China will soon threaten the security of the West in the Atlantic, the head of the armed forces of the United Kingdom said during the annual conference at the Royal United Service Institute. The senior officer suggested that it might be necessary to send a British aircraft carrier to East Asia on a stable basis.
The admiral Tony Radak too, Chief of the British Defense Staff, explained that the melting of the polar caps it could favor the creation of a new navigation route, particularly attractive at a military level for China, in order to create deterrence against Europe. Beijing, claims the admiral, could take advantage of the new scenario to position itself in an important military position in that remote area of the planet. Warning already reported also by the top management of MI5, MI6 and GCE IQ.
Radakin has, therefore, suggested that the Royal Navy may be forced to increase its submarine fleet”trident”, in that stretch of sea, in response to thesubstantially increasing Beijing's nuclear arsenal.
The Royal Navy could then field its four submarines di Vanguard class carrying nuclear weapons Trident specified the head of His Majesty's armed forces stating that the navy, thanks to the agreement Aucus, signed with United States and'Australia, can easily get support to increase its nuclear-capable fleet.
On nuclear rearmament Radakin said that “One of the lessons learned in 2022 is that nuclear deterrence has protected Britain and allies from the coercive power of adversaries.”
Radakin then focused on the Russian-Ukrainian conflict: “lRussia is losing the war despite having fired millions of rounds at a modest military power”, specifying that “Russia faces an acute shortage of artillery ammunition, because Moscow's arsenal is critically deficient today. Morally, conceptually and physically, Putin's forces are running out.".
Radakin on placing an aircraft carrier regularly in East Asia said: “We have seen what happens when countries divert attention: they encourage autocratic governments to break the rules thus leading to global instability and insecurity”.
Aucus
The Australia-UK-US Alliance (Aukus – 2021) is a partnership of "strengthened trilateral security" whose purpose is "to deepen diplomatic, security and defense cooperation in the Indo-Pacific region, also by working with partners, to address the challenges of the twenty-first century". Thus in the declaration at the end of the signing of the agreement: “We will promote a deeper sharing of information and technologies. We will promote deeper integration of science, technology, industrial bases and supply chains related to security and defense. And in particular, we will significantly deepen cooperation on a number of security and defense capabilities."
The United Kingdom with the Aukus wants to enter the Indo-Pacific in an increasingly rooted way to develop that idea of GlobalBritain, post-Brexit. London's decision is dictated by the evident need to be present, with the fleet and with diplomacy, in the seas of the Far East. In the Aukus pact observers argue that there is a clear interest also and above all in the sale of British nuclear submarines Astute-class, thus opposing the contract of tens of billions of euros for French submarines destined for Australia.
New routes from the melting of the ice, new challenge with Russia and China
The melting of the ice in theArctic Ocean it will transform trade routes in international waters, reducing the carbon footprint of the shipping industry and weakening Russia's grip on the area.
In the next two decades it will represent a new outlet for new shorter, greener maritime trade routes bypassing that of the North Sea, controlled by Russia.
To reach these conclusions is a study carried out by climate scientists from Brown University and law experts from University of Maine School of Law, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, as reported by the Agi.
The teams cross-referenced all the data needed to predict how the melting of ice in the Arctic Ocean could affect the regulation of shipping lanes in the coming decades. So they predicted that by 2065, the seaworthiness of the Arctic will increase so much that new trade routes in international waters could be created, not only reducing the carbon footprint of the shipping sector, but also weakening Russian control over Arctic trade.
Although the news was welcomed, in the context of the war in Ukraine and skyrocketing tensions between the West and Russia, for Amanda Lynch, lead author of the study and professor of earth, environmental and planetary sciences at Brown, “there is no scenario in which melting ice in the Arctic is good news.”
Primarily because parts of the Arctic that were once covered with ice year-round are warming so rapidly that they will be reliably ice-free for months on end in just two decades. Arctic climate change will also endanger countless species that thrive in sub-zero temperatures.
"The unfortunate reality is that the ice is already retreating, these routes are opening up and we need to start thinking critically about the legal, environmental and geopolitical implications” anticipated Lynch, who has been studying climate change in the Arctic for nearly 30 years.
Since 1982 the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea gave the Arctic coastal states enhanced authority over primary shipping lanes. Article 234 of the Convention establishes that in the name of "prevention, reduction and control of marine pollution caused by ships", the countries whose coasts are close to the Arctic sea routes have the ability to regulate the maritime traffic of the route, provided ' the area remains frozen, i.e. covered for most of the year.
For decades the Russia used Article 234 for their own economic and geopolitical interests. A Russian law requires all ships passing through the Northern Sea Route to be piloted by Russians. The country also requires passing vessels to pay tolls and provide advance notice of their plans to use the route. The heavy regulation is one of many reasons why major shipping companies often bypass the route's heavy regulations and high costs and instead use the Suez and Panama Canals, longer, but cheaper and easier trade routes.
“Now that the ice near Russia's northern coast begins to melt, it will lose its grip on shipping across the Arctic Ocean” he proposed Norchi. According to the scholar, the Russians will still continue to invoke Article 234 which "they will try to support with their strength, but they will be challenged by the international community, because this rule will cease to apply if there is no area covered with ice for most of the year.".
Not only that, but as the ice melts, shipping will move out of Russian territorial waters and into international waters. “If that happens, Russia can't do much, because the outcome is driven by climate change and the maritime economy." concluded Norchi.
According to Lynch, previous studies have shown that the Arctic routes are 30% to 50% shorter than the Suez Canal and Panama Canal routes, with transit times reduced by about 14 to 20 days. This means that if international Arctic waters warm enough to open new routes, shipping companies could reduce their greenhouse gas emissions by around 24%, while also saving time and money.
"These potential new Arctic routes are a useful thing to consider when remembering the time the ship Ever Given got stuck in the Suez Canal, bringing an important shipping route to a halt for several weeks.“Lynch pointed out.
"The diversification of trade routes, especially considering the new routes that cannot be blocked, because they are not canals, gives the global maritime infrastructure much more resilience” predicted the scientist.
The temporal and geographical distribution of navigability is a determining factor for the evolution of the applications of international maritime law. Slower sailing speeds typically found in the Arctic may reduce this advantage, but it does "slow steaming" worldwide is a strategy identified by the International Maritime Organization to achieve reductions in greenhouse gas emissions.
Russia covers more than 24km of Arctic Ocean coastline, and due to anthropogenic climate change, sea ice has been retreating more rapidly from its shores, allowing for the expansion of Russia's Arctic presence. Since 2000, satellites have detected new infrastructure covering hundreds of square kilometers associated with oil, mining, fishing and military activities. Russian law describes the Northern Sea Route as the “historically established national transport communication route”.
Significantly, Russia uses straight baselines such that segments of the route lie within internal waters. The official Russian view appears to have evolved to characterize the entire Northern Sea Route as internal waters.