked for assistance in arresting a pirate ship the castle which was fishing illegally in the norwegian protection zone the captain of the caster was unwilling to allow the coast guard to go on board no more discussion now for what's to engine finish finnish [Music] um cooperation between norway and russia over the management of fisheries in the arctic has been successful for several years now but will it be as easy to cooperate over another valuable resource in the arctic a resource which unlike fish is not renewable in 2008 two major crises occurred in russia's neighboring territories both of which had an impact on our view of the security situation in the arctic the first crisis occurred on the 8th of august 2008 when russian tanks invaded georgia the second crisis which had a direct impact on europe occurred later on during the same year this time it was the russians exerting their power in the energy field in connection with a conflict with ukraine russia shut down the gas pipeline running via ukraine to europe these pipelines were closed for several weeks when they were eventually reopened western europe's energy reserves were almost empty both the invasion of georgia and the gas crisis were strong wake-up calls for the rest of the world which had now witnessed russia's will to exert power in its neighboring areas i have long been worried about europe's potential dependence on on russian natural gas and like a lot of people i was relatively relaxed about this from 1989 through the mid 90s because i thought you know buying gas from russia might not be that different than buying it from canada or norway or whatever just a market but now that putin and medjetev are so committed to using energy as an instrument of national power in order to keep ukraine from joining nato you shut off their gas for example that situation is i think extremely risky the geopolitical issues have always been important in the oil industry there are a lot of concern about the security of supply from various countries where there are some political or security issues but if we have a long-term perspective of that we i think we need to be optimistic even if there are political changes in these countries these countries will need to develop their own resources because they are so important for their developments looking to the map of the eye north what plays russia as in the map of a high north how can you govern the inert without russia you confront russia are you going with russia it is important for the alliance to develop a constructive relationship with russia and even more important so in the attic in the high note where russia is by far a dominant player under any respect but gas assets are a two-edged sword for russia they're dependent on selling gas to europe in order to fund their military rearmament the soviet union was paradoxically in the same situation during the cold war and this made them vulnerable [Music] in june 1982 there was an explosion in a gas pipeline transporting soviet gas from the siberian oil fields to major customers in western europe this explosion had a huge detrimental impact on the country's economy and contributed towards the collapse of the soviet union the official explanation for the explosion was poor workmanship it would take more than 20 years before the truth was revealed an interesting episode in the cold war was the discovery of the soviet penetration of the u.s technology industries and their intent to steal that technology it came to a head in 1981 when president mitterrand of france met with president reagan and a summit meeting in montreal took him aside and said we have acquired an agent working within the soviet technology department of kgb and we've learned that they are stealing technology and targeting others and would you be interested to which of course president reagan said yes [Music] the farewell files was the code name for this agent in moscow it was learned what the soviets were going to steal and instead of stopping it the american technological industries were recruited to instead ship bogus stuff the soviets had natural gas in siberia they wanted to sell it in germany they were building a pipeline they needed computers to run this pipeline they could buy the mainframe computers but the software they did not have and they finally acquired illegally through conduits in canada except due to the farewell lead we knew who that was and so when the software was sent to the soviets via this canadian cutout it had what's known as a trojan horse the software had been manipulated by the cia so that it would cause the gas pipeline to explode at a given time i believe the intent was to simply have the pipeline spring a thousand leaks all over but it appears that what really happened was the pipeline burst in the middle of siberia produced an explosion that was visible from space produced a lot of confusion to u.s intelligence analysts and in fact none of us like even myself who was in the white house at the time learned about this until the cold war is over and we started sorting through the historical files [Music] [Music] foreign today johan and his crew are going to fly a long intelligence gathering mission in the barren scene [Music] foreign the aim of the mission is to find russian submarines in order to map their movements and their identity [Music] [Music] [Music] the area patrolled by the orion aircraft is changing rapidly during the last 40 years the ice around the north pole has been melting fast this is now making it possible to extract large quantities of oil and gas petroleum reserves elsewhere in the world are being exhausted so pressure on the arctic is increasing people must keep in mind that producing oil and natural gas in those regions is extremely difficult conditions are terribly harsh in some cases they're almost impossible in cases where it's almost impossible the cost of producing oil or natural gas escalate dramatically so yes there is a prize there to be i hope uh gained by a number of countries that have borders around that region but it won't be simple and it will not be fast and it is likely to be political met politically messy also the military race in the arctic has started and once more soldiers from other nato countries are taking part in exercises in the norwegian snow i think you're seeing an increased operational tempo of nato's interest because we see an evolving policy towards the high north russians have certainly expressed their strong interest as well as our canadian colleagues they are now providing troops contingents and both to look at arctic operations search and rescue so again i think you're looking not just from the u.s perspective but nato and many of our closest allies are taking a strong posture in the high north [Music] the melting ice is not just resulting in better access to oil and gas it can also create new and more efficient transport routes in the future it may be possible to transport goods along the canadian coast through the northwest passage and along the coast of northern russia through the northeast passage by using these new routes the transport time from asia to europe could be reduced by almost 40 percent [Music] but these new transport routes are also causing conflict they are one of the reasons why canada for example is now increasing its military activities in the arctic the need to assert our sovereignty and to take action to protect our territorial integrity in the arctic has never been more urgent canadian prime minister stephen harper is ready and clear on the subject you either use it or you lose it let me be absolutely clear that your new national government is committed to using it canada is staking its claim to the northwest passage as being in canadian territorial waters but the usa doesn't agree with its neighbor and thinks that the northwest passage is in international waters with unrestricted transport for everyone the question of the status of the northwest passage is a is an area where we agree to disagree but at some point there will have to be some clarification and clarity brought to our disagreement on the status of the northwest passage on the other side of the north pole the melting ice is presenting russia with a security challenge as its entire northern coastal strip is becoming exposed the russian northern fleet is now undergoing substantial modernization one of russia's military commitments involves the modernization of its nuclear submarines which are able to fire their missiles from concealed positions beneath the surface of the ocean this is exactly the type of russian submarine that johan and his orion aircraft crew are hunting for today after several hours in the air the orion aircraft are still not managed to detect any russian submarines suddenly the orion sensors register something beneath the surface of the sea the crew shoot out listening boys to find out what it might be after a while it becomes apparent that the aircraft is flying above a russian delta class submarine it's over 150 meters long and is equipped with long-range missiles the submarine remains hidden beneath the barren sea but the crew of the orion had secured important intelligence data and they returned to base history has shown that military activities in the arctic are a dangerous balancing act norway canada and russia are now increasing their military focus in the area does this mean that the cold war is back [Music] to military [Music] i hope we can avoid wars it's not inconceivable that there will be wars [Music] the arctic has potential probably significant potential to produce natural gas and useful and significant quantities of oil also i think we're all well aware of the fact that the areas up there are disputed between countries and we're going to have to find some way to settle those those land disputes and i hope that's peaceful by the way because there have been resource wars in the past and i would hope that we can avoid those at our stage of development and civilization today [Music] [Music] foreign in order to show that priority is being placed on the northern areas the norwegian armed forces are now transferring their operational leadership from southern norway to northern norway they're also organizing international military exercises close to the russian border russia has great sensitivity to any nato exercise along its border we are in a very hyper-sensitive time where nato is exercising near the perceived sphere of influence of russia it's absolutely understandable and i think nato asked moscow to be an observer to the high north exercises not a participant but an observer and then and moscow flatly rejected that that offer and then in kind held exercises uh very close to uh to to finland i think you'll see this tit for tat i think it's again each other's they're showing each other their interest they're showing each other their response to to an evolving policy but again what's so critical is to maintain dialogue there is a range of steps we may take to avoid at least fueling of the suspicious attitudes prevailing on the russian side so the military activity which is of highest of the highest concern to russia should be definitely transparent include russia to the possible accident of course and avoid appearing as provocative nato's military leaders are also keen to resolve the race for resources in the arctic without resorting to military force we don't want to return to the cold world atmosphere we want to prevent this to happen so if we want to prevent this to happen the best and more useful strategy is to engage in [Music] a relationship with russia to make russia a responsible co-player of the international community nato need to be careful not to be an element of rising tension on the country an element of keeping the low tension and even building greater stability in order to maintain stability in the arctic the nations are continuing to boost their military activities this is why there's been an increase in the work of those who have been appointed to keep an eye on resources um be [Music] so [Music] you

Channel: Free Documentary

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Keywords: Free Documentary, Documentaries, Full documentary, HD documentary, documentary - topic, documentary (tv genre), Arctic Documentary, climate change, global warming, arctic exploitation, climate change documentary, arctic fishing, ice race, cold war, new cold war, arctic cold war, cold war return, military

Id: gJvIwqq5GjY

Length: 49min 14sec (2954 seconds)

Published: Fri Jan 08 2021